News Headlines - 20 January 2015

▽UPDATE 3-Islamic State threatens two Japanese captives in video | Reuters

The militant Islamic State group released an online video on Tuesday purporting to show two Japanese captives and threatening to kill them unless it received $200 million in ransom.

▽Chomsky: Paris attacks show hypocrisy of West's outrage - CNN.com

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His most recent book is "Masters of Mankind." His web site is www.chomsky.info. The views expressed in this commentary are solely his.

▽President Obama is back at 50% approval. Here’s how. - The Washington Post

President Obama's approval rating just hit 50 percent for the first time since the spring of 2013. That's the biggest -- and most surprising -- takeaway from a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

▽Missing Mars space probe finally located on red planet

A decade-long search for a lost Martian robot has finally discovered the UK-led mission's fate. The Beagle 2 Mars Lander apparently made it down to the red planet in one piece but failed to fully deploy properly in order to make contact with mission controllers on Earth.

▽Page 3: The Sun calls time on topless models after 44 years | The Guardian

The Sun, Britain’s top-selling newspaper, has scrapped Page 3’s topless women after 44 years, delighting the legion of critics who have branded the photos of bare-breasted models sexist, offensive and anachronistic.