Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
The Pope meets Muslim clerics on a historic visit to the UAE. On the first papal visit to the Arabian Peninsula, Pope Francis will attend an interfaith conference and meet the grand imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque today, followed by an open-air mass in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
European nations are set to recognize Venezuela’s interim president. The UK, France, and Germany warned they would make the move to recognize Juan Guaidó if the current president, Nicolás Maduro, failed to call fresh elections. The US and Canada have already recognized Guaidó, who gained another ally in the Venezuelan military over the weekend.
Angela Merkel’s Japan visit begins. The German chancellor will hold talks with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. The two leaders will discuss ways to strengthen their economic ties in the face of American isolationism, and as each seeks to balance relations with China.
The Lunar New Year holidays begin in China. The Year of the Pig technically begins on Feb. 5, but people will get a week off starting today. Many visit family, travel, and go shopping. Retailers, including ones in Japan bracing for Chinese tourists, worry they won’t spend as freely as in years past.
GM slashes thousands of white-collar jobs. Ahead of its earnings report Wednesday, the automaker is expected to start laying off at least 4,000 salaried workers in North America. It’s part of a massive restructuring designed to help the company prepare for a future of autonomous vehicles and electric cars.
Alphabet reports its fourth-quarter earnings. Investors hope the company that has amassed a fortune from Google ad products will share more details on its other lines of business, which include the cloud, self-driving cars, and the Play Store.
Over the weekend
The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. Quarterback Tom Brady became the first NFL player in history to secure six Super Bowl titles, after the Patriots’ 13-3 victory over the Los Angeles Rams.
A former mayor declared victory in El Salvador’s presidential election. Nayib Bukele, onetime mayor of capital San Salvador, won around 54% of the vote with nearly 90% of the ballots counted. He defeated candidates from the two major political parties that have dominated the country’s politics since a 1992 deal that ended the civil war.
Virginia’s governor did some remarkable backtracking. A day after apologizing for appearing in a racist 1984 photo—showing one person wearing black face and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe—Democrat Ralph Northam said that upon further reflection he did not believe he was in it, and would not resign.
Russia pulled out of a landmark nuclear arms control treaty. The move came on Saturday, a day after the US did the same. Signed in 1987, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty banned the use of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles by both countries. The US and its NATO allies had accused Russia of violating it.
More Democrats announced their presidential bids. Tulsi Gabbard, a congresswoman representing Hawaii, criticized politicians “thinking up new wars to wage” in a speech in Oahu. That followed New Jersey senator Cory Booker entering the race on Friday, the first day of Black History Month.
Nissan scrapped plans to build the new X-Trail model in Britain. The carmaker warned that while it made the decision for “business reasons,” uncertainty over Britain’s departure from the EU on March 29 was making it difficult to plan for the future. It will now build the vehicle solely in Japan.
Quartz obsession interlude
Rosie Spinks on the man who started the celery wellness craze. “But it’s not celery in its roughage-filled stalk form that has been showing up in your Instagram feed in the past few months—it’s glasses of celery juice, a pale green potion that’s the latest buzzy wellness elixir, credited with treating a slew of ailments. From its humble beginnings as a vegetable that is 95% water, celery has climbed the ranks of aspirational vegetables with staggering speed.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Join the conversation with the new Quartz app!
Being a progressive NFL fan presents moral dilemmas. For starters, players do real damage to their brains as they play for our entertainment.
Digital free market forces are killing journalism. The commercial internet is incompatible with profitable journalism.
The next tech revolution will be inspired by peace, not war. The convergence of biology and engineering will find solutions for major crises.
Surprising discoveries
A German World War I grenade was found among potatoes from France. Hong Kong police detonated the explosive outside the snack company it was shipped to.
Residents of Utqiaġvik, in Alaska, saw the sun rise after two months. The northernmost US town sees months of darkness in winter, and round-the-clock daylight in summer
British foodies have discovered a sustainable, local meat: grey squirrel. Chefs are using the meat of the regularly culled invasive species in pancakes, croquettes, and lasagne.
Baby flamingos are getting a taste of city life. Thousands of chicks have been airlifted from drought-struck breeding grounds in South Africa to the country’s cities.
Uzbekistan’s universities will resume teaching political science. It was removed from the curriculum in 2015 after the government deemed it a pseudoscience
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, rare sunrise photos, and political science textbooks to hi@qz.com. Join the next chapter of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was written and edited by Yenni Kwok and Tripti Lahiri.