🌏Yawning coronation viewers

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Here’s what you need to know

20 million tuned in to the coronation of King Charles III on TV. That’s 9 million fewer viewers than Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, and the total might have been even lower if the weather had been better in parts of the UK. Meanwhile, 52 anti-monarchy protesters were arrested, and here’s a good photo of Prince Louis yawning.

One of the first Starbucks locations to organize has voted to dissolve its union. A spokesperson for labor union Workers United blamed the coffee giant’s union-busting tactics, but Starbucks denies the claim.

Russia ordered an evacuation of the area around a Ukrainian nuclear plant. Fighting is expected to ramp up in the Zaporizhzhia area, leading a UN watchdog to warn of a “severe nuclear disaster.”

Zimbabwe is launching a local digital alternative to the US dollar. Starting today, the country will circulate digital tokens backed by gold reserves for use in peer-to-peer payments and transactions with businesses.

Did we conquer covid?

We’ve come a long way since 2020—we’ve even come a long way since the end of 2022. According to the World Health Organization, covid-19 no longer warrants emergency status. Of course, the virus hasn’t gone away, it’s just much less common and less deadly. Clarisa Diaz and Annalisa Merelli show covid’s current status in seven charts.

And did we learn anything about vaccine inequality?

Pfizer has a new vaccine on deck for RSV, a particularly gruesome respiratory virus that puts the very young and very old at risk, and its jab would also cover pregnant mothers, who would pass along protection to their infants.

But, despite Pfizer’s post-covid vaccine equity promises, it looks like the RSV shot won’t be available in low- and middle-income countries in the near future. It’s not a question of having had enough time to prepare; it’s a matter of priority and profit as Annalisa Merell reports.

How to impeach a US Supreme Court justice

US Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas is absolutely beset by scandals these days (and other days, too). Aurora Almendral provides a helpful summary of the truly stunning array of Thomas’s ethical tangles. But will they get him off the bench of the nation’s highest court?

The process is similar to impeaching a president, a process most Americans have seen go down not once, not twice, but thrice in their lifetimes:

1️⃣ The House of Representatives has to vote. If that passes with a simple majority…

2️⃣ The Senate holds a trial.

3️⃣ The Senate then votes, with a two-thirds majority needed to convict.

Impeaching Thomas could be done, though it would be largely unprecedented. There’s only been one attempt to impeach a SCOTUS justice, but Samuel Chase (nicknamed “Old Bacon Face”) was saved by the Senate vote.

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Surprising discoveries

Adidas has a Yeezy problem. When the celebrity behind one of your footwear lines hands you anti-semitic lemons, how do you turn the €500 million pile of unsold shoes into lemonade?

King Charles’s outfit was thrifted. It’s a nod to sustainability, but one re-used outfit was only a drop in the coronation’s gilded bucket.

The “devil bird” has made its way to New York. The anhinga is normally seen farther down the US east coast, but climate change is shifting habitats for all sorts of flora and fauna.

Gabriel García Márquez is still at it, nine years after his death. The late Columbian literary genius left an unpublished manuscript behind, and his family has decided the world deserves it.

The smart toilet seat is coming. It can gauge your heart rate or your blood oxygenation level, and it’s entirely unnecessary. Quartz reporter Julia Malleck explains in the latest episode of the Quartz obsession podcast how smart home gadgets are changing—and complicating—our domestic worlds.

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Want to catch up on the best surprising discoveries from last week? Here’s our roundup.

Our best wishes for a productive day. Send any news, comments, shoe repurposing ideas, and bargain ermine to [email protected]. Reader support makes Quartz available to all—become a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Susan Howson.