Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Emmanuel Macron in China. The French president begins a three-day trip to China on Monday, the first European leader to visit since last year’s Communist Party congress. The two countries are expected to sign trade deals and discuss increased cooperation as the UK and US recede from the international stage.
CES 2018 begins.
The world’s largest consumer electronics show
, with preview events in advance of
Tuesday’s
official kick-off. Expect voice assistants, robots, and cars galore.
Hollywood’s first major awards after #MeToo. This year’s Golden Globes, sometimes referred to as the “drunk Oscars,” may be unusually serious, as actresses wear black to protest harassment and bring activists as their dates.
While you were sleeping
A deadly accident off China’s coast. An Iranian tanker collided with a Chinese freight ship 160 miles from the mouth of the Yangtze River delta. The tanker, which was carrying about one million barrels of crude, caught on fire and 32 people are missing.
Trump said he’s ready to talk to Kim. The US president said he would “absolutely” talk to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, a comment that’s likely to lower tensions between the two nuclear powers.
The search for MH370 continues. A private company will continue to look for the Malaysian airplane that disappeared in March of 2014, Malaysian officials said. Texas’s Ocean Infinity said it doesn’t want payment unless it finds debris from the plane.
Russia is meddling in Mexico’s election. The Russian government is trying to stir up division in the country ahead of its July presidential election, US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said in a speech last month that was just made public.
Apple investors push for addiction research. A pension fund and activist investor who control $2 billion of Apple shares are demanding (paywall) the company study the impact of its technology on mental health.
Quartz obsession interlude
Karen Hao on the secret lives of student who mine cryptocurrency in their dorm rooms. “Mark was a sophomore at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when he began mining cryptocurrencies more or less by accident…By March 2017, he was running seven computers, mining ether around the clock from his dorm room.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Trump is too sick to lead. The US president possesses evident mental impairments that make him a danger to the country, a leading psychiatrist warns.
Criminalizing marijuana is medieval. Hong Kong’s tough anti-marijuana policy, which mirrors China’s, is backward-looking.
Another female New York senator is too ambitious. Kristen Gillibrand’s “relentless positioning for a possible presidential run in 2020” is a turnoff.
Surprising discoveries
Evidence of a supernova in India. A cave painting in the northern region of Kashmir is likely a depiction of an exploding star, scientists say.
A battle over Charles Manson’s remains. Three competing parties claim the rights to the cult leader’s body and possessions, including one man who says he’s Manson’s son.
Communities too poor for church. Pastors in low-income communities in America struggle to keep churches open.
The digital word of the year is a profanity. The American Dialect Society’s word to describe life on the internet sums 2017 up pretty well.
Caffeine’s ills are overblown. Lifelong coffee drinkers are less likely to have Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s diseases, among other benefits.
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