Netanyahu rejects offer: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected an offer from Hamas to release the hostages it still is holding if Israel ends its war against Hamas. A poll taken by an Israeli television station shows that if an election were held today for a new Israeli government, Netanyahu would lose by a large margin. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, the Palestinian death toll in the war has now passed 25,000.
DeSantis quits: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the contest for the Republican presidential nomination. DeSantis endorsed Donald Trump for the nomination after having spent an estimated $150 million to try to defeat Trump and others. Trump had denigrated DeSantis as incompetent and disloyal and gave him the nickname Ron Desanctimonious. Trump now says that he’ll stop calling DeSantis those things now that DeSantis has endorsed him.
Missing Navy Seals: The U.S. military has ended the search for two Navy Seals who went missing in the northern part of the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia. The two were on a mission to board a ship that was carrying Iranian weapons being used to attack shipping. The ship with the weapons was sunk and its dozen crewmembers were taken into custody. One of the Navy Seals had fallen into the rough water and the other jumped in to try to save him. The search for the missing men had lasted 10 days.
Roe v. Wade anniversary: January 22, 1973, is when the Supreme Court ruled in the case Roe v. Wade that the Constitution guaranteed the right for women to obtain abortions. The current Supreme Court threw out that decision. The White House today marks the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision by announcing new actions to expand access to contraception, abortion medications and emergency abortions at hospitals. The government will be notifying private insurers of their obligation to cover the cost of contraceptives and is reminding hospitals that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires them to provide emergency abortions when appropriate.
Sony calls off deal: Sony has called off a planned merger of its operations in India with the India media company Zee. Sony says it plans to take Zee to court over the breakup of the $10 billion deal. It was expected that the combined Sony and Zee operations would have created a dominant broadcasting and video streaming company. At the same time, Disney and India’s Reliance Industries are in discussions about merging their media operations in India.
Weather: CBS News reported today that 95 people have died in the past week as a result of the severe winter weather that has hit various parts of the country. In Tennessee, there were 25 deaths. Oregon had 16, including three people who were killed when a tree fell on their car. The National Weather Service reported this morning that freezing rain was forecast to continue impacting parts of the Southern Plains, Mid-Mississippi Valley and Ohio Valley and that a slight warming was expected in the Northeast.
Cover photo by Senate Democrats / Wikimedia Commons
