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What to watch for today
Wall Street braces for another sharp slide. The US is poised to follow plummeting Asian shares and European futures, and the biggest daily drop for British stocks since 2008. Gold, which tends to rise when investors are worried about the stock market, did just that.
California welcomes a coronavirus-stricken cruise ship, reluctantly. US officials are installing fences at the Port of Oakland, readying transport, and prepping a quarantine for more than 2,000 Grand Princess passengers. At least 21 people aboard have Covid-19.
Turkey and the EU try to strike a deal over migrants. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan meets with European leaders in Brussels today, as thousands of people continue to try to break through the land border between Greece and Turkey, the EU’s southeastern frontier.
Over the weekend
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The Italian government sealed off large parts of the country. There are unprecedented restrictions across the north, including major cities like Milan and Venice, effectively placing up to 16 million people under lockdown until April 3. The death toll from Covid-19 is rising substantially.
Oil prices crashed. Demand is already down because of coronavirus, and OPEC’s disintegration over the weekend, as Saudi Arabia and Russia began a price war, has led to the worst drop since 1991.
Japan’s economy looked ill. The world’s third largest economy posted a 7.1% decline in fourth quarter GDP, even worse than expected. It could prompt the central bank to take stronger fiscal and monetary action, as the economic effects of Covid-19 take their toll.
Boeing’s 737 Max faced more headwinds. US aviation regulators will require the company to rewire its entire fleet of the grounded jet, to prevent short circuits. But with consumer demand for air travel way down, a delay might not be such a bad thing for airlines.
US health officials cancelled the Indian Wells tennis tournament. That’s despite top players like Rafael Nadal already landing in California. The Covid-19 outbreak has prompted many countries to scrap major events, but the big one, the Olympics, is still on—for now.
Quartz membership
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Matters of debate
Nobody likes daylight savings time. Most Americans are tired of changing the clocks.
Wikipedia volunteers are the best weapon against misinformation. The editors hold down the fort of truth.
China’s “economic miracle” is built on exploitation. Rural migrants powered decades of back-breaking growth, but remain locked out of the huge economic windfall.
Surprising discoveries
Artists are fighting facial recognition with face paint. They use cubist-inspired designs to foil algorithms.
Some airlines are running ghost flights. Carriers are wasting fuel to hold their take-off and landing slots.
Crooks keep giving themselves away on Facebook. Police are turning to social media for leads on all sorts of crimes.
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot broke a box office record. Its October opening weekend raked in $93,520, a higher per-theater average than any other title last year.
Donald Trump is at the center of a dispute in the knitting community. A major website’s ban on pro-Trump content has caused a schism.
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