Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Global leaders meet in Laos. The three-day long regional ASEAN summit will, happily for China, avoid any mention (so awkward) of the recent ruling from a UN court invalidating Chinese claims to the South China Sea. As part of a “pivot” to Asia, Barack Obama will attend, becoming the first sitting US president to visit the country.
Congress returns from its seven-week recess. And just in time… because lawmakers have less than a month to approve funding for the federal government or risk shutdowns at a number of agencies. The last big shutdown over a budget wrangle, in 2013, cost the country $24 billion.
Oil producers get together. Stakeholders in the global energy market kick off conferences in New York, Calgary, and Singapore. Executives, economists, and researchers will discuss everything from the price of pipeline obstruction to the future of fracking in a world of low oil prices.
While you were sleeping
Hillary Clinton said no to Mexico. The Democratic presidential nominee said she’ll decline an invitation from president Enrique Peña Nieto, whose meeting with Donald Trump last week was a fiasco. Clinton lambasted Trump too, though, saying he “didn’t know how to even communicate effectively with a head of state.”
Rodrigo Duterte apologized—sort-of. The Philippines president said he regretted that his calling Barack Obama a “son of a bitch” in a public comment had come across as a “personal attack.” The two leaders had been set to meet in Laos, but the White House canceled the meeting.
Bayer upped its offer for Monsanto again. The two are reportedly close to a deal after Bayer raised its offer price to over $65 billion. Monsanto had rejected the German chemical giant’s previous offer of around $64 billion in July. A merger would create the biggest agrochemical company in the world, and be the largest of several ongoing mergers in the sector (paywall).
British Airways had some headaches. An IT glitch meant many flights were canceled; passengers in the UK, the US, and Canada suffered long delays, and staff had to hand-write boarding passes. Flights to and from London City Airport were also disrupted after protestors from the Black Lives Matter campaign stormed the runway, using a rubber dinghy to get past security.
Lego sales hit a brick wall in the US. After years of double-digit increases, the world’s biggest toy company reported that its profits fell nearly 2% in the first half of 2016. It blamed that on flat sales in the US. The Danish toymaker employs 18,500 people and is planning aggressive expansion in China and Mexico.
Airbus got a $6.5 billion order from Vietnam. The European aerospace and defense giant signed deals with state-owned and private carriers in Vietnam for over 40 planes. Vietnam is one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets, due in part to deregulation and an ASEAN open-skies agreement that took effect this year..
Quartz obsession interlude
Zhai Yun Tan on why scientists are digging through a giant collection of human waste. “In the freezers of Arizona State University’s Human Health Observatory (H2O) lab are rows upon rows of jars, some white, some translucent with black chunks of solid inside. They’re part of a novel effort by scientists who believe you can tell the health of a community by looking at its sewers and tapping into the wealth of information stored in human waste.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
The internet has become a cage. The virtual world, once lauded as a technology of emancipation, has made humans dependent and distracted.
Britain could still stay in the EU. There are several ways to reverse the outcome of June’s referendum.
Doctors shouldn’t just focus on keeping patients alive. Other aspects of feeling “well”—like their ability to enjoy food and water—are also critical.
Surprising discoveries
Montreal is a world tech hub for online porn. Entrepreneurs are finding gold in the unsexy business-to-business side of the industry.
Cats like to work. New research shows felines are happier and healthier when “food puzzles” help them follow their foraging instincts.
Lab-grown meat has a friendly new name. Food tech firms want to rebrand it as “clean food” to avoid creeping people out.
Hollywood celebs all use the same rattlesnake wrangler. Bo Slyapitch removes natural predators from movie sets and mansion grounds.
Bees buzz with purpose. Sometimes it’s to release pollen from flowers, and they innately know (paywall) when to do it.
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