Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Senators grill Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees… Jeff Sessions (attorney general) and Mike Pompeo (CIA director) are the first of up to seven confirmation hearings this week. Many of the nominees have yet to be vetted for conflicts of interest. By contrast, when Barack Obama was taking office in 2009, Republicans demanded that vetting be completed before the hearings.
…and Barack Obama says goodbye. The president makes his farewell speech in Chicago, where he began his political career. Expect him to defend Obamacare, underline economic recovery figures, and urge people to fight for their democracy. Thousands lined up in frigid temperatures for tickets.
The commission overseeing the Iran nuclear deal meets in Vienna. The meeting, chaired by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, will focus on Tehran’s complaint over the US’s recent renewal of sanctions against Iran for another 10 years. Trump has promised to tear up the nuclear deal.
While you were sleeping
L’Oréal expanded its US skincare portfolio. The Paris-based company bought CerAva, AcneFree and Ambi from Valeant Pharmaceuticals for $1.3 billion, which, it says, will double the revenue of its Active Cosmetics Division in the US. Valeant is in the process of trying to reduce its $30 billion debt; it will also sell its Dendron Pharmaceuticals unit to China’s Sanpower Group for $820 million.
India’s demonetization crashed car sales. People held off buying vehicles in December after the government scrapped more than 80% of the cash in circulation in November. Car sales plunged 19% in the month—the worst drop since December 2000—while sales of scooters and motorbikes, the core of rural mobility in India, fell 22%.
Tesco won the UK’s Christmas supermarket wars. Britain’s biggest supermarket chain beat its three main competitors (Sainsbury, Asda and Morrisons) with a 1.3% growth in sales in the last quarter of 2016. The good news drove Tesco shares up (paywall) 3.5% on Tuesday morning and Morrisons by around 4%.
Snapchat chose London. A small ray of sunshine pierced the Brexit gloom as Snap, the company behind the popular video-messaging app, picked the British capital as its base for all non-US operations. Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter all use other EU countries with lower tax rates, such as Ireland, for their EU headquarters. At the moment Snap has only 75 London staff (paywall).
The rest of Yahoo became Altaba. It’s an awful but apt name for the investment company, worth roughly $36 billion (most of it in Alibaba shares), that will remain after Yahoo’s $4.8 billion sale to Verizon. Current Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer will step down from Altaba’s board, but stay on as Altaba CEO. The Yahoo web portal and its services will still exist but be integrated with AOL, also owned by Verizon.
Correction: In yesterday’s Daily Brief we said that Fiat Chrysler’s decision to invest $1 billion into its Midwestern US plants was prompted by Trump’s threats to increase taxes on imported cars. In fact, the investment plan had been in the works since 2015.
Quartz obsession interlude
Oliver Staley on the $67 billion in student debt held by US grandparents. “The number of debtors over 60 has quadrupled in a decade—to 2.8 million in 2015 from 700,000 in 2005—making them the fastest-growing age segment with student debt. While some of it was borrowed for their own education, more than two-thirds of the debt is owed for children or grandchildren.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Philosophy can teach children what technology cannot. Flexible thinking will be key in a future dominated by artificial intelligence.
Women are more satisfied with their lives than men. There’s a catch: Women also think other people are even more satisfied with their own lives.
Antitrust laws are about to become obsolete. Collusion between machines is an inevitable byproduct (paywall) of complex pricing algorithms.
Surprising discoveries
A plane crash can improve workplace morale. A company that offers intense survival classes is branching out (paywall) into team building.
It wasn’t just “Diamonds and Pearls” for Prince. The musician had more than $800,000 in gold bars stashed away at the time of his death.
Scientists figured out why peeling an orange is always messy. The fruit’s oil glands shoot out droplets at high speed.
A BBC robot traumatized a troop of monkeys. They went into mourning after the gadget plunged to its “death.”
Exercising rarely might be nearly as good as exercising regularly. Death rates from cancer and heart disease fell almost equally in a major study.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, gold bars, and extreme team-building techniques to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day or download our apps for iPhone and Android.