Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
India celebrates Diwali. Financial markets are closed and pollution—the festival is marked with fireworks—is high. Celebrations will also take place around the world, including at Disneyland in California (paywall).
The Fed meets. The two-day meeting isn’t expected to result in a rate increase but could yield insights of how the central bank views the economy and recent volatility in US markets.
Madagascar’s presidential election. Ten million people are registered to vote in the island nation, where the biggest concerns are poverty and corruption.
While you were sleeping
Democrats claimed the House. In what was viewed as a rebuke to Donald Trump, Democrats took the House in Tuesday’s midterms amid unusually high turnout. Republicans will keep the Senate. The vote sets the stage for a protracted battle between Congress and the president in the remaining two years of his term, and could see Democrats open a number of investigations into him. Tuesday’s races also resulted in a number of firsts—including the US’s first openly gay governor and first Muslim congresswoman.
Mike Pompeo’s meeting with North Korea was postponed. The US secretary of state was to meet North Korean officials in New York on Thursday, but the meeting will be rescheduled. The US and South Korea resumed a small-scale military drill this week—joint exercises were earlier suspended—and Pyongyang threatened last week to resume its nuclear weapons development.
China’s kicked off its annual internet conference. The Wuzhen World Internet Conference, which Beijing uses to promote its own model of internet governance, began with a list of world tech achievements. It named services from Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft, and Qualcomm—a good signal for the firms amid US-China tensions—along with 11 Chinese companies.
Australia and China thawed relations. Foreign minister Marise Payne visited her country’s largest trading partner after a year-long freeze in diplomatic relations. Australia is concerned about China’s influence on its economy and campuses, and earlier this week expressed alarm about Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghur minority.
India’s central bank governor could step down. A report suggested Urjit Patel could leave his position this month due to a rift with the government over the Reserve Bank of India’s autonomy.
Obsession interlude
The world’s most famous symbol of willy-nilly destruction. When Kim Jong Un warned that his country had finished amassing its nuclear arsenal, he touted the shiny new “nuclear button” on his desk, ready to go. But the trope of the big red button—and the irresistible yet irrational allure we feel to push it—predates the nuclear era entirely. Go down this rabbit hole with the Quartz Obsession.
Matters of debate
The battle against income inequality begins with full employment. That improves wages for even the lowest-paid, unskilled workers, Janet Yellen says (paywall).
Stop calling camomile tea “tea.” Benedict Cumberbatch says herbal tea isn’t worthy of the name.
Voting advocates should stop finger-wagging. Trying to shame or badger people into voting is likely to backfire (paywall).
Surprising discoveries
Google’s top US election day search result was in Spanish. The country’s Hispanic population wants to know: “Dondé votar?”
San Francisco fined a couple $2.25 million for illegal Airbnbing. The company, rather than fighting the move, says it doesn’t want scofflaws on its platform.
Rain makes voters more Republican. Researchers found bad weather makes voters who might have voted Democrat more likely to switch their vote.
Participation in youth sports is down, but not due to screen time. Inequality is dividing young athletes into the well-off on traveling teams and local leftovers.
Researchers created an artificial society to investigate religious conflict. The model found that two xenophobic groups that are in regular contact create “periods of mutually escalating anxiety.”
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, artificial societies, and ersatz teas 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 Tripti Lahiri and edited by Alice Truong.