Twenty Things: Did You Know...?

Nilüfer Yanya longlisted for BBC's Sound of 2018/BBC.

Newbie news nuggets picked from the press.

1. Train fares in Britain will go up by an average of 3.4% from 2 January - its biggest rise in 5 years.
2. Unreliable behaviour is said to be the reason for director Bryan Singer's dismissal from the new Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody.
3. Relative poverty in the UK - how someone is doing financially compared with the rest of the country - has remained more or less stagnant meaning inequality is as bad as it was two decades ago.
4. Katy Perry and the Catholic Church have been awarded almost $10m (£7.5m) in damages after the star's plans to buy a former LA convent ended up in court.
5. Is Omar Abdulrahman the best footballer you've never heard of? They call him "the Arabian Messi" and his trademark hair has been copied by fans all over the region.
6. Spain has withdrawn an international arrest warrant for ex-Catalonia leader Carles Puigdemont and four other ministers, because they showed a willingness to return from their exile in Belgium before regional elections on 21 December.
7. Homes north of Los Angeles lay deserted as thousands were forced to flee from a fast-moving wildfire ripping through the area.
8. Children are not allowed to use Facebook, but the prevention methods are trivial, meaning more than 20 million under-13-year-olds are thought to be using the network.
9. UK's next named storm, Caroline has been forecast to hit Scotland on Thursday followed by snow for the wider UK in its wake.
10. Ministers in the UK are to face MPs' questions about the failure to strike a Brexit deal yet. The UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019 having voted for Brexit in last year's referendum.
11. Boy band beats: Rak-Su have been named the winners of the X Factor 2017. The Watford-based group are the first boy band to win since the ITV singing competition started in 2004, while the show recorded its lowest ever overnight ratings for a final since 2010, when a peak of 17.2 million saw Matt Cardle take the crown.
12. Reggie Yates will not host BBC's Top of the Pops holiday specials this year after making "ill-considered remarks" in a podcast interview about Jewish people.
13. England is in the top 10 of the world's best primary school readers in global rankings, according to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study.
14. Eat this: A tweet from a 16-year-old who wanted a year's free supply of chicken nuggets was the UK's most retweeted of 2017.
15. Diabetes UK says a trial, where nearly half of patients have reversed type 2 diabetes by triggering massive weight loss, is a "watershed" moment.
16. Children need to be educated on the risks associated with streaming sites, as sex offenders are increasingly using live online streaming platforms to exploit them, police have warned.
17. US rapper High Class Filth has met his 81-year-old game rival at her retirement home after striking up a friendship online.
18. Nilüfer Yanya is on BBC's Sound of 2018 longlist. Growing up in West London, the 22-year-old was immersed in music by her artist parents, who have Turkish, Irish and Bajan heritage.
19. The New York Times had to make a correction after quoting as fact Kanye West's views on his bum from a spoof article posted by satirical news site The Daily Currant in 2014, while back in 1956, writer Jack Gould in the paper managed the following on Elvis: "Mr Presley has no discernible singing ability".
20. Sexsomnia is a rare type of sleep disorder related to sleepwalking. People in this state can talk, walk, eat, cook, drive or even have sex, without clear consciousness or memory.

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