Eurotopics.net

US President Donald Trump vaunted his own track record in his State of the Union address. He had several reasons to celebrate: the primaries for the US presidential election began with a vote-counting debacle for the Democrats, and he was acquitted in the impeachment proceedings against him. What can the Democrats do to gain ground, apart from tearing up the manuscript of Trump's speech?

Coronavirus, the first cases of which were discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, continues to spread across the globe. More than 28,000 cases and 563 deaths have been registered so far. European media examine the efficacy of the measures already taken against the virus and those still in planning.

The new British government wants to push ahead with plans to reform the BBC. One idea is to stop prosecuting those who do not pay TV licence fees. Critics accuse Johnson of wanting to weaken the BBC for political reasons and argue that licence fees are still justified. Others say the reform is long overdue.

After technical mishaps led to delays in the vote count, the first results of the Democratic primaries have emerged in the US state of Iowa, with Pete Buttigieg minimally ahead of Bernie Sanders. The decision was based on hundreds of sometimes tiny party alliances. Some journalists are shocked by the chaos. Others prefer to focus on the candidates.