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What to watch for today
The UK parliament votes on Theresa May’s Brexit deal. The embattled prime minister is expected to face a heavy defeat, which would leave her with three days to come up with an alternate plan and determine whether she remains in office.
The world’s largest religious festival kicks off. An estimated 150 million people began arriving in Prayagraj in northern India today for the eight-week Hindu ritual bathing festival. The event comes as president Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party faces a tough contest in upcoming elections.
Google employees launch a social-media protest. Workers will use Twitter and Instagram to publish a storm of posts protesting contract clauses that take away employees’ right to sue their employers over workplace harassment.
New York’s governor unveils his plan for marijuana legalization. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal could make New York the the 11th US state to legalize recreational cannabis. It’ll likely include a provision allowing local governments to continue a prohibition on sales.
JP Morgan and Wells Fargo release Q4 earnings. Analysts will look to see how much global economic uncertainty has impacted revenue, as well how executives are viewing US interest rates. Citigroup’s results yesterday beat expectations.
William Barr’s Senate confirmation hearing kicks off. Trump’s nominee for attorney general will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a two-day hearing (paywall). Barr has tried to allay Democrats’ concerns over his previous criticism of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
While you were sleeping
Donald Trump reportedly discussed pulling the US out of NATO… Several times in 2018, Trump told aides he wants to withdraw from the pivotal alliance between the US, Canada, and Europe, the New York Times reports. Advisors including the now-departed defense secretary James Mattis struggled to dissuade him from the idea.
…and sent a letter to Kim Jong Un. CNN reported that the correspondence was hand delivered to the North Korean leader over the weekend, as the two countries negotiate the details of a second summit. North Korea’s former spy chief Kim Yong Chol could visit Washington as early as this week to finalize the details of the meeting.
A cotton seed sprouted on the Moon. According to Chinese state media, this is the first time a seed has sprouted on Earth’s closest celestial neighbor. China sent the seeds of various plants on its Chang’e-4 spacecraft, which touched down on the Moon’s far side about two weeks ago.
US border troops got an extension. The Pentagon said the 5,900 troops controversially deployed by Trump as a migrant caravan approached the US will likely remain at the border through September. Trump’s hardline stance on the US-Mexico border has resulted in the longest US government shutdown in history.
Germany saw a substantial slowdown. Economic growth for the EU powerhouse slowed down to its lowest rate in five years (paywall) in 2018, the Federal Statistics Office said today. Weak export sales and global uncertainty have hit the country’s manufacturers, although strong domestic demand helped it avoid a technical recession.
China signals more stimulus measures. The world’s second-largest economy will roll out more robust stimulus measures, including $300 billion in tax cuts, amid an economic slowdown The Chinese economy last year posted its lowest GDP growth in nearly three decades.
Fuel-price protests turned deadly in Zimbabwe. Several died and hundreds were arrested in Harare and Bulawayo in protests over fuel price hikes. Newly elected president Emmerson Mnangagwa says the hikes are aimed at tackling shortages and illegal trading; critics say the measure hurts the poor.
Quartz obsession interlude
Squirrels are superpowered rodents hiding in plain sight. They’re the top cause of power outages in America, and bird feeders are all too aware of their persistence. But even though we live in such close proximity, it turns out we hardly know squirrels—a driver of strife in the cosmos, according to Norse mythology—at all. Read more here.
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Alibaba’s next step. The Chinese e-commerce giant is best known for its online shopping business, but that’s only the beginning. It’s rapidly moving into enterprises that may, at first, seem disparate, but they all have a key thing in common: They are at the intersection of people and businesses. And where those two things cross, there’s data. Sign up here to read our user guide with a 30-day free trial.
Matters of debate
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The need for sunscreen is dangerously overblown. Sunlight can have positive health effects, especially for people who aren’t at high risk of skin cancer.
The gig economy isn’t significantly changing the US economy. Contractors use companies like Uber as a stop-gap, rather than a substitute for a full-time job.
The world is choking on digital pollution. Society learned to manage the waste produced by the Industrial Revolution and must do the same with the internet today.
Surprising discoveries
Earth’s magnetic pole is on the move. It has swerved away from Canada and toward Siberia, which could affect navigation worldwide.
A Delta passenger flew with a gun from the US to Japan. The security failure took place as thousands of US airport-security workers have gone unpaid during the government shutdown.
Police defused a gas-station standoff in California with a vape pen delivered via robot. The armed suspect, who had doused the station with gasoline, was demanding a nicotine fix.
A rare Afrikaans dialect is making an unlikely comeback in Patagonia. It has survived more than a century after 650 South African Boers immigrated to Argentina.
A Bronx rapper topped the charts with only 823 album sales. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie’s 83 million streams drove his meteoric rise on the US Billboard 200.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, updated navigation systems, and superpowered squirrels to hi@qz.com. Join the next chapter of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was written by Adam Rasmi and edited by Jackie Bischof.