1. The invulnerable singer broadened into a wider emotional palette – musical too, with guitars and brass lacing through synthetic beats and dub effects. It could recall art-rock godmother Kate Bush (see the single "Green Light").

2. Taobao, subsidiary of Alibaba, came in second place, with a brand value of $42.9 billion, overtaking China Mobile, Baidu and ICBC.

3. 那么，何种力量将决定大众明年提出的问题？这取决于你的身份（和居住地）。虽然购房者在新的一年里还将迎来高风险的竞购战，但是纽约市的偏远社区（说的就是你，大广场区[Grand Concourse]）将会有大量寻求廉价住宅的潜在居民——所谓廉价，也只是针对那些令多数普通人可望而不可及的黄金地段，相对而言的。

4. 在成为德国最大贸易伙伴之前，中国是德国在亚洲的最大贸易市场。在过去两年里，德国一直是中国在欧洲最大的贸易伙伴。

5. Debrecen is Hungary's second largest city after Budapest, and the heart of low-cost Hungary.

6. This year the list features nine heads of state who run nations with a combined GDP of $11.8 trillion — including the No. 1 Power Woman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The 24 corporate CEOs control $893 billion in annual revenues, and 16 of the women here founded their own companies, including two of the three new billionaires to the list, Tory Burch and Spanx’s Sara Blakely. Speaking of, this year’s class has 14 billionaires valued in excess of $82 billion.

应用

1. The former pupil at Audenshaw's Poplar Street Primary is studying at Withington Girls' School and starts at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls in September. She lives with her parents, Neelanga and Shiromi, who moved to Manchester from Sri Lanka in 2001. Dad Neelanga, 44, praised Nishi's first teachers at Poplar Street Primary. He said: 'We knew very early on that she was gifted. She started reading and writing very early and was became very good at mathematics. We gave her challenging, interesting things to do. As a parent, you do not want their talents to be wasted, but there has to be a balance with their childhood. She is just a normal 10-year-old, just like any other 10-year-old really. She loves reading, cycling and walking, and we're all very proud of her.'

2. Entrepreneurs are movers and shakers. They can’t afford to analyze every detail or they’d never get anywhere. There is no place for procrastination in a startup. It’s a 24/7, no-vacation-or-sick-days kind of job that demands constant forward momentum. Make a brief assessment at every step and move on it. Trust your instincts.

3. James Bond 23 may still be quite a ways away from actually happening, as star Daniel Craig is commited to three chapters in the Millennium Trilogy, starting with the currently in-production The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. There is currently no talk of hiring someone else to play James Bond, but if Craig is to reprise the role a third time, we still won't see James Bond 23 until 2014 at the earliest.

4. China’s reserves have fallen for nine of 11 months this year and stand at $3.43tn, as investors sell renminbi assets to protect themselves against depreciation and the central bank sells dollars from its reserves to curb renminbi weakness. Falling interest rates in China and expectations of an imminent rate rise by the US Federal Reserve have also fuelled outflows. Reserves rebounded mildly in October, suggesting outflows had diminished.

5. 根据中国商业杂志《新财富》发布的2018年中国富人榜，位列榜单前十大亨的财富总和达1.72万亿元，首次突破千亿元大关，在榜单500位富人财富总和中所占比重达18%。

6. 而今年的诺贝尔奖，更是一反过往青睐大型科技成果的传统，将大奖颁给了体积最小的科学新发现。

旧版特色

1. It took almost 45 years for this 13-hour shaggy-dog experiment to reach American screens, but the timing turned out to be perfect. Mr. Rivette’s mischievous ramble through Paris, French literature and a handful of perennial philosophical puzzles (What is the nature of reality? How do we know what we know? What is the relation of effect to cause?) is both a charming, newly rediscovered artifact of its hectic time and a bulletin from the cinematic future. Everything has already been done, and everything is still possible.

2. 据BusinessInsider.com报道，麦嘉华夸张地说，“QE基本上会成为我们下半辈子日常生活的一部分”。麦嘉华还说，2010年在贝南克灾难性试验的早期阶段，他曾给出“美联储奔向QE99”的警告。

3. Hope all your New Year dreams come true!愿你所有的新年想都成真！