Quartz Daily Brief—Obama’s big speech, China’s GDP miss, Twitter’s India acquisition, planetary destruction thresholds

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Good morning, Quartz readers! What to watch for today BP tries to use low oil prices to its advantage. The company’s lawyers will tell a US federal court that falling oil prices should result in a lower fine (paywall) for the Deepwater Horizon spill that devastated the Gulf of Mexico. Netflix’s overseas progress. Investors will have an eye on expansion outside of the United States, where the streaming video service has focussed on increasing its user base as growth wanes in the United States. Coach, Delta Air Lines, IBM, and Johnson & Johnson also report quarterly earnings. Obama’s state of the union. The US president’s annual address is expected to focus on middle-class households and their role in the country’s economic recovery. Expect at least one applause line directed at Larry Merlo, the CEO of CVS Health, the US drugstore chain that rid its stores of tobacco products last year—he’ll be amongfirst lady Michelle Obama’s guests for the evening. While you were sleeping China’s GDP growth was the slowest in 24 years. China’s economygrew 7.4% in 2014, missing the government’s 7.5% target, due in part to lower exports and a weak property market. Fourth-quarter GDP rose 7.3%, slightly above expectations. ISIL threatened two Japanese hostages. The Islamic State vowed to execute two Japanese men unless it received a $200 million ransom. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who has backed the anti-ISIL coalition, called the threat “unforgivable” during his state visit to Israel. Twitter bought its way into India. The social network acquired ZipDial, which offers Indian users mobile access to information and media without the use of smartphones or the internet, for an estimated $30-$40 million. China’s biggest conglomerate diversified its ownership. Citic Group sold a 20% minority stake to Japan’s Itochu and Thailand’s CP Group for a combined $10 billion. China’s state-owned giants are increasingly looking to bring in outside investors as part of the government’s financial reforms. Google is preparing a billion-dollar investment in SpaceX. The search giant is interested in using Elon Musk’s space company to provide internet via satellite, according to the Information (paywall). The Wall Street Journal reports the sum being discussed is around $1 billion (paywall), valuing SpaceX at more than $10 billion. Mutual funds are launching their own dark pool. Nine of the world’s biggest fund managers, including Fidelity, Blackrock, and JPMorgan, are starting a trading venue that will remove some client stock trades from public exchanges to protect them from predatory high frequency traders. The consortium will be run at little to no profit to avoid conflicts of interest. A suspicious death in Argentina. Prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead in his apartment just before he was due to present evidence to parliament that president Cristina Kirchner covered up Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center. A gun and bullet casing was found at Nisman’s side. SPONSOR CONTENT BY THUNDERHEAD.COM 82% of customers are turned-off by a one-size fits all approach.Fresh research looks at the customer engagement challenge in unprecedented depth, and reveals how vital it is to put customers at the center of everything you do. Quartz obsession interlude Cassie Weber on the growing concentration of wealth at the very top of the 1%. “Gather together the wealth of the world’s richest people, and you now only need 80 of them before there’s enough in the pot to equal everything owned by the poorest 50% of the rest of the world combined. Back in 2010, you’d have needed 388 of the world’s richest to balance those scales.” Read more here. Matters of debate Paleo diet boosters don’t understand evolution. The Paleolithic erawas not a fun time to be human. When did the Anthropocene era start? The current geological period arguably began with the first atomic bomb test. The New York Times knifed France in the back. Running an op-ed by Marine Le Pen was a serious error. Inequality isn’t inevitable—it’s engineered. The 1% use lobbyists and accountants to prevent wealth from being redistributed. Surprising discoveries School in Swaziland was delayed by a week. The African country’s king needed students to weed his fields. The Sun’s topless model days may be over. The British tabloid’s notorious pin-ups have been the target of a recent lobbying campaign. The heads of India’s state-run banks are on burger-flipping salaries. They make $11.40/hour. Astronomers have finally witnessed a “blitzar.” The millisecond radio wave bursts contain as much energy as the sun emits in a million years. There are nine thresholds keeping us from planetary destruction. We’ve crossed four of them. Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, Argentine conspiracy theories, and blitzar sightings to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day.