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Here’s what you need to know
The UK starts offering Covid-19 tests at Heathrow airport. Passengers flying from London to Hong Kong and Italy will now be able to pay ÂŁ80 ($104) for a rapid test, as more countries classify the UK as high-risk and require proof of a negative test result before arrival. Meanwhile, Manchester has until midday to reach a deal on entering the strictest tier-3 lockdown measures.
The US faces a deadline to reach a stimulus deal… House speaker Nancy Pelosi and treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin will speak again in a last ditch effort to patch over policy differences holding up a pandemic relief package before the election.
…and Thursday’s final US presidential debate will feature mute buttons. The debate commission approved rules allowing president Donald Trump’s and his rival Joe Biden’s microphones to be silenced to ensure each candidate has uninterrupted two-minute periods to make their arguments, hoping to avoid the chaos of the first debate.
The United Arab Emirates and Israel sign a visa waiver deal. A month after the two countries agreed to normalize ties, they will ink a treaty allowing citizens to enter each other’s countries without applying for a visa—the first such agreement between Jerusalem and an Arab state.
Russians tried to hack the Olympics. According to UK intelligence, Moscow’s military intelligence group GRU attempted cyber attacks on officials involved with the Tokyo games. The US has also charged six GRU officers with attempts to disrupt the 2018 games, the 2017 French presidential election, and Ukraine’s power grid.
Learning to live with Covid-19
Months of living with the new pandemic normal—and months more of it ahead—have forced us all to adapt to new realities. Here are some of the transitions we’re tracking:
- 🍽 Restaurants are paying to boost the air change rate in their space.
- đź“Ş US post office workers are filing more than 500 workplace complaints per day.
- 👴🏼 Alzheimer’s and dementia patients have seen more indirect deaths than we thought.
For everything you need to know about how the world is managing the pandemic, sign up for our Coronavirus: Need to Know email below:
Charting Elon Musk’s charity
Tesla’s CEO spent more than $80 billion to roll out the electric carmaker’s first three models, according to public financial filings. But when it comes to giving money away, the billionaire and head of the Musk Foundation is in a bit less of a hurry.
Quartz assembled nearly two decades of the foundation’s IRS filings to find that, so far, Musk has handed at least $257 million to the foundation, most of it in Tesla stock. Between 2016 and 2018, the Musk Foundation distributed $65 million, somewhat more than the minimum the foundation must disburse annually to avoid IRS penalties.
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Making it work in India
It’s almost like the Covid-19 lockdown never happened for Flock, an office team communication software firm in Bangalore. During a time when most businesses struggled to cope with shutdowns, Flock’s revenue grew 40% for three consecutive quarters.
While India’s economy plummeted to record lows during lockdowns, stars still shine in the country’s bright startup space. Four Indian tech startups became unicorns, or private companies valued at over $1 billion, in the middle of the pandemic. Still, more than half of Indian startups are struggling to raise funds.
Visit Quartz India for more daily coverage of the country for India and its far-flung diaspora.
ALL PRAISE THE HUMBLE RSS FEED
Many tech enthusiasts were first introduced to the word “podcast” in 2005 when Steve Jobs enthusiastically welcomed the medium into the Apple universe.
But to understand podcasting today, you have to start further back, with the technology used to get the shows onto devices: the RSS feed. Very much a product of the pro-decentralization late 1990s, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary, depending on whom you ask. It’s a type of file websites used to automatically transmit updates to their audience. Users subscribe to feeds and receive the latest information delivered through an RSS reader tool.
Social media has more or less replaced the RSS feed—except for podcasting. Find out why, and how it’s informing the podcast business today, in our latest field guide.
✦ The best way to really simply sign up for a Quartz membership today is with the promo code QZTWENTY to unlock a 20% discount.
Surprising discoveries
South Korea is facing a kimchi catastrophe. Typhoons this summer wiped out fields of cabbages, the main ingredient in the fermented national dish.
The Canadian town of Asbestos has a new name. It’s dropping the moniker synonymous with a carcinogenic mineral and rebranding as Val-des-Sources.
This Zoom meeting went horribly, terribly wrong. New Yorker staff writer Jeffrey Toobin was unaware that he was not muted, nor was his camera off, when he masturbated during a work call.
A Muslim man was denied German citizenship for refusing to shake a woman’s hand. The Lebanese doctor said he could not do so for religious reasons.
Foster parents are planning to unionize. A Massachusetts group says resources have become too strained during the pandemic.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, Zoom doom stories, and rebranded towns 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, Tripti Lahiri, Susan Howson, and Max Lockie.