January 17, 2020 (Friday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- 2019–2021 Iraqi protests
- At least two people are killed and dozens injured after Iraqi security forces fire upon protesters at Sinak bridge in central Baghdad. (Al Jazeera)
Business and economy
- Icelandic fishing company Samherji announces it will cease operations in Namibia. The company was embroiled in a bribery scandal there that resulted in the resignation of Namibian Fisheries Minister Bernhardt Esau and Justice Minister Sacky Shanghala, as well as the arrest of two employees of South African banking corporation Investec. (Reuters)
Disasters and accidents
- Winter Storm Jacob
- An avalanche at the Squaw Valley Ski Resort in northern California, host site of the 1960 Winter Olympics, kills one person and seriously injures another. (The Weather Channel)
- Widespread snowfall and freezing rain across the Midwest leads to travel disruption. At Kansas City International Airport, a Delta Air Lines Airbus A319 passenger jet slides off the taxiway in icy conditions, while rare snowfall was recorded on the Texas Panhandle. (WABC-TV)
Law and crime
- Politics of Lesotho
- Prime Minister Tom Thabane announces his forthcoming resignation after an arrest warrant is issued for his current wife, first lady Maesiah Thabane, who is wanted in connection for the 2017 murder of Thabane's estranged wife, Lipolelo Thabane. (The Sowetan)
- Crime in China
- A man is sentenced to death for murdering a doctor in Beijing on New Year's Eve. The murder was the latest in a string of attacks on medical staff in China by angry relatives blaming them for the lack of medical resources and services. (AsiaOne)
- Killing of the Haynie family
- A 16-year-old boy, identified as Colin Haynie, shoots his parents and three younger siblings in their home in Grantsville, Utah, killing all but his father, who then apprehended him at the scene. The familicide was the deadliest mass shooting in Utah in 13 years. (USA Today)
Politics and elections
- Brazilian federal government secretary of culture, Roberto Alvim, is dismissed after the broadcast of a video where he announces a new national prize on culture. In the video, Alvim seems to paraphrase a speech by Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany's Reichsminister of Propaganda. (The Guardian)
- Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk submits his resignation after an audio clip of him allegedly criticizing President Volodymyr Zelensky’s economic policies was leaked earlier this week. Zelensky subsequently announces that Honcharuk is allowed to keep his position. (Reuters)
- Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 protests
- At a Friday sermon by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his first in eight years, he defends the Revolutionary Guards’ accidental killing of passengers onboard Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 and praises Operation Martyr Soleimani for giving a “slap on the face” to the United States. His sermon comes as public anger mounts against the government for their handling of Flight 752. (Al Jazeera)
- Protesters squat an oil terminal in the eastern Libyan town of Zuwetina at the request of tribal leaders, who claim that the Government of National Accord is using oil revenue to pay for foreign fighters, a reference to Turkey's sending of troops and arms in support of the GNA. The protesters are swiftly condemned by the state-owned National Oil Corporation. (Reuters)