Insights and Updates from Around the World

If you're anything like me, the day is not complete until I complete all of the free word games from the New York Times. Working on the daily Connections, Wordle and Strands is a whole ritual for many of us. And we can't forget about the NYT's The Mini Crossword, too!

Although the NYT is known for "The Crossword," a larger puzzle for paid subscribers, The Mini has quite the fan-following as well.

Good afternoon and welcome to live coverage of Newcastle United vs Nottingham Forest from the Premier League as Eddie Howe’s men look to close the gap in the race for Champions League football. 

Newcastle are currently sat in eighth but would climb up to fifth and go within three points of Nuno Espirito Santo’s side, who are in third, with victory this afternoon. The hosts would also go level on points with Manchester City in fourth ahead of the champions’ clash with leaders Liverpool later on this afternoon.  

A first-person written message from Pope Francis was shared Sunday as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church continues his hospitalization in Rome.  

"I have recently received many messages of affection, and I have been particularly struck by the letters and drawings from children," Pope Francis posted on X Sunday. "Thank you for your closeness, and for the consoling prayers I have received from all over the world!" 

"I urge you to continue your apostolate with joy and to be a sign of a love that embraces everyone, as the #GospelOfTheDay suggests," another post said. "May we transform evil into goodness and build a fraternal world. Do not be afraid to take risks for love!" 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent a fiery message to the United States on Thursday night as his country won the 4 Nations Face-Off in an overtime thriller.Team Canada’s Connor McDavid scored the game-winning goal to give his team the 3-2 win over the U.S.The game was played amid political strife between Trudeau and President Donald Trump as the U.S. world leader has teased Canadian lawmakers about the country becoming its "51st state." Trump has openly called Trudeau the "governor" of Canada as well. It continued on Thursday ahead of the game.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a jab at President Donald Trump after Canada's victory over the United States in an international hockey tournament on Thursday.

"You can't take our country -- and you can't take our game," Trudeau wrote on X.

Canada bested the United States 3-2 with an overtime goal to win the 4 Nations Face-Off at TD Garden in Boston. Participating teams included NHL hockey stars from Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States.

The highly-anticipated final came after a fiery clash between Canada and the U.S. in an earlier game on Feb. 15 where several fights broke out in the opening seconds of the first period. The U.S. won that game 3-1.

It appears that the feeling was mutual between Matthew Tkachuk and Brandon Hagel.

Immediately following puck drop on Saturday’s 4 Nations Face-Off match between USA and Canada, won 3-1 by the Americans, Tkachuk and Hagel threw their gloves to the ground and sparred with each other.

Their fight was the first of three in the opening nine seconds of the match.

The 4 Nations Face-Off is currently taking place in Montreal and Boston until Feb. 20. It is a best-on-best tournament with teams from Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States featuring NHL players only.

To get fans ready for the 4 Nations Face-Off and to help celebrate the past quarter-century, NHL.com will be naming Quarter-Century Teams for each of the four nations.

Today, we present the First and Second Quarter-Century Teams for the United States, as selected by U.S.-based NHL.com staff writers Bill Douglas, Nicholas J. Cotsonika and Dan Rosen. The players, listed in alphabetical order, were judged based on their NHL stats and international contributions from Jan. 1, 2000, to Dec. 31, 2024.

People in Mexico will still see the name Gulf of Mexico, with international users seeing both names, Google said. The change follows an executive order from President Trump.

Google has renamed the Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America in its Maps application for users in the United States.

The company started implementing the change after the U.S. government updated the name on its official maps, Google said in a statement on Monday. President Trump ordered U.S. authorities to make the change to official maps in an executive order he signed on his first day in office.

In the U.S., the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has officially updated “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America.” As we announced two weeks ago and consistent with our longstanding practices, we’ve begun rolling out changes to reflect this update. People using Maps in the U.S. will see “Gulf of America,” and people in Mexico will see “Gulf of Mexico.” Everyone else will see both names.

Google Maps users in the U.S. can now officially see the "Gulf of America" label over the Gulf of Mexico.

Why it matters: The name change, ordered by President Trump upon taking office, has sown confusion among journalists, map makers and government agencies.

The big picture: However, Google indicated last month that it would reflect the name change once it had been updated in official government sources.

Alexis Ohanian served up the perfect compliment following his wife’s Super Bowl Halftime Show presence.

After Serena Williams briefly appeared onstage at the Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans with Kendrick Lamar, her husband gave his own personal rating on X (formally known as Twitter) Feb. 9, writing, “Pretty fantastic halftime show.”

And the moment was big for the Grand Slam champion, who was seen dancing during the fellow California native’s halftime show.

Serena—who shares daughters Alexis Olympia, 7, and Adira, 16 months with the tech mogul—took the stage during Kendrick’s Drake diss track “Not Like Us,” where she appeared in a blue tennis skirt set as she hit her dance moves.

Complete and utter dominance. On the biggest stage, with the Chiefs dominating the headlines in their attempt to win a third consecutive title, the Eagles comprehensively manhandled them in New Orleans. The 40-22 final score in Super Bowl LIX seems unfair both to a Philadelphia defense that shut down Kansas City until a couple of garbage-time touchdowns in the fourth quarter and to a Kansas City defense that battled gamely before finally getting overwhelmed by short fields and the sheer volume of snaps it had to play.

Imagine being a Chiefs fan and getting to see pieces of the box score of this game in advance. The Chiefs did the best job any team has done all season against Saquon Barkley, who ran 25 times for 57 yards. The Eagles went 3-for-12 on third downs, failed to convert their only fourth down, turned the ball over in the red zone and averaged 5.1 yards per play, fewer than the Chiefs. All of that sounds like the sort of game the Chiefs would expect to win given what they're capable of doing on offense.

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The PlayStation Network has been experiencing a multi-hour outage that began on Friday evening.

According to Sony's PSN status page, account management, gaming and social, PlayStation Video, PlayStation Store, and the PlayStation Direct website are all dealing with issues.

While PlayStation users are able to play offline games, the outage rendered the online aspects of games such as Fortnite, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and Marvel Rivals inaccessible.

Josh Allen beat out two-time winner Lamar Jackson for the Most Valuable Player award in the closest race since Matt Ryan beat out Tom Brady in 2016.

Allen, who led Buffalo to a fifth straight AFC East title, got 27 first-place votes to Jackson’s 23 and finished with 383 points. He received 22 second-place votes and one third.