Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today and over the weekend
Lebanon holds its first general elections in nine years. More than 3.6 million registered voters can make their selections on Sunday for the 128 parliamentary seats up for grabs. Lebanese nationals living abroad have also been able to cast their ballots—a historic first for a country that’s been in a state of political turmoil for nearly a decade.
Alibaba reports earnings. The Chinese e-commerce giant will reveal numbers (paywall) on its fiscal fourth quarter and full year. Analysts expect its core revenue remained strong in the quarter but that its earnings faltered due to acquisitions—including of food-delivery startup Ele.me last month—and an expansion into brick-and-mortar retail.
The Swedish Academy announces whether the Nobel Prize for Literature will go ahead this year. It’s under fire for how it handled allegations of sexual misconduct against photographer Jean-Claude Arnault, who ran a cultural project with academy funding. After a wave of resignations from the organization, some think the award should be postponed to 2019.
Warren Buffett makes his annual speech to investors. Berkshire Hathaway’s 2018 shareholders meeting will stream live to the public on Saturday for the third year in a row. Buffett and vice chairman Charlie Munger are known for offering candid insights into the global market.
While you were sleeping
US prosecutors charged VW’s former CEO with conspiracy and wire fraud. Martin Winterkorn is the highest-ranking officer to be charged in the automaker’s diesel scandal. Germany, however, won’t likely extradite one of its citizens to face trial in the United States.
Twitter told its users—all 336 million users of them—to change their passwords. The company announced that the passwords of every account had been exposed in an internal log. It blamed the issue on a bug that revealed the passwords as plain text, and urged users to also enable two-factor authentication.
The US warned China of “consequences” for its militarization of the South China Sea. The White House’s warning followed reports China recently installed missile systems on some its manmade islands in the Spratly archipelago. Such systems would mark a major escalation—and weaken Beijing’s claim that it’s merely being defensive in the sea.
Venezuela arrested 11 bank executives for “attacks” against the country’s currency. Hyperinflation and a collapsing bolívar have plagued the OPEC nation, with president Nicolás Maduro blaming the private sector. The executives work at Banesco, the country’s leading private bank, which will be taken over by the Maduro government for 90 days.
Trump ordered the Pentagon to prepare options for reducing US troop levels in South Korea. Officials briefed on the deliberations told the New York Times (paywall) that a drawback was not meant to be a bargaining chip in negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. A landmark Trump-Kim summit will likely be held this month or next.
Quartz obsession interlude
Chase Purdy on the “clean meat” debate. “When ranching groups talk about clean meat publicly, they… seek to transmit a sense that [it’s] a weird technology, so many steps removed from the natural world that people should be concerned. But while most people don’t consider technology when sipping wine or biting into a banana, to suggest that food and tech are mutually exclusive is dishonest.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Hollywood’s best sci-fi stories are being told by black actors. From Black Panther to Get Out, black protagonists’ roles are enhanced by the constant struggle for the right to exist.
Biology’s next big leap will mirror the computer industry. Crispr gene editing is letting scientists reprogram the very building blocks of life, and it will inspire an era of incredible breakthroughs.
Google and Amazon are helping repressive regimes by blocking “domain fronting.” Cutting off developers’ ability to circumvent internet censorship ultimately hurts the public.
Surprising discoveries
A London neighborhood has sunk about 1 cm in the past year. The subsidence was caused by sinking a shaft for a new train line.
Australian millennials want weaker beer. They fear embarrassing photos of themselves drunk appearing on social media, and brewers are responding with watered-down booze.
Somalia’s war-ravaged architecture can be saved digitally. 3D reconstructions of buildings in Mogadishu could help save a snapshot of the capital’s history.
Mindfulness is a decades-old management technique. A French oil executive expanded his worldview in Asia and France while pioneering “scenario planning” in the 1970s.
In the world’s largest drone performance, some machines went rogue. Signal interference from 100,000 spectators’ mobile devices could be to blame.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, session beer, and 1970s mindfulness techniques to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day or download our apps for iPhone and Android. Today’s Daily Brief was written by Steve Mollman and edited by Alice Truong.