What to watch for today
India and South Korea celebrate their independence. On the 70th anniversary of India’s independence from the British empire, prime minister Narendra Modi will speak from the Red Fort in Delhi, drawing on input from citizens on what to say. South Korea also celebrates the 71st anniversary of its independence from Japan.
Hedge funds unveil their holdings. Carl Icahn and other major hedge fund managers will file quarterly 13F documents (pdf) showing their current stock investments, giving ordinary traders an opportunity to see where bigwigs see the market moving.
Joe Biden will join Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania. The two will campaign together for the first time this election season in Scranton, where Biden was born.
Over the weekend
The Rio Olympics giveth—and taketh. Michael Phelps captured his 23rd gold medal and a silver for a career total of 28. In more somber news, US swimmers including Ryan Lochte were held at gunpoint and robbed by muggers pretending to be armed police in Rio.
SpaceX launched and recaptured its fifth booster rocket this year. After sending a Japanese telecoms satellite into orbit, Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully brought its fifth booster rocket back to Earth to reuse in the future. It was the company’s eighth successful mission this year.
Boko Haram released a video showing captive schoolgirls. The footage shows at least 200 of the 276 girls it captured from the Nigerian town of Chibok in 2014. The group said some girls have been forced to marry their captors, and others were killed by airstrikes targeting the group.
More gun violence hit US cities. The Wisconsin National Guard was called to Milwaukee yesterday (Aug. 14), after outrage over a fatal police shooting led to riots and fires (paywall). In New York, protests erupted over the deadly shooting of an imam and his assistant on the street in Queens.
Quartz obsession interlude
Hanna Kozlowska on Facebook’s troubling role in violent police encounters. ”In an era when people are using social media to document their fraught, and even deadly interactions with police, shutting down an account means taking control of the narrative—and inevitably affecting the way events play out on the ground. Facebook has become an arbiter of the outcome, and the stakes could not be higher.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Don’t expect a progressive Hillary Clinton as president. She’ll abandon the progressive ideals she adopted from Bernie Sanders, yielding a political system with a “striking resemblance to dynastic succession.”
US soccer’s Hope Solo is an anti-hero. The women’s team goalie, who recently called her Olympic opponents a “bunch of cowards” and has a history of domestic violence, is a rare case of a female athlete we can love to hate.
Interest rates are a moot force in economics. Expecting sub-zero rate cuts to juice economic growth indefinitely is wishful thinking (paywall).
Surprising discoveries
The next iPhone may be waterproof. A new patent could make way for better underwater smartphone photos, which suggests Apple is working on devices that can get sopping wet.
It isn’t Olympians who have evolved, it’s sports. The 2012 Olympic marathon winner would theoretically beat the 1904 Olympic marathon winner by almost an hour and a half—but athletic prowess isn’t the reason.
Your next seafood dinner might come with a QR code. A startup in Massachusetts is tagging all the fish caught by its fishermen and putting the information online (paywall) so customers can verify their meal’s origins.
Bill Clinton advised Apple about a congressional hearing into its taxes. CEO Tim Cook asked the former US president for advice on handling the investigation.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, booster rockets, and digitally enhanced seafood to hi@qz.com You can download our iPhone app or follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day.