Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Samsung’s heir faces arrest. Lee Jae-yong, the Samsung Group’s de facto leader, is being investigated in a bribery case related to South Korea’s widening corruption scandal. A court will decide whether to approve Lee’s arrest warrant, which accuses him of directing company funds to a confidant of president Park Geun-hye Park.
More confirmation hearings for Trump’s cabinet. The Senate is due to grill Rep. Tom Price, the health secretary nominee, about potential conflicts of interest and his plan to repeal Obamacare. Environmental Protection Agency nominee Scott Pruitt will face questions on his climate change denial, and UN ambassador nominee Nikki Haley and Commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross will also be in the hotseat.
The US economy gets a report card. The labor department will release new data on the consumer price index, which rose 1.7% in November. The Federal Reserve will publish its industrial production index, with economists expecting an increase of 0.6% in December.
While you were sleeping
Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning. She is serving a 35-year sentence as a transgender woman in a male military prison, and twice tried to commit suicide last year.The former army intelligence officer gave hundreds of thousands of secret military and diplomatic documents to Wikileaks.
British American Tobacco sealed a mega-merger. The $49.4 billion takeover of Reynolds American will create the world’s biggest listed tobacco company. BAT, which previously owned 42% of Reynolds, sweetened its previous offer by $2 billion.
Theresa May announced a clean break with the EU. In a long-awaited speech, the British prime minister said that the country would abandon the common European market after giving parliamentarians would one final vote on the deal. May said she would try to get a tariff-free trade agreement with the bloc and retain some aspects of its customs union.
Mattel hired a Google executive as CEO. Margaret Georgiadis, a company outsider and a tech-industry veteran, will run the biggest US toy company. The move is aimed at staying relevant in an age of technology.
Nigeria mistakenly bombed a refugee camp. The airstrike meant for Boko Haram instead killed more than 100 refugees and aid workers.
Quartz obsession interlude
Steve LeVine on Quartz’s geopolitical forecasts for 2017: “The anti-elite uprisings all around us appear to signal the close of one era, and the advent of a new, unknown one. … But we are in a void at the moment—the dangerous period before a new age fully takes hold, and systems, nations and movements are up for grabs.” Read more here.
Quartz haiku interlude
New day, new chaos
Easier to lasso wind
Than parse policy.
Matters of debate
The rules that have kept the world together since 1945 are under attack. Outgoing US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power had some stern words for Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump is reviving the “Great Man” theory of history. The president-elect “resists analysis as a predictable, impersonal force.”
African mobile operators and startups should work together. Large telcos can provide monetary support to smaller firms, and draw talent from them in return.
Surprising discoveries
Airbus’ flying car is on its way. CEO Tom Enders said a prototype self-driving vehicle will take to the skies by the end of this year.
Fiji is getting useless donations from Australia. Instead of chainsaws, wooly sweaters and high heels, aid agencies would rather citizens send cash instead.
Vampire bats have developed a taste for human blood. Scientists in Brazil found human DNA in feces samples from the hairy-legged winged mammals.
Putin thinks Russian prostitutes are “the best in the world.” Even so, he doesn’t believe allegations that Donald Trump made their acquaintance.
Fake news may lead to genocide in South Sudan. Falsehoods spread on social media are causing massacres in the world’s youngest country.
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