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What to watch for today
Sixty world leaders speak at the United Nations Climate Action Summit. UN secretary general António Guterres has told them to ditch the “beautiful speeches” and come with concrete plans, as the rise in sea levels accelerates. (Sign up for our free daily email roundups from UNGA this week here.)
Britain’s opposition votes on Brexit policies. Labour party conference delegates are deciding whether to campaign to remain in the EU in a second referendum or, as leader Jeremy Corbyn prefers, stay neutral while a future Labour government negotiates a new deal with the EU.
A decision on Israel’s next leader. President Reuven Rivlin is deciding who he’ll ask to form a government. Neither former army chief Benny Gantz nor current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu won a majority in the Sept. 17 elections.
An attempt to remove WeWork’s CEO. The company’s board is scheduled to meet today to discuss the potential removal of Adam Neumann. SoftBank, WeWork’s biggest investor, has reportedly lost patience with the controversial founder.
Over the weekend
Trump admitted discussing Biden with Ukraine’s leader. The US president said he raised corruption allegations about the 2020 Democratic candidate and his son, for which there is no evidence of wrongdoing, with Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump didn’t directly address reports he pressed for a Ukrainian investigation.
Game of Thrones and Fleabag cleaned up at the Emmys. GoT won Best Drama, adding to its record as the most decorated TV drama ever, despite a divisive final season. Fleabag took home four trophies, including Best Comedy. Unlike its main rivals, Netflix left empty-handed in the top categories.
UK tour operator Thomas Cook collapsed. The 178-year-old tourism pioneer is no more, after the breakdown of last-minute talks with creditors and its biggest shareholder, China’s Fosun Group, to avoid insolvency. Around 600,000 tourists are now potentially stranded.
Trump and Modi hit it off in Texas. At the “Howdy, Modi!” rally in Houston, organized by Indian-American supporters, the prime minister declared that “everything is great,” despite a debilitating economic slowdown. Meanwhile, Trump said India “never had a better friend as president.”
Disney’s CEO didn’t acquire Twitter because of “nastiness.” In a New York Times interview ahead of the release of his memoir, Bob Iger said he dropped the deal at the last minute a few years ago because of concerns about the nature and tone of posts on Twitter.
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Matters of debate
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Personality tests are corporate astrology. Neither your star sign nor your Myers-Briggs result says very much about you.
Companies only care about shareholders. Despite the Business Roundtable’s redefinition of corporations’ purpose, it’s back to business as usual.
Governments and central banks should team up. Coordinating monetary and fiscal policy may be the only way to head off the next recession.
Surprising discoveries
AI repainted a lost Picasso. A century after the artist painted over an old piece, a neural network reconstructed the original.
One US importer requested 10,000 Chinese tariff exemptions. The company has filed the lion’s share of American businesses’ 16,000 pleas for tariff relief.
The CEO of Goldman Sachs launched a record label. David Solomon, aka DJ D-Sol, will donate all profits to fighting the opioid crisis.
Google says it’s hit a quantum-computing milestone. Its processor solved a problem that would take the fastest supercomputer 10,000 years, in just 3m20s.
Tinder made a post-apocalyptic video game. The matchmaker hopes episodes of the interactive series will give its users something to talk about.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, psychometric tests, and apocalyptic-yet-romantic video games to hi@qz.com. Join the next chapter of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Adam Rasmi and Hasit Shah.