Good morning, Quartz readers!
We apologize for the delay in today’s brief, due to a technical oversight.
What to watch for today
James Mattis goes abroad. For his first foreign trip as Donald Trump’s defense secretary, the former Marine general will head to Asia, where he’s expected to reaffirm commitments to key US allies South Korea and Japan. The two countries host around 80,000 US troops combined.
The US Federal Reserve wraps up its first policy meeting of the year. Another interest-rate hike is possible but unlikely. The central bank is still assessing the impact of the new administration, as analysts look for clues about the timing of future increases.
Facebook releases fourth-quarter results. Expect another blockbuster quarter as the company builds on its dominance in mobile advertising. Investors will be watching to see if Facebook can maintain its dizzying pace of revenue growth, which may require it (paywall) to capture some advertising market share from TV companies.
While you were sleeping
India unveiled its 2017 budget. The government will inject around $1.5 billion into state-controlled lenders to try to boost loan growth. Finance minister Arun Jaitley promised to boost rural spending through a scheme guaranteeing rural households 100 days’ work a year—last year’s sudden demonetization hit farmers and poor people badly.
Donald Trump announced his Supreme Court nominee in prime time. Adding a dash of reality TV to the US’s highest court, the president chose Neil Gorsuch, a federal judge from Colorado. Gorsuch has been described as the intellectual heir to Antonin Scalia, the late conservative judge whom he will replace if confirmed. Gorsuch, though, is even more conservative.
Ban Ki-moon said he wouldn’t run for president of South Korea. The former UN secretary-general was widely expected to run in his home country; instead he apologized and said he was withdrawing from politics. Recent corruption allegations involving his relatives have dented his approval ratings. The ruling conservatives now don’t have a replacement candidate for impeached president Park Geun-hye.
Euro-zone manufacturers enjoyed a healthy start to 2017. The weak euro helped bump businesses in France, Italy, and Germany to their best level in nearly six years (paywall) in January, according to IHS Markit’s purchasing managers’ index. Job creation is on a roll too, especially in Spain. Greek manufacturers were the odd ones out: January’s score, 46.6, was their worst in 16 months.
Roche’s profit got a kick from drugs. The Swiss pharma company reported 8% profit growth in 2016 over the year before, thanks to robust sales of its medicines and diagnostic tools. Roche is bracing for the financial impact of copycat versions of its two best-selling cancer drugs (paywall) in 2017.
Quartz obsession interlude
Jenny Anderson on the cognitive bias that makes people unreasonably afraid of terrorists: “An average of 11,737 Americans a year were shot dead by another American (21 of them by toddlers), 737 were killed by falling out of bed, and nine were killed by Islamic jihadists—who in most cases were US citizens, not immigrants.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Uber is the wrong target for liberal outrage. The company got caught up in airport protests against the US “Muslim ban.”
Trump is teaching a master class in autocracy. He is following in the footsteps of repressive kleptocrats in Hungary, Venezuela, and South Africa.
We should give up on tidying and embrace the mess. Research shows that “pilers” do better than “filers.”
Surprising discoveries
Mushroom coffee is being touted as a superfood. A Finnish company claims its blend of organic coffee and wild mushrooms (the legal sort) lowers blood sugar levels.
The weasel that took down the Large Hadron Collider is going on display. It was electrocuted by an 18,000-volt transformer after hopping over a fence.
Dozens of falcons got their own seats on a plane. The trained hunters are frequent passengers on flights to the Middle East.
China has stolen millions of US jobs—but not the ones you might think. The computer and electronics industries—not steel or autos—were hit hardest.
Indians have finally identified a killer fruit. Investigators discovered that the lychee (paywall) has been killing malnourished children for decades.
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