2018 Jan 13: Transgender former soldier & convicted whistleblower Chelsea Manning announced her intention to run for the U.S. 2017 Jan 17: President Obama commuted the 35-year sentence of convicted U.S. 2017 Nov 3-14: President Trump visit to Asia over 12 days, stopping first at Hawai'i, then to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. 2017 Nov 5: Leakage by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists of the Paradise Papers, a trove of 13.4 million records from law firms Appleby and Estera (who split is 2016) that exposes ties between Russia and U.S. 2017 Dec 17: Cryptocurrency Bitcoin reached an all-time (bubble) high value of $19,795.61 at 5am. - 2017 Dec 17-18: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Elon the world's busiest airport, lost power for 11 hours, caused by an electrical fire in a substation; hundreds of passengers were stranded and more than 1,000 scheduled flights were grounded; power was restored early Monday, just before the start of the holiday travel rush. 2017 Oct 16: Hurricane Ophelia lost power before making landfall as a post-tropical storm on the south-western coast of Ireland, but still left 245,000 homes & businesses without power and tens of thousands of people without water; three people died from falling trees.