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Boris Johnson holds an emergency meeting. The UK prime minister will gather with the first ministers of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland before announcing a tougher national restrictions to address the pandemic. Separately, Labour leader Keir Starmer will appeal to voters who abandoned the party to reconsider their stance.
Tesla’s battery day. CEO Elon Musk has sought to manage market expectations of the firm’s announcement of a new type of battery cell, which he said “will not reach serious high-volume production until 2022.” Meanwhile, what looks to be a blockbuster quarter of sales will ring in another multi-billion-dollar pay check for Musk.
The 75th United Nations General Assembly kicks off. On the mother of all Zoom calls, member states are expected to focus on easing the pandemic against a backdrop of increased calls for international cooperation. Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte is set to deliver a speech and defend his deadly drug war.
A New York City cop was charged with spying for China. Federal prosecutors say the officer, a naturalized US citizen who is ethnically Tibetan, had worked since 2018 on behalf of Beijing to gather intelligence on US supporters of the Tibetan independence movement.
Beijing sentenced a Chinese tycoon to 18 years in prison. Ren Zhiqiang, who openly criticized the country’s authoritarian leader Xi Jinping, had gone missing in March before authorities announced he was under investigation for corruption.
Who won the TikTok challenge?
The ink on the TikTok-Oracle deal isn’t yet dry, but all parties involved are claiming victory.
- The US government: The current US president didn’t quite get the sale he was looking for, but is already signaling a willingness to frame it as a victory over China—a useful talking point on the campaign trail.
- The Chinese government: Beijing, though, is presenting it as “crucial progress,” and ByteDance has indicated it’s still 100% involved.
- Larry Ellison: Oracle’s chairman is the world’s seventh richest person, one of the few prominent Silicon Valley leaders to publicly back Donald Trump, and the real winner of the deal, which offers Oracle a much-needed win.
Charting RBG’s voting record
With the death of justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the US Supreme Court may have lost its least business-friendly member.
But despite her position on the chart, she was hardly anti-business. SCOTUS is scheduled to hear an argument about Facebook’s digital privacy practices, but it’s not clear yet whether it will come before the court before Ginsburg’s replacement will have joined the bench.
The Home Office Handbook
There is no prescription for creating a perfect home office, but there are ways to experiment with new configurations to do our best work. Dig into the details:
1️⃣ It takes work to set up a space that’s conducive for working.
2️⃣ We need to make over not just our physical spaces, but our outlook as well…
3️⃣ … and seize the opportunity to embrace new ways of working.
4️⃣ Being able to work remotely is fast becoming a core competency.
5️⃣ A home office offers a testing ground for figuring out how, where, and when we do our best work.
Creating a joyful home office entails a physical and mental makeover, but there’s no single prescription for everyone’s living situation. Our latest field guide provides answers for how to improve your home office setup. And if you haven’t yet, please become a member today and let our (home) offices go to work for you.
Obsession interlude: Future of work
The flexibility of remote work has been a boon to many, but teleworking’s contributions to income inequality could be felt for years to come.
When IMF economists looked at workers’ ability to telework in 35 countries, they found that roughly 100 million people—15% of the workforce in those places—would struggle with being able to do their specific jobs online or with accessing the internet. The ability to telework also varied dramatically from country to country: More than half of households in most developing countries don’t have a computer at home.
There’s something about “Jerusalema”
The South African song “Jerusalema”—recorded by producer Master KG and featuring vocals by Nomcebo—was released in December of 2019, but this month, a viral video by a dance troupe helped it become the world’s most Shazamed song. If you haven’t heard it yet, you’re missing out.
Surprising discoveries
Botswana figured out what caused a mass elephant die-off. They were killed by ingesting toxins produced by cyanobacteria, which can be produced by algal blooms.
Conservationists are racing to rescue 270 pilot whales. The mammals are stranded on sandbars along the western coast of Tasmania, and it appears 25 have already died.
New emoji for 2021 include inter-racial couples. Also among the 217 new releases will be a heart on fire, and a heart with a bandage wrapped around it.
Freezing avocados is so hot right now. It’s the story of a Queensland man’s quixotic quest to save the precious fruit from going toast.
This guy is just a sucker for an octopus. A chance human-cephalopod encounter that turned into a year-long interspecies attraction is now coming to Netflix.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, whale rescue missions, and grungy fashion statements to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our iOS app and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Mary Hui, Isabella Steger, Susan Howson, and Max Lockie.