Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
The Nobel Prize for Economics will be announced. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is expected to be announced at 11:45am CEST (5:45am EDT). You can watch the announcement live here.
Catalonia is expected to declare independence from Spain. Following its banned referendum, Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has said he prefers mediation out of the current crisis. But Spain’s central government has rejected this avenue demanding a “return to the path of law” before any talks. The likely outcome is that Catalonia will declare independence after a parliamentary session.
HSBC is expected to confirm a new chief executive. London-based bank HSBC is expected to announce John Flint, currently head of retail banking and wealth management, to be its new chief executive. According to a Sunday Times report (paywall), HSBC has asked the Bank of England for permission to make the appointment.
Foreign ministers of the “Bucharest Nine” meet in Warsaw. Ministers from nine central and eastern European countries will meet to “discuss current security challenges and expectations for next year’s NATO summit.”
US marks Columbus Day. Stock markets will be open, but bond markets will be closed. Trade is expected to be slow as most federal institutions will be shut.
Over the weekend
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un promotes younger sister. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promoted his sister, Kim Yo Jong, 28, to the ruling party’s political wing. It brings her closer to the center of power and tightens his family’s control on the regime.
OPEC is ready to take extraordinary steps to stabilize market. Oil producing nations are finding some success in re-balancing an oversupplied market, according to OPEC’s secretary-general. Bloomberg reports Saudi Arabia and Russia are currently leading consultations between nations to cut oil output.
Hurricane Nate hit the US states of Mississippi and Louisiana. The hurricane hit the US Gulf coast on Saturday and was expected to do around $4 billion in damage. By Sunday morning the hurricane was downgraded to a tropical depression as it weakened, but tens of thousands were left without electricity.
Trump and a major Republican critic trade Twitter insults. US president Donald Trump attacked Republican senator Bob Corker on Twitter on Sunday, claiming the Tennessee senator was retiring because Trump had refused to endorse him. Corker, who is chair of the foreign relations committee fired back saying the White House had become an adult daycare center.
Quartz obsession interlude
Thu-Huong Ha on the linguistic legacy of Christopher Columbus. “In the last 100 years, scholarship about Columbus has changed. The explorer was once glorified as a hero, but by the 1990s the historical narrative became much more focused on the role he played in destroying the native populations.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
The iPhone SE is timeless. The SE, the culmination of the most timeless iPhone designs, and may prove as timeless as the 300-million-year-old cockroach.
Mental illness and success aren’t mutually exclusive. Mental illness is still stigmatized in the workplace, but Pete Davidson’s candid Saturday Night Live skit is a brave step towards dismantling harmful stereotypes.
This is the next generation of leaders of China’s Communist Party. The BBC takes a look at who it thinks will be the likely next leaders of China’s ruling party. There are at least two things these contenders have in common: they’re all men and they are all reasonably close to the current leader, president Xi Jinping.
Surprising discoveries
Mondays really are the worst, says data. Analysis of millions of Twitter messages for happiness sentiment show it’s the worst day of the week for millions, according to researchers at the University of Vermont Complex Systems Center.
Octopuses are smarter than we think. Academics in a range of fields are studying cephalopods and coming to the conclusion that Octopuses are more complex and intelligent than humans previously understood.
A 60-year-old scientific satellite is still orbiting the Earth. The world’s oldest scientific satellite was launched as response to Sputnik, and could remain in orbit for 1,000 years.
Americans want sauce. McDonald’s brought back a limited-edition Szechuan sauce after it was featured on cartoon show Rick and Morty. However, chaos ensued when stores ran out.
Doctors are warning of an “Antibiotic Apocalypse”. Scientists report that the rise of a drug resistant-gene poses “one of the greatest dangers humanity has ever faced.”
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