Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Pakistan’s parliament elects a new prime minister. Ruling party member Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is expected to be named interim PM until the brother of Nawaz Sharif—ousted by the Supreme Court over corruption charges last week—becomes eligible to take over in about two months.
Apple’s quarterly earnings will hinge on iPhone details. It’s going to be a relatively fallow quarter—by Apple’s standards at least—as customers and investors alike wait for news on its next smartphone. If the flagship 10th anniversary iPhone launch date slips to October, it wouldn’t be tallied in the current fiscal year.
A deadline in Bitcoin’s civil war. Users are considering a controversial proposal to increase the number of transactions that the cryptocurrency can handle, with the final decision due at 12:20 UTC (8:20pm HK time). If enough miners opt in, it could create a new variant, known as Bitcoin Cash.
While you were sleeping
Donald Trump dumped his foul-mouthed communications director after only 10 days. Anthony Scaramucci was reportedly ousted (paywall) at the request of the new White House chief of staff, John Kelly. The latest round of musical chairs comes just days after Kelly’s predecessor, Reince Priebus, resigned in the face of Scaramucci’s profane rants.
EU citizens will lose free access to the UK in 2019. Europeans’ right to live, work, and study in the UK will end when Britain officially leaves the EU, the UK government confirmed for the first time after days of contradictory messages. EU migrants make up over 20% of Britain’s labor force in at least 18 industries.
Two massive US cable networks are combining. Discovery is paying $14.6 billion in cash and stock to buy Scripps, owner of the food channel. The company plans to make cuts to old-fashioned “linear” programming in favor of short-form digital content for platforms like Facebook and Snapchat.
Travis Kalanick is plotting his return. The ousted Uber CEO is on the selection committee to find his successor, and is reportedly telling potential candidates he’s “Steve Jobs-ing it,” i.e. plotting a triumphant return to power. A faction on the Uber board, including Kalanick, wants to keep open the possibility that he might become CEO again.
Shell’s CEO is bearish on fossil fuels. Ben Van Beurden predicted that oil consumption will peak by the 2030s and called for higher sales of electric vehicles—starting in his own garage, with the purchase of a Mercedes plug-in.
Quartz obsession interlude
Lila MacLellan on the use of shame as a management tactic: “In most offices, employees want to hide or minimize gaffes, lest they impact a performance review, get them fired, or—and this is a big one—tarnish their reputation among peers. … So we protect ourselves by not asking questions, and by not admitting to slip-ups.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Robots are coming for the managers, too. Running a team is just another workflow to be automated.
Putin’s bet on Trump has backfired. Moscow has painted the US president into a corner (paywall), making it impossible for him to lift sanctions.
China needs more tourists. Despite efforts to develop “soft power,” unfriendliness to foreigners is taking an economic toll.
Surprising discoveries
A UK airport has declared a “Marmite amnesty.” London City is offering passengers a travel-sized version of the salty spread.
Billionaires are flocking to a trailer park in the Hamptons. A beachside mobile home is perfect for storing your surfboards.
Honolulu is banning pedestrians from texting at crosswalks. “Distracted walking” fines start at $35 for first offenders.
Too much sleep could give you nightmares. An exhaustive study found a link between bad dreams and more than nine hours of sleep a night.
Saturn’s largest moon could support life. The discovery of vinyl cyanide means alien cells could be viable despite Titan’s frigid temperatures.
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