Portal:Current events/January 2015

• Terrorism in Yemen
  • The death toll of the suicide bombing in Ibb, Yemen, that occurred on December 31 rises to 49 with the injury count rising to 70. (AFP via Business Standard)
• A shooting kills one and injures six people in Killarney, Calgary, Canada, with police making no arrests. (National Post)

• Lithuania adopts the euro as its official currency, becoming the 19th member of the Eurozone. (CNN)
• U.S. fast-food restaurant chain Chick-fil-A warns that a security breach may have leaked credit card details of 9,000 customers in five states. (Daily Mail)

• The Palestine Authority signs a treaty to join and participate in the International Criminal Court. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Eurasian Economic Union between Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia comes into effect (Novinite)

• Vietnam’s new marriage law goes into effect, abolishing regulations that “prohibit marriage between people of the same sex.” (Bloomberg)

• Mario Cuomo, former governor of the U.S. state of New York, dies at the age of 82. (Reuters)

• Somali Civil War
  • Somali al-Shabaab militants attack an army base on the outskirts of Baidoa, killing seven soldiers. (Reuters via Daily Times)
• Islamist insurgency in Nigeria
  • Boko Haram militants attack a bus in Waza, Cameroon, killing eleven people and injuring six. (CNN via WLKY)
• 1998 United States embassy bombings
  • Abu Anas al-Libi, a one-time associate of Osama bin Laden, dies in New York, United States, while awaiting trial for allegedly plotting the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. (NBC News)

• The MS Norman Atlantic ferry fire death toll rises to at least eleven with as many as 19 people still unaccounted for. (The Independent)

• North Korea–United States relations
  • The United States enacts more sanctions on North Korea in response to their alleged involvement in the hacking attack on Sony. The sanctions target the North Korean Special Operation Force and 10 government officials. (Reuters)

• Boko Haram
  • Fleeing villagers from a remote part of the Borno State report that Boko Haram had three days prior kidnapped around 40 boys and young men. (BBC)

• Turkey permits the building of a Syriac church in Istanbul, the first construction of a Christian house of worship allowed since the founding of the modern republic in 1923. (Dawn) (BGN News)

• The Singapore-registered cargo ship MV Höegh Osaka runs aground on Bramble Bank off the coast of the Isle of Wight, in the entrance to Southampton Water. (BBC News)
• MS Bulk Jupiter, a Norwegian-owned cargo ship, sinks off the coast of Vietnam, with eighteen dead and one survivor. (KRON)
• The Cypriot-registered cargo ship Cemfjord sinks off the northern coast of Scotland leaving eight onboard missing. (BBC News)

• A prison in Bruges, Belgium, will euthanise serial rapist and murderer Frank Van Den Bleeken on January 11. (International Business Times)

• Greek parliamentary election, 2015
  • Former Prime Minister George Papandreou announces the formation of a new party, Movement of Democratic Socialists, threatening to push the long-dominant PASOK under the election threshold. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters)

• War in North-West Pakistan:
  • A U.S. drone strike kills eight Uzbek people claimed to be linked with al-Qaeda in Pakistan. (Channel 9 News)
  • The Pakistan Air Force strikes Pakistani Taliban positions in Khyber Agency, Pakistan, killing 31 militants. (Channel 9 News)
  • A bomb detonates at a volleyball match in Orakzai Agency, Pakistan, killing four people and injuring eight. (AFP via The Daily Star)
• Northern Mali conflict:
  • A vehicle carrying United Nations peacekeepers hits a roadside bomb in northern Mali, injuring six soldiers. (Reuters)
• Shia insurgency in Yemen:
  • A bombing at a local Houthi movement headquarters in Dhamar Governorate, Yemen, kills five people and wounds 25. (AP via The Daily Star)
• Somali Civil War:
  • A suicide car bomber detonates near a military convoy in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing four people. (BBC)

• A six-story building collapse in Nairobi, Kenya, kills one person and leaves several others injured. (New Zealand Herald)

• Pope Francis announces the appointment of 20 new Cardinals, many of them coming from outside of Europe. (Reuters)

• In darts, Gary Anderson of Scotland defeats Phil Taylor of England 7-6 to win his first PDC World Darts Championship. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)

• Libyan Civil War (2014–present)
  • A Libyan warplane bombs a Greek-operated oil tanker anchored offshore the city of Derna, killing two sailors, one Greek and one Romanian. The Greek government condemned what it called an "unprovoked and cowardly" attack and demanded an investigation and punishment for those responsible. (Reuters)
• Boko Haram
  • News emerges that two days prior hundreds of Boko Haram militants had overrun several towns in northeast Nigeria and captured the military base in Baga. (Wall Street Journal)
• Two militants, one wearing a suicide vest, kill two Saudi Arabian border guards and a general near the border with Iraq. (Businessweek)
• Bangladeshi police report that two opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party activists are shot dead in clashes with members of the ruling Awami League in the town of Natore on the first anniversary of disputed general election. (BBC)
• A suicide car bomber hits the headquarters of EUPOL Afghanistan in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing one person and injuring five others. The Taliban have claimed responsibility. (AP via ABC)

• A Czech archaeological team discovers the tomb of formerly unknown Ancient Egyptian queen Khentakawess III who lived during the Fifth Dynasty. (CNN)
• The site where Jesus may have been tried, prior to his crucifixion, opens to the public for the first time located under an abandoned prison building, called Kishle, that is part of the Tower of David Museum ground in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel. (Huffpost)

• China relaxes controls over the export of rare-earth elements after losing a case brought by the United States at the World Trade Organization. (AP)
• Ireland becomes the first European nation to be allowed to export beef to the United States since the mad cow disease scare 15 years ago. (AP via Star Tribune)

• For the second day in a row a multi-story residential building in Nairobi, Kenya, collapses, this time an 8-story building, killing one person with eight people still missing. (AP via ABC)
• An avalanche near the Rettenbach glacier in the Austrian Alps, kills two prospects for the United States ski team, Ronnie Berlack and Bryce Astle. (AP)
• After being grounded in Abu Dhabi for over 12 hours with all passengers on board, Etihad Airways Flight 183 completes its flight to San Francisco International Airport. (KRON).

• South Korea announces that it will repatriate the remains of Chinese People's Liberation Army soldiers killed in the Korean War. (Yonhap)
• Lebanon implements stricter immigration rules on its Syrian border in response to the refugee crisis caused by the Syrian Civil War. (Reuters)

• Taiwan's justice ministry releases former President Chen Shui-bian from jail on a one-month medical parole. (BBC)
• The anti-graft body of the Communist Party of China detains Yang Weize, incumbent Party Secretary of Nanjing, the provincial capital of Jiangsu province, for investigation. (South China Morning Post)
• The Justice Department charges two American citizens of Gambian descent with violating the Neutrality Act by helping to finance and lead the 2014 Gambian coup d'état attempt. (New York Times)

• In ice hockey, the 2015 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships close with Canada beating Russia in the gold medal game, while Slovakia captures bronze. (Canadian Press via Yahoo! Sports Canada)

• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  • Clashes with ISIL in Anbar province kill twenty-three Iraqi Army soldiers and allied Sunni fighters. (AP via The Hindu)
  • The Combined Joint Task Force combating ISIL conducts ten airstrikes in Syria, eight of them targeting the contested city of Kobani, with the airstrikes destroying fourteen ISIL fighting positions and a building. (Reuters)
• A suicide bomber kills herself and a policeman in an attack on a police station in a popular tourist district in the Turkish city of Istanbul. (New York Times)

• Officials in the American state of Massachusetts open a time capsule left behind by founding fathers Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. (Reuters via Yahoo! News)

• American luxury fashion company Coach, Inc. agrees to purchase shoe brand Stuart Weitzman for $574 million. (Wall Street Journal)
• The price of crude oil drops to $48 per barrel, the lowest since April of 2009. (KGO)

• A military truck collides with a bus carrying members of the National Guard of Ukraine in Ukraine, killing 12 soldiers and injuring 20 others. (BBC)
• Two commuter trains collide at Mesquita, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, injuring 158 people. (AFP via News24)

• Scientists at Oxford University begin a new Ebola vaccine trial on 72 healthy volunteers. (BBC)
• 43 US states report an epidemic of influenza, with 21 confirmed deaths. (NBC News)

• Cuba–United States relations
  • Cuba starts releasing political prisoners as part of an historic agreement with the United States announced last month. (The Guardian)

• Thai police arrest Gurmeet Singh convicted of involvement in a bombing in Chandigarh that killed 18 people in 1996, including Beant Singh who was then chief minister of Punjab. (Reuters)
• Various California state district attorneys fine Safeway a total of $10 million for the illegal dumping of electronics and pharmaceuticals into landfills. (KPIX)
• A man claiming to be the Lord's Resistance Army top commander Ugandan Dominic Ongwen turns himself in to United States forces in the Central African Republic. (AP)
• A U.S. District Judge sentences former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell to two years in prison for corruption. (AP via FOX News)
• A gunman shoots a doctor at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, and then kills himself. (Daily Mail)
• An improvised device explodes outside of the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP with no injuries. (ABC News)

• The 114th United States Congress begins. (ABC News)
• The US Congress re-elects John Boehner to his third term as Speaker. (USA Today)

• NASA's Kepler space observatory announces the discovery of three new planets in the Goldilocks zone capable of supporting life. (News Limited)

• Major League Baseball
  • A proposal to change the demolition of Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California from a gradual process to implosion has been met with opposition from the city's residents, citing health risks from the dispersal of concrete dust. (KGO)
  • The Baseball Hall of Fame announces the results of balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) for the Hall's induction class of 2015. The BBWAA elects Randy Johnson, Pedro Martínez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio; this marks the first time since 1955 that the group has elected four players. (Boston Herald)

• Charlie Hebdo shooting
  • Gunmen attack the Paris office of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing twelve people and injuring ten. Some witnesses report that the gunmen identified themselves as belonging to al-Qaeda in Yemen. A 2011 issue had depicted a cartoon of the Islamic prophet Muhammed. (BBC)
  • French police identify three suspects in the killings with raids being conducted in the city of Reims for the assailants, brothers Said and Cherif Kaouchi, aged 32 and 34, respectively, and Hamyd Mourad, 18. (Washington Post) (Bloomberg via Washington Post)
• al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen
  • A car bomb explodes outside a police college in the Yemeni capital Sana'a with at least 38 people reported dead and more than 50 wounded. (Reuters) (BBC) (Al Jazeera)

• Archaeologists in China uncover 2,800-year-old tombs (Eastern Zhou dynasty) in Hubei province. (Ancient Origins)

• An Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation bus falls into a ravine near the town of Penukonda in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh killing at least 20 people. (DNA)

• Nature publishes the findings of Northeastern University scientists that a new class of drug can kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria. (Reuters)
• The California Department of Public Health investigates at least nine measles cases linked to Disneyland attendance. (The LA Times)

• Philippines President Benigno Aquino III demands an investigation after a drone purportedly belonging to the United States Navy is found in the Philippine province of Quezon, the second found in the country. (Manila Standard Today)
• The United States denounces a flag-raising ceremony at Taiwan's de facto embassy in Washington DC, saying the ceremony violated US-Taiwan ties. (AFP via Yahoo!)

• Charlie Hebdo shooting
  • One of the suspects in the killings, Hamyd Mourad, voluntarily surrenders to police in Charleville-Mézières while the other two suspects are still at large. (The New York Times) (CNN)
  • On the night of January 7 and morning of January 8, assailants throw grenades and fire guns at three mosques throughout France. (ForeignPolicy.com)
• 2015 Baga massacre
  • Boko Haram militants raze the entire town of Baga in north-east Nigeria. Bodies lay strewn on Baga's streets with as many as 2,000 people having been killed. Boko Haram now controls 70% of Borno State, which is the worst-affected by the insurgency. (BBC)
• Iraqi insurgency (2011–present)
  • A suicide bomber targets a police checkpoint in the town of Youssifiyah, killing seven people. (AAP via The Australian)

• Dunkin' Donuts signs a franchise agreement for 1,400 new cafes in China by the year 2035. (Reuters)
• Coca-Cola announces that it plans to cut 1,800 jobs worldwide. (CNBC)
• Subaru recalls 199,000 vehicles (2008-2014), citing brake line rust issues. (NBC Bay Area)

• Schools in the Midwestern and Northeast United States close for a second successive day due to bitterly cold temperatures. (Reuters via Yahoo! News)
• A Princess Tours catamaran, Pura Vida Princess, catches fire and capsizes off the coast of Punta Leona, Costa Rica, while carrying 98 passengers and ten crew; the Costa Rican Red Cross confirms that three are dead. (AP via The Costa Rican Times) (The Costa Rican Times)

• An unknown gunman shoots dead Nerlita Ledesma, a journalist from the Philippine tabloid Abante in the province of Bataan; her death is the 172nd murder of a journalist since the return of democracy in 1986 and the 31st during the presidency of Benigno Aquino III. (Rappler)
• The Obama administration fines Honda $70 million for failing to report deaths and injury complaints from 2003 to 2014. (KNTV)
• Brunei officially bans all future public celebrations of Christmas, in accordance with its conservative Islamic law Shariah. (International Business Times)

• Sri Lankan presidential election, 2015
  • Voters in Sri Lanka go to the polls for a presidential election with a tight contest predicted between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and challenger Maithripala Sirisena. (BBC)

• The US Olympic Committee chooses the city of Boston as the American bid city to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. (The New York Times)

• Charlie Hebdo shooting
  • The two suspect brothers take a hostage at a sign printing company, Création Tendance Découverte, in the French town of Dammartin-en-Goële. (AAP via SBS)
    • The standoff ends with the two brothers dead and the hostage released. (CNBC) (BBC) (CNN)
  • A second hostage situation of unclear connection occurs at a Jewish market, Hypercacher, in the eastern Paris suburb of Vincennes. There are two suspected hostage takers, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, and Amedy Coulibaly, 32, who were previously suspected of shooting a policewoman dead earlier in the week. There are at least sixteen hostages. (Herald-Sun)
    • The concurrent standoff ends with Coulibaly dead as well as four hostages. Four additional hostages and two police officers require hospitalization. Boumeddiene remains at large. (MSNBC)
• 2015 Baga massacre
  • Refugees flee Nigeria's Borno State following the Boko Haram massacre in the town of Baga. 7,300 flee to neighbouring Chad while over 1,000 are trapped on the island of Kangala in Lake Chad. Nigeria's army vows to recapture the town, while Niger and Chad withdraw their forces from a transnational force tasked with combating militants. (UNHCR) (NPR via BBC)

• The People's Republic of China plans to soon permit the online sale of prescription drugs. (Reuters)

• A 193-vehicle pileup along a snowy Interstate 94 highway in Kalamazoo County, Michigan leaves one motorist dead and 20 injured. A fire among the vehicles which includes a chemical tanker and a truck loaded with fireworks further compounds the disaster. The debris and fire closes the expressway for over 14 hours. Exploding fireworks hit rescue workers injuring an additional three. (ABC News) (CNN)

• Former Prime Minister of Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra appears to face impeachment charges over a failed rice subsidy scheme. (BBC)
• Russia lists transsexual and transgender individuals among those with "personality and behavioural disorders" who will be banned from obtaining driving licenses. (BBC) (The Moscow Times)
• At a court in New York City, a US District Judge sentences the radical imam Abu Hamza al-Masri to a life sentence for terrorism offences in the United States. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, blogger Raif Badawi receives 50 lashes for "insulting Islam". This first punishment is part of a sentence of ten years' imprisonment and 1,000 lashes. He will receive 50 lashes a week for 19 more weeks. (Gulf News) (Guardian)
• A shooting into a car in San Francisco, California, U.S., leaves four men dead. (AP)

• Sri Lankan presidential election, 2015
  • Mahinda Rajapaksa concedes defeat to Maithripala Sirisena. (The Guardian)
• Barack Obama proposes a new program to waive tuition at community colleges in the United States for the first two years. (The New York Times)
• Stockholm University cuts its ties with the Confucius Institute citing concerns about foreign interference in academic freedom. (South China Morning Post)

• The Lovejoy Comet enters its brightest phase to roughly magnitude 4 or 5. (Sydney Morning Herald)

• 2015 AFC Asian Cup
  • The AFC Asian Cup holds the opening ceremony, followed by the first game in Group A between Australia and Kuwait in Melbourne Rectangular Stadium. Australia wins the match 4–1. (ABC)

• A suicide bomb attack on a Shiite mosque in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, kills at least seven people. Militants linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda have previously attacked the country's Shiite minority. (AAP via SBS News)
• Boko Haram
  • A female suicide bomber, believed to be aged around 10 years old, kills herself and 19 others, possibly against her will, at a market in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, Nigeria. (Wall Street Journal) (BBC)
• Syrian Civil War spillover in Lebanon
  • A suicide attack by al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria) at a café in Tripoli, Lebanon, kills at least seven people. (Reuters)

• A traffic accident between an oil tanker truck and passenger coach en route to Shikarpur from Karachi on the Pakistan National Highway Link Road near Gulshan-e-Hadeed, Karachi, results in at least 57 dead and scores injured. (The News)

• A bomb threat on Tigerair Flight 539 at Melbourne Airport, Victoria, Australia, causes disruptions for passengers and airlines throughout the airport. (News.com.au)
• A shooting spree in Moscow, Idaho, U.S., leaves three dead and one injured. After a high-speed chase on Highway 195 ten miles away in the neighboring state of Washington, Pullman police arrest the suspect, John Lee. (AP)
• A mass poisoning at a funeral in Mozambique involves beer that was deliberately contaminated with crocodile bile leaving at least 56 dead and 146 hospitalized. (FOX8LIVE)

• SpaceX successfully launches a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as part of boosting its Dragon spacecraft into space for a Monday arrival at the ISS in the SpaceX CRS-5 resupply mission. However, an experimental recovery attempt of the first stage fails when it crash-lands on a floating platform possibly due to insufficient hydraulic fluid, resulting in damage to the platform. The state of the destruction of the launch vehicle is publically unknown. (Space.com) (Twitter)
• The Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District temporarily closes the Golden Gate Bridge until Monday to install a $30 million moveable barrier between opposite traffic flows. (SF Gate)

• In American football, Tom Brady of the New England Patriots breaks the National Football League records for career postseason yardage and touchdown passes in the AFC Divisional playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens won by the Patriots 35–31, advancing them to the AFC Championship game. (Sports Illustrated)

• Charlie Hebdo shooting
  • Thousands of police and military personnel prepare to secure a Paris unity rally with up to a million people expected to attend. (Daily Mail)
  • An arson attack on the German newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost, which published cartoons from Charlie Hebdo, causes no injuries but leads to two arrests. (Reuters via DNA)
• Boko Haram
  • More female suicide bombers, this time two, and again each believed to be around 10 years old, kill themselves and three others at a market in the northeastern city of Potiskum, Nigeria. (Reuters via News24)

• Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501
  • Divers retrieve the flight data recorder from the crashed jet. (AP)
• The death toll from the Karachi traffic accident rises to 62. (Indian Express)

• Croatian presidential election, 2014–15
  • Former diplomat and foreign minister Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović from the Croatian Democratic Union narrowly defeats incumbent president Ivo Josipović and will become the first female president of Croatia on February 18, 2015. (BBC)
• Sri Lankan presidential election, 2015
  • The new Sri Lankan government announces that it will investigate allegations of a coup attempt by Mahinda Rajapaksa, in a bid to retain power after being defeated at the polls. (Deutsche Welle)

• Public photographs become available of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket after the experimental recovery attempt of the first stage fails and crash-lands on a floating platform in the SpaceX CRS-5 resupply mission. (Space Flight Now)

• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  • Apparent ISIL computer hackers attack the feeds for the United States Central Command for Twitter and YouTube. (Reuters)
• Boko Haram
  • Cameroon kills 143 Boko Haram fighters in clashes. (Reuters)

• The eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano disrupts flights to and from Tonga. (Radio New Zealand)
• A school bus plunges off of a cliff on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent leaving at least five people dead and two missing. (AP)
• An electrical malfunction causes a fire in the Washington, D. C.'s Metro subway system near L'Enfant Plaza Station resulting in one death with 84 people taken to hospitals, mostly from smoke inhalation. (AP)
• In Rovinari, Romania, a father and 6 siblings, aged from 6 months to 7 years, die after a gas water boiler emits carbon monoxide. (Nation.com)

• Chinese police kill six attacking militants wearing explosive devices in Xinjiang. (Reuters) (Naharnet)
• A serviceman stationed at the Russian 102nd Military Base, Valeri Permyakov, kills six members of an Armenian family, including a two-year-old child, and, in addition, wounds a six-month-old child, in Gyumri, Armenia, initiating a manhunt by the Armenian security services until his capture. (ArmeniaNow) (News.Armenia)
• District Attorney Kari Brandenburg of New Mexico's Second Judicial Circuit federally charges two Albuquerque Police Department officers with murder in the March 16, 2014 shooting death of James Boyd in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. (CNN)
• The death toll from poisoned beer in the Mozambique rises to at least 69 with 169 in hospital. Further, medical experts begin to question if the source of the contamination was the deliberate addition of crocodile bile or instead the often used foxglove flowers (which contain digitalis) for homebrewing locally-derived Pombe beer. (AFP/Reuters via ABC News Australia) (Forbes)

• The SpaceX CRS-5 supply ship arrives at the ISS with groceries and Christmas gifts. (AP)

• In association football, Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid C.F. wins the FIFA Ballon d'Or for the best player of the year for his second successive year. (BBC)
• In American football, the Ohio State Buckeyes defeat the Oregon Ducks to win the inaugural College Football Playoff National Championship at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas by a score of 42–20. (AP)

• Charlie Hebdo shooting
  • France announces plans to deploy 10,000 troops to protect sensitive sites across the country beginning tonight. (AFP/Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• 2014–15 Russian military intervention in Ukraine
  • A passenger bus comes under heavy fire near a check point in eastern Ukraine leading to at least ten civilians killed and many others injured. (ABC News Australia)
• Rob Wainwright, the Director of Europol, tells a British parliamentary committee that up to 5000 European Union citizens have joined jihadist groups in the Middle East. (The New Daily)

• Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501
  • Divers recover the cockpit voice recorder from the crashed jet. The Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee states that by using the now collected recorders a preliminary report on the accident will be produced within a month and a final report after a year. (AFP/Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• The death toll from contaminated beer in the Mozambique rises to at least 72. (AP via Business Week)

• The World Health Organization monitors an avian flu outbreak in Taiwan, as H5N8 avian flu virus infects nine farms. (Central News Agency)
• Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa
  • China sends an additional 232 People's Liberation Army medical workers to West Africa to combat the outbreak (in addition to the 78 that had previously been stationed). (AP)

• Pope Francis arrives in Sri Lanka to begin a six day Asian tour. (BBC)

• Egypt's highest court overturns and initiates a retrial on the only remaining conviction against former President Hosni Mubarak (a May 2014 sentencing of three years in prison for embezzlement). (Reuters)
• The U.S. Supreme Court rules 9–0 in favor of homeowners that the Truth in Lending Act clearly states that a simple notice by the homeowner to the bank within three years seeking to rescind their mortgage suffices over an actual court-filed lawsuit. (Reuters)
• The trial of Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road website, begins in Manhattan, New York. (BBC)

• A bomb destroys a transmission tower in Pagalungan leaving much of the Philippine provinces of Maguindanao and North Cotabato without power. (Rappler)

• Charlie Hebdo publishes an edition as a counterpoint to the Charlie Hebdo shootings. (BBC)

• Caesars Entertainment Corporation operating unit will file for bankruptcy on Thursday in Chicago. (Reuters)

• A collision between a train and a prison transport bus near Penwell, Texas leaves at least eight prisoners and two corrections officers dead. (BBC)
• Floods devastate Mozambique and Malawi, with at least 73 deaths and over 70,000 homeless. (BBC)

• The cabinet of Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe approves a record defence budget with a plan to buy surveillance aircraft and Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jets to improve security of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea claimed by both Japan and China. (AP)
• Taiwan protests China’s new air routes near the median line of the Taiwan Strait and vows to step up surveillance of aviation activity. (Bloomberg) (Reuters)
• On the second day of his papal visit to Sri Lanka, Pope Francis canonizes Saint Joseph Vaz at a beachfront park at the Indian Ocean, and later visits the northern portion of the island for a prayer service at the Sri Lankan Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu, which was a prominent area landmark damaged in the Sri Lankan Civil War. (Catholic News Service)

• The U.S. state of Georgia executes Vietnam War veteran Andrew Brannan for the 1998 murder of Laurens County sheriff's deputy Kyle Dinkheller. (Huffington Post)
• Police charge Indianapolis Colts linebacker Josh McNary with a December 1, 2014 rape. (AP)

• President of Italy Giorgio Napolitano will announce his resignation today. (Bloomberg via Business Week)
• The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency rules that anti-Muslim advertisements placed on Muni buses must be permitted because of freedom of speech. (KNTV)
• The U.S. Secret Service removes four of its highest-ranking leaders while a fifth one retires. The continuing restructuring and fallout stem from a string of public security lapses beginning with the misconduct at the 6th Summit of the Americas. The most recent stage of the restructuring began in October 2014 with the resignation of then-Director Julia Pierson. (The Washington Post via MSN)

• In rock climbing, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson become the first climbers to free climb the Dawn Wall face of the El Capitan cliff in Yosemite National Park in the United States, the world's largest granite monolith. (Wall Street Journal)

• 2014 Peshawar school massacre
  • Afghan security officials arrest five men in Kabul in relation to their suspected involvement in the Pakistan school massacre. (ABC News Australia)
• Police in eastern Belgium kill two suspected terrorists during an anti-terrorism raid near Verviers. (AP via News24) (CNN) (BBC)

• Pope Francis's visit to the Philippines
  • Pope Francis arrives in Manila and meets Philippines President Benigno Aquino III. (The New York Times)
• The Motion Picture Academy announces the nominees for the 87th Academy Awards best picture at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California. The nominations are American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, and Whiplash. (Washington Post) (Deadline)

• The World Bank states that the Philippines can end poverty in a single generation. (AP via The Philippine Star)
• The Swiss franc to euro exchange rate jumps by 30% immediately following a Swiss National Bank announcement. The bank will abandon its three-year-old cap on the swiss franc's value against the euro as well as lower the interest rate on sight deposits (instant access accounts) to -0.75% (the negative number meaning that the depositor has to pay the bank 0.75% per year to hold the depositor's money). (BBC) (Bloomberg)
• Target will close all of its 133 stores in Canada and put Target Canada into bankruptcy. (Reuters)
• Electronics retailer RadioShack Corp will file for bankruptcy protection by next month. (Reuters)

• A tour bus overturns and catches fire on the North-South Expressway in the Malaysian town of Tapah leaving at least eight people killed and 21 others injured. (The Straits Times)
• A newly manufactured tug boat capsizes during a test run in the Yangtze River in east China's Jiangsu Province leaving at least 20 people missing. (Xinhua)

• The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report estimates the effectiveness of the influenza vaccination in 2014–2015 at 23% which is the lowest since 2006. (CDC)

• Philippine authorities in Manila concentrate street children in cages with some even chained in anticipation of Pope Francis' pastoral visit. (The Daily Mail) (the Philippine Daily Inquirer) (Catholic Online)
• Gyumri massacre:
  • Clashes in Gyumri, Armenia between police and protesters demanding the handover of a Russian soldier accused of killing six members of a local family leaves at least twelve people wounded. (BBC)

• Syrian Civil War
  • The United States Department of Defense announces that it will send 400 troops to train moderate Syrian rebels in the spring of 2015. (AP)
• A hostage crisis at a post office in Colombes, Paris, ends with the attacker releasing the hostages and surrendering himself to the police. (Daily Mail) (CNN)
• The Military of Chad enters Cameroon to assist in fighting against Boko Haram insurgents. (Reuters)

• U.S. federal magistrate Carl Barbier's ruling caps BP's fine under the Clean Water Act for its 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico at $13.7 billion. (Reuters)
• The Obama Administration eases trade restrictions with Cuba, now permitting the sale of tools and equipment for private-sector use in Cuba. (USA Today)

• An explosion of the Hunga Tonga submerged volcano in the South Pacific Ocean, near Nuku'alofa, Tonga, disrupts air travel and creates a one-kilometer new island. (Radio Australia) (The Weather Channel) (Discovery News)
• 2015 Malawi floods:
  • Flash flooding continues since January 14 in the African nation of Malawi with at least 176 people killed and 110,000 displaced. (ABC News Australia)

• Chinese officials impose an emergency ban on tourists approaching pandas subsequent to the death of two pandas from a canine distemper virus. (USA Today)

• Polk County, Florida police arrest four men who face charges in having allegedly robbed an Auburndale, Florida pawn shop, and then fatally shot two women in their central Florida home. (AP via MSN)
• Mexican authorities arrest an alleged hitman for the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel, Felipe Rodriguez, in connection to the September 26, 2014 death of 43 college students. (AP via ABC News America)
• The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to consolidate and hear four appellate rulings whether there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. It is currently allowed in Washington, D.C. and 36 states. Oral arguments will take place in April and a ruling may occur by June. (CNN) (The New York Times)
• Pittsburgh police arrest Ryan Williams for the October 18, 2014 McKeesport, Pennsylvania arson attack and charge him with arson, burglary, and six counts of criminal homicide. The victims include four children ages 2 through 7. (AP) (WTAE)
• The Obama Administration imposes restrictions on state and local police's ability to seize personal property under the guidelines of the Equitable Sharing federal program. (The Washington Post)

• NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers state that 2014 is the hottest year since record keeping began in 1880. (Xinhua) (NASA) (NOAA)(The New York Times) (Russia Today) (The Guardian) (The Wall Street Journal)
• NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter finds the Beagle 2 spacecraft that disappeared in 2003 intact on the surface of Mars. An error had stopped the spacecraft's solar panels from working and communicating back to Earth. (TNN via Times of India)
• Public video emerges of the January 10 SpaceX CRS-5 mission Falcon 9 failed landing. (The Telegraph)

• St. Louis, Missouri announces a new multimillion dollar public-private venture open-air riverfront stadium that would be aimed at keeping the NFL's St. Louis Rams from relocating to their former home of Los Angeles, where there are also plans for stadium development. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

• Terrorism in Yemen
  • Gunmen abduct the chief of staff to Yemen's president in the center of the capital, Sana'a. It is uncertain if Shiite Houthi rebels or al-Qaeda militants kidnapped Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak. (AP)
• Violence surrounding various protests against Charlie Hebdo leaves five protesters dead as well as some churches set ablaze in Niger. (BBC) (AFP via The Telegraph)
• Islamist insurgency in Nigeria:
  • Following the January 16 Chad authorities decision to send troops to Nigeria and Cameroon to fight Boko Haram militants, the Russian ambassador to the country pledges to supply Cameroon with more modern weapons to combat the Islamist insurgents. (AFP via The Economic Times)
• 2013–15 Ukrainian crisis:
  • Clashes between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russia rebels over Donetsk International Airport intensifies. (Al Jazeera)
• Greek anti-terror police arrest four people in Athens, Greece in alleged relation to the January 15 failed terrorist plot to kill police officers in Belgium. (Sky News Australia)

• Pope Francis's visit to the Philippines
  • Pope Francis celebrates mass at Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda)-hit city of Tacloban with an audience of half-a-million people. (BBC)
  • The Pope cuts his Tacloban trip short as an approaching typhoon threatened the city in the Philippines. This cyclone may also affect Francis's scheduled closing Mass on Sunday in the capital, Manila. (CNN) (AP via U-T San Diego)

• The rescue and recovery efforts at the wreckage of the January 15 capsized tugboat on China's Yangtze River near the city of Jingjiang finds that twenty-one people are dead while three are rescued. (Straits Times)
• An entourage plane accompanying the Pope and carrying government officials experiences high winds and blows off the runway minutes after the pontiff's aircraft takes off safely in the Philippines. (The Independent)
• The Bridger Pipeline Company spills up to 50,000 gallons of oil into the Yellowstone River, near Glendive, Montana. (CBS)

• Pemberton Township, New Jersey police arrest a woman and charge her with the murder of her newborn baby girl which she set on fire. Officers extinguish the fire, but the child later dies. (AP via MSN)

• In football, the Africa Cup of Nations gets underway in Equatorial Guinea. The tournament was scheduled to be hosted by Morocco, but they refused to act as host because of the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa. (AAP via SBS)

• Israeli–Lebanese conflict
  • An Israeli helicopter strike near the border with Syria kills two senior IRGC figures and six members of Hezbollah. (Reuters) (Xinhua)
• Boko Haram militants kidnap 80 people and kill three others from villages in north Cameroon. (Daily Mirror)
• A clash with Hindu villagers in Sarayian village in India's Bihar state leaves at least three Muslim villagers burned to death. (AP)
• Libyan Civil War (2014–present)
  • State-sponsored army and Islamist-sponsored opposition declare a ceasefire. (AFP via Al Arabiya)

• Pope Francis's visit to the Philippines
  • Pope Francis celebrates Holy Mass in Manila to a crowd of 6 to 7 million, the largest papal gathering since 1995 World Youth Day mass celebrated by late Pope John Paul II in the same place, despite pouring rain. (CNN) (BBC) (Rappler)
  • In his homily, Pope Francis speaks out against poverty and corruption but he sends a message about the importance of family, particularly children. (Reuters) (AP via Fox News)

• Icy roads from a freezing-rain storm cause at least four deaths in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. (KGO) (Bloomberg) (ABC News America) (NBC10)

• Indonesia executes six people for drug trafficking including foreign citizens from Brazil, Malawi, the Netherlands, Nigeria, and Vietnam. Brazil and the Netherlands withdraw their ambassadors in protest. (News Limited), (ABC Australia), (BBC)
• Chinese police shoot dead two ethnic Uighurs in Pingxiang, Guangxi while they attempt to cross into Vietnam after members of their group resisted arrest with knives. The public security ministry accuses a separatist group of orchestrating hundreds of cases of human smuggling. (The New York Times)

• AB de Villiers made the fastest century in ODI cricket history, reaching 100 off just 31 balls against the West Indies. (BBC)
• Lennar Urban cancels their demolition plans to implode Candlestick Park due to concerns over public health issues from the concrete dust and pollution. (KTVU)
• The Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots win their respective conference championships to advance to the February 1 Super Bowl XLIX. (NFL.com)

• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  • Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State militants in the town of Kobanî, Syria on the Syria-Turkey border capture the strategic Mishtenur hill killing eleven fighters. (BBC)
• Shia insurgency in Yemen
  • Clashes in the Yemeni capital Sana'a leave at least nine dead and 67 injured. (AP)
  • Houthi rebels seize the official Saba News Agency and surround the residence of the Prime Minister. (RT)
• Police in the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital Kinshasa fire on protesters opposing efforts by President Joseph Kabila to delay presidential and parliamentary elections due in 2016 leaving at least four people dead and ten injured. (Al Jazeera)

• The Anne Arundel County, Maryland Fire Department states that six people remain unaccounted for after a fire destroys a mansion in Annapolis, Maryland. The home is the residence of Don Pyle, the CEO of Reston, Virginia-based ScienceLogic. (AP via MSN)

• Argentine federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who had accused President Cristina Kirchner of covering up Iranian links to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in order to open up trade with Iran, dies of a gunshot wound to the head with the type of death still undetermined. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• London's Southwark Crown Court hears evidence in the first trial on female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom, where this practice is illegal. (BBC) (Sky News)
• Gyumri massacre:
  • A six-month-old boy dies in hospital of his wounds, becoming the seventh member of an Armenian family dead after a killing spree by a Russian soldier. (Fox News)
• Seminole County, Florida (Orlando-area) prosecutors charge five underage Winter Springs High School students with the alleged gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in November 2014. Prosecutors charge two suspects as adults and three as juveniles. The remaining suspect is as yet uncharged. (The Orlando Sentinel via MSN)

• The city of Grozny in the Russian republic of Chechnya holds a protest with 60% of the population in attendance in opposition to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. (Reuters)

• NASA releases new pictures from the Dawn spacecraft as it approaches from a distance of 238,000 miles of Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Dawn will go into orbit around the dwarf planet on March 6. (BBC)(NASA)

• In alpine skiing, American Lindsey Vonn wins the World Cup super-G at Cortina for her 63rd career World Cup race win, giving her sole possession of the all-time World Cup wins record. (AP via ESPN)

• Shia insurgency in Yemen
  • Houthi rebels take over the residence of the President amidst calls by the rebel leader for negotiations to adjust the country's power structure. (The Washington Post)
• The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant threatens to kill two Japanese citizens unless it receives a ransom of $200 million. (Reuters)
• Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claims responsibility for the attack on the town of Baga, Nigeria in which an unknown number of civilians were killed. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)

• Oil services company Baker Hughes will lay off 7,000 people due to falling crude oil prices. (AP via ABC News America)

• A fire in a bowling alley causes a roof collapse in Taoyuan City, Taiwan killing six firefighters. (AP)
• An overpass of I-75 in Cincinnati, Ohio collapses while undergoing demolition, killing one worker and injuring a trucker whose vehicle was struck by debris. (Cincinnati.com)
• According to preliminary tests at the Glendive, Montana city water treatment plant, the January 17 oil spill in the Yellowstone River contains benzene, a chemical that causes cancer. (National Geographic) (LA Times)

• A gunman shoots a cardiovascular surgeon to death at Harvard Medical School's Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and then commits suicide. (USA Today)

• Zambian presidential election, 2015
  • Voters in Zambia go to the polls for a presidential election following the October 2014 death of incumbent President Michael Sata. Defence Minister Edgar Lungu (the Patriotic Front) and Hakainde Hichilema (the United Party for National Development) seek the office. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• 2015 State of the Union Address
  • The President of the United States Barack Obama delivers a State of the Union address to the United States Congress. (AP) (AP²) (AP³)

• A Palestinian man from the West Bank, Hamza Muhammad Hassan Matrouk, illegally crosses into Israel for the express purpose to stab people attacking over a dozen Israelis on a bus in central Tel Aviv. Security forces capture the assailant as he continued to indiscriminately stab people in the street. (The New York Times)
• 2014–15 Russian military intervention in Ukraine:
  • The President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko accuses Russia of sending 9,000 soldiers to help separatists in eastern Ukraine. (Reuters)

• Lutz Bachmann resigns as a leader of PEGIDA, a German anti-Islamist organisation, after controversy was sparked by a headshot photo of himself posing as Adolf Hitler. (Christian Science Monitor)

• eBay announces plans to spin off its PayPal business and fire 2,400 employees during 2015. (CNBC)
• American Express plans to cut more than 4,000 jobs. (Reuters)

• Mexico's Volcán de Colima erupts. (ABC News Australia)
• For the second time (previous was August 2000) the Avalon at Edgewater apartments in Edgewater, New Jersey burn down. Among the 400 people evacuated, New York Yankees announcer John Sterling is one of the victims. (CBS) (NJ.com)

• The government-installed pollution gauges that were set up along roadside stations to monitor Hong Kong reach the maximum level of their ranges. (Bloomberg)
• The New England Journal of Medicine publishes research from Portland State University that implies the presence of formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical, may occur in limited situations of e-cigarette vapor. (AP) (The New England Journal of Medicine)

• Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom announces a plan to shift its European natural gas pipeline from Ukraine to Turkey, through a proposed link under the Black Sea to Turkey. (Bloomberg) (The New York Times)

• Italian police seize 5,361 ancient artifacts worth $64 million from a Swiss-Italian trafficking ring. The discoveries come after various raids on warehouses against Italian art dealer Gianfranco Becchina, who owns an art gallery in Switzerland. (AFP via ABC.Net.AU)

• Microsoft announces Windows Holographic as part of the Windows 10 operating system which is expected to be released in late 2015. (Forbes)

• War in Donbass:
  • An explosion near a civilian trolleybus in the city of Donetsk kills at least thirteen people. Separatists and pro-government forces blame each other for the incident. (BBC)
• Shia insurgency in Yemen:
  • Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, Prime Minister Khaled Bahah, and the Yemeni cabinet resign. (CNN)

• The European Central Bank announces an aggressive money-creation program, printing more than one trillion new euros. (Reuters)

• Edgewater Police Chief William Skidmore says that workers doing plumbing work accidentally started the January 21 fire in The Avalon at Edgewater apartments in Edgewater, New Jersey that caused the destruction of 240 units and displaced 1,000 residents. (AP)

• Zambian presidential election, 2015:
  • Heavy rains in Zambia cause delays in voting and counting in the presidential election with announcements to resume today. (AP via Mediacom)

• Four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon announces that the upcoming 2015 season will be his last as a full-time driver. (ESPN)

• City officials of Glendive, Montana declare that the tap water is safe to consume following the January 17 oil spill in the Yellowstone River. (Mohave Daily News)

• The Doomsday Clock moves two minutes forward, leaving only three minutes from midnight due to the threat of global nuclear war and climate change. It is the closest it has been to midnight since 1984. (The Guardian) (The Independent) (The Washington Post)

• San Mateo County, California prosecuters charge an Oregon inmate, Rodney Halbower (who was already serving a 30-year sentence for an attempted murder), with two of the murders from the six 1976 Gypsy Hill killings. (CBS News)
• The U.S. Southern District of Alabama strikes down the state ban on same-sex marriage in Alabama, saying it has violated equal protection and due process rights. Alabama becomes the thirty-seventh state where such marriage is legalized. (USA Today) (The Guardian)

• Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia dies at the age of 90. His half brother Salman of Saudi Arabia succeeds him. His half brother Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud becomes the Crown Prince. (CNN)
• Thailand's military-appointed legislature votes to impeach former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra for her role in overseeing a government rice subsidy program that lost billions of dollars. (AP)

• Sumo wrestler Hakuhō Shō wins a record-breaking 33rd makuuchi championship. (Japan Times)

• War in Donbass:
  • A rocket attack on an open-air market in Mariupol, Ukraine, leaves at least 27 people killed and more than 90 injured. The pro-Russian rebel leader, Alexander Zakharchenko, announces an offensive on Mariupol. (AP via ABC News) (Al Jazeera) (Reuters)
• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant:
  • The Islamic State kills eight Lebanese soldiers in the northeastern Lebanese village of Ras Baalbek. (AP)
  • Japan states that it is seeking to verify a video that claims the killing of Japanese hostage Haruna Yukawa by Islamic State militants. (BBC)

• Subsequent to the January 15 announcement that Target Canada would close all 133 stores, they announce the layoff of 17,000 employees. (CBC)

• The measles outbreak at Disneyland (Anaheim), which originated on December 28, 2014 (patient zero being an unvaccinated California woman who apparently transmitted the virus through airports and the theme park), but was unreported until January 7, spreads from California to six other states, including Nebraska, and Mexico. It now involves at least eighty-five cases. (AJC) (CBS)

• Edgar Lungu of the ruling Patriotic Front party wins the Zambian presidential election. (ABC News)

• Golden State Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson sets a National Basketball Association record for most points in a single quarter with 37. He also sets a league record for most three-pointers in a quarter, with nine. (Sports Illustrated)
• Rob Manfred succeeds Bud Selig as Commissioner of Major League Baseball. (MLB.com)

• Moro insurgency in the Philippines
  • Around 30-50 people die in clashes between the Philippine National Police and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front threatening a peace agreement between the Philippines government and the rebels. (Reuters)

• The Miss Universe pageant crowns Miss Colombia Paulina Vega in Miami, Florida. (AP)

• A massive blackout strikes Pakistan, leaving as much as 80 percent of the country without electricity at its height as officials rush to restore power. (AP)

• US President Barack Obama meets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a three-day visit in India. (USA Today)

• The anti-austerity SYRIZA party wins a plurality in the 2015 Greek legislative elections. (Reuters)

• In college basketball, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski becomes the first NCAA Division I men's coach with 1,000 career wins, following the Blue Devils' 77–68 win over St. John's at Madison Square Garden in New York City. (ESPN)

• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  • Kurdish fighters recapture at least 90% of Kobanî, Syria. (CNN)

• India honors billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife Melinda with the Padma Bhushan award for their work on improving health in developing countries. (Reuters)

• 2014–15 Russian financial crisis
  • Standard & Poor's ratings agency cuts Russia's credit rating to junk status due to the impact of falling oil prices and sanctions. (Wall Street Journal via The Australian) (Bloomberg)

• January 2015 nor'easter
  • The blizzard begins as an ongoing winter storm across the Central and Eastern United States. States of New Jersey through New York and New England enact blizzard warnings. (The Telegraph) (NOAA) (AP)
  • The blizzard causes the cancellation of over 6,000 flights, the cancellation of public transport services in New York City and Boston, and the Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo ordering of cars off the road in thirteen counties. (NBC News)
• An F-16 jet belonging to the Hellenic Air Force crashes in southern Spain during a NATO exercise, killing ten people and injuring 21. (Bloomberg)

• The U.S. Secret Service recovers a flying drone from the lawn at the White House. (AP)
• The US FBI arrests three alleged Russian Foreign Intelligence Service spies working in the United States. The three men sought secrets about US economic plans and proposed sanctions against Moscow. (The Telegraph)
• The US Eastern District Court of Virginia convicts a disgruntled former CIA officer, Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, of leaking secrets to a reporter. All nine charges he faced stem from a secret CIA mission to derail Iran's nuclear weapons program. (AP)

• Chinese authorities name Huang Lixin as the Communist Party Secretary of Nanjing, following the investigation and dismissal of former party chief Yang Weize. Huang becomes the first woman in city history to take the top office. (Jiangsu News)
• A single day after the radical-left SYRIZA party wins the Greek elections, it forms an anti-austerity coalition government with the right-wing Independent Greeks. (BBC)

• The Church of England ordains Libby Lane as their first female bishop, at York Minster, United Kingdom. (AP)

• 2015 Hong Kong Marathon
  • A 24-year-old man dies in a hospital after his collapse and subsequent head injury just one hundred meters from the finish line. (RTHK)
• 2015 AFC Asian Cup
  • South Korea defeats Iraq 2–0 to advance to the 2015 AFC Asian Cup Final. (Skysports)

• Libyan Civil War (2014–present)
  • 2015 Corinthia Hotel attack
    • Five gunmen at the Libyan Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli attack with at least ten dead. The hotel was previously the location in 2013 where a former prime minister was abducted. (AP)
• Israeli–Lebanese conflict
  • Israeli security forces claim that Hezbollah and forces loyal to the President of Syria Bashar al-Assad are responsible for firing rockets from Syrian territory onto the Golan Heights into the mount Hermon sky resort. (Xinhua)

• Pope Francis holds a private meeting with a transsexual man and his fiancée at the Vatican. (The Daily Mail)

• The death toll from the January 26 crash of a Hellenic Air Force F-16 fighter jet in southern Spain rises to eleven. (AP)
• January 2015 nor'easter
  • New England sees the worst of the blizzard with Boston, Massachusetts covered in two feet of snow. (AP)

• American 1964 Nobel Prize-winning physicist Charles Hard Townes, who helped invent the now-ubiquitous laser, dies at the age of 99. (AP)

• 2015 AFC Asian Cup
  • Australia wins 2–0 against United Arab Emirates to advance to the 2015 AFC Asian Cup Final for the second consecutive time. (Daily Mail)

• Israeli–Lebanese conflict
  • Following a January 18 airstrike against a Hezbollah convoy, Hezbollah targets an Israeli military convoy near the Lebanon border at the Shebaa farms area, killing two and wounding another seven. While the Israeli military responds with artillery fire upon several South Lebanon border villages and Shebaa Farms, Hezbollah responds with mortar shells. Cross fire fighting kills a Spanish UN peacekeeper in the town of Ghajar. (CNN) (BBC) (Reuters)

• The Chinese yuan becomes the fifth most-highly-used currency in the world. (AP)
• The US Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James picks the Boeing 747-8 for the next replacement of Air Force One. (Reuters)

• A Vietnamese military Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter crashes in southern Ho Chi Minh City killing four people. (AFP via Straits Times)

• The High Court of Australia finds that a group of 157 Sri Lankan asylum seekers were legally detained by Australian authorities at sea. The government acted lawfully and the group is not entitled to damages. (ABC News Australia)
• A federal judge in Albuquerque, New Mexico sentences an ex-Los Alamos physicist Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, who pleaded guilty in 2013 to offering to spy on the US to help Venezuela develop a nuclear weapon, to five years imprisionment. (AP) (AP)
• The President of Sri Lanka Maithripala Sirisena reinstates former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake who had been sacked by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. (Reuters)

• Akram Hasson becomes leader of Israel's former government party Kadima and thus the first Druze ever to lead a Jewish party. (Israel National News)

• Discoveries of exoplanets
  • The Astrophysical Journal publishes research from the University of Rochester and the University of Leiden announcing the discovery of either a brown dwarf substellar object or a gas giant exoplanet titled J1407b. The object is the first known nonstar to have a super ring system. (AFP via ABC News Australia)

• 2014 Sydney hostage crisis
  • A coronial inquest into the siege at the Lindt Cafe in the center of Sydney begins. The inquest hears that one hostage was killed by gunman Man Haron Monis while another was killed by fragments of a bullet or bullets fired by New South Wales Police Force officers. (The Australian) (BBC)
• Taliban insurgency
  • Taliban attacks across Afghanistan kill 17 people. (AP)
  • An Afghan national kills three American contractors at Hamid Karzai International Airport, the lone shooter was also killed in the incident. (Bloomberg)
• Moro insurgency in the Philippines
  • Philippines President Benigno Aquino III distances himself from a botched raid against a terrorist, Zulkifli Abdhir, that killed around 50 people, including police officers and Abdhir, while pledging support for a peace process with the Moro people. Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno urges the public to continue to support the peace treaty. (The New York Times)
• Iraqi insurgency (2011–present)
  • Several attacks around Baghdad including bombings and shootings kill at least sixteen people. (The New York Times)
• Sinai insurgency
  • Ansar Beit al-Maqdis claims responsibility for widespread attacks on Egyptian army and police targets throughout the Sinai Peninsula killing at least 25 people. (Ynet News)
• Shia insurgency in Yemen
  • Shiite Houthi rebels seize a Yemeni military base south of the capital, Sana'a, where U.S. military advisers once trained Yemeni counterterrorism forces to fight Al-Qaeda in the south of the country. Forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh had manned the captured base. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Paraguayan People's Army kills a German couple who lived on a ranch near Yby Yaú in northern Paraguay. (Deutsche Welle)

• The Philippine economy grew by more than 6% in 2014 making it the second fastest growing economy in Asia after China. This is the longest sustained growth period in the country since the 1950s. (Economic Times)

• A Nieto Express propane gas tanker truck explodes near the loading dock of a maternity and children's hospital (Hospital Materno Infantil Cuajimalpa) in Mexico City, collapsing much of the hospital with at least three deaths and 70 people injured, 22 of whom are children. (AP) (AFP/Reuters via ABC News Australia) (New York Daily News)
• Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
  • Without recovering any physical evidence, including the data recorders, Malaysia officially declares the loss of Flight 370 over the Indian Ocean an accident meaning that victims families can seek compensation. (USA Today)
• Heavy snowfall in northern England leads to the closures of hundreds of schools, roads and Manchester Airport. (BBC)

• Dutch police arrest a fake gunman who disrupted the Netherlands news broadcaster NOS after storming into the studio and demanding airtime. (BBC)
• American hip hop music mogul Suge Knight drives a vehicle into a crowd in Compton, California near Los Angeles resulting in the death of a pedestrian in what authorities are calling a hit and run. (NBC News) (UPI) (Twitter)

• Sectarianism in Pakistan
  • Sunni militants linked to the Pakistani Taliban kill at least 40 people and injure 50 in a bombing at a Shiite mosque in the Shikarpur District of Pakistan's Sindh province. (BBC)
• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  • Islamic State fighters kill Kurdish commander Brigadier General Shirko Rauf and five other peshmerga soldiers in heavy fighting in Iraq's Kirkuk province. (AFP via The Guardian)
• 2014–15 Russian military intervention in Ukraine
  • The Government of Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists call off peace talks that were to be held in Minsk. (Reuters)
  • Artillery fire kills at least twelve civilians in Donetsk. (AP)

• Greek government-debt crisis
  • The new Greek government, represented by finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, meets with Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the head of the Eurogroup, and declares that Greece now rejects any further cooperation with its main international lenders known as the troika (the Eurogroup, the IMF, and the ECB); instead, it wants to negotiate directly with other European countries. (Deutsche Welle)

• The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that this season's influenza hospitalizations of 65-year-old and older Americans hit a record high since the 2005-2006 season. (AP)

• Israel announces plans to build 430 new settler homes in the West Bank. (AFP via Al Arabiyah)

• A judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia upholds the conviction of five men in connection with the Srebrenica massacre. (BBC)
• Los Angeles police arrest American hip hop mogul Suge Knight on suspicion for murder in relation to the January 29 hit-and-run incident in Compton, California. (CNN)
• Justice Minister Michael Masutha paroles South African apartheid-era death squad commander Eugene de Kock, nicknamed "Prime Evil", after having served 20 years for killing activists. (BBC)

• Zhelyu Zhelev, who became the first democratically elected president of Bulgaria, dies at 79. (Euronews) (Novinite)
• King Salman of Saudi Arabia names a new cabinet and replaces officials in several key government positions, removing two sons of the late monarch Abdullah from their regional governorships in the process. (Ahram Online)

• Two balloonists, Troy Bradley of the United States and Leonid Tiukhtyaev of Russia, are crossing the Pacific Ocean in the Two Eagles gas balloon and have surpassed the distance and duration records for straight gas balloons. They are set to land in Mexico on Saturday. (BBC)
• The German Chemical Society's Angewandte Chemie International Edition publishes research from chemist Donald Fleming of the University of British Columbia announcing the confirmational discovery of a new form of chemical bond, the vibrational bond. (Scientific American)

• Rita Jeptoo, who won the 2014 Boston Marathon, is banned from running after testing positive for erythropoietin, a blood-boosting hormone. (Yahoo Sports)

• 2014–15 Russian military intervention in Ukraine
  • Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists conduct peace talks as fighting rages in eastern Ukraine. (Reuters)
• The Democratic Republic of the Congo launches a campaign against Hutu rebels. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  • A monitoring group claims that ISIL has reportedly released a video showing the execution of Japanese hostage Kenji Goto. (Al Jazeera)

• Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501
  • France orders an official investigation into the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 which had a French copilot flying the aircraft at the time of its crash. (AFP via France 24)

• Italian presidential election, 2015
  • Voters elect Sergio Mattarella President of Italy. (Corriere della Sera)
• Richard von Weizsäcker, who was president of West Germany from 1984 to 1990 and became the first president of reunified Germany from 1990 to 1994, dies at the age of 94. (Deutsche Welle)
• Queensland state election, 2015
  • The Liberal National Party of Queensland loses its parliamentary majority, with outgoing Premier Campbell Newman losing his own seat of Ashgrove. It is unclear whether the Australian Labor Party, led by Annastacia Palaszczuk, has won an outright majority or if the result is a hung parliament. (ABC News Australia)

• 2015 Australian Open
  • In tennis, American Serena Williams defeats Maria Sharapova of Russia in straight sets in the Women's Singles final. It is the sixth Australian Open crown and 19th Grand Slam singles title for the current world #1. (AAP via MSN) (The Guardian)
• 2015 AFC Asian Cup
  • In football, host nation Australia defeats South Korea 2–1 in the final of the Asian Cup. (ABC News Australia) (ABC News)
• In golf, Lydia Ko of New Zealand, who does not turn 18 until 24 April, becomes the youngest golfer of either sex to be ranked number 1 in the world, surpassing the previous record of Tiger Woods by nearly four years. (New Zealand Herald)
• In American football, The Board of Selectors for Pro Football Hall of Fame announces the induction of eight individuals as the 2015 induction class which will formally enter the Hall in August. The inductees are Junior Seau, Jerome Bettis, Charles Haley, Will Shields, Tim Brown, and Mick Tingelhoff as players, and Bill Polian and Ron Wolf as contributors. (NBC Sports)