February 7, 2020 (Friday)
Business and economy
- Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam resigns after a spying scandal. (CNN)
- Batterygate
- Apple Inc. is fined €25 million by French regulatory agency General Directorate of Competition, Consumption & Repression of Frauds for deliberately slowing down older iPhone models. The fine amounts to less than 0.003% of Apple Inc.'s current worth. (BBC News)
Disasters and accidents
- Winter Storm Kade
- High winds, gusting up to 90 miles per hour, strike New England as Winter Storm Kade intensifies upon its exit into the Atlantic Ocean. (Weather.com)
- Heavy snowfall blankets much of the north-eastern United States. More than 1 foot of snowfall is reported widely, with up to 2 feet recorded in parts of Maine and Vermont. (Weather.com)
- Five people are killed in a plane crash in Western Alaska, United States. (NBC News)
Health and environment
- COVID-19 pandemic
- COVID-19 pandemic in Mainland China
- General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping declares "people's war" on the coronavirus pandemic. (The National) (Reuters)
- Li Wenliang, the doctor who tried to issue the first warnings about the pandemic, dies after contracting the virus. (BBC News)
- COVID-19 pandemic in Italy
- Italy confirms that an Italian man has contracted the virus, after he visited his girlfriend in Wuhan. (Il Messaggero)
- Royal Caribbean Cruises bans China, Hong Kong or Macau passport holders from boarding its ships amid concerns over the pandemic. (Reuters)
- COVID-19 pandemic in Mainland China
- Esperanza Base on the Antarctic Peninsula reaches a temperature of 18.3 °C (64.9 °F), the hottest on record for continental Antarctica. (The Guardian) (The Washington Post)
- It is reported January 2020 was the warmest January ever on record in Europe. (The Washington Post) (Time)
International relations
- Russia repatriates 26 Russian children from a Syrian refugee camp. (ABC News)
Law and crime
- Manish Shah, a general practitioner in the United Kingdom, is given three life sentences at the Old Bailey for 90 sexual assaults on 24 of his female patients. (BBC News)
- Patrick Crusius, accused of perpetrating the 2019 El Paso shooting, is charged with 90 counts of federal hate crimes. Under the new charges, he could face the death penalty. (BBC News)
Politics and elections
- U.S. President Donald Trump fires National Security Council advisor Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and E.U. ambassador Gordon Sondland, who both testified as witnesses at the impeachment inquiry into him. Vindman's twin brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, an Army JAG officer also part of the National Security Council staff, is also fired. (New York Times) (Politico)
- 2020 Republican Party presidential primaries
- Former Illinois representative Joe Walsh suspends his presidential campaign, following his poor performance in the Iowa caucuses. (The Hill)