Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today and over the weekend
Angela Merkel receives visitors. Chinese vice president Wang Qishan and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo both have spots on the German chancellor’s Friday calendar today, but it’s not clear whether they will cross paths. Both are likely to want to discuss security issues with Merkel, including recent tensions between the US and Iran.
Missouri’s last abortion clinic may lose its license. A judge is expected to rule on whether to renew the license for Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis clinic when it expires today, possibly making Missouri the first state in the US to no longer offer abortions since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.
The US-China trade war ratchets up yet another notch. It’s Beijing’s turn to add another layer of pressure by possibly making good on a threat to slap higher tariffs (paywall) on some imported US goods tomorrow. And the world gets that much closer to a global recession.
While you were sleeping
North Korea may have executed its top nuclear negotiators. According to South Korea’s largest daily newspaper, North Korea’s special envoy to the US, Kim Hyok Chol, and four other foreign-ministry official who carried out working-level talks for the summit with the US in Hanoi in February, were executed as punishment for the talks’ collapse.
Donald Trump vowed to impose a tariff on all Mexican imports. Furious about what he regards as a migration crisis on the country’s southern border, the US president announced a tariff starting at 5% on June 10 and increasing by 5% each month to reach 25% until the tide of illegal immigrants stops.
Tesla opened shop in China with locally made Model 3s. In a big move toward catching up with rival Chinese electric-vehicle brands, the US automaker started taking pre-orders for Model 3s made at Shanghai’s new Gigafactory 3. The price tag for the vehicle is around $7,000 less than the current cheapest American version.
China’s May factory activity shrank more than expected. Amid a bruising trade war, the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 49.4 from 50.1 in April, slumping further below the 50-point contraction mark than analysts had forecast.
Mark Zuckerberg lived to lead another day. The Facebook CEO came out on the right side of a vote at the company’s annual meeting, where shareholders decided that he will remain chairman. The failure of the attempt to keep one individual from holding both roles wasn’t a surprise, since that one individual holds about 58% of voting power.
Uber lost $1 billion last quarter. It was the first earnings report for the ride-hailing giant as a public company, and was in line with estimates detailed in IPO documents. Sales and marketing costs jumped while revenue growth was the slowest in years. The results come amid a bumpy few months for Uber, as what was supposed to be a triumphant public listing instead stumbled.
Membership
In today’s member exclusive, reporter Hanna Kozlowska looks at the rise of the microinfluencer with continued coverage of the Mom 2.0 Summit, which gave businesses the chance to court bloggers in Austin last month, in a bid to promote their wares.
Quartz Obsession
Climate anxiety is going around. And it’s not just the dire and increasingly well-understood effects of living through related catastrophes like fire and drought—the American Psychological Association has recognized that being inundated by the bad news of a slow-moving disaster, delivered 24/7 by news and social media, could be wearing us down.
Matters of debate
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Bike and car horns are useless. They’re profoundly antisocial and a blight on the cityscape.
Young climate strikers should unionize. It would amplify their collective voice in the face of crisis.
Fox News is the real misinformation machine. The wide reach of the network’s doctored storytelling makes Facebook’s fake-news problem look like no big deal.
Surprising discoveries
Australian firefighters hauled ass. A miniature donkey had to be rescued after tumbling into a septic tank and getting stuck.
People in Hawaii are eating “rat lungworm” along with unwashed produce. The parasite originates in rodents (paywall) but is passed to plants by snails and slugs.
AI is learning teamwork. Researchers have managed to train AI bots to work as a team in a deadly game of capture the flag.
Hydrogen-powered hovercrafts could solve gridlock and pollution. A prototype exists for an autonomous aircraft that, its maker says, could revolutionize urban transport.
Nonprofit jobs can pay off. Average compensation at a nonprofit is almost $8 per hour higher than what for-profit workers earn.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, clean hovercrafts, and washed produce to hi@qz.com. Join the next chapter of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was written by Mary Hui and edited by Isabella Steger.