Cases: 45,188

Deaths: 1,116

GERMANY - The sheer scale of BlackRock's finances makes its influence on the world unlike that of any other company. Now one of its board members in Germany, Friedrich Merz, wants to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel. He has sat on the boards of several major companies, including Commerzbank, HSBC, the insurance company AXA, and the German real estate developer IVG. During his career as a Bundestag member, he opposed the minimum wage and argued for cutting social benefits and limiting the power of trade unions. His possible ascension to the chancellery would therefore grant the financial power broker unprecedented control of Europe's largest economy.

GERMANY - German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s succession plan was upended Monday when the head of her conservative party said she wouldn’t run for the chancellery and would step down as party leader later this year. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer defeated rivals to become chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union with the backing of Ms Merkel in late 2018 but her tenure has been marred by criticism in the media, weakening opinion-poll results and electoral setbacks. Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer, who will continue to serve as Germany’s defense minister, cited her refusal to work with fringe parties on the left and the right — a position that has been increasingly questioned by midlevel party officials — as one reason for her decision, according to party officials.

UK - On February 6, the Financial Times bannered a scoop under this headline: “Donald Trump ‘apoplectic’ in call with Boris Johnson over Huawei.” The argument was over the decision of the British prime minister to allow the Chinese-government-controlled tech manufacturer Huawei to participate in Britain’s next-generation cellular network, known worldwide as 5G.

UK - Nigel Farage said there is “growing” concern in Washington over Boris Johnson’s decision to allow Chinese telecom giant Huawei the rights to work on Britain’s 5G infrastructure. Following a meeting in the Oval Office, the leader of the Brexit Party said that many Republican senators and congressmen have “genuine” fears that allowing Huawei access to British 5G networks could jeopardize the security relationship between the two nations. Mr Farage told The Telegraph that President Donald Trump’s official message is that “the UK must do what’s right for the UK” but he noted that the feeling in Washington is firmly against the move. “I have picked up from speaking to some senators and congressmen this week a level of concern that does not appear to be going away. It is a genuine security concern,” Farage said.

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned Gaza-based terror groups that Israel would take “crushing action” if the rocket and incendiary balloon attacks continue. “I want to make this clear: We won’t accept any aggression from Gaza. Just a few weeks ago, we targeted the senior Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza, and I suggest that both Islamic Jihad and Hamas refresh their memories,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. “I will not go into detail about all of our actions and plans for the media, but we are prepared to take devastating action against the terrorist organizations in Gaza. Our actions are very strong and they have not yet ended, to put it mildly,” he said. Defense Minister Naftali Bennett also warned Hamas terror leaders that Israel would take “lethal action against them.”

USA - A bombshell investigation from ProPublica revealed that law enforcement in Kansas is running a debtor’s prison and throwing people in jail over their medical debt. The story focused on the case of Tres and Heather Biggs’ who fell behind on their medical bills for their son’s leukemia and Heather’s Lyme disease. What happened next was nothing but sheer tyranny. Welcome to Coffeyville, Kansas, where the judge has no law degree, debt collectors get a cut of the bail, and Americans are watching their lives — and liberty — disappear in the pursuit of medical debt collection.

USA - A wind turbine’s blades can be longer than a Boeing 747 wing, so at the end of their lifespan they can’t just be hauled away. First, you need to saw through the lissome fiberglass using a diamond-encrusted industrial saw to create three pieces small enough to be strapped to a tractor-trailer. The municipal landfill in Casper, Wyoming, is the final resting place of 870 blades whose days making renewable energy have come to end. Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the US alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. “The wind turbine blade will be there, ultimately, forever,” said Bob Cappadona, chief operating officer for the North American unit of Paris-based Veolia Environnement SA, which is searching for better ways to deal with the massive waste.

USA - Over the last several decades, have we ever seen a year start as strangely as 2020 has? Global weather patterns have gone completely nuts, large earthquakes are popping off like firecrackers, it looks like the plague of locusts in Africa could soon develop into the worst in modern history, and a massive plague of bats is severely terrorizing parts of Australia. On top of all that, African Swine Fever is wiping out millions upon millions of pigs around the globe, the H1N1 Swine Flu is killing people in Taiwan, there have been H5N1 Bird Flu outbreaks in China and in India, and the H5N8 Bird Flu has made an appearance at a poultry facility in Saudi Arabia.

USA - Coronavirus tests US medical system’s unhealthy reliance on China for drugs, supplies… 97% of antibiotics and 80% of pharmaceuticals in US are imported from China. The basic building blocks of US health care are now under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. Everything from antibiotics to chemotherapy drugs, from antidepressants to Alzheimer’s medications to treatments for HIV/AIDS, are frequently produced by Chinese manufacturers. What’s more, the most effective breathing masks and the bulk of other personal protective equipment — key to containing the spread of coronavirus and protecting health care workers — and even the basic syringe are largely made in China. The basic building blocks of US health care are now under Xi’s control.

UK - Former member of al-Qaeda turned MI6 spy said that there “is no such thing as a rehabilitated jihadist” and that efforts by the British authorities to deradicalise convicted terrorists will not work. Aimen Dean, who joined the Mujahideen at the age of fifteen and was later recruited into al-Qaeda by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who helped mastermind the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York, said that he doesn’t “believe in deradicalisation”. The former terrorist, who went on to work as a spy for the British intelligence service MI6, told The Telegraph that Islamist terrorists are “extremely treacherous” and that if they don’t confess and help to do “damage” to their jihadist cause of their own volition like he did, “you can’t trust them.”

IRAN - Could General Qassem Soleimani’s dramatic demise provide the shock therapy to persuade those who wield real power in Tehran to admit the failure of a strategy that has led Iran into an impasse? This was the question discussed in a zoom conference with a number of academics from one of Iran’s leading universities. The fact itself that the issue could be debated must be regarded as significant. It indicates the readiness of more and more Iranians to defy the rules of silence imposed by the regime and raise taboo issues more or less openly.

LIBYA - The conflict in Libya is at a crossroads. One of the possibilities is for Europe to succeed in implementing a permanent ceasefire, dispelling foreign forces in Libya, delicately imposing a siege, stopping the inflow of arms into the country, and forcing enemies to let go of their military ambitions and to resort to compromise instead. The second possibility is for the fighting to continue, with Turkey continuing its military support al-Sarraj and making available weapons, training, military consultants and fighters of different nationalities that have gained extensive experience during the long years of battle in Syria.

USA - Actor Corey Feldman's new documentary called '(My) Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys', which is set to release on March 9, is touted to be a provocative exposé where the musician and one-time teen idol will reveal the details of the most "emotionally trying" period of his life. However, there's a catch for the much-anticipated documentary — viewers will only get one chance to watch the film.

Cases: 40,531

Deaths: 910