Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
South Sudan is on the verge of civil war. Rival government factions fought in Juba on Sunday, leaving at least 272 people dead and deflating hopes that peace between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar would hold. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the fighting “has the potential of reversing the progress made so far in the peace process.”
$300 billion in Chinese pensions funds will enter the markets. China’s National Council for Social Security Fund will oversee two trillion yuan ($300 billion) of Chinese pension funds in the second half of the year. In the past, Chinese pension investments were limited to safer assets, such as bank deposits and treasuries. The organization’s entry into Shanghai stocks could help buoy confidence in the volatile market.
More Brexit fallout. This week, the Bank of England will consider slashing interest rates—for the first time in seven years—in efforts to avoid a post-Brexit recession. In the weeks since Brexit, the British pound has been crushed, along with consumer confidence. BoE governor Mark Carney said households and businesses are suffering from “economic post-traumatic stress disorder.”
While you were sleeping
More women accused Roger Ailes of sexual harassment. Over a dozen women have contacted the lawyer representing former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson in the days since she filed a complaint against the company’s CEO. The stories allege that Ailes expected sexual favors in exchange for job opportunities.
Black Lives Matter protests continued throughout the weekend. Demonstrators gathered in St. Paul, Baton Rouge, Chicago, New York, and London. Deray Mckesson, a prominent leader of the Black Lives Matter movement, was arrested along with dozens of others in Baton Rouge on Saturday night. He broadcast the incident via Periscope, inciting #freederay to trend across Twitter.
Serena Williams and Andy Murray took Wimbledon. Serena won her seventh Wimbledon, tying her with Steffi Graf for the most Grand Slam wins of all time. (Both women have 22.) Andy Murray beat Milos Raonic for the men’s singles’ title on Sunday, bringing the UK some much-needed good news.
Japanese voters supported the status quo. In Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party took the majority of seats that were up for grabs. The result could mean Japan is one step closer to changing the pacifist clause of its constitution, transforming its defensive army into a fully functioning military for the first time since World War II.
Portugal defeats France in the Euro 2016 final. After moths plagued the pitch and Cristiano Ronaldo went down with an injury in the first half of the game, Portugal took home its first European soccer title. Éderzito António Macedo Lopes, AKA Eder, scored the game’s single, winning goal in extra time, no doubt breaking many hearts at the Stade de France. Parabéns, Portugal!
Quartz obsession interlude
Keith Collins on the retro code that took America to the moon. In the mid-1960s, a team of programmers at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory wrote the software that powered the Apollo 11 mission. Over the last decade, technology researchers worked with the code in semi-obscurity, until a former NASA intern uploaded the software to the code-sharing site Github on July 7. Read more here.
Matters of debate
Get the epidural. Natural childbirth involves excruciating pain, and once the baby’s here there’s plenty more pain to face.
The camera never tells the whole truth. While camera phones may provide more evidence, footage of police shootings is not enough to deliver accountability.
The Iraq war helps explain why Britain is in such a dark place today. The catastrophic decision to invade Iraq overshadowed any other achievement of New Labour. But in turning away from Blairism, many Britis also moved away from centrist, liberal, reformist politics.
Surprising discoveries
Astronauts have a penchant for masochistic horror movies. The International Space Station in-flight entertainment includes all four Alien films, Gravity, and Moon—all movies where things go very wrong for astronauts.
Philistines were actually quite sophisticated. Archeologists have found jewelry and perfume oil buried in a 3,000-year-old philistine cemetery, suggesting these Old Testament people had an elegant, cosmopolitan way of life.
Nordic countries consider sending senior citizens back to school. A proposal on mandatory further education aims to help senior citizens keep pace with the times and contribute to a competitive economy.
Freud’s notion of the “superego” isn’t as wacky as it sounds. Neuroscience research on metacognition roughly matches Freud’s theories on the role of our ethical compass.
Scientists have found a planet that gets triple sunsets. The planet, which is 320 light years away and around four times the size of Jupiter, orbits three stars, one that’s nearly twice the size of the sun.
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