Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Donald Trump visits China. Chinese president Xi Jinping is expected to propose a “new type of great power relations” between the two rivals and trade partners. Trump will get a warm welcome, if Chinese social media is any indication, while Taiwan is hoping to avoid getting mentioned at all.
A big IPO for Tencent’s online publishing spin-off. China Literature, whose business is similar to Amazon’s Kindle e-book unit, is expected to see a major surge when its shares begin trading. The company is majority-owned by Tencent, with a minority stake held by private equity firm Carlyle.
Nissan wraps up a dismal earnings season for Japanese carmakers. The country’s second-largest auto company is reeling from scandal after disclosing that its cars had not been properly inspected, which forced it to shut down production. Rivals Toyota, Honda, and Subaru have all reported lagging North American sales.
While you were sleeping
Waymo’s autonomous cars ditched their drivers. A pilot program in Phoenix, Arizona is now using a driverless fleet with no ride-along engineers, who were previously there to take over if needed. That puts the Alphabet unit significantly ahead of rivals, though many questions remain.
Snap fell short of the mark. The Snapchat owner’s revenues were only $207.9 million—far short of projections of $235.5 million—and the number of daily users also fell well short of expectations, sending its shares plummeting. CEO Evan Spiegel said the company would redesign its infamously hard-to-use app, though he acknowledged that would risk alienating current users.
US corporations battled a GOP proposal that would cost them billions. A 20% tax on payments to offshore affiliates is designed to stop companies from shifting their earnings abroad to low-tax countries. One analyst called it “the atomic bomb” in the Republican tax plan that would extract an estimated $154 billion over a decade.
Syria signed the Paris climate agreement, leaving the US as the lone holdout. The decision by Bashar al Assad’s government was announced at the UN climate summit in Bonn, Germany. The accord sets out a goal to stop global temperatures from rising more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
Facebook’s experimental fake news filter backfired. The social media giant, facing rising criticism for its platform’s role in subverting democratic elections, tried prioritizing comments on news articles that “indicate disbelief.” The unfortunate result: the test ended up casting doubt on legitimate news articles.
Quartz obsession interlude
Jason Karaian updates Quartz’s Christmas Creep Calculator™: “Christmas creep is particularly pronounced in Britain, which lacks a traditional starting point for the holiday season, like advent markets in continental Europe or Thanksgiving in the US. Based on current trends, our algorithms suggest that, eventually, crass commercialism will overcome seasonal sense, and around 2120 the Christmas shopping season will start in July.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Trump shouldn’t cut a grand bargain with China. Xi Jinping’s demands (paywall) would give China too much sway and alienate Asian allies.
The Internet is fundamentally broken. Algorithmically created YouTube videos are proof that the “structures we have built to sustain ourselves are being used against us .”
The tech industry needs to take a closer look at its investors. Wannabe innovators are accepting big investments from autocrats with dreadful human rights records.
Surprising discoveries
A well-preserved grasshopper was discovered in a Van Gogh. The artist painted Olive Trees outdoors, and now researchers hope the bug can tell us more about his life.
A soprano hit a note never sung before at the Met. Audrey Luna of the Metropolitan Opera in New York sings the A above high C (paywall) for a split second in Thomas Adès’s new opera, The Exterminating Angel.
Male mammoths died in “sillier” ways than their mates. A study of Siberian fossils showed that males tend to do more dangerous things (paywall), leading to their untimely demises.
Nutella tweaked its recipe to include more sugar and fat. A German consumer group accused the company of stinting on chocolate as cocoa prices have climbed.
Taylor Swift could save the compact disc. The pop superstar hasn’t been a fan of streaming services in the past, so her devotees will have to buy her new album the old-fashioned way.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, high notes, and paint-covered grasshoppers to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day or download our apps for iPhone and Android.