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What to watch for today
George Osborne lobbies US investors. With the pound at a 31-year low against the dollar in the wake of the Brexit vote, the chancellor of the exchequer will visit Wall Street to try and boost investor confidence in the British economy.
A busy day in British politics. Theresa May, the leading candidate to be the next prime minister, will focus on reining in big business in her first campaign speech. Meanwhile, Angela Eagle—finally—launches her bid for the Labour Party leadership to oust its leftist incumbent Jeremy Corbyn, who has refused to go in the face of withering criticism over his referendum performance.
Alcoa reports its earnings. Kicking off the second-quarter earnings season, the aluminum producer might reveal more information about its planned split into two entities. With aluminum prices at historic lows, investors will also be keen to hear the company’s market outlook (pdf).
Over the weekend
Line priced its IPO at the top of its range. The Japanese messaging app could raise as much as $1.3 billion with its dual listing in New York and Tokyo this week, after the company set the IPO price at ¥3,300 ($33) per share, valuing the company at $6.9 billion.
South Sudan slid towards civil war. Rival government factions fought in the capital on Sunday, leaving at least 300 people dead and deflating hopes that peace between president Salva Kiir and vice president Riek Machar would hold. The US government ordered the evacuation of all non-essential personnel from Juba.
Black Lives Matter protests continued all weekend. Demonstrators gathered in New York, Baton Rouge, and London, among other cities. Hundreds of protesters were detained, including DeRay Mckesson, a leader of the movement, who broadcast his arrest in Baton Rouge on Saturday night via Periscope.
Upsets and business as usual in sports. Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal defeated France in the moth-plagued Euro 2016 final, taking home its first major soccer title. Éder broke French hearts with the game’s single, match-winning goal in extra time. In London, Serena Williams won her seventh Wimbledon, tying her for the most Grand Slam wins ever. Britain’s Andy Murray won his second title on Sunday.
Japanese voters supported the status quo. In Sunday’s parliamentary elections, prime minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party took the majority of available seats in the upper house. The result could bring Japan a step closer to changing its pacifist constitution, which forbids it from fighting wars abroad.
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
The Iraq war explains why Britain is in such a dark place. In turning away from Tony Blair, many Brits also moved away from centrist, liberal politics.
The camera never tells the whole truth. While phones may provide more evidence, footage of police shootings is not enough to deliver accountability.
Get the epidural. Natural childbirth involves excruciating pain (paywall). Why go through it?
Surprising discoveries
Astronauts have a penchant for masochistic horror movies. The in-flight entertainment in the International Space Station includes all the Alien films, Gravity, and Moon.
Does this generation now have its version of the “flower child” photo? Perhaps this will be as iconic as this was to the Sixties.
Nordic countries might send senior citizens back to school. A proposal on mandatory further education aims to help seniors and keep them contributing to the economy.
Philistines were actually quite sophisticated. Archeologists found a cache of jewelry and perfume oil buried in a 3,000-year-old Philistine cemetery.
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.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, horror films watched in space, and superego evidence to hi@qz.com You can download our iPhone app or follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day.