Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Donald Trump visits Pittsburgh. Amid criticisms over his failure to denounce white nationalism, the president will visit the synagogue where 11 people were killed by an anti-Semitic gunman over the weekend. Pittsburgh’s mayor had requested that the president delay his trip to give families time to grieve.
Facebook posts an update. It’s been a costly year for the company, which has lost $200 billion in market cap. Still, Wall Street is expecting a 2% increase in monthly users to 2.28 billion, and operating profit of $5.79 billion (paywall).
The US-China Entertainment Summit. Despite trade-war tensions, the Los Angeles gala will tout recent blockbuster collaborations between Hollywood and Beijing such as The Meg.
Apple in the Big Apple. After its underwhelming Cupertino event last month, Apple will unveil new iPad Pro tablets and other updates in New York, two days ahead of its fourth-quarter results.
While you were sleeping
A report revealed details of the US-Saudi arms deal. Despite Trump’s repeated assertions that the $110 billion deal will mean 500,000 jobs, Lockheed Martin documents seen by Reuters predict that the deal, if it all comes together, would keep 18,000 existing US workers in jobs—but only create a few hundred new jobs in the country.
Gamers gave Sony a boost. The Japanese company raised its annual profit outlook to a record 870 billion yen ($7.7 billion) as big gaming hits like “God of War” and growth in its Playstation Plus subscriptions yielded a 17% surge in operating profit last quarter.
Divers searched the Lion Air crash site. Rescue teams continued looking for bodies in the water near Jakarta, where the plane crashed on Monday with 189 on board. Lion Air said that the plane had technical issues the day before the crash, but details are scarce as divers are still looking for the flight data recorders.
BP is on fire. The British petroleum giant more than doubled its earnings in the third quarter from a year ago, and said it’s ready to buy BHP’s US shale assets (paywall) in cash. BP is expecting oil to cost $60 to $65 in the future.
New pollution regulations dented Volkswagen. Profits were down more than 18% (paywall) in the third quarter, as Europe’s new emissions-testing rules caused delivery bottlenecks and a cooling Chinese market bit into sales.
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.
Markets shouldn’t be too cheery about Brazil’s new leader. Jair Bolsonaro has promised to reduce debt and cut taxes, but he has voted against reform in the past.
Young 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
China is creating social credit scores for dog owners. People in Jinan lose points if they walk pooches without a leash or fail to scoop poop.
Humans have been making chocolate for longer than we thought. New research indicates that cacao was part of Mayo-Chinchipe culture about 5,300 years ago.
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.
New Delhi will use Twitter and Facebook to fight air pollution. India’s Supreme Court has ruled that people must be allowed to flag air quality on social media.
Goop’s “ancient Chinese” jade vaginal eggs aren’t Chinese. The eggs don’t turn up in scholarship on sex in ancient China, despite claims by Gwyneth Paltrow’s company.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, ancient chocolate, and very good dogs 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 Jill Petzinger and edited by Jackie Bischof.