
The number of recorded measles cases in Europe more than tripled between 2017 and 2018, marking the highest it’s been in a decade, the World Health Organization said. According to newly released data from the WHO, in 2018, more than 82,000 people were infected with the disease and 72 people died in Europe. In 2017, there were more than 25,000 measles cases in Europe and 42 deaths.

The UK's service sector stagnated last month, with new orders falling for the first time in two-and-a-half years, according to the IHS Markit/CIPS purchasing managers' index (PMI). The figures showed a reading of 50.1 in January lower than December's 51.2.

Denmark has started building a 70km fence along its border with Germany in an effort to control the migration of wild boar. There are fears that African swine fever, which has been found in two dead wild boars in Belgium, could threaten Denmark's huge pig industry. If the disease spreads, it could jeopardize almost US$ 1.7bn in pork-product exports from Denmark.

Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo has paid a fine of almost €19 million for tax fraud in Spain on Tuesday but will avoid a 23-month prison sentence as part of the deal.

Four people are going on trial in Paris over an alleged scheme that fed consumers across Europe frozen foods containing cheap horse meat fraudulently labelled as pricier beef.

Google has been fined 50 million Euros by the French data regulator CNIL, for a breach of the EU's data protection rules. CNIL said it had levied the record fine for lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent regarding ads personalisation.

The European Council President Donald Tusk told David Cameron to “get real” over his “stupid referendum” before the 2016 Brexit vote, a BBC documentary reveals. Mr Tusk tells the three-part show that he warned the then prime minister there was no “appetite for revolution in Europe” and he “could lose everything”.

Leading German figures have written to the UK asking it to stay in the European Union. The letter, published in The Times, is signed by 31 people, including the leader of the Christian Democratic Union - and likely successor to Angela Merkel - Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and former Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has said a no-deal Brexit looks “less and less unlikely” and has launched a contingency plan to prepare for it. After the UK Parliament rejected the withdrawal agreement, Mr Philippe said laws had to be passed and millions invested in French ports and airports.

Such is the anger with the Speaker of the UK Parliament at senior levels of government, it has been suggested he could be blocked from getting a peerage when he retires. Ministers are furious at what they see as John Bercow's bias during Commons debates on Brexit.