Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Facebook and GE report earnings. This has been a costly year for Facebook, which has lost $200 billion in market cap, but Wall Street is expecting 2% growth in monthly users, to 2.28 billion, and operating profit of $5.79 billion (paywall). Meanwhile, battered General Electric shareholders are eagerly anticipating a turnaround plan from new CEO Larry Culp.
Rohingya repatriation talks. The foreign ministers of Myanmar and Bangladesh will continue negotiations over resettling refugees of the persecuted ethnic group that fled to Bangladesh. But according to the UN, a military-sponsored genocide is still ongoing in Myanmar.
The US-China Entertainment Summit. Despite trade-war tensions, the gala will tout recent blockbuster collaborations between Hollywood and Beijing such as The Meg and Crazy Rich Asians.
While you were sleeping
Angela Merkel called it quits. The German chancellor announced that she would not seek a fifth term in office or run again for leadership of the Christian Democratic Union. As her party suffers election setbacks, Merkel’s exit will leave a power vacuum as the EU struggles to close a Brexit plan.
The US commerce department blacklisted a Chinese state-owned chipmaker. The agency banned American firms from doing business with Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co (paywall), which has been accused of stealing Micron Technology’s intellectual property. It said Fujian Jinhua endangers US national security by threatening the economic viability of US military suppliers.
The White House warned of a comprehensive trade war if China negotiations fail. The Trump administration is prepared to announce tariffs “on all remaining Chinese imports” (paywall), worth a total of $257 billion, unless a resolution is found by mid-December, Bloomberg reported.
Markets continued their wild ride with another down day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 245 points and the S&P 500 fell 0.7%, briefly dipping into correction territory (paywall) before bouncing back slightly. Tech stocks led the decline, and analysts described a “not-so-faint scent of desperation.”
Another mail bomb was sent to CNN. A post office in Atlanta intercepted the explosive parcel before it arrived at the news organization’s nearby headquarters—the first to be discovered since alleged “MAGA bomber” Cesar Sayoc was arrested last week.
Quartz Obsession interlude
Dave Gershgorn on the game that wrote the blueprint for nerds: “Dungeons & Dragons is staging a comeback in the culture it helped create. … But D&D never really lost its relevance. The game created a whole new way of thinking about how games could be played, and how a game could tell a story. Without it, nerd culture as we know it would not exist.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Facebook is better for autocrats than revolutionaries. Mark Zuckerberg’s company seems to be incapable of recognizing that its product is socially destructive.
Can the markets trust Brazil’s new president? Jair Bolsonaro has promised to reduce the debt, cut public worker salaries, reduce taxes, and make labor laws more flexible.
Developing brains and smartphones are a toxic mix. Rich schools—especially those in Silicon Valley—are figuring that out faster (paywall) than poor ones.
Surprising discoveries
Humans have been making chocolate for a lot longer than we thought. New research indicates that cacao was part of Mayo-Chinchipe culture about 5,300 years ago.
Camel pageants are big business on the Arabian peninsula. Tens of thousands of contestants vie for titles like “Miss Camel,” and prizes of up to $5.3 million.
China is creating social credit scores for dogs. Owners in the eastern city of Jinan lose points if they walk pooches without a leash or fail to scoop poop.
Legal AIs beat out lawyers in a robot-human face-off. The bots found more flaws in legal documents than the humans, in a fraction of the time.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, ancient chocolate, and “Miss Camel” contestants 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 and edited by Adam Pasick and McKinley Noble.