Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Trump addresses a joint session of the US Congress for the first time. Markets will look for details on tax reform, infrastructure spending, and other issues, but it’s anyone’s guess what the US president will focus on. His first solo press conference on Feb. 16 was nothing short of bizarre. The speech will be broadcast live in primetime.
Apple’s annual shareholder meeting. Investors have plenty of reasons to be happy: Shares closed at their highest price ever earlier this month. This will likely be the last meeting at Apple’s old Cupertino digs before it moves to a new spaceship-shaped headquarters.
A crucial update on the US economy. Q4 GDP figures, expected to post a 2.1% increase on-year, will largely decide whether Fed officials hike interest rates “fairly soon.”
While you were sleeping
Uber ousted its head of engineering over sexual harassment allegations. Amit Singhal, who left Google last year, failed to disclose to Uber that he was under internal investigation for an alleged encounter with a female coworker. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, whose company is under scrutiny over an allegedly sexist culture, reportedly asked for Singhal’s resignation.
SpaceX said it will fly two space tourists around the moon in 2018. CEO Elon Musk said two anonymous private individuals—who would not fly the craft except in an emergency—have placed a “significant deposit” with the company. The mission will use SpaceX’s Dragon 2 spacecraft and Falcon Heavy rocket.
Donald Trump vowed to boost military spending. The US president’s proposal would raise the Pentagon’s budget—already bigger than the militaries of the next eight countries combined—by $54 billion. The White House may try to pay for the increase by cutting money for foreign aid and environmental protection.
Japan’s industrial output unexpectedly fell. In the sharpest month-on-month decline since May 2016, it dropped 0.8% last month. Economists had predicted a slight increase. Among the culprits: a slowdown in shipments of cars to the US. Meanwhile retail sales rose 1% on-year, close to expectations.
Jewish facilities across the United States suffered another wave of bomb threats. Sites in over a dozen states including New York, Florida, and Michigan were evacuated; no evidence of explosives was found. Jewish schools, cemeteries, and community centers have suffered from a string of attacks in the last two months.
Quartz obsession interlude
Devjyot Ghoshal on Trump’s infuriating silence over an Indian engineer’s murder: “Indian-Americans are among the most successful and educated minority groups in the US today… If a well-educated, law-abiding, and legally-employed immigrant can’t work in the US without fearing for his life, who can?” Read more here.
Markets haiku
Who knew it was hard?
Fixing Obamacare? No:
Giving out Oscars
Matters of debate
The moon deserves to be a planet. A new paper argues it is geophysics, not orbit, that should determine planetary status.
Trump’s “America First” policies are non-discriminatory. They target all immigrants, as Hindu Indians are fast finding out.
Mobile phones are unnatural. Communicating with someone who isn’t physically present is disembodying and intrusive.
Surprising discoveries
A Mumbai-based startup made a low-level employee a rupee millionaire. The sale of Citrus Pay netted an errand runner about $75,000 in stock options.
Humans and dolphins share a skill. Blind and sighted people alike can be trained to echolocate their surroundings with tongue clicks.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg has the world’s most important personal trainer. He keeps the 83-year-old US Supreme Court justice in shape and out of retirement.
Alphabet’s hate-fighting AI doesn’t understand hate. “Perspective,” a tool to fight online hate speech, is struggling to identify it.
Spain appointed a special commissioner to encourage baby-making. Edelmira Barreira Diz will work to understand why Spain’s death rate is outstripping its birth rate.
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