• Boko Haram insurgency
  • Suicide bombers kill at least 32 people and injure 66 others in northern Cameroon, near the border with Nigeria. (Reuters Africa)
• Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)
  • A Saudi-led coalition airstrike kills a senior Yemeni judge and seven members of his family in Sana'a. The judge had previously presided over treason cases against ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. (AFP via Yahoo! News) (RT)

• Officials from the New York State parks system have proposed to temporarily "shut off" the American portion of Niagara Falls (also known as American Falls) within three years. The shut off will allow the replacement of two 115-year-old pedestrian stone bridges that are unsafe for the public. (Sky News)

• January 2016 East Asia cold wave
  • At least eighty-five people are killed in Taiwan and tens of thousands stranded in airports as an unprecedented cold snap hits several Asian countries including China and South Korea. (Focus Taiwan) (CNN)
• January 2016 United States blizzard
  • The death toll from the blizzard in the Eastern United States rises to at least 30. (AP)
• British explorer Henry Worsley dies at the age of 55 while attempting to be the first person to cross Antarctica unaided. (BBC)
• A MiG-31 fighter jet crashes in the Krasnoyarsk Krai region in Siberia, Russia. The pilots were able to eject safely, according to the Russian Defence Ministry. (RT)

• Zika virus outbreak in Brazil (2015 - present)
  • The World Health Organisation warns that the Zika virus could spread to most countries in the Americas. (BBC)

• European migrant crisis
  • Greece faces suspension or expulsion from the European Union's Schengen Area if it can not prevent waves of migrants from crossing over the country into Macedonia. (The Telegraph)

• The United States Supreme Court ruled in Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016) that its prohibition of mandatory life sentences for juveniles convicted of murder (under Miller v. Alabama (2012)), had to be applied retroactively, potentially affecting 1300 to 2300 cases nationally. (New York Times)
• In Texas, a grand jury has cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing while it has indicted two anti-abortionists who were involved in making videos of the organization. (New York Times)

• Bob Brown, former Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens, is arrested during a protest in the Tasmanian village of Lapoinya over proposed clear-fell logging of a nearby forest. (The Australian)