Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Mark Zuckerberg lobbies EU digital authorities. Following visits by Google and Apple executives, the Facebook chief meets with EU commissioners, just as they prepare to announce the creation of a single European data market.
Post-Brexit UK tells Europe what it wants. At a speech in Brussels, UK negotiator David Frost plans to say the country expects to get as good a deal as the EU’s other trading partners.
Alstom and Bombardier announce a deal. In a bid to fend off Chinese competition, the French rail giant reached a preliminary agreement to buy Bombardier’s train unit for over $7 billion.
US financial markets are closed in observance of Presidents’ Day.
Over the weekend
The coronavirus outbreak has now killed more than twice as many people as SARS. China said that 70,500 people have been infected and 1,770 have died. Meanwhile, Americans were evacuated from a quarantined cruise ship in Japan, as authorities around the world tried to track other cruise ship passengers who might have been infected.
China is reportedly considering postponing its most important political meeting. The government could cancel part or all of its annual shindig, known as Two Sessions, which sees thousands of delegates gather in Beijing for 10 days in March.
GM said it will leave three markets by the end of the year. The US carmaker is closing Holden, an iconic brand in Australia and New Zealand, and leaving Thailand, as it continues to focus on the US, Latin America, and China, and in electric and self-driving cars.
New York said it will not challenge the T-Mobile and Sprint merger. A judge approved the deal last week, despite complaints from states across the US, which said it would increase prices. California and other states could still challenge the decision.
The UK reacted to China’s pitch to build its troubled high-speed rail line. The transport secretary said there are no talks with China, but that he would look into the matter, after reports (paywall) of China’s rail giant’s offer to build HS2 faster and cheaper.
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Matters of debate
Uber’s new commission caps might not help drivers. There’s still a lot about pricing that they can’t see.
African countries’ debts to China are getting too big. Even the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are worried.
Subsidizing meat means subsidizing climate change. Governments shouldn’t prop up animal agriculture.
Surprising discoveries
A Hindu god has a reserved seat on an Indian train. Seat 64 in coach B5 is saved for Shiva in a new train connecting holy sites.
Men armed with knives stole $220 worth of toilet paper in Hong Kong. Police have caught two, and ther.
There is way too much space junk. Companies and space agencies are thinking about how to clean the dangerous trash.
A Japanese sanitation worker found ¥11 million ($100,000) in the trash… Ten envelopes of cash were in the wreckage of a broken desk.
…and a class ring lost in Maine five decades ago turned up in a Finnish forest. An amateur treasure hunter sent it back to its US owner.
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