Quartz Daily Brief—Euro zone growth, Rolls-Royce warning, David Carr RIP, NASA’s space submarines

Good morning, Quartz readers! What to watch for today Tim Cook addresses Barack Obama. The Apple CEO will speak at aWhite House cybersecurity summit in California, amid tension between tech companies and the US government over privacy and surveillance issues. The CEOs of Facebook, Yahoo, and Google all declined invitesto the event. Air France negotiates layoffs. Labor unions will meet with the airline to discuss potential cost-cutting measures, ahead of the French airline’s quarterly earnings announcement next week. A heads-up from Hasbro. The toymaker will webcast a presentationfrom the annual US Toy Fair, as investors wait to hear which toys it hopes will make it big this year. Fifty Shades of Grey hits the big screen. Based on a series of novels that have sold more than 100 million copies, the film is expected to rake in over $60 million during the Valentine’s Day weekend. The early reviews are not good. While you were sleeping The euro zone showed signs of life. Faster-than-expected growth in Germany and Spain overcame weakness in Italy and Greece to push fourth-quarter GDP up by 0.9% from a year earlier. The weaker euro, low oil prices, and anticipation of the central bank’s big bond-buying program were contributing factors. Rolls-Royce issued a profit warning. The British engineering company blamed slower European and Chinese growth, as well as the low price of oil, saying it expects a maximum pretax profit of £1.55 billion ($2.39 billion), this year, down from last year’s £1.62 billion. Shares fell 3% in early trading. Egypt sprung two Al-Jazeera reporters from a Cairo jail. Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed left prison after more than a year, following a court decision to release the pair on bail. The two reporters were jailed with Australian Peter Greste for allegedly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which all three men deny. Spanish deflation deepened. Consumer prices fell for the seventh consecutive month, dropping 1.5% in January from a year earlier. Euro zone prices are expected to fall in value by 1% this year, before rising again in 2016. Hong Kong hosted a blockbuster umbrella IPO. Jicheng Umbrella, China’s biggest umbrella exporter, saw its shares shoot up over 50%on the company’s first day of trading, just a few months after the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement paralyzed the city. Xiaomi dipped a toe into the US market. The Chinese smartphone maker will sell earphones and fitness trackers within the next few months, but not its low-price, high-spec handsets—at least for now. Xiaomi is increasingly facing off against Apple’s iPhone, but patent issues may constrain its expansion. New York Times columnist David Carr died. The 58-year-old journalist collapsed suddenly in the Times offices, just hours after interviewing NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden (who appeared remotely) and journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Quartz obsession interlude Matt Phillips on why women should be running the finance world.“It’s a well-established fact that pretty much everything on earth would run better if women were in charge. That dictum would seem to extend to the financial markets. Look no further than the February edition of the prestigious American Economic Review for a quick refresher on the rafts of research that lead to such a conclusion.” Read more here. Matters of debate Don’t fight anxiety. It’s a necessary part of being a moral person. America is the best at imprisoning people. But it’s no longer workingas a way to reduce crime. Don’t kick the robots. Google risks creating an “unfriendly AI.” Muslim lives don’t matter to the US media. Coverage of a North Carolina triple murder is proof. Don’t believe the Modi hype. The Indian prime minister isn’t as powerful as investors would like him to be (paywall). Surprising discoveries NASA wants to send a submarine to Titan. The ship will delve into the Saturnian moon’s methane seas. Liquor will get you art in Russia… For one day only, artists in St. Petersburg are trading their work for booze. …But most Finns are there for the gas. They’re driving over the border to take advantage of the cheap ruble. China has an anthem for internet censorship. Selected lyrics: “Where the Internet is, so is the glorious dream.” Please don’t overfeed the crocodiles. Bangladeshis killed a 100-year-old croc by giving him too many sacrificial chickens. Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, censorship anthems, and space submarines to hi@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.