Top Eight

Top eight stories for today including the Department of Health and Human Services urged states to start vaccinating everyone 65 and older and to stop reserving two shots per person; One of the country’s biggest labor unions joined with four ride-share drivers in a constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 22; Ireland’s prime minister said on he will issue a formal apology for the widespread abuse unwed mothers and their children suffered during much of the 20th century, and more.

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National

1.) In efforts to speed up Covid vaccination rates, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday urged states to start vaccinating everyone 65 and older and to stop reserving two shots per person.

An employee of the Municipal Health Service GGD administers a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to a health care worker at a coronavirus vaccination facility in Houten, central Netherlands, Friday, Jan. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

2.) The federal prosecutor leading criminal cases against the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol building last week says authorities will pursue tougher charges against the rioters in the weeks ahead, and that the number of cases could grow into the hundreds.

Supporters of President Donald Trump climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

3.) Facing a historic second impeachment for inciting a violent mob to overtake the Capitol, embattled President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended the remarks he made at a rally just before the deadly insurrection.

President Donald Trump speaks to the media before boarding Air Force One, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. The President is traveling to Texas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

4.) The single-dollar court verdict against a DJ who groped Taylor Swift helped the Supreme Court grapple Tuesday with a guttered free-speech case against a public college.

5.) Students involved in the 2019 standoff with a Native American leader at the Washington Monument argued Tuesday before the Sixth Circuit to reinstate harassment and invasion of privacy claims against comedian Kathy Griffin and a New York doctor.

In this Friday, Jan. 18, 2019 image made from video provided by the Survival Media Agency, a teenager wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat, center left, stands in front of an elderly Native American singing and playing a drum in Washington. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington in Kentucky is looking into this and other videos that show youths, possibly from the diocese's all-male Covington Catholic High School, mocking Native Americans at a rally in Washington. (Survival Media Agency via AP)

Regional

6.) One of the country’s biggest labor unions joined with four ride-share drivers Tuesday in a constitutional challenge to Proposition 22, the most expensive ballot initiative in U.S. history that exempts firms like Uber, Lyft and Instacart from treating drivers as employees under California law.

Travelers request an Uber ride at Los Angeles International Airport's pick up terminal in August 2020. (Damian Dovarganes/AP)

7.) A heavily fortified Texas Capitol, a small presence of protesters and tents where required Covid-19 tests were being administered greeted lawmakers and a limited number of visitors on the opening day of the 87th legislative session, scaled down by the pandemic and threats of violence following last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The Texas Capitol building in Austin. (Photo by Kim Broomhall from Pixabay via Courthouse News)

International

8.) Ireland’s prime minister said on Tuesday he will issue a formal apology for the widespread abuse unwed mothers and their children suffered inside institutions run by the state and Catholic Church during much of the 20th century.

FILE - This June 4, 2014 file photo shows the site of a mass grave for children who died in the Tuam mother and baby home, in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland. The Vatican has indicated its support for a campaign to exhume the bodies of hundreds of babies who were buried on the grounds of a Catholic-run Irish home for unwed mothers to give them a proper Christian burial. The Vatican’s ambassador to Ireland, Archbishop Jude Thaddeus Okolo, said in a July 15, 2020 letter to the amateur Irish historian behind the campaign that he shared the views of the archbishop of Tuam, Ireland, Michael Neary, who has said it was a “priority” for him to re-inter the bodies in consecrated ground.(Niall Carson/PA via AP, file)

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