January 17, 2019 (Thursday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- 2019 Bogotá car bombing
- A suicide car-bomb attack at the General Santander National Police Academy in Bogotá, Colombia, kills at least 20 people and injures more than 50 others. (The Guardian)
Disasters and accidents
- In France, a fire at the University Lyon 1 injures three people. Investigators say that it is a result of an accidental gas bottle explosion. (Euronews)
Law and crime
- Gunmen on motorbikes shoot Ghanaian investigative journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale to death in Accra. Ahmed was a member of the Tiger Eye Private Investigations team that exposed high-level corruption in the Ghana Football Association. (Reuters)
Politics and elections
- United States federal government shutdown of 2018–2019
- U.S. President Donald Trump postpones House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's upcoming diplomatic trip to Europe, Afghanistan and Egypt after she urged the President to postpone his upcoming State of the Union Address over the ongoing government shutdown. (BBC News)
Science and technology
- Facebook removes alleged Russia-based accounts and pages as a part of a crackdown on misuse of its service. (The Wall Street Journal)