Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Janet Yellen speaks in Washington. The Federal Reserve chair will make her first public appearance since Donald Trump named her successor, Jerome Powell. Yellen will appear alongside her predecessor, Ben Bernanke, to receive an award for ethics in government.
New Yorkers elect a mayor. Current mayor Bill de Blasio is widely expected to win another term when the city heads to the polls today.
Snap reports earnings. Investors will focus on Snap’s slowing revenue and user growth in its third earnings report since going public in March. The consensus on Wall Street is that revenue for this quarter will have dropped by over 15%. Snap will also have to answer questions about its Spectacles camera sunglasses, which reportedly flopped.
While you were sleeping
Trump arrived in South Korea. The next leg of the president’s Asia tour took him from Japan to Seoul, where he met president Moon Jae-in before touring a US military base 60 miles from the North Korean border. Moon said their talks were “candid” and the leaders agreed to scale up regional deployments of allies military forces.
The future weighed on BMW. Third-quarter pretax profit dipped nearly 6% from this time a year ago. But BMW said it’s nothing to worry about: it’s spending more now (paywall) to gear up for the next generation of mobility. The Bavarian carmaker is on track to sell 100,000 electric cars in 2017, and plans to have a 25-strong EV lineup by 2025.
Japan slapped extra sanctions on North Korea. A government spokesman said the additional sanctions would be imposed in response to the ongoing threat posed by Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear programs. Assets of nine North Korean banks and 26 individuals will be frozen.
Primark powered ABF to double-digit revenue. Associated British Foods said sales at its popular fashion chain were up 19% from last year, and it had opened 30 new stores. Primark’s performance (paywall) boosted ABF to a 15% overall rise in revenue to £15.4 billion ($20.2 billion) for the fiscal year.
Nicaraguans in the US got bad news. The White House revoked Temporary Protected Status for thousands of Nicaraguan refugees who fled Hurricane Mitch in 1998. They’ve been ordered to leave the country by January 2019. The status of the Honduran refugees who arrived with them is undetermined, though they will continue to be granted Temporary Protected Status until July 2018.
Quartz obsession interlude
Steve Mollman on South Korea’s inability to control its own fate. “Among South Koreans there is a growing feeling—dubbed ‘Korean passing’ by local media—that they’ve been sidelined during the North Korea crisis. Some in Seoul fear Trump could respond to future North Korean provocations with unilateral military operations. After Trump threatened Pyongyang with ‘fire and fury’ in August, Moon said in a nationally televised speech that ‘no one should be allowed to decide on a military action on the Korean Peninsula without South Korean agreement.'” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Catalonia is Europe’s problem. It’s time for the EU to rethink how it recognizes autonomy, lest more old regional feuds re-ignite.
Activist investors make corporate boards less diverse. With a stated aim of lifting the bottom line, they’re less likely to appoint women or minorities.
Stop laughing at Trump’s gaffes. The media’s urge to depict him as a buffoon fuels a “victim in chief” narrative that empowers his supporters and distracts from serious policy matters.
Surprising discoveries
Some iPhone X users can’t type the letter “I.” The $999 smartphone’s buggy predictive-text keyboard is replacing the letter with an exclamation mark and a mystery character.
Ford is making a trucker cap that can save lives. The SafeCap monitors movements associated with sleepiness and alerts dozing drivers.
T. Rex’s tiny arms were vicious weapons. New research suggests the dinosaur’s forelimbs, armed with four-inch claws, slashed prey.
Jay-Z has a tactic to keep his concerts cheap. Expensive, front-row VIP tickets allow the other seats to sell for as little as $6.
Amazon is paying for extra discounts out of its own pocket. The lowered prices are designed to undercut competitors, but may run afoul of merchants’ pricing policies.
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