Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Turkey is on high alert for potential terror attacks. The US embassy in Ankara is warning American citizens in the country that it is aware of heightened security threats on the Ataturk memorial, youth and sports holiday.
A Nigerian girl rescued from Boko Haram will meet with Nigeria’s president. 19-year-old Amina Ali Nkeki will meet with President Muhammadu Buhari to potentially shed light on the whereabouts of 219 schoolchildren kidnapped by the terrorist group. Nkeki was found wandering in the Sambisa Forest by an anti-Boko Haram militia.
An awkward Alibaba appearance in Florida. Chairman Jack Ma bowed out of a speech at the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition conference, after the e-commerce company’s membership was suspended due to a conflict of interest scandal. Alibaba president Michael Evans will appear instead.
Shaky earnings from US retailers. Walmart could to post a 2% decline in quarterly sales, to $113 billion, as it struggles to compete with Amazon. Meanwhile, Gap earnings are expected to be terrible, and its CEO said it would be “delusional” not to consider selling its clothes on Amazon.
While you were sleeping
A flight from Paris to Cairo with 69 on board disappeared. EgyptAir flight MS804 dropped off of radar about three hours after departure, with the last update from the Mediterranean Sea about 80 miles from Egyptian airspace. 59 passengers and 10 crew were aboard.
Google unveiled its new voice-based speaker. Google Home is coming out later this year to challenge Amazon’s Echo. The tech giant is increasingly focusing on AI assistants as users spend less time on the web and personal computers.
Theranos voided two-years worth of test results. The blood testing company sent out “tens of thousands” of notices (paywall) to doctors and patients revising or invalidating tests, the Wall Street Journal reported. They include all results from Theranos’ Edison machine, which the company said could detect diseases through a single drop of blood.
The Fed warned of a June interest rate hike. Newly released minutes from the central bank suggested an increase is likely if the US economy continues to improve.
Tesla is selling $2 billion of stock to fund its grand ambitions. The company will use the cash to pay for its daunting production schedule for the Model 3: a total of 500,000 cars by 2018, plus building a massive battery factory in the Nevada desert.
Quartz obsession interlude
Chase Purdy on Chinese consumers ditching junk food for healthier options: “Only 51% of consumers in China said they ate Western fast food in 2015…a drop from the 67% who said they consumed fast food in 2012. They have since shifted to healthier, more environmentally-friendly brands.” Read more here.
Market haiku
Oh FOMC!
Your minutes caught us off guard
A rate hike in June?
Matters of debate
“Plus size” clothing is a meaningless, off-putting distinction. The term is alienating women who don’t want to shop in a separate category.
We need Paris-style talks to fix the global food system. Some 20% of food now crosses an international border.
Apple is a victim of rising expectations. It’s why you loved your iPhone at first but hate it now.
Surprising discoveries
China’s “One Belt, One Road” project is expensive and inefficient. It costs twice as much to send a bottle of olive oil from Spain to China on the new trans-continental railroad than it does to send it by sea.
In medieval France, your sex life was everyone’s business. A husband’s inability to perform was considered a larcenous act.
Netflix built a massive operation to handle Chelsea Handler’s dirty jokes. Her new talk show has 200 linguists to translate Handler’s profanity-laced humor.
A single blue diamond sold for a record $51 million. The “Oppenheimer Blue” is the largest and most expensive diamond ever auctioned.
Gay rights groups were barred from a UN AIDS conference. A group of 51 Muslim countries did not want LGBT-friendly groups to attend.
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