Good morning, Quartz readers!
Here’s what you need to know
Lebanon holds an emergency cabinet meeting. After a major blast in Beirut killed over 70 and wounded thousands, the president said a state of emergency should be declared for two weeks and an investigation launched into the cause of the explosion.
Narendra Modi lays the foundation stone at the Ayodhya temple. India’s prime minister will kick off construction of the Hindu temple, located on a divisive holy site. Meanwhile, Kashmir is under a two-day curfew as the region marks the first anniversary of the revocation of its semi-autonomous status.
Sri Lankans go to the polls. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa hopes the parliamentary election will give his party a two-thirds majority, which will allow him to push through constitutional changes and tighten his family’s grip on power, including installing his brother as prime minister.
A Uyghur model sent a video from inside a Chinese detention camp. Mergan Ghappar filmed himself handcuffed to a bed in a cell that is encaged with steel mesh on the window. His family, who stopped receiving messages from him five months ago, hopes the release of the video could bring attention to his case.
A top US official will visit Taiwan. Secretary of health and human services Alex Azar will lead a delegation “in the coming days” to meet with president Tsai Ing-wen, and convey Donald Trump’s support for Taipei’s pandemic response. The visit marks the first by a US cabinet-level official in six years.
Cutting corners on vaccines?
As the world races to produce a viable coronavirus vaccine, Russia and China have recently claimed to have pulled ahead. But the global scientific community has its doubts, particularly on the safety of these supposed breakthroughs.
🇷🇺 While Russian officials are calling it a “Sputnik moment,” the Gamaleya Research Institute scientists behind a new vaccine have yet to publish data showing it works, and it doesn’t yet meet World Health Organization standards.
🇨🇳 China is telling state employees it’s safe to use an experimental coronavirus vaccine—even though it has yet to undergo a third phase trial, which would establish efficacy and longer-term safety profiles by following thousands of participants. Scientists warn no vaccine should be presented as definitively safe and effective while testing is ongoing.
Charting tourism in Africa
Due to extensive experience with past or present epidemics like TB, HIV, and Ebola, African countries were fairly quick to react to news of coronavirus’s spread by closing borders. Tourism—responsible for 6.8% of the continent’s total employment—is bearing the brunt just after it achieved the status of second fastest growing tourism industry in the world.
The World Travel and Tourism Council’s best case scenario is a $53 billion hit to GDP across the continent; its worst case scenario is a $120 billion hit.
✦
For members: Cannabis by the digits
The wide world of weed, in number form:
$12.4 billion: Value of the regulated market in 2019
90%: Estimated amount of cannabis still consumed on the black market
$45 billion: Amount the industry is projected to be worth by 2025
~75%: Share expected to come from the US market
Two-thirds: Proportion of Americans who support the legalization of cannabis
33: Number of US states that currently allow cannabis for some form of medical use
11: Number of states that also have recreational or “adult use” programs
Cannabis sits at a unique intersection of medicine, agriculture, consumer packaged goods, food, beverages, and recreation. What might a great modern cannabis industry look like? And how might it be prevented from exacerbating the inequality and exploitation already rampant in American capitalism?
Read more in our field guide on cannabis at a crossroads.
✦ Access all of our articles, presentations, field guides, and workshops by signing up for a Quartz membership.
Suit yourself
Men’s suit sales were in decline long before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19, thanks to the century-long trend of apparel getting more casual and even the most conservative office places loosening up dress codes.
Now, having a business reliant on suit sales is a downright liability.
While some smaller upstarts selling custom suits have managed to establish footholds in the US in recent years, mass-market suit sellers have had little choice but to change up their offerings. Even those who had already seen the writing on the wall and begun pivoting to more casual clothes could never have anticipated quite how casual apparel was about to get when workers were forced to spend a whole lot more time at home.
Surprising discoveries
Penguin poop was spotted from space. Scientists identified new colonies of Emperor penguins by looking at satellite images with telltale reddish-brown stains on otherwise white Antarctic snow.
A long-lost family cat was found 12 years later. The feline, which vanished while on a family holiday in Scotland, was located after an animal charity scanned its microchip.
An “SOS” written in the sand actually worked. Three Micronesian men were stranded on a deserted island and used the code to signal rescue helicopters.
Poisoning dingoes just made them bigger. The surviving wild dogs had less competition for food, which boosted their body size over generations.
Chipotle is putting all those avocado pits to good use. The US restaurant chain launched a new fashion line featuring clothes and accessories that are naturally dyed using guacamole byproducts.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, penguin poop, and avocado pants to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our app on iOS and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Mary Hui, Isabella Steger, Olivia Goldhill, Jackie Bischof, Liz Webber, and Susan Howson.