Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
A Swiss pharma giant puts down roots in China. Novartis is opening a $1 billion R&D facility in Shanghai, betting that there’s more room to grow in China than in more developed markets. Beijing hasn’t been very friendly to western drugmakers since a GlaxoSmithKline bribery scandal in 2014.
OPEC and the ECB both meet in Vienna. OPEC will convene for the first time since Saudi Arabia’s King Salman replaced the long-serving oil minister Ali al-Naimi. ECB president Mario Draghi is expected to call on governments to turn around their economies without depending on monetary stimulus.
Germany pokes a stick in Turkey’s eye. German lawmakers are expected to approve a bill that would condemn the Ottoman Empire’s mass killing of Armenians in 1915 as genocide. Turkey has warned that the measure, which is backed by German chancellor Angela Merkel, could harm diplomatic ties.
While you were sleeping
A French naval vessel located the signal from EgyptAir 804’s black boxes. The data recorders contain vital information about the flight’s last minutes and the possible cause of the crash. A deep sea robot will be deployed to retrieve them.
Two people were killed in a shooting at UCLA. An apparent murder-suicide forced a two-hour lockdown of the sprawling University of California-Los Angeles campus, sending thousands of students into hiding.
The estimated net worth of Theranos’ founder went from $4.5 billion to zero. Forbes dramatically downgraded the estimated value of Elizabeth Holmes’ stake in the blood testing start-up. Theranos has been crippled by allegations that its tests are inaccurate, and it is under investigation by US regulators
The US labor market tightened. The Federal Reserve said the American economy has expanded modestly since mid-April, prompting employers to hire more people and raise wages to attract better candidates. The Fed is expected to raise interest rates soon if the economy continues to improve.
The first baby with Zika was born in the continental US. The infant girl, who has severe microcephaly, was born to a woman who contracted the virus in her native Honduras. It is probably only a matter of time before Zika is transmitted by mosquitoes in the US.
Quartz markets haiku
Fresh, spring breeze tousles
the pages of the Beige Book
As the green shoots grow
Quartz obsession interlude
Michael Coren on a venture capital firm’s experiment with basic income. “Y Combinator’s pilot experiment will give about 100 families a minimum wage. The city was chosen for its social and economic diversity, alongside concentrated wealth and inequality—a good starting point for the US at large.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
The modern world doesn’t scale. Chipotle, Uber, San Francisco, and Tesla are proof that extreme growing pains may be unavoidable.
Don’t blame smugglers for the migration crisis—blame Europe. Refugees are dying in the Mediterranean because are given no alternative.
If you’ve been holding out for a radically new iPhone 7, you’re going to be disappointed. An increasingly boring Apple is extending its product life-span.
Surprising discoveries
A rotting corpse figurine was once the epitome of chic interior design. The exposed ribs and torn flesh were a reminder of human mortality.
Pakistani saleswomen are selling contraception door to door. They usually have to make numerous visits before a couple agrees to buy birth control.
The first thing sold on the internet was weed. The original e-commerce transaction was a drug deal between Stanford and MIT students.
People were once very afraid of “bicycle face.” The “stress of incessant balancing” was thought to make “children unrecognizable to their own mothers.”
Ukraine’s “Joan of Arc” flies a helicopter. Nadiya Savchenko carried out a hunger strike in a Russian prison before entering parliament.
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