Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
It’s time for the Nobel Prizes again. The accolade in physiology or medicine will be announced at 6.30am ET in Stockholm. The awards for physics, chemistry, peace, and economics will follow later this week.
A short-staffed US Supreme Court begins a new term. They start with just eight justices instead of the usual nine, after president Obama’s nominee to replace Antonin Scalia was sidelined by the US election. Cases they will face (paywall) include the potential gerrymandering of voting districts and whether racist trademarks are free speech.
What will be the UK’s economic policy leading up to Brexit? Philip Hammond, who took the reins of the UK economy after the Brexit vote, will talk about his tax and spending plans at his party’s conference today. He’s already given indications that spending could be a priority, rather than slashing the budget deficit like his predecessor.
Hurricane Matthew hits Haiti and Cuba. It’s the most powerful hurricane to form over the Atlantic in nearly a decade. Haiti issued a red-alert warning, Cuba started evacuations from threatened areas, and the US airlifted hundreds of spouses and children from its Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba to Florida.
Over the weekend
In one referendum, Colombians said no to peace… In a surprise upset, voters rejected a peace deal with FARC rebels that would have ended a 52-year civil war, by a margin of less than 0.5%. The deal was the product of four years of talks; many voters were unhappy with the idea of FARC getting political representation and amnesty. It may take years to strike any new deal.
…and Hungary won a pyrrhic victory in another. A referendum against an EU quota requiring Hungary to accept 1,300 resettled refugees was deemed invalid after fewer than 50% of voters turned out. The government insists the result is still binding. Some contend it was worded in a manipulative way.
Britain got a Brexit date. Prime minister Theresa May said at the Conservative Party’s annual conference that the UK will trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of next March, meaning it is on track to leave the EU by March 2019. Her announcement promises to unleash bitter debate about the terms of Brexit during the rest of the conference, which ends Sept. 5.
Another Donald Trump scandal broke. The Republican nominee declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 tax return, which he could have used to avoid up to 18 years of federal taxes, the New York Times reported (paywall).
Another Indian army post was attacked. It was the second assault in two weeks on a base in the disputed Kashmir region. The Indian army didn’t identify the attackers. One border guard was killed and another wounded. India had launched “surgical strikes” a few days earlier against militants on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control.
Spain stumbled out of its political crisis. Pedro Sánchez, leader of the Socialist Party (PSOE), stepped down after a bitter internal power struggle. The PSOE will likely now let the right-wing Popular Party of Mariano Rajoy form a government after nine months of deadlock.
Quartz obsession interlude
Katherine Ellen Foley on the problem with “clean” hydropower. “Globally, the reservoirs created by dams may actually contribute almost a gigaton of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions—about 25% more than they had previously thought. This means that we’ve almost certainly been underestimating how much greenhouse gas we’ve been shooting into the atmosphere.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Deaths from driverless cars are only to be expected. We’ve accepted far higher death tolls as the price of technological advancement before.
India’s “surgical strikes” against Pakistan were a bad idea. They do nothing to deter cross-border attacks and just risk inflaming tensions.
There is still something the world can do about Syria. To curb the savage bombings of Aleppo, the West could be more assertive without getting dragged into war.
Surprising discoveries
Has Elena Ferrante been unmasked? An Italian journalist reckons the reclusive author is really an Italian translator.
The meaning of “bedlam.” It refers to the Bethlehem Royal Hospital in London, the first asylum in England, founded in 1247 and still functioning today.
Alt-right trolls have developed a new language for racial slurs. Innocuous words such as “googles,” “skypes,” or “yahoos” are now being used as code words for racial insults.
A sculpture in New York honors an attack that never happened. It is part of a “multimedia art project and social experience” about how gullible people are.
Women in Thailand are staging a novel form of protest at bad roads. They’ve taken to sitting and taking baths in vast potholes.
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