Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Car and motorcycle giants report. Harley-Davidson is expected to report a dip in earnings as its popularity wanes with young people. Ford and Fiat-Chrysler are expected to post a rise while GM’s results remain uncertain.
US state elections. New Yorkers will vote in about a dozen legislative races (paywall). Democrats are looking to win firmer control of the state Senate, where they’re stuck in a power-sharing arrangement with Republicans. In Arizona, Democrats are unlikely to win a solidly Republican congressional district, but the GOP is still worried about a narrowing margin.
Emmanuel Macron presses Donald Trump on Iran over dinner. The president is welcoming his French counterpart with the administration’s inaugural state dinner. Macron is expected to urge Trump to keep the Iran nuclear deal alive.
While you were sleeping
Toronto police said the van-attack suspect wasn’t associated with a terrorist group. The 25-year-old suspect is in custody after ploughing into a crowd in the city on Monday afternoon. Police chief Mark Saunders said last night that the death toll rose to 10, while 15 are in hospital with injuries.
Didi Chuxing revved up for a multi-billion IPO. The Wall Street Journal reports (paywall) that the Beijing-based ride-hailing behemoth could go public in the second half of this year—and is hoping to hit a valuation of at least $70 billion. Didi, already dominant in China, is eyeing expansion in Latin America and Asia.
Former president George H.W. Bush was kept in intensive care. Bush has been in hospital since Sunday morning—the day after his wife Barbara’s funeral—with a blood infection. The 93-year-old is responding to treatment and “appears to be recovering,” according to the Bush family spokesman.
The Iranian president warned Trump. President Hassan Rouhani said the US must stay in the nuclear deal or face “severe consequences.” Co-signatories Russia, China, Germany, Britain, and France want to preserve the agreement, but Trump has threatened to reinstate US sanctions on Iran if the deal is not amended.
KPMG braced for a shareholder rebellion. Shareholders in Wells Fargo and General Electric, two of KPMG’s biggest clients, want to ditch the auditing company (paywall). Both firms are under investigation by regulators after a number of scandals.
Quartz obsession interlude
Mike Murphy on the only reasons to stay with the iPhone. “Being able to carry a conversation regardless of what device you’re on, or being able to share a photo you’ve taken on your iPhone to your Mac over iCloud and to a friend over AirDrop, being able to go for a run and have your vitals tracked and your favorite music playing with nothing more than some earbuds and a watch—these are all great Apple experiences that have little to do with which version of iPhone you currently have.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Amazon is three companies in one. The company’s salary data reveal its composite structure—like a three-way merger (paywall) between Google, UPS, and Walmart.
Cruelty to robots is immoral. The behavior of humans toward sentient droids in Westworld (paywall) illustrates how harming a robot is identical to harming a person.
Charlotte is the first British princess who hasn’t been upstaged by the patriarchy. Despite the birth of a baby brother, new rules mean she doesn’t lose her spot in the line of succession.
Surprising discoveries
There’s a global shortage of exorcists. The Vatican announced a new training course to meet increased demand for exorcisms.
Uranus smells like farts. A spectrometer on a high-powered telescope confirmed high levels of malodorous hydrogen sulfide molecules.
Tokyo’s in the grip of its worst-ever hay fever outbreak. Nearly half the city’s residents are sufferers, and it’s costing the economy (paywall) billions of dollars a year.
A wounded US soldier got the world’s first penis transplant. A team of surgeons operated for 14 hours to transplant a penis, scrotum, and partial abdominal wall from a deceased donor.
French language purists have a problem with “soy milk” and “vegetarian sausage.” They don’t want food producers to call things by their animal-based equivalents.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, an old priest and a young priest, and hay fever remedies to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day or download our apps for iPhone and Android. Today’s Daily Brief was written by Jill Petzinger and edited by Lianna Brinded.