Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
A US-Chinese blockbuster—maybe—arrives in theaters. $150 million Great Wall is the biggest test so far of whether Hollywood conquer the Chinese market. Matt Damon stars as a European mercenary who fights alongside Chinese soldiers against an army of monsters.
The Bank of Russia maintains interest rates. Central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina wants to eventually reduce rates from 10% to around 6.5%, but says she doesn’t plan to change anything until the first or second quarter. Buoyed by falling inflation, foreign investors have been surging into the Russian market to test her resolve.
Britain’s foreign minister takes his Brexit reassurance tour to South Korea. After meetings in South Africa and Japan—where he denied being a poster boy for “soft” Brexit—Philip Hammond arrives in Seoul, in an attempt to salvage the UK’s privileged access to South Korean markets.
While you were sleeping
Rupert Murdoch offered $14.6 billion to buy Sky. The media mogul was foiled in his first attempt to take full control of Europe’s dominant satellite TV company five years ago. But waiting has its benefits: The plunging pound makes the deal much cheaper for 21st Century Fox.
Generic drugmakers were sued for fixing prices. Mylan, Teva, and four other companies allegedly conspired over steak dinners and “girls nights out” to limit competition. Prices for one common drug reportedly rose from $20 to $1,849 over seven months.
Facebook unveiled new tools to crack down on fake news. Journalists from various organizations can now tag stories as “disputed by third party fact-checkers,” and users can flag content as a “fake news story.” The company’s algorithm has also been tweaked, and stories deemed fake can’t appear as paid ads.
General Motors unveiled plans for an driverless car factory. A Michigan plant that builds the electric Chevy Volt will begin making driverless versions of the vehicle next year. CEO Mary Barra said the company will immediately begin testing the car on public roads in the state.
A white supremacist was convicted on 33 counts for killing nine black churchgoers. A federal jury found Dylann Root guilty of a range of crimes for his murderous shooting spree in South Carolina, which could result in the death penalty.
Quartz obsession interlude
Nikhil Sonnad on how different parts of the United States use the English language. A geographic analysis of 100,000 commonly used words, culled from billions of tweets, shows huge regional variations in cuisine, slang, and even profanity. An interactive tool allows users to query any word they like. Read more here.
Quartz haiku interlude
Twenty K’s in sight
and champagne’s on ice. Spare a
thought for bond holders.
Matters of debate
The UN must act now to ban killer robots. Lethal autonomous weapons, the subject of a meeting in Geneva this week, could lead to a dystopian future.
If ignorance is bliss, India is paradise. Indians are the most uninformed people on the planet, according to a far-reaching survey of public perceptions.
Hoarding is a sign of a healthy economy. The boom in self-storage units suggests Americans are buying more than ever.
Surprising discoveries
Beer is saving lives in Russia. The switch from vodka is boosting male life spans.
Trump’s cabinet picks have more money than a third of all Americans combined. The most affluent cabinet ever has $9.5 billion in total wealth.
Artificial intelligence can mimic Bach. Half of listeners can’t tell whether music was written by the legendary composer or by an AI.
There’s a medieval city beneath the suburbs of St. Louis. A settlement larger than Paris was constructed and abandoned in the Mississippi River floodplain.
Some viruses may go easy on women. It helps them spread more quickly via breastfeeding and childbirth.
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