Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
An international conference on tobacco control converges on Delhi. The World Health Organization is bringing together delegates from roughly 180 countries for its biennial meeting to discuss global efforts to curb tobacco use. Pakistan has said it will not attend, given the current strain in its diplomatic relations with India.
Theresa May is in India, too. The UK prime minister will join India PM Narendra Modi at the India UK Tech Summit, a three-day conference covering technology, higher education, intellectual property, and design. It’s Britain’s first big, overseas trade mission since the vote for Brexit.
Softer results at SoftBank. After the market closes in Japan, the telecom giant is expected to announce a 12% drop in fiscal second-quarter operating profit. Mostly, investors will be waiting to hear what CEO Masayoshi Son has to say about the state of his company’s big acquisitions, including Sprint and ARM Holdings.
And more earnings elsewhere. HSBC and Nissan Motor are among the big corporates on the earnings calendar today.
Over the weekend
Samsung tried to move on. The Korean electronics maker, still smarting from the debacle over its exploding Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, is already laying plans for the Galaxy S8. A Samsung executive promises the new model will include artificial-intelligence features that are “significantly differentiated” from the competition.
Protests in Hong Kong turned violent. A peaceful march against perceived efforts to undermine Hong Kong’s judicial independence gave way to clashes with police, who used pepper spray against protesters. The demonstration came ahead of a ruling by Beijing on the fate of two lawmaker-elects who for weeks have been unable to take their oaths to officially enter Hong Kong’s legislature because of their pro-independence views.
Pollution in New Delhi reached unbearable levels. Schools were ordered closed, many expats fled if they could, and the government imposed temporary bans on construction and demolition of buildings and on the use of diesel-powered electricity generators. Air quality is usually a problem this time of year as rice and wheat farmers burn their leftover straw in Punjab and Haryana, but stubborn wind patterns have contributed to the city’s worst smog in at least 17 years.
Volkswagen’s chairman got pulled into the diesel-emissions probe. German prosecutors have widened their investigation to include Hans Dieter Pötsch, who was made chairman in September 2015 in the wake of the emissions scandal. He previously served as the automaker’s finance chief. Investigators are determining whether management adequately informed investors about the scandal as it was unearthed by US officials; Volkswagen maintains that management “duly fulfilled its disclosure obligation” under German law.
African runners dominated the New York City marathon. Mary Keitany of Kenya handily took the women’s race in a time of 2:24:26; her closest competitor, Sally Kipyego, also of Kenya, was nearly four minutes behind, and just seconds ahead of the third-place runner, Molly Huddle of the US. On the men’s side, Ghirmay Ghebreslassie, a 20-year-old Eritrean, won in 2:07:51; Lucas Rotich of Kenya placed second and Somali-born American Abdi Abdirahman took third.
An invitation
Take part in the political chatter. On Nov. 8, election day in the United States, we’re inviting our readers around the world to join Quartz reporters and editors for a discussion of US politics. It will be hosted all day long on Slack, the the group messaging tool. Click here to participate.
Quartz obsession interlude
Devjyot Ghoshal on how Myanmar is faring under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi. “There are some promising signs, but only a diehard optimist could pretend it’s going well for Suu Kyi so far, a year after the elections, and six months after the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner formed her government. To be fair, transforming the world’s youngest democracy is a huge task.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Philosophers are failing to engage in public discourse. It wasn’t always this way.
There’s a role for religion in the hospital ward. It can be a comfort when doctors pray for their patients.
Every nation has a shadow in the Jungian sense. When we avert our eyes from the negative aspects of society, we do ourselves a disservice.
The age of the emoji web address is nearly upon us. It’s the logical endpoint of a global, mobile internet.
Donald Trump could still win it all. Hillary Clinton has more paths to victory, but Trump has his openings.
Surprising discoveries
Kinky sex can enhance creativity. The exhilarating high lifts our consciousness into a heightened state of “flow.”
We’re just a century away from Christmas in July. Quartz’s Christmas Creep calculator, based on when the holiday lights on Oxford Street in London get turned on, is now updated with 2016 data.
Wikipedia is way less biased than it used to be. Researchers from Harvard find it filled with neutrality.
Cows can now text their owners when they’re sick or pregnant. The messages are generated by sensors inserted in the cows’ stomachs.
The legalese associated with Apple product ownership can involve more words than The Hobbit. If you own a Mac, an iPhone, an Apple TV, an Apple Watch, and an Airport router, you’ve probably agreed to at least 100,000 words of legal contracts.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, marathon times, and Apple legal documentation to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day or download our iPhone app.