Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
The UN security council discusses the Myanmar crisis. United Nations secretary general António 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 the EU’s antitrust deadline. The search-engine giant will allow smaller rivals to bid for ads in the shopping box that appears at the top of search queries. It’s part of Google’s proposal to meet antitrust demands from the European Commission, which slapped a record €2.4 billion ($2.8 billion) fine on Google in June for anti-competitive behavior.
Rex Tillerson heads to China. The US Secretary of State will be in China Thursday through Saturday; North Korea’s missile program is expected to be one of the main discussions. His trip will also lay the groundwork for president Donald Trump’s visit in November.
While you were sleeping
Toshiba finally inked the deal to sell its chip unit. The Japanese firm will sell the memory chip business to a group led by private equity firm Bain Capital for 2 trillion yen ($18 billion)—the group includes Apple and Dell. Toshiba is in a hurry to complete the sale by March, as it needs to raise cash to avoid being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Playboy’s Hugh Hefner died. The Playboy magazine founder passed away, aged 91, from natural causes in the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. Hefner will mostly be remembered for launching a magazine that packaged pornography in a way that was broadly acceptable to the public, but his legacy includes outspoken advocacy for civil rights.
Shinzo Abe called a snap election. The Japanese prime minister dissolved the lower house of parliament and called a general election for Oct. 22. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party is still likely to win a majority, but his biggest rival, a new party formed by popular Tokyo mayor Yuriko Koike, is hoping to close the gap in the polls.
H&M suffered an unfashionable profit plunge. The Swedish fashion retailer said profits fell 20% (paywall) in the last quarter, as online-sales growth failed to offset the drop in people shopping in its stores. H&M is feeling pressure not just from fast-fashion competitors like Zara and Primark, but also from online shopping firms.
Mark Zuckerberg responded to Trump. The Facebook CEO hit back at comments by the president that the social network was “always anti-Trump.” In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg said both liberals and conservatives have accused Facebook of helping the other side. He also said he regretted his earlier comments, dismissing the impact fake news on Facebook had on the US election outcome.
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.
Matters of debate
The grad school system is unfair. Universities are using the huge sums paid by grad students to subsidize the cost of undergraduate degrees.
It’s better to learn a local dialect than a global language. 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.
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 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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