Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
EU leaders convene over the Iran nuclear deal. Britain, France, and Germany will reaffirm their support for the deal, which has been rejected by Donald Trump. The meeting comes right before a deadline for the US to decide whether it will reimpose oil sanctions lifted under the agreement.
Theresa May meets with bank bosses to talk Brexit… Britain’s prime minister is scheduled to convene with London’s finance heads to discuss what an exit from the EU means for them. The meeting comes amid concerns that Brexit will topple the UK from its important European financial hub status.
…And sets out an ambitious plan to ban plastic waste. May will deliver a speech and unveil a 25-year plan on the environment focusing on plastic, including a suggestion that supermarkets introduce aisles that have products free of plastic packaging.
While you were sleeping
Mudslides killed at least 17 in Southern California. More than a dozen are also missing as rain-driven mudslides swept Santa Barbara County and destroyed over 100 homes. Rescue crews continue to search the area, which was stripped by massive wildfires a few months back.
Thieves pulled off a heist in a Paris hotel. Five armed and masked men smashed display windows at the Ritz hotel and grabbed millions of dollars worth of jewels. Police caught three of the men as they escaped on foot.
YouTube punished Logan Paul. Google said it would remove Paul’s personal channel from YouTube’s premium advertisement lineup, Google Preferred, after he posted footage of a dead body in Japan’s so-called “suicide forest” last month.
South Korean authorities are getting ready to ban crytocurrencies. The country’s justice minister said that it is preparing a bill (paywall) to ban trading of cryptoassets on exchanges—bitcoin plunged on the news. South Korean police and tax authorities also paid visits to Coinone and Bithumb this week.
Quartz obsession interlude
Amy X. Wang on Radiohead’s plagiarism lawsuit against Lana Del Rey. “The fact of the matter is that music law has never been able to establish a clear line between what is original and what is not… Hip-hop and rap are eternally riddled with claims of creative theft. The entire genre of jazz is essentially a study in plagiarism, both subtle and overt.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
The way we talk about sexting is sexist. Parents and teachers often focus on telling girls that they shouldn’t send nudes—instead of telling boys that asking for nudes is wrong.
Asteroid mining is about water, not valuable minerals. Extracting water from asteroids and using it to make rocket propellant in space will make space travel cheaper.
Supply drives the US opioid epidemic. A new study shows that opioid abuse is more strongly linked to drug availability than economic decline.
Surprising discoveries
Japan has a crypto girl-group. Members of Kasotsuka Shojo (“The Virtual Currency Girls”) represent different cryptocurrencies, and the group’s first single warns against fraudulent crypto-operators.
A Florida university is teaching a course called “White Racism.” The undergraduate class is being watched over by campus police officers.
New York’s Penn Station is a disaster waiting to happen. The century-old walls of the two Hudson River tunnels connected to the station are slowly crumbling.
Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany is an accidental bestseller. Thanks to Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, the 2008 book is topping charts—but it’s about World War II, not the White House.
Most of Heathrow’s 79,000 noise complaints come down to just 10 people. More than half of them came from the towns of Slough and Richmond.
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