Here are the news stories you should not miss today:

Politics

-- United States President Donald Trump extended his greetings to the Vietnamese leaders and people on the occasion of the traditional Lunar New Year during a phone talk with Vietnamese State President Tran Dai Quang on Wednesday.

Society

-- Typhoon Sanba was downgraded into a tropical depression after passing the southern Philippines on Wednesday morning, packing wind speed of between 50 and 60km per hour. The tropical depression is forecast to travel west toward the East Vietnam Sea and continue to weaken.

-- A total of 22 traffic accidents happened across Vietnam on Wednesday, two days before the Lunar New Year begins, killing 20 people and injuring 28 others, according to the National Committee for Traffic Safety.

-- Two people were killed and four others severely injured after a car crashed into the guard rails along the section of National Highway 1 in the north-central province of Quang Binh on Wednesday afternoon.

-- A 30-year-old man in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho has been arrested for murdering a 58-year-old porter, who was sleeping on a hammock in a backyard, by cutting his throat on Wednesday evening. Local residents added that the suspect is a drug addict.

-- Sixty-nine people tested positive for drugs after police carried out a sudden raid on a club in the southern province of Dong Nai on Wednesday night.

-- A man and his father were killed after their motorbikes, which were stopped on the side of a street, were hit by a passenger bus in Buon Ma Thuot City in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak on Wednesday morning.

Business

-- Many residents in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday evening rushed to buy themselves a decent yellow apricot flower tree to decorate their homes during the Lunar New Year.

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