Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Angela Merkel hosts Ivanka Trump. The First Daughter will join the German chancellor, Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, and IMF director Christine Lagarde on a W-20 panel about women in the workforce. Merkel’s invitation is seen as a way for her to build a relationship with Donald Trump through this daughter; Washington still hasn’t appointed a US ambassador to Germany.
Donald Trump speaks at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. The US president’s keynote address for the museum’s National Day of Remembrance comes in the wake of press secretary Sean Spicer’s highly criticized gaffe about Adolf Hitler’s use of chemical weapons. Every US president has participated in the ceremony since the museum opened in 1993.
Is Caterpillar still on a roll? Despite a slump in global commodities and a slowing mining sector, the construction machinery company’s stock has been on a tear (paywall) on hopes that Trump will increase infrastructure spending. Analysts expect revenue to have decreased in the last quarter.
While you were sleeping
North Korea celebrated the 85th anniversary of the Korean People’s Army. The day began with big live-fire military drills. There have been concerns that Pyongyang would mark the day with another nuclear test; a US submarine docked in South Korea on Tuesday morning in a show of force.
LVMH brought Christian Dior into the fold. French billionaire Bernard Arnault, whose family controls the LVMH luxury empire, said the company would pay $13 billion for the stake in Dior that it doesn’t already own. The move is meant to strengthen LVMH’s fashion and leather goods division—Christian Dior’s revenue has doubled over the past five years.
Ericsson’s fortunes plunged… Writedowns, shrinking markets, and restructuring costs took a big toll on the Swedish telecoms-equipment maker, causing its revenue to fall more than 10% in the first quarter from a year earlier.
… while Volvo powered to a 10-year high. Shares in the Swedish truckmaker hit their highest price in a decade, after a surge in construction-equipment sales and radical cost-cutting propelled it to an almost 60% rise in first-quarter earnings. Robust demand for new trucks in North America and Asia fueled its healthy results.
Wikipedia’s founder launched a fake-news fighting site. Jimmy Wales’ Wikitribune is an independent site for journalists and an army of volunteer community contributors to work together to report, edit, and fact check stories. The idea is that people who donate to the site will have a say in coverage.
Quartz obsession interlude
Katherine Foley on science’s long march toward a malaria vaccine: “Malaria is spread through really sneaky parasites… Because plasmodium parasites constantly shape-shift—and are difficult to grow in a lab—it’s been really difficult to develop a vaccine that effectively mimics an actual infection.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Governing France is impossible. Every significant reform is strongly opposed by one end of the political spectrum or the other.
The world’s most famous business school is a boondoggle. After more than a century, Harvard can’t decide what its business school is really for (paywall).
People are scared of AI for the wrong reasons. They fear physical harm from AI-enabled devices, but the risks posed by machine-learning in areas like healthcare and policing are much worse.
Surprising discoveries
Alaska suspended a dentist for riding a hoverboard while working. Medicaid fraud was also a factor.
US retailers could close more stores in 2017 than in the 2008 recession. The US retail industry lost some 60,000 jobs in the first three months of this year.
There’s a caterpillar that eats plastic bags and excretes antifreeze. It could help dispose of trillions of shopping bags.
Africa’s last absolute monarch wants to ban divorce. Domestic abuse and sexual violence are widespread in Swaziland, where King Mswati III reigns.
Icelandic is endangered by English-only gadgets. It gets among the least tech support of any language in Europe.
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