BBC
While countries around the world have struggled to recover from the economic setbacks brought on by the pandemic, one has emerged particularly strong.
With a fast-growing economy, a strong labour market and falling inflation, the US has outpaced its counterparts in Europe and elsewhere.
In terms of GDP, it posted a 3.3% gain in the fourth quarter of 2023, far exceeding economists' expectations of 2%.
That put the US at 2.5% over the course of the year, outpacing all other advanced economies and on track to do so again in 2024.
"The US is holding up much better than other countries," said Ryan Sweet, Chief US Economist, Oxford Economics. "It seems like the engine of the US economy continues to hum along where it's sputtering in other nations."
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Super Bowl 2024 announcement: Why Beyoncé is reclaiming country music
BBC
Beyoncé's new album might be an act of defiance as well as a nod back to her roots in Texas.
She's the artist who mastered the surprise album drop back in 2013, and last night Beyoncé proved she can still catch us off-guard when, midway through the Super Bowl, she dropped two brand new tracks, announced details of her upcoming album, and revealed that she is heading in a whole new direction: country music.
Exactly a week since Taylor Swift announced at the Grammys that her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, would be out in April, pop music's other hardest working woman gave us yet more new music to look forward to with the second act of the singer's Renaissance project – which began in 2022 with her dance and house music-inspired album.
NPR
When former President Donald Trump recalled a story at a campaign rally in South Carolina over the weekend about telling a European ally that the U.S. would not defend it against Russia unless it spent more on defense, the reaction was swift and unsurprising.
One of the things I'm not going to do any longer is respond to every comment Donald Trump makes and say, 'Do you still support him?' I do, and I support him because Joe Biden's a disaster.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
The White House, in an uncharacteristic comment, called Trump's story, where he allegedly told a fellow world leader he would encourage Russia to "do whatever the hell they want" to countries that did not meet NATO spending targets, "appalling and unhinged."
NATO's leadership said the suggestion that any member country would violate Article 5's mandate that an attack on one is an attack on all "undermines all of our security," while Republican lawmakers in Washington, D.C., had to answer questions about the remarks in interviews on television and in the hallways of the Capitol.
NPR
Millions brace for a brief but intense nor'easter that is expected to pummel the Mid-Atlantic and New England with high winds, coastal flooding and up to a foot of snow in some areas starting Monday evening.
The blustery weather has already prompted hundreds of Tuesday flight cancellations at airports in Boston, New York and New Jersey, according to airline tracker FlightAware.com.
The storm is part of the same system that doused the Gulf Coast and parts of the South with rain and heavy wet snow over the weekend and on Monday. It has been trekking toward the northeast for days and is set to move quickly into the Atlantic.
Reuters
BEIRUT/PARIS, Feb 12 (Reuters) - France has delivered a written proposal to Beirut aimed at ending hostilities with Israel and settling the disputed Lebanon-Israel frontier, according to a document seen by Reuters that calls for fighters including Hezbollah's elite unit to withdraw 10 km (6 miles) from the border.
The plan aims to end fighting between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel at the border. The hostilities have run in parallel to the Gaza war and are fueling concern of a ruinous, all-out confrontation.
The document, the first written proposal brought to Beirut during weeks of Western mediation, was delivered to top Lebanese state officials including Prime Minister Najib Mikati by French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne last week, four senior Lebanese and three French officials said.
It declares the aim of preventing a conflict "that risks spiraling out of control" and enforcing "a potential ceasefire, when the conditions are right" and ultimately envisions negotiations on delineation of the contentious land border between Lebanon and Israel.
The Guardian, UK
The UK has lost more than three-quarters of its great skuas on surveyed sites since bird flu struck, according to the first report quantifying the impact of H5N1 on seabird populations.
The deaths have happened over two years, since the outbreak of H5N1 in 2021. The UK is internationally important for seabirds, home to most of the world’s 16,000 pairs of nesting great skuas.
Jean Duggan, a policy assistant on avian influenza for the Royal Society for the Protection of
Birds (RSPB), said: “To have that level of loss in a population we have international responsibility for is quite catastrophic.
“Globally, it’s very significant and has a knock-on effect for populations across the globe,” she said.
The UK also has more than half of the world’s northern gannets, which declined by 25% in the sites surveyed, according to the report by the RSPB, the British Trust for Ornithology and other conservation bodies.
Ed. note: For those who are already missing news of Taylor Swift, this one is for you.
The Guardian, Europe
For Allan Villa, seeing Taylor Swift live in concert is an unmissable experience, worthy of the backbreaking travel that will be required to take him there. From Masbate Island, where he lives, Villa will travel four hours by boat to the Luzon mainland and then 12 hours by bus to Manila, where he will take a more than four-hour flight to Singapore.
In the process he will probably spend several months’ worth of salary to attend the concert there on 4 March.
But having loved Swift since he saw the music video of Our Song from her 2006 debut album, Villa says the effort will be worth it.
“I will probably cry the whole night,” he says.
The Guardian, Australia
The 22-year-old, who went viral for her chronicling of the war, tells Bankstown Poetry Slam about life under bombardment in Gaza
At the Bankstown Poetry Slam, there was poetry – and there was Plestia.
The spoken word grand slam drew an audience of more than 2,000 people to Sydney’s town hall on Monday night, many wearing keffiyeh in solidarity with the Gazan star act, Plestia Alaqad, whose sudden rise to global prominence has been set against the most brutal of backdrops.
The 22-year-old was propelled into the limelight after 7 October, when, as an aspiring journalist in Gaza, she began filming and sharing the effects of Israeli bombardment. Her social media feeds documenting life in the Palestinian territory fast became a record of the devastation of her home city.
Deutsche Welle
Donald Trump’s questioning of the core of NATO has sent a chill through allies in Europe. They are working on contingency plans should Trump return to the White House. But the damage to the alliance seems already done.
NATO "cannot be an 'a la carte' military alliance, it cannot be a military alliance that works depending on the humor of the president of the US," Josep Borrell, the foreign policy chief of the European Union (EU), told reporters in Brussels in response to Donald Trump's recent comments about NATO.
On Saturday, at a campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump had told the crowd that, as president, he had warned NATO allies that he "would encourage" Russia "to do whatever the hell they want" to countries that did not "pay [their] bills." His comments sent a chill across Europe, alarming NATO's European members, already agitated about the prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency.
"Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg responded in a statement on Sunday.
Deutsche Welle
Indian police erected metal and concrete barricades on the highway to the national capital on Monday and banned public gatherings in Delhi, as thousands of farmers in north India are set to march to the parliament to demand minimum crop prices.
Several farmer unions have called for a 'Delhi Chalo', or 'March to Delhi' protest, echoing the agitation which began in late 2020 against three farm billswhich would have eroded government support for India's agricultural sector. The protest lasted over a year with hundreds of protesters killed, and culminated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's national government repealing the laws.
They were the largest public disturbances and mass protests faced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government since his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came into power in 2014.
Deutsche Welle
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides on Monday called on Germany to help the island overcome its decades-old division, since Berlin maintains better relations with fellow NATO member Turkey.
Christodoulides discussed the issue at a meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who became the first German president to visit Nicosia on Monday.
"Our message is that the solution lies in Ankara," Christodoulides said after the meeting.
Steinmeier said that Turkey's actions on the island of Cyprus should be taken into account when assessing its overall relations with the European Union.
"Member states should send this message to Turkey," he said, speaking through an interpreter.
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) eeff, Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.