Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Emmanuel Macron begins a three-day visit to Washington. The French president, who has formed an unlikely friendship with Donald Trump, is expected to discuss issues such as Iran and trade with the US president, while burnishing his credentials as the defender of the European Union and the liberal world order.
Air France goes on strike. The carrier said that about 25% of flights would be canceled today, as a strike over pay enters its 10th day. Most of the cancellations will affect medium- and long-haul flights flying out of Charles de Gaulle international airport in Paris.
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic’s appeals trial begins. He will stand trial at the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague. The 72-year-old was found guilty in 2016 on 10 counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity for his involvement in the Balkan war, including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
Alphabet and UBS report quarterly numbers. Google’s parent will change the structure of its earnings report in a way that could illuminate the value of its investment in Uber, while the Swiss bank releases its first earnings report since it merged its US and international wealth-management businesses (paywall).
Over the weekend
A suicide bomber killed at least 57 people in Kabul. ISIL claimed credit for the attack (paywall), which injured more than 100 people. Since voter registration began one week ago, there have been at least four attacks on voter-registration centers in Afghanistan. Legislative elections are due in October.
The Armenian political crisis worsened. Nikol Pashinyan, the leader of protests calling for prime minister Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation, was detained and taken to a police station shortly after a highly anticipated meeting between the two men. Protesters say Sargsyan, who was president for 10 years before recently being appointed prime minister, has been in power too long.
North Korea said it would give up missile testing. The country’s leader Kim Jong-un said that because it has completed its nuclear program, it does not need to test its weapons capability again. Trump mistakenly equated the announcement with denuclearization.
The last human who was alive in the 19th century died. Nabi Tajima passed away yesterday in a hospital on the Japanese island of Kikaijima. At 117 years old, she was both the world’s oldest woman and the only known living person who was born in 1900 (which is, in fact, part of the 19th century). Her secret to good health? Reportedly, “eating delicious things and sleeping well.”
Avicii died. The 28-year-old Swedish DJ was found dead in Muscat, Oman on Friday, and police have ruled out foul play in his death. Thousands of people gathered in Stockholm over the weekend to mourn his death.
Quartz obsession interlude
Zoë Schlanger on how
fast a glacier can slip into the sea once it’s destabilized.
”The Columbia Glacier is losing an average of 4 billion metric tons of ice per year, making it a major contributor to the roughly 75 billion metric tons of ice that Alaskan glaciers have lost annually for the past two decades… [That’s]
enough water to cover the state of Alaska in a foot-deep (30 cm) flood every seven years.”
.
Matters of debate
Celebrating Earth Day is now unnecessary. It’s a sign of the event’s success.
Women don’t quit as easily as men. The Boston Marathon is a good example (paywall) of “women’s ability to persevere in exceptionally miserable circumstances.”
Arsene Wenger didn’t just change English soccer. The soon-to-depart Arsenal manager changed the African game, too.
Surprising discoveries
You can get a scholarship for playing Fortnite. Ashland University in Ohio is the first to offer scholarships for the popular online shooter game.
A Russian village has its own cryptocurrency. The farmer behind the project (paywall), a self-described “agro-anarchist,” wants to cut financial dependence on Moscow.
Before Westworld, there was Charles Dickens. The Victorian writer imagined a theme park filled with “automaton figures” which would enable wealthy young men to run riot without causing a public nuisance.
Karl Marx’s hometown is selling fake banknotes to celebrate his birthday. Products being sold in the communist thinker’s hometown of Trier, Germany, include a zero-euro banknote, which costs €3.
Trees can be saved by IV drips, too. Officials in India inserted hundreds of saline bottles filled with pesticide to save the branches of a 700-year-old banyan tree.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, agro cryptocurrencies, and Dickensian dystopias to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day, or download our apps for iPhone and Android. Today’s Daily Brief was written by Isabella Steger and edited by Alice Truong.