- Chelsea Manning thanked President Barack Obama for commuting her sentence to time served on Thursday via Twitter [1]. The whistleblower was sentenced to 35 years in prison for releasing documents about the Iraq and Afghanistan War to WikiLeaks. Chelsea, who is a transgender woman previously known as Bradley, will be released in May.
- Sir Paul McCartney is suing Sony over the rights to some of The Beatles' most iconic songs [2]. In the 1980s, Michael Jackson [3] outbid McCartney for the rights to 267 songs; when Jackson died, his estate sold the rights to Sony. McCartney filed the lawsuit on Thursday over copyright termination, which other artists like Blondie and Prince have successfully used to win back the rights to their music.
- Iran's tallest skyscraper collapsed on Thursday in the country's capital Tehran. Firefighters were attempting to put out a fire in the building when it collapsed [4], killing at least 50, reports The Los Angeles Times. The Plasco Building was constructed in 1960 and was considered a symbol of modernity.
- Alanis Morissette's former manager, Jonathan Todd Schwartz, admitted to embezzling roughly $7 million from the singer [5] between 2010 and 2014. Schwartz was charged with wire fraud and filing a false tax return; he admitted the theft as a part of a plea deal where he will spend between four and six years in federal prison, according to The Guardian. Schwartz has also represented Katy Perry [6], Tom Petty, and 50 Cent.
- The Senegalese army has entered Gambia, its neighbor, because the nation's former president continues to refuse to step down. President Yahya Jammeh took power by military coup in 1994 and was reelected up until 2016's election. Jammeh lost to Adma Barrow in a December election; Barrow was sworn in at the Gambian embassy in Senegal [7] on Thursday, according to CNN.
- After minor earthquakes triggered an avalanche in Italy on Wednesday, at least 20 people are trapped in a hotel buried under snow. ABC News reports that the avalanche covered the Hotel Rigopiano [8] on the Gran Sasso mountain in central Italy. Rescuers are on the scene, but debris has hindered their search for survivors.