What to watch for today
An ISIL strategy develops. Retired US General John Allen is traveling to Turkey to help the country figure out its role in the fight against the Islamic State group. One day later, he’ll have the same talk with NATO. Despite US-led airstrikes, it looks as if ISIL will capture Kobani (paywall).
Elon Musk unveils the D. The CEO of Tesla tweeted last week alluding to a new model in the electric-car company’s portfolio. Analysts say it could either be an all-wheel drive version of the Model S or a demo of Tesla’s self-driving vehicle research.
Ben Bernanke speaks. The former head of the US Federal Reserve was supposed to testify Wednesday on the 2008 bailout of AIG, but that’s been rescheduled to Thursday.
Carl Icahn’s sends Tim Cook an open letter. ”Believe it will be interesting” is all the activist investor—who owns over $4 billion in Apple stock—has to say.
Data, data everywhere. On Bloomberg’s calendar: US initial jobless claims come out, as do German export data, and Australian and Greek unemployment numbers. And the Bank of England will decide whether or not to raise the current interest rate of 0.5%, though it seems unlikely just yet (paywall).
While you were sleeping
US markets jumped for joy. The Dow Jones had its best day of 2014—recovering from an equally large drop the day before—after the US Federal Reserve published the minutes of its last meeting (paywall), which signaled it would keep rates low a while longer. The IMF, on the other hand, doesn’t like that idea.
Ebola took Thomas Duncan’s life. The Liberian man who was diagnosed after flying to the US has died, despite getting an experimental drug. The WHO updated its Ebola death toll figure to 3,879. And the US decided to begin screening people at airports as early as this weekend.
Apple scheduled a press conference. The company that brought you the iPod and the iPhone will be unveiling new gadgets on Oct. 16. Tech pundits are predicting a new iPad—which may have already leaked—along with updated Mac computers.
Air France counted the cost of its pilots’ strike. The airline said two weeks of grounded flights over the proposed expansion of its budget subsidiary Transavia may cost it €500 million in profit for 2014. Passenger traffic was down nearly 16% last month and the next three months may be just as bad.
Quartz obsession interlude
Heather Timmons on the economic surprises of the Hong Kong protests. “Beijing’s ban on tour groups, put in place days after the protests started, was expected to hit tourism hard… Instead, the reverse seems to have happened. Tourist arrivals during the Golden Week were 1,159,952, the Hong Kong Tourism Board told Quartz—a 4.83% increase from last year’s Golden Week holiday, as mainland tourists poured into the city to shop, and in some cases check out the protests.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
You should own your data. The man who invented the web doesn’t like big corporations storing information about you.
Investing in infrastructure will fix the world’s economies. The IMF reached that conclusion; now its time for governments to act.
Kazakhstan will be the next Ukraine. Russia needs to invade it (paywall) to keep its space program going.
Amazon’s workers are today’s coal miners. The time they spend in security checks is no different than going up and down an elevator into a mine.
Free will is at least partly an illusion. It can be easily manipulated with brain implants.
Surprising discoveries
British trees are getting garlic injections. A compound in garlic—allicin—helps battle deadly diseases.
We now know exactly how much sleep you need. 7.8 hours for men and 7.6 hours for women.
Why sew clothes when you could weld them? The US Navy is testing ultrasonic welding to improve its parkas.
Kangaroos are great kick-boxers. Of course, it’s partly because having a tail lets you kick with both feet (video).
No air conditioning? No beer. Vietnam wants restaurants selling beer to be chilled.
If you’re asking for a raise, might as well go all the way. An American bank employee emailed the CEO and all 260,000 employees, asking for raises for everyone.
Click here for more surprising discoveries on Quartz.
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