USA - New class is latest to explore a pop icon’s impact, with other universities offering courses on Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. Brook’s Beyoncé class will be offered by multiple departments, including those of African American studies, women’s gender and sexuality studies and American studies and music. Students at Yale University are getting the chance to take a class entirely devoted to Beyoncé, school officials have announced. The class – titled Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music – will be taught by the African American studies and music professor Daphne Brooks beginning in the upcoming spring semester.

PHILIPPINES - The Philippines issued new weather warnings on Tuesday as the fifth major storm in three weeks bore down on the archipelago, days after thousands were evacuated ahead of Typhoon Toraji. Now a weakened tropical storm, Toraji blew out to sea overnight after causing relatively limited damage and no reported deaths. But Tropical Storm Usagi was now just two days away from the country’s northeast coast, the national weather agency said. The government said it had evacuated more than 32,000 people from vulnerable areas in the northern Philippines ahead of Toraji’s Monday landfall, weeks after Severe Tropical Storm Trami, Typhoon Yinxing and Super Typhoon Kong-rey killed a combined 159 people.

ISRAEL - The seemingly separate conflicts in the Middle East and Europe are in fact different parts of a single global war, experts said last night. It follows Israel’s recent and successful attack on Iran, which has neutralised Tehran’s ability to deliver new missiles and drones to Russia for use in Ukraine, and threatened its ability to export large quantities of oil to China. Israel’s sophisticated 25 October attack was “without question the most sophisticated use of air power in the history of air warfare”, said Professor Gwythian Prins, a former advisor to Nato and the UK’s chiefs of staff. With sophisticated intelligence assets on the ground, Israel’s air force “obliterated the eyes and teeth” of Iran’s air defence capabilities including radar systems as far afield as Iraq, Abadan and the Indian Ocean coast.

RUSSIA - Russia and Ukraine both launched record drone attacks on each other overnight, as the Kremlin said it saw "positive signals" from US President-elect Donald Trump over his desire to strike a deal to end the conflict. Trump's election to the White House has the potential to upend the almost three-year conflict and has thrown into question Washington's multi-billion-dollar support for Kyiv, crucial to its defense. The Republican said on the campaign trail that he could end the fighting within hours and has indicated he will talk directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin — a major break from the approach adopted by President Joe Biden. Trump will not be inaugurated until January and for the moment on the battlefield and in the skies, the conflict shows no signs of subsiding. "At least he's talking about peace, and not about confrontation. He isn't talking about his wish to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia — that distinguishes him from the current administration," Peskov added.

MIDDLE EAST - Trump’s first term as president was notably successful in reconciling Israel with its Arab neighbours. While much of the world’s attention is focused on the incoming Trump administration’s approach to the Ukraine conflict, another of Donald Trump’s key foreign-policy priorities will be to bring peace and stability to the Middle East. The region afforded the president-elect some of his more notable foreign-policy achievements during his first spell in the White House. They include spearheading the campaign to destroy Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in Syria, and negotiating the Abraham Accords, the groundbreaking peace deal that saw several Arab states normalise relations with Israel.

USA - Formally identified as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of manmade chemicals known as PFAS are found in everything from soil and food to common household items and water. An overabundance of these compounds has been detected in US drinking water and that of other industrialized nations, sparking discussion on control and mitigation among experts. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to serious chronic health issues such as increased risk of certain cancers, fertility problems, and immune system challenges. Unlike some industrial chemicals, PFAS don’t break down and are difficult to destroy, thus earning the moniker “forever chemicals.” With more than 7,200 public water systems affected, water and waste professionals say tackling America’s contaminated water is no easy task.

GERMANY - An obsession with green energy has the German economy on the brink of collapse. Germany has foolishly been chasing a dream of achieving net greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045, and this has taken a very heavy toll on the German economy. German GDP contracted in 2023, and it appears that it will contract again in 2024. The manufacturing sector is dealing with the greatest crisis that it has faced since the 1940s, the big banks are struggling, and the coalition that was running the government has collapsed.

UK - Labour has been accused of dealing another Budget blow to farmers with its so-called “fertiliser tax”. In the Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed plans to introduce a levy on key agricultural imports such as fertiliser in order to meet net zero goals. The carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), due to begin in 2027, will tax carbon-emitting imports such as fertiliser, cement, aluminium and products from the hydrogen and steel industries. It comes amid outrage over the Chancellor’s £1 million cap on agricultural property relief, nicknamed the “family farm tax”, also introduced in the Budget. The carbon tax on fertiliser is expected to be set at around £50 to £75 per tonne. Government sources said they expect the impact on farmers to be modest and for there to be no effect on food prices. But farmers disagree. "If you tax fertiliser, you make it more expensive. We’re going to use less of it. That means we’ll produce less food. We’re not going to eat less food in this country, so we’re just going to import it from a country that doesn’t tax fertiliser.”

UK - Labour’s total ignorance of the reality of a farmer’s life will undoubtedly lead to mass protest. The Labour Government’s Budget reforms – in particular a new 20 per cent levy on farmers passing on assets worth more than £1 million from April 2026 – is stirring them to take their tractors beyond their own estates or contracted farms; to steer their combines and heavy machinery onto our motorways and to London. If the Government ploughs on with its seemingly anti-farming policy then there may be protests. And chances are they’ll be farm-like ones: noisy and stinky. “The £1 million cap to APR [Agricultural Property Relief] shows how little this Government understands the sector,” said Tom Bradshaw, the president of the National Farmers’ Union. “Just because a farm is an asset, it doesn’t mean those who work it are wealthy.” He added that “farmers have been left reeling” and demanded the changes be “overturned and fast”. He didn’t add, “or else”, but that’s the feeling among many farmers.

UK - Church of England clergy have declared that “God is not a white man” and are working to make images of Jesus more diverse. Dioceses across the country are reviewing how biblical figures should be depicted as part of a drive for “racial justice”. Clergy have been urged to question whether images of Jesus truly “reflect diversity”. One diocese has declared that “God is not a white man” and moved to ensure it used “correct images” that better reflected diversity. This was relayed to the Church’s new racial justice unit and included in a 2024 report into how dioceses are meeting diversity and inclusion targets. These targets were set in 2021 by the Archbishops’ “anti-racism taskforce”, which advocated for affirmative action for jobs within the Church.

GERMANY - Tens of thousands of people celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall 35 years ago in Germany’s capital on Saturday with open-air concerts, art installations and official events commemorating one of the country’s most historic days on November 9, 1989. It was “a lucky day for which we Germans are still grateful today,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.

MIDDLE EAST - Qatar has told Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel it will stall its efforts to mediate a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal until they show "willingness and seriousness" to resume talks, its foreign ministry said on Saturday. The Gulf country has been working alongside the United States and Egypt for months on fruitless talks between the warring sides in Gaza and any disengagement from that process could further complicate efforts to reach a deal. The Qatari ministry also said press reports on the future of the Hamas political office in Doha were inaccurate without specifying how. Reuters had on Friday quoted a US official saying Washington had asked Qatar to expel the group and that Doha had passed this message on to Hamas."Qatar will resume those efforts with its partners when the parties show their willingness and seriousness to end the brutal war," Qatar's foreign ministry said.

MIDDLE EAST - Qatar has told the leaders of Hamas to leave the country where they have enjoyed a luxurious exile for many years, just days after President-elect Donald Trump won the US election, according to reports in the Israeli media. Hamas, the Palestinian terror group, has been able to protect many of its leaders because they have taken refuge in Qatar and Turkey, both of whom are US allies. Turkey is a member of NATO, while the Biden-Harris administration declared Qatar a major non-NATO ally, despite its ongoing support for Hamas and other terrorist organizations. The Biden-Harris administration had pressured Qatar to evict Hamas. But Trump’s election seemed to be the trigger.

USA - Independence campaigners have hailed "a revolution in Texas politics" after 10 Republicans who have committed to supporting a referendum on secession from the United States were elected to the state legislature. According to the secessionist Texas Nationalist Movement, the 10 politicians, all of whom won seats in the Texas House of Representatives, were signatories to its "Texas First Pledge." Signatories of the pledge have vowed to "vote for legislation and resolutions to call for a vote on Texas reasserting its status as an independent nation" and to "work toward a fair and expedient separation of Texas from the federal government" if this referendum is won.

GERMANY - Germany’s coalition government collapsed on Wednesday night as Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, sacked his finance minister, Christian Lindner, after last-ditch crisis talks. Scholz announced that he would hold a vote of confidence in January, which would lead to early elections in March if he were to lose. Germany’s conservative opposition has called for the vote of confidence to be held straight away. Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) chairman, said Scholz’s three-party coalition between his Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and and the neo-liberal Free Democrats (FDP) had “failed”.