Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today and over the weekend
China’s pharma giants eye Cardinal Health. Bidding for the US drug distributor’s China unit begins today, and could fetch up to $1.5 billion. Cardinal’s exit comes ahead of Chinese drug-distribution reform that the company fears could slow growth.
Asia’s youngest nation goes to the polls. Timor-Leste (East Timor), which has a population of 1.3 million, votes in parliamentary elections on Saturday. A major issue is the future of the country’s oil wealth, which funds more than 90% of government spending but is dwindling quickly.
Poland’s Senate ratifies a controversial law on supreme court judges. The new law, which allows politicians to appoint supreme court judges, has been criticized by other EU countries for undermining democracy and led to mass protests in Poland. The bill is expected to pass in the upper house today.
General Electric bids farewell to Jeffrey Immelt. The longtime CEO will oversee his last quarterly earnings release alongside his replacement John Flannery (paywall), who may provide some clues about the future of the industrial conglomerate.
While you were sleeping
Trump’s team is investigating Robert Mueller’s investigators. In response to the widening of special counsel Mueller’s probe into Trump’s Russia connections, the president’s lawyers and aides are looking into the backgrounds (paywall) of Mueller’s team, zeroing in on potential conflicts of interest such as donations to Democrats. Trump is also looking into the possibility (paywall) of pardoning his family, aides—and even himself—in connection with the probe.
An earthquake struck the Greek holiday island of Kos. The 6.5-magnitude quake hit Kos at 1.30 am local time, causing buildings to collapse and killing two tourists. More than a hundred were injured and tens of thousands of tourists fled hotels and spent the night sleeping outdoors. The quake also caused damage on the nearby Turkish coast.
Hermès dodged US department-store woes. The French luxury brand said having standalone US stores protected it (paywall) from a department store sales slump. In the last quarter, year-over-year US sales grew more than 4%, and overall sales rose 8.3% to €1.36 billion. Mainland Chinese consumers and UK tourists leveraging the weak pound also helped.
The IMF approved a $1.8 billion loan for Greece. The move ends two years of speculation about it chipping in for another Greek bailout. The deal requires euro zone countries to forgive Greek debt to make repayment more “realistic.”
Amazon spent $3.2 million lobbying Washington in the second quarter. The online retailing giant ramped up its lobbying spend from the previous quarter, partly to smooth over its controversial $13.7 billion takeover of Whole Foods. It’s on track to spend over $12 million this year, with its business ventures on the government’s radar.
Quartz obsession interlude
Joon Ian Wong on a coding error that led to $30 million in the digital currency ethereum being stolen. “All software has bugs, but when that software is responsible for millions of dollars changing hands through immutable transactions, those coding errors become serious business. It’s one of the problems with trying to build an ‘unstoppable world computer’—the crux of the ethereum project.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Sexual harassment usually indicates other unethical corporate behaviors. Perpetrators feel entitled to other people’s property, physically and financially.
China needs to offer the EU more than empty words and pandas. Beijing’s been talking a good game on global trade, but must open up its markets to European companies.
A low-end car could be more disruptive than a Tesla. French automaker Renault’s $4,000 Kwid is making car ownership more accessible in India.
Surprising discoveries
Cold brew is perking up the coffee-bean market. The method requires twice as much ground beans as regular joe.
Germany has ended a century-long debate over a missing letter in its alphabet. The ß character, which is transliterated as “ss,” finally has a capitalized form.
Justin Bieber is in Beijing’s bad books. The singer has been banned from playing in China on his world tour because of his “bad behaviour.”
Brazil has a booming market in ankle monitors. A corruption crackdown has authorities scrambling for solutions to monitor inmates beyond prison walls.
It may cost $7 trillion a year to remove carbon dioxide from the air. That’s the price of “negative emissions” technologies to bring atmospheric carbon back down to relatively safe levels.
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