Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin meet. The leaders of China and Russia will meet in Moscow, where they’ll talk about containing North Korea and improving military cooperation. Also up for discussion: linking China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative to Russia’s “Eurasian Economic Union,” a proposed trade group for Central Asia.
Singapore’s prime minister faces questions from parliament. Lee Hsien Loong has been accused by his brother and sister of abusing his power in a dispute over an old family house. Lee himself called for the unusual session, with his siblings arguing that parliament is an inappropriate forum for the feud.
A lull in North American trading. Nasdaq and the NYSE close at 1pm EST, in honor of US Independence Day, and Canadian markets are closed completely for Canada Day.
Over the weekend
Japan’s ruling party suffered its worst-ever defeat in the Tokyo Metropolitan assembly election. The vote was a referendum on governor Yuriko Koike’s year in office, with her new Tokyo Citizens First party and its allies winning 79 seats in the 127-member chamber. It was also a rebuke of prime minister Shinzo Abe’s scandal-hit administration, with his LDP party taking just 23 seats.
A US warship buzzed a disputed South China Sea island. The Navy destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in a “freedom of navigation” operation. The island is part of the Paracels, which are claimed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, but occupied by China.
A Russian cyber-security firm gave in to the US. CEO Eugene Kaspersky said he would let the US government review Kaspersky Labs’s source code, after a Senate proposal to cut defense-department contracts with the company. This could do more to undermine US security than protect it, because American firms could be equally pressured to divulge code to Russia.
Hong Kong celebrated—and mourned—its return to Chinese rule. Chinese president Xi Jinping visited Hong Kong to mark 20 years since the city was transferred from British to Chinese rule, and to attend the swearing-in of a new government. Tens of thousands also took to the streets to protest what they see as growing encroachment by Beijing on the territory’s freedoms.
The G-20 protests began. Roughly 10,000 protesters marched in Hamburg, Germany ahead of the G-20 summit soon to be held there, demanding leaders fight poverty and protect the planet. The summit takes place July 7-8, and some 30 protests are planned.
Australia’s manufacturing sector reported a strong June. The Commonwealth Bank and IHS Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to a seasonally adjusted 56.2, easily above the 50.0 threshold between expansion and contraction, and up from 55.9 last month. In services sector, meanwhile, the measure picked up to 57.0, from 54.8 in May.
Quartz obsession interlude
David Bandurski on the American story at the heart of China’s national anthem. ”‘March of the Volunteers’ began its life as the musical score for Children of Troubled Times, a film with strongly leftist themes produced by Shanghai’s Diantong Film Company. The film advocated self-sacrifice and embroidered on the theme… of ‘the evils of the treaty-port people who were ruined by Western spiritual pollution.'” Read more here.
Markets haiku
Markets close early / Celebrating July 4th / Trump’s Twitter should too
Matters of debate
Amelia Earhart was the first millennial hustler. She was known not only as a pilot but also as a feminist, a writer, a style icon, and a woman with a revolutionary approach to relationships.
Some things are worth forgetting. New research explains the phenomenon of forgetting things you just learned—and why doing so could be healthy (paywall).
In the future, we won’t have sex to procreate. Procreation will begin by selecting from a range of embryos created with the parents’ DNA in a lab.
Surprising discoveries
David Bowie wanted to make 1984 into a musical. The dream fell apart when George Orwell’s widow didn’t like the idea.
Christmas has come early for religious Russians. More than a million Christians in Russia endured 10-hour lines (paywall) to see a fragment of Saint Nicholas’s rib.
The chills we get from listening to music are a biological reaction to surprise. About half of us feel a tingling when we hear certain songs.
There are no science experts left at the White House. The three remaining staffers in the Office of Science and Technology Policy left their posts Friday, and the office is empty.
We speak in higher-pitched voices when talking to people more important than us. Our voices are part of the arsenal of signals that affect perceptions of social status.
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