Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
The UN security council discusses the Myanmar crisis. United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres will brief member states about the ongoing violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority. More than 430,000 people have fled Myanmar to Bangladesh in recent weeks.
Google meets an EU antitrust deadline. The tech company said that in response to a record €2.4 billion ($2.8 billion) fine imposed by the European Commission for anti-competitive behavior in June, it would allow rivals to bid for ads in the shopping box that appears at the top of search queries when consumers indicate interest in buying a product. The EU has to approve Google’s proposal.
Vladimir Putin visits Turkey. The Russian president will meet his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, mainly to discuss the situation in Syria but also other issues such as defense contracts and the recent Kurdish independence referendum in Iraq. Meanwhile, US secretary of state Rex Tillerson heads to China to discuss North Korea’s nuclear program.
Investigators present “preliminary results” on the MH17 plane crash. New details could be revealed by the joint investigation team, which is composed of and funded by five nations. The Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down over Ukraine in 2014.
While you were sleeping
Mark Zuckerberg responded to Donald Trump. The Facebook CEO hit back at comments by the US president that the social network was “always anti-Trump.” In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg said that both liberals and conservatives have accused Facebook of helping the other side, and that he regretted earlier comments dismissing the impact fake news on Facebook had on the outcome of the presidential election..
Trump announced an ambitious new tax plan. The president’s proposal would effectively reduce taxes for nearly all American individuals and businesses, but was scarce on details about how he plans to do so without worsening the country’s $20 trillion debt.
Hugh Hefner died. The Playboy magazine founder passed away at the age of 91 from “natural causes” in the Playboy Mansion where he lived in Los Angeles, according to a representative. His son said Hefner was a “a leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time in advocating free speech, civil rights and sexual freedom.”
Japan dissolved its parliament. Prime minister Shinzo Abe dissolved the lower house of the Diet after he called a snap general election for Oct. 22. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party is still likely to win a majority based on the latest polls, but his biggest challenger, a new party formed by popular Tokyo mayor Yuriko Koike, is hoping to close the gap in the next few weeks.
Otto Warmbier’s death remained a mystery. A coroner in Ohio said the American student, who was detained in North Korea until June when he returned home and died six days later, died from a lack of oxygen and blood to his brain but the causes were unclear. Warmbier’s parents said in a TV interview this week that their son had been “tortured beyond belief” in North Korea.
Quartz obsession interlude
Amy X. Wang and Allison Schrager on the end of the university. “Rapid-fire innovation out of Silicon Valley has allowed students to chat over an array of messaging apps from their dorm-room beds and work at lightning-fast speed across digital platforms. The same radical disruptions are taking place, simultaneously, in other spaces on campuses: Ancient classrooms and musty hallways are no longer a requirement for university education, as they have been for the last several centuries.” Read more here.
Markets haiku
Tax plan getting love / How will investors feel when / Lucy yanks the ball?
Matters of debate
Learning a local dialect is better than a global language. Technology makes it easier to communicate, but if the less-spoken languages die, traditions die with them.
As real life gets scarier, disaster movies are obsolete. Filmmakers should stick to dystopian scenarios and superheroes who save us.
Germans are happy because their values are the opposite of Silicon Valley’s. A good work-life balance in Germany doesn’t involve unlimited massages and free meals on the corporate campus to encourage 90-hour weeks.
Surprising discoveries
Coca-Cola uses AI to invent new sodas like Cherry Sprite. A high-tech vending machine prompts the soda giant to create new drinks.
Researchers discovered a giant coconut-eating rat. The rodent of unusual size lives in the shrinking forests of the Solomon Islands.
Bad weather alters your mood. Researchers analyzed 3.5 billion tweets and Facebook posts to make sure.
A Silicon Valley CEO erased his company’s gender pay gap out of his own pocket. Salesforce’s Marc Benioff wrote a $3 million check—twice.
Legalized marijuana is a boon to McDonald’s and Taco Bell. A study found an uptick in munchie consumption for dispensary customers.
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