Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
The EU-Canada trade deal goes to the wire. The Belgian prime minister has until Monday afternoon local time to get the Wallonia parliament’s approval for the CETA agreement. If this doesn’t happen, the EU can’t approve it. The Belgian region (pop: 3.6 million) is holding up a deal that will drop 98% of tariffs between the EU and Canada and affect more than 530 million people.
France is clearing the “Jungle” migrant camp. More than 1,200 police and officials began the process of dismantling the squalid camp in Calais, which holds around 7,000 migrants. Coaches arrived early on Monday morning to start ferrying refugees to reception centers across France. The camp will be destroyed tomorrow.
Visa reports its earnings. Analysts expect a strong performance, but with the credit card behemoth announcing both (paywall) the resignation of CEO Charles Scharf and a new offering based on blockchain technology last week, it’s the guidance for next year that investors will be keen to hear.
Over the weekend
AT&T agreed to buy Time Warner for $85.4 billion. The acquisition now faces major regulatory hurdles (paywall) and political opposition from those who feel the combining AT&T’s millions of wireless and pay-TV customers with the entertainment giant’s networks could hurt consumers and hobble competitors.
China’s Communist Party kicked off a four-day meeting. The sixth plenary session of the party’s top brass in Beijing will focus on domestic issues like the state of the economy and the bloated real estate market. Analysts say the session is really all about president Xi Jinping trying to consolidate his power within the party.
Spain will finally get a government. Conservative leader Mariano Rajoy has been hamstrung by his party’s inability to win an outright majority in two elections. After 10 months of political deadlock, his Socialist opponents decided to lift their veto and let the conservatives from a minority government.
The euro zone’s economy perked up. The manufacturing and services Purchasing Managers’ Index climbed to 53.7 in October from 52.6 a month earlier, its fastest pace this year, despite widespread nervousness around Britain’s vote to leave the EU.
US banks announced their money-transfer app. Set to compete with PayPal-owned Venmo and Square Cash, Zelle will be built on the payments network that links the nation’s biggest banks, including Chase, Citi, and Bank of America. Zelle is set for launch in 2017.
Quartz obsession interlude
Ephrat Livni on a study explaining the surprising effect happiness has on creativity. “Workers who were rated most creative reported experiencing both strong negative and positive moods and felt they had supportive managers. Happier workers with good bosses, however, were rated significantly less creative than those with mixed emotions.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
We are partly to blame for these huge cyber attacks. Consumers who don’t secure their internet-connected devices are putting themselves and the internet in danger.
Women should dress any age they want. Society should stop telling women (paywall) over 50 to turn up their collars to hide wrinkles.
The US can still be friends with the Philippines. Rodrigo Duterte’s pivot to China is superficial but it could calm tensions in the South China Sea.
Surprising discoveries
A scientist is trying to find a suitable companion for a pet snail. The snail—named Jeremy—has a rare genetic variation.
Many evangelicals actually oppose Trump. The polls showing his support are not factoring in minorities.
The iPod is 15 years old. Take a gander at the astonishingly wide variety of forms that a product renowned for its simplicity has taken over the years.
Most men misread women’s sexual interest. They focus on women’s clothes and attractiveness, and ignore their body language and facial expressions.
Mating with Neanderthals made Europeans’ immune systems weaker. Two studies found that people of African descent are better at fighting off certain kinds of infections.
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