Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today and over the weekend
London may get its first Muslim mayor. Sadiq Khan is expected to win the city, replacing Boris Johnson, in what may be the only bright spot for the Labour Party in local and regional elections. (Labour was pushed into third place in Scotland.) The London mayoral result will not be declared until late on Friday.
Vladimir Putin hosts Shinzo Abe. Defying US pressure to postpone his Russia visit, the Japanese prime minister will meet the Russian president in Sochi to revive negotiations on a territorial dispute that has been going on since World War II, as well as to discuss potential trade cooperations.
US jobs report for April. The Labor Department report, due 8.30am local time in Washington, is expected to show that another 200,000 jobs were added last month, while the unemployment rate held steady at 5%.
While you were sleeping
North Korea began its first party congress in 36 years. The convention started Friday morning with state media praising supreme leader Kim Jong-un’s “powerful nuclear deterrent.” Kim will use the occasion to cement his status, deliver his economic development plans, and name a new central committee.
Canada’s second-quarter growth was jeopardized. Some economists revised their economic-growth predictions, from over 1% to zero, after raging wildfires halted production in nearly one third of Canada’s oil sands this week and forced the closure of key pipelines.
The White House launched a crackdown on international tax evasion. The new proposals are aimed at closing tax loopholes used by foreigners in the US, and forcing firms to disclose more information about their owners, in an attempt to tackle shady shell companies.
SpaceX landed its Falcon 9 rocket on a droneship. The booster returned to the ship off the coast of Florida after launching a Japanese satellite into orbit, marking the second successful ship landing for Elon Musk’s company. SpaceX is pushing reusable craft as a viable way to reduce the cost of space exploration.
Japan’s services sector slowed. In a sign the economy might be losing momentum, last month activity in the nation’s services sector contracted at the fastest pace in two years, according to the Markit/Nikkei Japan Services Purchasing Managers Index.
Quartz obsession interlude
Jenny Anderson on the key to understanding teenage girls. “They stop listening when grown-ups lecture, use a suspicious tone, level moral judgements, and overstate risks. In other words, they have great bullshit detectors.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
The painkiller Oxycontin is “the perfect recipe for addiction.” And the drug company that invented it ignored worrying clinical data.
Consumer satisfaction surveys are less than satisfactory. The questionnaires are exhausting and annoying for consumers.
Zika is in the United States to stay. The virus will become a perennial risk that will wax and wane.
Surprising discoveries
The United Arab Emirates imports huge amounts of sand. Its own wind-formed desert sand is too smooth to use for construction.
Some poor guy really slept with the fishes. He was found on a Brooklyn beach with “cement shoes“—a mafia execution usually confined to fiction.
Chilean brewers are harvesting fog for beer. Capturing the morning mist is crucial in the driest region on Earth.
The refugee influx is causing a cricket boom in Germany. People from Afghanistan and Pakistan are flooding the governing body with requests to set up clubs.
The UK’s new polar research ship will not be called Boaty McBoatface. Despite a public vote, it will be called the RRS Sir David Attenborough.
Correction: We wrote yesterday that Gannett had offered to buy just the Los Angeles Times, when it actually offered to acquire the entire Tribune Publishing company.
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