Twenty Things: Did You Know...?

Rami Malek as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury/EW.

National and international news nuggets picked from the press.

1. Several people have been hurt in clashes between police and anti-fascist demonstrators in the city of Hannover in Germany. With temperatures near freezing, Hanover police used water cannon, batons and pepper spray to clear a path for 600 far-right delegates.
2. President Donald Trump's ex-national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in January over the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.
3. Donald Trump has responded to the guilty plea by his former national security adviser by saying Mr Flynn's actions as a member of his transition team "were lawful".
4. Turkey's chief prosecutor has issued an arrest warrant for former CIA officer Graham Fuller. Supporters are buying the argument that a giant Western-led conspiracy against Turkey is slowly being unearthed.
5. US author Christopher Bollen has won the Bad Sex in Fiction Award for his novel "The Destroyers". Other works shortlisted include "The Future Won't Be Long" by Turkish-American author Jarett Kobek, which likens sexual intercourse to a "pulsing wave", a "holy burst" and a "congress of wonder".
6. According to a report from America's Foreign Service Institute (FSI), which teaches languages to diplomats, Turkish is one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn.
7. Quebec is the only Canadian province where French is the sole official language.
8. Backpacker Tony Giles is completely blind and severely deaf and wants to visit every country in the world independently. So far he has visited more than 120 countries.
9. An Egyptian lawyer has been sentenced to three years in prison for saying that women who wear ripped jeans should be raped in punishment, while Egyptian ex-Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq has been deported from the UAE, reports say, days after saying he wanted to run in the 2018 presidential poll.
10. Lebanese pop star Amal Hijazi has broken her retirement by releasing a song in honour of the Prophet Muhammad. Her decision to retire and start a new life as a devout Muslim surprised millions of fans earlier this year.
11. After years of delays, production has finally started on a biopic of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury - played by Mr Robot star Rami Malek. Actors including Johnny Depp, Ben Whishaw and Sacha Baron Cohen had been linked to the role, only to drop out.
12. The US state of Hawaii has tested a nuclear attack warning siren for the first time since the end of the Cold War. The resumption of the monthly tests comes amid a growing threat from North Korea's missile and nuclear programme.
13. White House national security adviser HR McMaster says the US is "in a race" to address the threat from North Korea.
14. Researchers have now developed a new approach to estimate the true size of very large earthquakes, measuring changes in gravity instead of seismic waves, to give more rapid information.
15. A man who swung his toddler stepson by the ankles and smashed his head into a fireplace has been been jailed for a minimum of 13 years - thanks to a Facebook photo.
16. New York's Metropolitan Opera says it has opened an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against the conductor James Levine.
17. Almost 12,000 adults are suspected of being at risk of abuse or neglect in Wales, new official figures have shown.
18. All four members of the board of the UK government's Social Mobility Commission have stood down in protest at the lack of progress towards a "fairer Britain", because the government is too focused on leaving the European Union.
19. Around five million Britons have neither the literacy, numerical or digital skills necessary to fully function in today's society.
20. About 35 million people have died of HIV-related illness worldwide since the virus was first identified in the early 1980s, according to World Health Organization (WHO).

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