Quartz Daily Brief—China’s 7% GDP, Yahoo’s SpinCo endgame, office psychopaths, cockroach romance

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Good morning, Quartz readers! What to watch for today Facebook reports its earnings. The social network is expect to post a 46% jump in fourth-quarter revenue, thanks to its booming mobile ads business. Earlier this week, its service went down for roughly one hour, but it turned out to be an internal error rather than a hacking attack. Boeing and Qualcomm also report earnings. The Fed talks interest rates. The US central bank will likely conclude its monthly policy meeting by saying it’s not raising rates just yet and will continue advising “patience” to see how the trends in the global economy play out in the US. Morgan Stanley pushed back its forecast for the first rate hike to March, 2016. New information on AirAsia flight QZ8501. A preliminary report is due on the disaster that claimed 162 lives when an Airbus A320 plunged into the Java Sea last month, but it won’t include black-box data. The current theory is that the pilot climbed far too fast (paywall), causing the plane to stall. The developer of the Uzi goes up for sale. Israel Military Industries is expected to earn the Israeli government more than $500 million. The government hopes the sale of a dozen state-owned businesses ranging from port authorities to postal services will reduce government debt and inject some life into the country’s stock market. While you were sleeping China’s 2015 GDP target will only be “around 7%.” Party leaders and policy makers endorsed the lowest goal in 11 years as a “bottom line,” according to Reuters, as the country tries to adjust to a “new normal” of slower growth. Inflation targets are also due to fall to 3%, from 3.5% last year. A weak yen gave Nintendo a much-needed bonus life. Lagging sales of the Japanese console maker’s 3DS device caused it to slash its earnings target for the fiscal year to March, to 20 billion yen ($169 million). But a weaker yen pushed its operating profit for the nine months to December to 31.6 billion yen ($270 million), from a 1.6 billion-yen loss a year earlier. Yahoo’s spin-off may not last long on its own. The new entity known only as “SpinCo” that will house Yahoo’s Alibaba shares may eventually be acquired by Alibaba itself. The key to understanding the corporate maneuvering is a fervent desire to avoid paying taxes. Canary Wharf sold itself to a Qatar-led consortium. Songbird Estates, the owner of the east London financial district, dropped its opposition to a £2.6 billion ($4 billion) takeover bid led by the Qatar Investment Authority. Songbird maintains that the site is worth more than QIA’s offer, but failed to convince another bidder to pony up more. Australia’s inflation slowed down sharply. Consumer prices rose only 1.7% in the fourth quarter compared to a year earlier, down from 2.3% in the third quarter. The data could add pressure on the central bank to lower its benchmark interest rate to achieve its inflation target of 2% to 3%. Singapore surprised the currency markets. The Singaporean dollar fell to the lowest in over four years after its central bank announced in an unscheduled meeting that it would slow the currency’s rise against a basket of currencies. The bank also reduced its inflation outlook for 2015 due to falling oil prices. SPONSOR CONTENT BY LEXUS What are the most influential product designs of the past 20 years? A panel of product designers and technologists share their choices for the most influential design in the field of electronics + communications. What they've identified encapsulates a fascinating evolution of the industry. Quartz obsession interlude Gwynn Guilford helps you identify the office psychopath.“Savoring the suffering of others isn’t merely the stuff of Fifty Shades of Grey or Hannibal Lecter. Recent psychology research reveals that most people are more likely to encounter sadism in their offices, at the hands of a colleague, than from someone with a flogger or a glass of chianti.” Read more here. Matters of debate US Muslims shouldn’t have to assimilate. Hasidic Jews and the Amish don’t. iPhone users always wanted a bigger screen. They were just too proud to admit it. Investors love everything about marijuana with one exception:The farmers who actually grow the weed. Adult snow days are dying. Most people now spend them working from home. This is the beginning of the end for ISIL. The loss of Kobane is catastrophic PR for a group that relies heavily on propaganda. The sharing economy offloads risk from corporations. The government’s safety net has to pick up the slack. Surprising discoveries WeChat users want to be targeted. Some chat app subscribers complained about not seeing BMW ads. Israeli holocaust survivors are trapped in poverty. Around a quarter of the nearly 200,000 survivors there barely get by. Sleeping pills are linked with dementia. Over-the-counter sleep drugs may put people at risk. A big butt might be good for your kids. Fat deposits in nursing mothers’ thighs and buttocks help develop infant nervous systems. A Valentine’s Day gift for someone you hate. The San Francisco Zoo is offering adoption certificates for cockroaches and scorpions. Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, weed farmer appreciations, and ill-fitting mom jeans tohi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day. You’re getting the Americas edition of the Quartz Daily Brief. To change your region, click here. We’d also love it if you shared this email with your friends. They can sign up for free here.