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Here’s what you need to know
Soccer returns in Spain. The top-flight La Liga will resume play with a match between Sevilla and Real Betis behind closed doors. Players have warned that playing in the summer heat could affect their performance.
Zoom censored Chinese activists. The video-conferencing company closed the account of a group of Chinese activists based in the US after they held an online ceremony to commemorate the June 4 Tiananmen crackdown. Zoom, which has now reactivated the account, said it did so in compliance with local laws as some of the participants were in China.
Donald Trump speaks to the nation. The US president will address policing reforms in his speech during a trip to Dallas, though a more formal package of reform proposals has been delayed and will be announced in the coming days.
Amazon will stop police from using its facial-recognition technology. The software, known as Rekognition, tries to match photos with faces from a database of mugshots. Amazon’s one-year moratorium comes after IBM said that it would pull out of facial recognition altogether.
How to build an anti-racist company
There’s still time to sign up for our Remote Control workshop on how to turn good intentions into meaningful action. It may seem daunting, but inaction will take a higher toll as companies start to bear more of the responsibility for structural change.
Join us today at 11am EDT for a free online workshop that will help point you in the right direction, featuring Melissa Theiss, vice president of operations at Quorum, Nadia Owusu, associate director at Living Cities and author of Aftershocks, and Steve Pemberton, chief human resources officer at Workhuman.
Charting quit rates in the US
It might seem counterintuitive, but a low quit rate is very bad news. Quit rates are a leading indicator of the health of the labor market, and when more people voluntarily leave their jobs, it means there is a general sense of optimism about the future of the economy.
Right now, most employees are just looking to hang on to the work they do have, rather than trying to find something better, and fewer people quitting their jobs also has the effect of dampening wages.
We’re obsessed with tear gas
It’s enough to make you cry. Though tear gas is banned from battlefields, the chemical is deployed domestically worldwide to quell protests and civil unrest. Recent calls for police reform have prompted some municipalities to stop the use of what’s termed a non-lethal weapon, but it’s not clear if the current moment will help widespread tear gas usage go up in smoke. How did we get here? Find out in the Quartz Weekly Obsession.
For members: China’s changing playbook in Africa
Africa’s relationship with China was changing prior to the coronavirus, but a full-blown global pandemic added a new wrinkle. To find out more, Quartz Africa spoke with Yunnan Chen, a senior researcher in development and public finance at the Overseas Development Institute who specializes in China-Africa relations, as part of this week’s field guide about China’s changing influence.
Quartz: “What are the consequences for the global economy if economic relations between China and Africa economic relations were to shift significantly in the wake of this moment?”
Chen: “A hugely important aspect of the China-Africa relationship of the last decade is the economic and developmental potential that it brings to African economies and societies after some half-century of various shifts in World Bank ideologies, policy, structural adjustment programs. The attitude of the Western consciousness and particular in the international development architecture, was to treat sub-Saharan Africa as sort of problematic in development.
“I think one important impact of this growing China-Africa relationship, nuances aside, it’s really brought Africa much more into the foreground as a potential site of growth, of opportunity, of investment and business and commercial opportunities in particular. The demonstration effect that China has brought in Africa has crowded in interest from other areas.”
Read the full interview, then check out the rest of this week’s field guide.
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Surprising discoveries
Astronomers reconnected to a black hole’s signal. The dead star’s “heartbeat” had been blocked by the sun since 2011, but it’s still going strong.
An Italian woman stuffed olives during awake brain surgery. The 60-year-old got through 90 olives in an hour.
Merriam-Webster is changing the definition of “racism.” The old version failed to mention systemic oppression.
There’s a Marmite shortage. The company is only able to make small jars of the breakfast spread due to a shortage of brewers’ yeast.
Big Philanthropy is borrowing. The Ford Foundation will raise $1 billion in bonds in order to help nonprofit groups that have been battered by the pandemic.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, Marmite alternatives, and dead star heartbeats to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our app on iOS or Android and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Isabella Steger, Tripti Lahiri, Susan Howson, Katherine Foley, Jackie Bischof, Dan Kopf, and Liz Webber.