Weekend edition—Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg, citizenship by investme nt, closed captioning

Plus: The Emmys will, thankfully, be chaos. [Quartz]( Sponsored by Good morning, Quartz readers! Today, we’re remembering US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with [a look at four key moments]( that embodied her razor sharp view of the world and how to live in it. Ginsburg, who was the second woman to ever serve on the nation’s highest court, died last night following complications from cancer. She was 87. Citizens of the world Before Covid-19, [connections and money]( could buy almost anyone the right to live pretty much anywhere they wanted. The industry known today as CRBI—citizenship and residence by investment—began in 1984 in the Caribbean nation of [St. Kitts and Nevis]( which offered a passport to foreigners who “invested substantially” in its economy. Today, more than half of the world’s 193 countries will [trade citizenship or residency]( for cash. The now $25 billion industry has [attracted criticism]( from those who say passports for purchase turn democracies into havens for criminals and facilitate money laundering and tax evasion. The pandemic has led to unprecedented border closures and travel restrictions, which has helped the CRBI industry grow. It’s also [prompting high-net-worth individuals to turn away]( from traditionally prized passports like the US and toward countries with high-quality healthcare systems. Because of Covid-19, investors are looking for countries perceived to have dealt with the pandemic better than others, according to Paddy Blewer, public relations director for London-based CRBI advisory firm Henley & Partners. That applies to Germany, Portugal, Australia, and New Zealand. Essentially, he says, if people can work remotely from anywhere in the world, they are asking themselves one question: If another pandemic comes around, where would they prefer to be? More Brits, Canadians, and Americans, whose passports are among the most valuable in the world, are becoming CRBI applicants. Henley & Partners [reports]( “a dramatic 100% increase in enquiries from US citizens in the first six months of 2020,” which Blewer attributes to economic instability and a poor handling of the coronavirus. US citizens aren’t getting ready to leave en masse, he says, but they’re looking to hedge their bets. —Annabelle Timsit and Youyou Zhou Sponsor content by Bright Cellars Two MIT grads walk into a bar. Then promptly walk out, because there's a pandemic going on! Instead, they've developed a seven-question quiz that matches wines based on your preferences and delivers them directly to your door. Intrigued? [Take 50% off your first order today.]( Five things on Quartz we especially liked Crowd control. India’s famously lavish, multi-day nuptials are getting leaner by necessity during Covid-19. In this insightful piece, [Manavi Kapur writes]( that health restrictions have many couples saying their vows in front of a mere 100 witnesses, compared to a mainstream Hindu wedding’s typical 500 guests. Some millennial brides and grooms-to-be have welcomed the change, which has brought with it huge savings and greater autonomy. For the industry, the effects have been more complicated, but not entirely devastating. —Lila MacLellan, senior reporter We’re so hot for them and they’re so cold. -70°C (-94°F) is crazy cold, colder than the North Pole in January. It’s also the temperature at which one experimental Covid-19 vaccine needs to be kept—colder than necessary for most pharmaceuticals currently in circulation. [Olivia Goldhill explains]( how healthcare facilities are working to get their hands on these super cold freezers, and how the entire supply chain would have to make changes to get these vaccines to where they’re needed. —Alex Ossola, special projects editor We built this city on…office workers? I fled a small-town childhood for a life in the big city, so I was eager to read [Lila MacLellan’s article]( on whether metropolises can survive without white-collar workers and the companies that employ them. The TL;DR answer is “no,” but the creative solutions for how to encourage those businesses to stick around, while making cities more livable for everyone, give me hope. —Liz Webber, senior news curator The Native American approach to forest management. Fires are burning across large swaths of the US. [Tim McDonnell’s story]( suggests that part of the problem lies in the idea that fires can and should be prevented. His explanation of the indigenous tactics that rely on a mixture of controlled burns and forest thinning left me hopeful that there may be a way to mitigate damage in the future—but only if the federal government gives more license to Native American tribes. —Sarah Todd, senior reporter The Emmys like you’ve never seen them before (thankfully). Formerly a sucker for awards shows, I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’d tuned in to any of them until I read [Adam Epstein’s piece]( about the virtual chaos that could be the 2020 Emmys this Sunday. Is it possible that, as a genre, the bejeweled red carpet has gotten stale? The iconic US TV awards show’s declining viewership indicates that something certainly has, and an unscripted journey into the homes of the glitterati could give the Emmys the boost it sorely needed. —Susan Howson, news editor Quartz announcement You told us the Daily Brief makes you smarter. We love keeping you up to date every morning. Help us continue to do this and support our journalism by referring a friend to the Quartz Daily Brief. [Sign up]( for our new referral program today and start earning exclusive prizes too. Closed captioning finds a new audience [Vintage TV Spot Advertising Closed Captioning] Giphy While members of the deaf and hard of hearing community have relied on closed captioning for decades, there has been a recent, noticeable rise in usage of the service by [Gen Z](. Younger, hearing people have opted to turn on CC for various reasons, from [multitasking]( to [education]( to [ADHD]( or simply because it feels [comforting](. Read more about the history of [closed captioning]( its potential AI future—in the Quartz Weekly Obsession. Want to see our newest Obsessions as soon as they’re published? Sign up below. [⚡ Sign me up!]( Subscribe with one click. Live from New York: The Future of the TV Ad Giphy The transformation of the TV advertising industry can be told through Saturday Night Live. For a long time, the show really was live, and advertisers loved the simplicity of it, knowing exactly how they were connecting with viewers. But that’s not how we watch Saturday Night Live anymore. Today, nearly 60% of SNL’s viewership comes from digital platforms. And 60% of the viewing on those digital platforms is “short-form consumption”—meaning most fans are watching sketch by sketch. Viewing within digital is also consumed in vastly different ways on an array of different devices. More options are great for the consumer, but a nightmare for advertisers as they try to decide how much to spend on each medium, and how their messaging should change depending on the platform. Read more in [our field guide]( on the future of the TV ad. ✦ What about email ads? Here’s one: Becoming a Quartz member lets you support something you love while deleting something you don’t—paywalls. [Start a free trial today](. Five things from elsewhere that made us smarter Facebook’s India quagmire deepens… As if the platform wasn’t already in the soup in India, [an Ozy investigation]( by Maroosha Muzaffar shines brighter light on how the social media giant’s advertising rules in the country helped prime minister Narendra Modi create an image of invincibility. Meticulously investigating advertising buys amounting to $680,000, Muzaffar found that almost all the pages buying these ads were linked to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. What’s more worrying, there is no way to trace who is funding these pro-BJP proxies. —Manavi Kapur, Quartz India reporter …as it fans the flames of genocide in Ethiopia. After a popular ethnic Oromo singer was murdered in June in Addis Ababa, a now all-too-familiar sequence of events ensued—posts inciting attacks against specific religious or ethnic groups proliferated on Facebook, and violence and destruction promptly erupted. For Vice News, [David Gilbert explores]( how the social network is trying to operate in Ethiopia’s volatile ethnic landscape, as critics charge that it’s simply doing the bare minimum to moderate hate speech. —Isabella Steger, Asia deputy editor Here comes the sun. The Beatles! India! A solo traveler looking to mend his broken heart! A chance meeting! The only thing that could possibly make this story better is if there were video evidence of it—and, you guessed it, there is. Once traveler, now director Paul Saltzman has turned what he describes as “a magically pure meeting” [into a documentary]( but even the stills hold enough charm to conjure, if fleetingly, a few days of Indian magic with the Fab Four. —Annalisa Merelli, geopolitics reporter Water access politics. This week, the California Coastal Commission was supposed to decide on the future of a tiny town called Marina, as well as the future of environmental justice in the state, Rosanna Xia [writes for the LA Times](. California American Water, an investor-owned water utility company, sought to build a polluting desalination plant in Marina, which is already saturated with the environmental waste of industrial activity. A day after Xia’s piece was published, Cal Am [withdrew its proposal]( after “talking more about the environmental justice concerns.” That’s journalism in action. —Katherine Ellen Foley, health and science reporter Meet Dr. Phosphine. The search for life beyond Earth is detective work: Find the clues, rule out false positives, identify a suspect. [Sarah Scholes reports in Wired]( that scientists have done just that on Venus, where telescopes spotted the signature of a unique chemical called phosphine. On Earth, it is produced by life-forms that don’t require oxygen (or from physical activities, but those don’t seem to take place on the super-hot second planet from the sun). What’s left is the tantalizing possibility that the chemical came from a biological process—or that our data aren’t right, or Venus has some fun geophysics we don’t yet know about. —Tim Fernholz, senior reporter Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, Beatles anecdotes, and wedding invitations to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by [downloading our app]( and [becoming a member](. Today’s Weekend Brief was brought to you by Annabelle Timsit, Youyou Zhou, and Susan Howson. [facebook]( [twitter]( [external-link]( Enjoying Quartz Daily Brief? Forward it to a friend! They can [click here]( to sign up. If you’re looking to unsubscribe, [click here](. Quartz | 675 Avenue of the Americas, 4th Fl | New York, NY 10011 | United States Copyright © 2020 Quartz, All rights reserved.