The World

The White House has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics, slated to begin on Feb. 4. The decision was due to China’s “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.” Also, the most prominent political leader in Myanmar, 76-year-old Nobel prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, was given a four-year prison sentence on Monday. Hours later, the head of the military junta lowered her prison term to two years. Plus, before the Beatles invaded the United States, their record label attempted to get them to sing two of their big hits in German. They did well — it turns out they could speak passable German and French — but grudgingly.