Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Britain quells concerns about the land border that Brexit will create. In a paper to be released today, it says there should be no border posts between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, where around 30,000 people cross daily without customs or immigration checks. Tightening border controls without re-igniting tensions is one of the trickiest Brexit challenges.
NAFTA talks kick off in Washington. Delegates from Canada, Mexico, and the US will revisit the North American Free Trade Agreement, aiming to get a new deal in place by early next year. Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to scrap the pact during his presidential campaign.
The US Federal Reserve releases the minutes of its July meeting. Fed watchers will look for hints about future interest-rate hikes and plans to reduce the central bank’s massive bond holdings. Last month, policymakers signaled the Fed could start to slowly unwind the holdings as soon as September.
While you were sleeping
Another influential person quit Trump’s manufacturing council. Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest group of labor unions, quit the council after the president backtracked, blaming “both sides” for the Charlottesville violence. That brings the tally of CEOs who’ve left the council (paywall) over the president’s remarks to five.
PwC got slapped with a record penalty by the UK’s accounting watchdog. The Financial Reporting Council fined the professional services firm $6.6 million for misconduct over its audit of RSM Tenon, a professional tax and risk advisory firm. This tops PwC’s previous record fine, of $6.4 million, for a separate misconduct case just three months ago.
Chinese takeover rumors turbo-charged Fiat Chrysler shares. Shares in the Italian-American carmaker—controlled by Italy’s Agnelli family—soared to their highest ever (paywall) on Wednesday after reports earlier this week that it received a takeover bid from at least one Chinese company.
At least 600 people are still missing after a catastrophic Sierra Leone landslide. Bodies are still being pulled from the rubble, with the Red Cross warning that it is now a race for time to find survivors of yesterday’s massive landslide that killed at least 400 people. A mass burial is planned on Wednesday to make space in mortuaries.
The world’s biggest shipping line sailed back to profit. Denmark’s AP Moller-Maersk said strong global trade (paywall) lifted it to a profit of $389 million in its latest quarter. Demand for shipping containers—a bellwether for global trade—continues to rise, but the Petya cyber attack, which infected its systems in June, could wipe off $300 million in revenue.
Quartz obsession interlude
Alison Griswold on everything VCs used to love about Travis Kalanick. “Uber has never bothered with asking permission or even begging forgiveness—it simply does what it wants. That was just fine with investors when Uber was growing faster than they’d ever thought possible and pairing fiery regulatory skirmishes with PR-friendly deliveries of kittens and ice cream.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Who owns the rights to art created by AI? Courts and copyright officials can no longer presume that authorship is a human phenomenon.
Don’t let fascists hide behind “free speech.” Defending the civil rights of bigots can, in some cases, leave us all less free.
“Founder-friendly investing” is on the wane. Blue Apron, Snap, and Uber are cautionary tales for wary VCs.
Surprising discoveries
A Swiss supermarket is selling bug burgers. New food laws allow the sale of mealworms for human consumption.
Gamekeepers are breeding rare colors of wildlife for hunters. Golden wildebeests and pure white springboks command premium prices in South Africa.
A $70 robot that mimics a sea turtle may eventually reach Mars. It consists mostly of cardboard, plus an inexpensive Raspberry Pi computer.
Facebook is turning pizza makers into tech companies. Online ordering, bots, and e-commerce are paramount for Domino’s and Papa John’s.
Scientists have figured out how magic mushrooms’ active ingredient is made. It may set the stage for the “biotechnological production” of psilocybin.
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