T.L. Winslow's 2017 C.E. Historyscope

© Copyright by T.L. Winslow. All Rights Reserved.



2017 - The Hurricane Harvey Irma Manchester Parsons Green Stephen Paddock Devin Patrick Kelley Halloween Massacre Sutherland Springs #MeToo Year of Trump and His Muslim Taliban Travel Ban and Rocket Man Problem, or, White Is Right Again, For How Long Nobody Knows They're Marching in the Streets while the Deep State is Fighting Back and Engaging in a Witch Hunt and Toppling Monuments? The #MeToo Year when American women make their power play to bump off men in power? The Year of the Ram-A-Van Shot Heard Round the World While the West Continues Its Frog in a Beaker Flirtation with Cultural Suicide?

Trump Rooster in China, 2016 Make America Great Again Dress, 2017 'What Happened' by Hillary Clinton (1947-), 2017 U.S. Pres. Donald John Trump (1946-) U.S. First Lady Melania Trump (1970-) U.S. Vice-Pres. Mike Pence (1959-) Karen Pence of the U.S. (1958-) Ivanka Trump of the U.S. (1981-) Emmanuel Macron of France (1977-) Marine Le Pen of France (1986-) Antonio Manuel de Oliveira Guterres of Portugal (1949-) Sally Yates of the U.S. (1960-) Gen. James N. Mattis of the U.S. (1950-) Gen. John Francis Kelly of the U.S. (1950-) Gary David Cohn of the U.S. (1960-) Sean Michael Spicer of the U.S. (1971-) Anthony Scaramucci of the U.S. (1964-) Nikki Haley of the U.S. (1972-) Elaine Lan Chao of the U.S. (1953-) Neil Gorsuch of the U.S. (1967-) Ajit Varadaraj Pai of the U.S. (1973-) Mike Pompeo of the U.S. (1963-) Rex Wayne Tillerson of the U.S. (1952-) Ben Carson of the U.S. (1951-) Rick Perry of the U.S. (1950-) Betsy DeVos of the U.S. (1958-) Jeff Sessions of the U.S. (1946-)) Wilbur Ross of the U.S. (1937-) Steve Mnuchin of the U.S. (1962-) Tom Price of the U.S. (1954-) Andy Puzder of the U.S. (1950-) Mick Mulvaney of the U.S. (1967-) U.S. Adm. Robert Harward Jr. of the U.S. U.S. Gen. Herbert Raymond 'H.R.' McMaster (1962-) Scott Pruitt of the U.S. (1968-) Dan Coats of the U.S. (1943-) R. Alexander Acosta of the U.S. (1968-) Devin Nunes of the U.S. (1973-) Kay Bailey Hutchinson of the U.S. (1943-) Kirstjen Nielsen of the U.S. (1972-) Madonna (1958-) in Pussyhat, Jan. 21, 2017 John Bercow of Britain (1963-) Gen. Rumen Radev of Bulgaria (1963-) Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed of Somalia (1962-) Moon Jae-in of South Korea (1953-) Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand (1980-) Takuma Sato (1977-) Jim Bridenstine of the U.S. (1975-) Peggy Whitson of the U.S. (1960-) Sheila Abdus-Salaam of the U.S. (1952-2017) Sheila Jackson Lee of the U.S. (1950-) Leo Eric Varadkar of Eire (1979-) Esteban Santiago (1990-) Shiloh Heavenly Quine (1959-) Alexandre Bissonnette (1989-) Khalid Masood (-2017), Mar. 22, 2017 Salman Abedi (1995-2017) 2017 London Massacre Suspects U.S. Sgt. Ikaika Erik Kang (1983-) Husnain Rashid (1986-) Omar Suleiman (1986-) Samantha Sally Elhassani (1986-) Amor M. Ftouhi (1967-) Stephen Paddock (1953-2017) Jordan Edwards (2001-17) and Roy Oliver Sayfullo Saipov (1988-) Marcus Hutchins (1994-) Devin Patrick Kelley (1991-2017) Howell Emanuel Donaldson III Akayed Ullah (1990-) Chris Long (1985-) David Jones (1987-2017) Gift Ngoepe (1990-) James T. Hodgkinson (1951-2017) Scott Ostrem (1971-) Nicholas Young (1979-) Brooks Koepka (1990-) Everitt Aaron Jameson (1991-) Matthew Riehl (1990-2017) Tiger Woods (1975-) Mug Shot, May 29, 2017 Garbine Muguruza (1993-) Joseph Scott Giaquito (1981-) Kaan Sercan Damlarkaya (1989-) Kara Deidra McCullough (1991-) Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters (1995-) Lost At Sea Women Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava Kazuo Ishiguro (1954-) Harvey Weinstein (1952-) Rainer Weiss (1932-) Gregory Wrightstone Kurt Andersen (1954-) Barry Barrish (1936-) Kip Thorne (1940-) Noam Chomsky (1928-) Jacques Dubochet (1942-) Morgan Evans (1984-) Joachim Frank (1940-) Richard Henderson (1945-) Jeffrey Connor Hall (1945-) Michael Morris Rosbash (1944-) Michael Warren Young (1949-) Richard H. Thaler (1945-) Morgan Wallen (1993-) '1922', 2017 '47 Meters Down', 2017 'Anna and the Apocalypse', 2017 'Blade Runner 2049', 2017 'The Boss Baby', 2017 'Coco', 2017 'Darkest Hour', 2017 'Dunkirk', 2017 'Get Out', 2017 'Ghost Stories', 2017 'Happy Death Day', 2017 'It', 2017 'Jigsaw', 2017 'Leatherface', 2017 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales', 2017 'The Post', 2017 'The Silent Child', 2017 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi', 2017 'Thank You for Your Service', 2017 'Unlocked', 2017 'Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets', 2017 'Veronica', 2017 'Victoria & Abdul', 2017 'The Zookeepers Wife', 2017 Elbphilharmonie, 2017

2017 Doomsday Clock: 2-1/2 min. to midnight (first use of a fraction). Chinese Year: Rooster (Jan. 28); late last Dec. Taiyuan, Shanxi, China erects a giant Trump Rooster Statue outside a shopping mall. Doomsday Clock: 2-1/2 min. to midnight. Africa becomes the world's fastest-growing beer market. Time Mag. Person of the Year: The Silence Breakers (Women of the #MeToo Movement); Donald Trump is runner-up. The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season (Apr. 19-Nov. 9) sees 10 hurricanes in a row and six major hurricanes incl. Harvey, Maria, Irma, and Nate, costing a record total $282.16B damage. CO2 emissions this year by China are 9,232M tons, vs. 5,087M tons by the U.S. (81% higher). This year U.S. federal spending tops $4T for the first time, and the U.S. nat. debt tops $20T; Social Security spending tops $1T for the first time. The U.S. birth rate falls to the lowest since 1987. Spain receives 13K+ illegal immigrants from Africa this year, vs. 12K in 2016; Italy: 97K (vs. 181K in 2016, 600K since 2013). 700K+ foreign nationals overstay their U.S. visas this year. Islamists from 121 groups cause the deaths of 84K incl. 22K civilians in 66 countries this year in 7,841 attacks, mostly on fellow Muslims. The Muslim pop. of Germany passes 6M, 7.% of the 83M pop. The Muslim pop. of Spain is 2M, vs. 100K in 1990; there are 1.4K mosques in Spain (incl. 112 in Madrid), 21% of the total places of worship. The number of jihadist attacks in Europe: 33 (vs. 13 in 2016), of which 10 are successful, killing 62; most are by home-grown terrorists. Zero illegal immigrants enter Israel this year, vs. 61K in 2007-12. U.S. beer sales place Bud Light at the top, followed by Coors Light and Miller Lite, with Bud dropping from #3 to #4. ICE arrests 127K+ criminal illegal aliens in FY 2017, up 11K since 2016. The first year with no commerical passenger plane crashes (until ?); 4B passengers. Piracy incidents off the Horn of Africa double compared to 2016. Bottled water becomes the #1 favorite beverage in the U.S. On Jan. 1 (1:15 a.m.) an Islamist AK-47 attack in a Santa Claus costume at the Reina Nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey during a New Year celebration kills 39 and injures 69, with some jumping into the nearby Bosphorus Strait to escape; on Jan. 2 ISIS claims responsibility, with the soundbyte: "In continuation of the blessed operations that Islamic State is conducting against the protector of the cross, Turkey, a heroic soldier of the caliphate struck one of the most famous nightclubs where the Christians celebrate their apostate holiday." On Jan. 1 the Transgender Mandate, a new federal regulation prohibiting discrimination in health care against transgenders, due to come into effect today is blocked by a federal judge in Tex. On Jan. 1 Finland announces a 2-year Universal Basic Income (UBI) of 560 Euros/mo. to a randomly selected pop. of 2K. On Jan. 1 after the U.N. Security votes 15-0-0 on Oct. 6 to recommend him, former Socialist PM (1995-2002) Antonio Manuel de Oliveira Guterres (1949-) of Portugal becomes U.N. secy. gen. #9 (until ?). On Jan. 2 the 2017 Rose Bowl sees the 9-3 USC Trojans defeat the 11-2 Penn. State Nittany Lions 52-49. On Jan. 2 after North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Lunatic pledges to step-up efforts to test-fire an ICBM this year, Donald Trump tweets the soundbyte: "It won't happen!" On Jan. 2 The New Celebrity Apprentice debuts on NBC-TV, hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger, with new U.S. pres. Donald Trump as exec producer; too bad, on Feb. 13 it ends after a measly seven episodes. On Jan. 3 Pres. Obama expands the power of the Nat. Security Agency (NSA) to share raw sigint (globally intercepted personal communications) with 16 other intel agencies, making it easier for anti-Trump moles to leak info. after he takes office. On Jan. 5 four Black Lives Matter supporters in Chicago, Ill. kidnap and torture white mentally challenged ? and post it live on Facebook, getting them arrested and charged with kidnapping and hate crime. On Jan. 5 lame duck Pres. Obama holds a meeting with vice-pres. Joe Biden, FBI dir. Jim Comey, Atty. Gen. Sally Yates, and nat. security advisor Susan Rice, telling them to consider withholding nat. intel from the incoming Trump admin. in case they were compromised by Russia. On Jan. 6 Russian Gen. Valery Gerasimov announces that it is beginning a withdrawal of forces from Syria, starting with the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. On Jan. 6 (12:55 p.m.) after visiting an FBI office in Anchorage, Alaska in Nov. and claiming that voices in his head were telling him to join ISIS, 26-y.-o. Iraq War vet Esteban Santiago (1990-) (who converted to Islam under the name Aashiq Hammad years before joining the U.S. Army) flies to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., gets his checked gun out of the baggage area, and uses it to shoot and kill five and injure eight before running out of ammo and laying down to wait for police to arrest him; he later tells FBI agents that he carried out the attack for ISIS; he receives a life prison sentence. On Jan. 6 Donald Trump meets with the FBI, NSA, CIA, and DNI chiefs, who claim that Russia engaged in a systematic hacking attempt to help him defeat Hillary; he responds GFY, er, that it is probably a Dem. witch hunt and didn't affect the election outcome; meanwhile Congress certifies Trump's Electoral College V over Hillary by 304-227. On Jan. 6 57-y.-o. convicted murderer Shiloh Heavenly Quine (1959-) in Calif. becomes the first U.S. inmate to receive state-funded sex reassignment surgery. On Jan. 6 U.S. nat. intel dir. James Clapper issues a multiagency intel community assessment about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. pres. election, concluding that no evidence of collusion with the Trump campaign has been found; on May 14 he appears on ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos, saying that by his last day in office he still didn't see any evidence, but that there could still be some evidence collected by the FBI. On Jan. 8 (Sun.) a jihadist plows his truck into Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem, Israel, killing four and injuring 15; on Jan. 9 the Berlin Senate in Germany has the Brandenburg Gate lit with the colors of the Israeli flag in solidarity for the first time ever. On Jan. 8 the 2nd of two U.S. strikes (Dec. 29) in C Yemen kills three AQAP operatives. On Jan. 8 (eve.) the 2017 (74th) Golden Globes Awards, presented at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif by Jimmy Fallon is a coup for "La La Land", which wins seven; the awards show is full of liberal Hollyweird stars giving speeches dissing Donald Trump, esp. Cecil B. Demille lifetime achievement award winner Meryl Streep, causing Trump to Tweet that "she's one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood". On Jan. 10 (eve.) Pres. Obama delivers his farewell address at McCormick Place in Chicago, Ill., responding to cries of "four more years" with "I can't do that", and issuing a parting shot at Donald Trump with the soundbyte: "For every two steps forward, it often feels we take one step back." On Jan. 10 Yahoo announces that it will change its name to Altaba after being acquired by $4.8B by Verizon, with Marissa Mayer leaving the board. On Jan. 11 pres.-elect Donald Trump gives a news conference (first in 162 days), continuing his trademark style of never backing down on anything, refusing to put his assets in a blind trust or release his tax returns, and brushing off all attempts to frame him on being Putin's puppet, and telling Jim Acosta that his CNN is "fake news". On Jan. 11 Norway becomes the first country to shut down its FM radio network, despite a Dec. poll that shows that 66% of the pop. oppose it. On Jan. 11 the 15th anniv. of the Gitmo Detention Center; 60 detainees remain, incl. 46 certified as too dangerous to transfer or try. On Jan. 11 Blackwater founder Erik Prince secretly meets in the Seychelles Islands with a Russian close to Russian pres. Vladimir Putin to set up a communications back-link with Pres. Trump? On Jan. 12 the U.S. military moves 3.5K troops to Poland to counter Russian aggression, becoming the largest deployment since the end of the Cold War, pissing-off Russia. On Jan. 12 Pres. Obama awards vice-pres. Joe Biden a pres. medal of freedom, talking up their bromance and calling him a "lion of American history" - setting a precedent? On Jan. 12 after 100K flock to the U.S. since the Dec. 17, 2014 announcement of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations, the Obama admin. announces an end to the 1995 "wet foot, dry foot" policy of automatic legal residency for Cubans who reach U.S. soil. On Jan. 13 (1:00 p.m.) (Fri. the Thirteenth) Finnair Flight 666 takes off from Copenhagen (CPH) and flies directly to Helsinki (HEL) after a 1:34 flight, landing at 3:41 p.m. local time; the plane is 13 years old. On Jan. 13 the U.S. House of Reps votes 227-198 along party lines (except for nine defecting Repubs.) to begin the process of repealing Obamacare. On Jan. 13 former Dem. Nat. Committee (DNC) chmn. Debbie Wasserman Schultz meets with FBI dir. James Comey, dissing him for not informing her about alleged Russian hacking. On Jan. 13-14 protests in Tunisia on the 6th anniv. of the 2011 Arab Spring. On Jan. 14 Pope Francis meets with Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas in Rome to open the Palestinian embassy to the Vatican. On Jan. 15 (eve.) Donald Trump gives an interview to The Washington Post, in which he utters the soundbyte that he is planning on replacing Obamacare with a plan that will provide "insurance for everybody". On Jan. 15 the 2017 Paris Peace Summit, attended by delegates from 70 nations reaffirms the 2-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, but chickens out before laying out concrete steps for fear of pro-Israel pres. Trump. On Jan. 15 the Steele Dossier is pub. by BuzzFeed; Watergate journalist Bob Woodward calls it a "garbage paper", but the leftists eat it up and ramp-up the Trump-Russia hoax. On Jan. 16 the Obama admin. releases 10 detainees from Gitmo incl. almost-9/11 hijacker Mohammad Al Ansi; on Jan. 18 he frees Puerto Rican nationalist terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera. On Jan. 17 Pres. Obama commutes the sentences of 209 inmates, incl. the 35-year sentence of WikiLeaker Chelsea (Bradley) Manning, who will leave prison in May. On Jan. 18 (early a.m.) a truck-borne IED explodes in a military camp in Gao, Mali, killing 50+ and injuring many others. On Jan. 18 (night) two precision air strikes are authorized on two ISIS camps near Sirte, Libya. On Jan. 19 (eve.) after Donald Trump and his family land ceremoniously in Washington, D.C., the Deploraball in Washington, D.C. for Trump supporters is crashed by hundreds of black mask-wearing anarchist protesters; performers incl. country star Toby Keith; fake news outlet CNN is disinvited. On Jan. 19 Route 1 to Jerusalem opens to traffic. On Jan. 19 the Obama admin. scrambles to generate the Trump-Russia collusion scandal within 24 hours of Pres. Trump's inaguration. On Jan. 19 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry leaves his job, giving a speech to U.S. State Dept. employees, with the soundbyte: "This is not an end. This is a beginning. It's a new beginning." On Jan. 20 waist-deep snow falls in Ain Sefra, NW Algeria ("Gateway to the Sahara") for the first time in 37 years. The don of a new era? On Jan. 20 (12:00 a.m.) (7th min. of the 7th hour on the eve of the Hebrew sabbath) (during a sudden light shower) the 2017 (66th) U.S. Pres. Inauguration in Washington, D.C. sees New York City-born, Queens, N.Y.-raised Wharton School-educated real estate billionaire and TV personality (Presbyterian?) Donald John Trump (1946-) (Hebrew numerical value 424, same as Messiah Ben David AKA King David, who died at age 7, vs. Hillary Rodham Clinton = 255 = Amalek) (Secret Service codename: Mogul) (known for using 8th grade language filled with repetition) become Repub. U.S. pres. #45 (until ?) (70 years, 70 mo. and 7 days old - oldest elected U.S. pres.) (married 3x) (five children and eight grandchildren); former gov. #50 of Ind. (2013-17) Michael Richard "Mike" Pence (1959-) (Secret Service codename: Hoosier) becomes U.S. vice-pres. #48 (until ?); the end of a globalized U.S.? the inauguration is watched by 30.6M TV viewers on 12 TV networks, becoming the 2nd highest Nielsen rating since 1981; before the ceremony Trump attends a private religious service at St. John's Episcopal Church, led by Southern Baptist Rev. Robert Jeffries; First Lady is Slovenian-born Roman Catholic Melania Trump (Melanija Knavs or Knauss) (1970-) (Secret Service codename: Muse), insisting that the White House be exorcised before moving in; at the inauguration she wears a baby-blue dress and jacket from Ralph Lauren, stirring comparisons with Jackie Kennedy; Second Lady is Kan.-born Karen Sue Pence (nee Batten) (1958-) (Secret Service codename: Hummingbird); Trump's hotshot daughter (2nd First Lady?) is New York City-born Ivanka Marie Trump (1981-) (Secret Service codename: Marvel), who wears a white Oscar de la Renta dress at the inauguration; the inauguration is boycotted by 67 Dem. congresspersons (most since Abraham Lincoln), but not Hillary and Bill Clinton, who are thanked by Trump at the luncheon in the Capitol; Trump's cabinet picks incl. no Hispanics (first time since 1981); a screaming woman in a lime jacket stinks the inauguration speech up; Trump's 2017 Inauguration Speech punches the Washington, D.C. establishment in the mouth while telling the American People that they run it now, repeating the phrase "America First"; on Jan. 20 Pres. Trump's Cabinet starts with retired USMC gen. James N. "Mad Dog" Mattis (1950-), who becomes U.S. secy. of defense #26 (until ?); on Jan. 20 retired USMC gen. John Francis Kelly (1950-) becomes U.S. homeland secy. #5 (until ?); Sean Michael Spicer (1971-) becomes White House press secy. #30 (until July 21); within a few hours of taking the oath of office, Trump signs a sweeping executive order to federal agencies to "ease the burden" of Obamacare in preparation for its total abolition. On Jan. 20 after receiving a $285M severance package from Goldman Sachs, where he was pres. since 2006, Cleveland, Ohio-born Jewish-Am. investment banker Gary David Cohn (1960-) becomes dir. #11 of the Nat. Economic Council, making him Pres. Trump's chief economic advisor (until Mar. 6, 2018). On Jan. 20 Saturday Night Live writer Katie Rich issues a tweet that Pres. Trump's cute little 10-y.-o. son Barron Trump "will be this country's first homeschool shooter", pissing-off the PC police and causing her to be fired. On Jan. 20 (eve.) Zeke Miller of Time mag. reports that the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Oval Office of the White House has been removed; he quickly issues a correction and apology; actually, a bust of Winston Churchill that was removed by Pres. Obama was returned and placed in a new spot. On Jan. 21 the anti-Trump 2017 Disrupt J20 Women's March (1st Annual Women's March), funded by leftist puppetmaster George Soros sweeps the globe from Australia to the U.S. and U.K.; a large crowd protests in downtown Washington, D.C.; pop star Madonna wears a pussy hat, designed by Jayna Zweiman (1978-), and mentions dreams of "blowing up the White House"; protesters carry signs reading "Pussy trumps tyranny", "Keep your politics off my pussy", "Stay cunty", and "My neck, my back, my pussy will grab back"; 217 are arrested for rioting, facing up to 10 years in priz and a $250K fine. On Jan. 21 Pres. Trump meets with the CIA, declaring that the U.S. must totally eradicate "radical Islamic terrorism" from the "face of the Earth". On Jan. 22 air force maj. gen. Rumen Georgiev Radev (1963-) of the Bulgarian Socialist Party becomes pres. of Bulgaria (until ?). On Jan. 23 Pres. Trump signs an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he called "a rape of our country"; he is backed by progressive Dems. and labor groups, and opposed by establishment Repubs. and economists; he also signs an executive order to defund Internat. Planned Parenthood, leaving the U.S.-based corporation for Congress, and reinstating the Mexico City Policy of banning foreign adi to nongovt. orgs. (NGOs) that promote or pay for abortion procedures; he also signs an executive order freezing federal hiring, except for the military. On Jan. 23 U.S. Rep. (R-Kan.) (2011-17) Michael Richard "Mike" Pompeo (1963-) becomes U.S. CIA dir. #6 (until Apr. 26, 2018), succeeding John O. Brennan. On Jan. 23 Indian-Am. Repub. atty. Ajit Varadaraj Pai (1973-), known as a big critic of regulation incl. Net Neutrality becomes U.S. FCC chmn. (until ?) On Jan. 24 Pakistan successfully test-fires its Ababeel multi-target nuclear misslile, with 2.2K km range, capable of hitting many cities in India. On Jan. 24 Pres. Trump signs executive orders reopening the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipline projects, guaranteeing all U.S.-made steel; he also signs executive orders cutting of all new contracts and grants for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and bans its employees from publishing on social media; he also tweets a warning to Obamatown Chicago, Ill., threatening to "send in the Feds" if violence doesn't decrease. On Jan. 25 Pres. Trump signs Executive Order 13767: Border Security nd Immigration Enforcement Improvements, ordering the Dept. of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to beg planning for a border wall with Mexico, vowing to begin construction within months, and make the Mexican govt. pay for it; he also tweets: "I will be asking for a major investigation into voter fraud", claiming that millions voted illegally even though he won. On Jan. 25 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. hits 20K for the first time. On Jan. 25 artist Christo cancels his 25-y.-o. project "Over the River" to hang a silvery fabric along a 42-mi. stretch of the Arkansas River in SC Colo., ostensibly in protest against Pres. Trump. On Jan. 26 after denouncing his new border security measures, Mexican pres. Enrique Pena Nieto cancels his planned visit to the U.S. to meet with Pres Trump.; the Trump Wall would reduce cash flow to the cartels that financed Nieto's pres. campaign? On Jan. 26 (1:30 p.m.) Pres. Dump Truck, er, Trump visits the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security HQ, and utters the soundbyte: "A nation without borders is not a nation. Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders", then signs the executive order "Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States", tightening U.S. immigration policies, indefinitely banning refugees from Syria, and banning refugees from other countries for 120 days, plus 30 days more for Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen; refugees to be admitted this year will be cut from 110K to 50K; on Jan. 27 after answering critics with "We can't take chances", Trump tells Christian Broadcasting Network that he will help persecuted Christians; Iraq retaliates by banning U.S. travelers, as does Iran; on Jan. 29 Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announces that they will hire 10K refugees over the next five years, while U.S. Senate minority leader (D-N.Y.) Chuck Schumer calls Trump's order "mean-spirited and un-American... bad for America, bad for our national security", claiming it goes against "what America has always been about", breaking into tears, which Trump calls "fake tears"; too bad, Trump omits dangerous Muslim nations Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, UAE et al., maybe because some are where he has business ties? On Jan. 27 former U.S. Repub. gov. #116 (2011-17) Nimrata "Nikki" Haley (nee Randhawa) (1972-) becomes U.S. ambassador to the U.N. (until ?). On Jan. 27 the anti-abortion 2017 March for Life is heartily supported by Pres. Trump; Mike Pence becomes the first U.S. vice-pres. to give a speech at one, containing the soundbytes: "Life is winning again in America", "We will not rest until we restore a culture of life in America for ourselves and our posterity", and "Next week President Donald Trump will announce a Supreme Court nominee who will uphold the God-given liberty enshrined in our Constitution in the tradition of the late and great Justice Antonin Scalia", calling for ending taxpayer-funded abortions. On Jan. 27 FBI dir. James Comey has dinner with Pres. Trump, followed on Feb. 14 by a meeting in the White House, keep memos which he claims to leak in response to a May 12 tweet, although the New York Times quotes from them on May 11, claiming that Trump asked Comey for "loyalty", and asking him to drop an investigatin into Michael Flynn's dealings with Russia. On Jan. 28 Pres. Trump signs an executive order banning former admin. officials from lobbying for five years, along with an order to his generals to give him a plan to defeat ISIS in 30 days, restructuring the Nat. Security Council and Homeland Security Council; meanwhile at 9:00 p.m. U.S. federal judge Ann Donnelly of New York stays Trump's executive orders, preventing the govt. from deporting the 200 citizens from banned countries who already arrived in the U.S. from being deported, but leaving his orders intact. On Jan. 28 a U.S. Special Ops and UAE forces raid against al-Qaida militants in Yemen results in one U.S. Navy SEAL KIA and three injured, and 14 al-Qaida fighters KIA; Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens is KIA, becoming the first U.S. soldier KIA during the Trump admin; Anwar al-Awlaki's 8-y.-o. daughter Nawar Anwar al-Awlaki (b. 2008) is killed. On Jan. 29 (night) a shooting by two masked gunmen at the Grand Mosque of Quebec in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada kills six and injures 28, causing Canadian PM Jusitn Trudeau to call it a "terrorist attack"; after Muslim student Mohamed Belkhadir is arrested and released, non-Muslim Alexandre Bissonnette (1989-) is arrested as a suspect, with his past public support of Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen used to frame him; a govt. coverup? On Jan. 30 Pres. Trump signs an executive order requiring federal agencies to cut two existing regulations for every new one they introduce. On Jan. 30 after the White House deliberately omits mention of the Jewish Shoah or Nazi anti-Semitism in its recognition of Internat. Holocaust Remembrance Day, the pissed-off Holocaust Museum issues a statement telling them what's what. On Jan. 30 Pres. Trump fires acting U.S. atty.-gen. Sally Caroline Quillian Yates (1960-) after she refuses to enforce his travel restrictions on Muslim countries; she is replaced by Obama appointee Dana James Boente (1954-) of the Eastern District of Va. On Jan. 30 Pres. Trump issues a tweet calling the media "the opposition party". On Jan. 30 Iran tests its new Khorramshahr long-range ballistic missile, pissing-off the U.S., which announces sanctions against 25 Iranian people and cos. On Jan. 30-31 a Reuter/Ipsos Poll finds that 49% of Am. adults agree with Trump's executive order on immigration, vs. 41% who disagree, and 10% who are undecided. On Jan. 31 former labor secy. #24 (2001-9) Elaine Lan Chao (1953-) (wife since 1993 of Repub. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell) becomes U.S. transportation secy. #18 (until ?). On Jan. 31 Pres. Trump nominates Denver, Colo.-born conservative Denver federal judge (Roman Catholic-turned-Episcopalian) Neil McGill Gorsuch (1967-) (son of former EPA head Anne Gorsuch) for the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by Antonin Scalia (1936-2016), causing Dems. to run half-scared at the likelihood of his approval and fiercely fight with a filibuster (1st since Abe Fortas in 1968), causing Repubs. to invoke the nuclear option to confirm him by 54-45 on Apr. 7, the day of the home opener of the Colo. Rockies MLB baseball team in Denver (a 2-1 V over the Dodgers); on Apr. 10 he is sworn-in as U.S. Supreme Court justice #113 (until ?). On Jan. 31 Turing's Law in Britain receives royal assent, pardoning Alan Turing and other gays convicted of homosexuality. On Jan. 31 (night) ex-U.S. Army soldier Joshua Cummings (1979-) murders Denver transit security guard Scott Von Lanken (b. 1961), claiming he supports ISIS; on Jan. 25 he is sentenced to life in prison without parole. In Jan. the Washington Int. for Near East Policy (WINEP) pub. a set of proposals for new U.S. pres. Donald Trump on U.S. foreign policy towards Turkey, calling on him to "guarantee" that the U.S. Congress will not acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, pissing-off the Armenian Nat. Committee of Am. (ANCA), which calls for an explanation. In Jan. the U.S. Bureau of Prison begins banning all pork products from the menus of federal prisons - I bet it wasn't to please Jews and vegetarians? In Jan. U.S. Army. secy. Eric Fanning issues new regs allowing brigade-level cmdrs. to approve religious garb incl. hijab, beard, and turban. In Jan. Alexandria, La.-born Lutheran-to-Muslim convert Lt. Col. Khallid Shabazz (Michael Barnes) is appointed chaplain of the U.S. Army's 7th Infantry Div., consisting of 14K mostly Christian soldiers. In Jan. Media Matters founder David Brock presents the confidential 49-page memo Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action, a Dem. plan for defeating Pres. Trump's presidency at all costs via a daily media war and by working with major social media platforms to censor "right wing propaganda and fake news"; Media Matters' puppetmaster is America-hating billionaire globalist George Soros. In Jan. U.S. unemployment is 152,081,000 (vs. 152,111,000 in Dec.), gaining 5K manufacturing jobs and losing 10K govt. jobs, vs. 162K govt. jobs added and 46K manufacturing jobs lost in the prior year. In Feb. the Unseasonably Warm Feb. 2017 in the U.S. sees trees bloom and grass grow in the SE U.S., breaking 11,500 daily high max temp records in the U.S. (and 418 daily low min temp records), becoming the warmest U.S. Feb. since 1954, finishing 7.3F above the 20th cent. avg. for the Lower 48 U.S. states; Chicago receives no snowfall until Mar. (latest since 1884). On Feb. 1 ExxonMobil CEO (2006-16) Rex Wayne Tillerson (1952-) becomes U.S. secy. of state #69 (until Mar. 31, 2018). On Feb. 1 new U.S. nat. security adviser Michael Flynn makes his first public statement, and announces that it is "officially putting Iran on notice" after its ballistic missile tests and an Iranian-backed Houthi rebel attack on a Saudi warship. On Feb. 1 (eve.) a building at the U. of Calif. Berkeley (UCB) where gay conservative anti-Islam speaker Milo Yiannopoulos is set to speak is attacked by violent masked Antifa and other leftist student protesters, causing the speech to be canceled and police to close the campus - the free speech movement started and ended in Berkeley? On Feb. 2 (a.m.) Pres. Trump addresses the Nat. Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., opening with the soundbyte about Trump critic Arnold Schwarzenegger and his poor ratings hosting "The Apprentice": "I want to just pray for Arnold, if we can, for those ratings"; he also utters the soundbytes that "religious freedom is under threat", and vowing to "get rid of an totally destroy the Johnson Amendment" that bars pastors from endorsing candidates from the pulpit - unless they're black? On Feb. 2 mass protests begin in Romania over a controversial decree that would decriminalize some corruption offenses; on Feb. 6 PM Sorin Grindeanu announces that it will be repealed on Feb. 12. On Feb. 2 the Boy Scouts of Am. (BSA) announce that they're completely folding to the demands of LGBT activists and admitting everybody incl. transgenders; on Feb. 7 Joe Maldonado becomes the first transgender boy scout in the U.S. On Feb. 3 29-y.-o. Egyptian Allah Akbar-shouting ISIS-inspired terrorist Abdullah Reda Refaie al-Hamahmy attacks and injures a French soldier outside the Louvre in Paris before being shot 5x. On Feb. 3 Iraqi refugees Mohanad Shareef Hammadi (25) and Waad Ramadan Alway (31) from Bowling Green, Ky. are sentenced to 40 years in federal prison by judge Thomas B. Russell for using IEDs against U.S. soldiers in Iraq and attempting to send money and weapons to al-Qaida in Iraq to kill more. On Feb. 3 federal judge James Robart in Seattle, Wash. orders a nat. halt to enforcement of Pres. Trump's 7-nation travel ban, causing Trump to tweet the soundbyte: "The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!" On Feb. 5 Super Bowl LI (51) at NRG Stadium in Houston, Tex. sees the New England Patriots overcome a 28-3 deficit late in the 3rd quarter to defeat the Atlanta Falcons by 34-28 in OT (first SB to go into OT); a record 5th SB title for the Patriots (9th appearance, incl. two in 3 years), all under coach Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady (7th appearances), who also becomes SB MVP for a record 4th time; the 50th anniv. of Super Bowl I (Jan. 15, 1967); the Falcons are 0-2 in the SB; the halftime show features Lady Gaga, who parachutes in from the open roof and gives a surprisingly patriotic performance that doesn't trash Trump on her big stage; a drone show is a first; too bad, Falcons coach Dan Quinn gave the game away by not running the game clock down on each play, giving New England enough time to score the tying TD and go into OT, then get lucky and win the coin toss, giving them a chance to win with one more TD? On Aug. 17 Philadelphia Eagles defensive end (#56) Christopher Howard "Chris" Long (1985-) (son of Howie Long) becomes the first white NFL player to demonstrate while the Nat. Anthem is being played at an NFL game, joining safety Malcolm Jenkins #27) during a game in Philly; he goes on to move to the Philadelphia Eagles and help win SB 52. On Feb. 6 Israel passes a law legalizing 1K+ Jewish homes in Area C in Judea and Samaria, pissing-off the Palestinians. On Feb. 6 British House of Commons speaker (since June 22, 2009) John Simon Bercow (1963-) stinks himself up by calling for Pres. Trump to be banned from speaking in the House - don't have a cow? On Feb. 7 after a 50-50 tie is broken by U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence (first time ever for a cabinet apointee) (Repubs. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted against her), billionaire Repub. Reformed Christian Elisabeth "Betsy" DeVos (nee Prince) (1958-) (proponent of de-federalization of schools and archenemy of featherbedded teachers unions) becomes U.S. education secy. #11 (until ?); on Feb. 7 U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduces a bill to abolish the U.S. Dept. of Education on Dec. 31, 2018, with the soundbyte: "Neither Congress nor the President, through his appointees, has the constitutional authority to dictate how and what our children must learn"; during her confirmation hearings DeVos gave the example of how a rural school in grizzly country in Wyo. might need to keep a gun to deal with grizzlies as an example of why central planning from Washington, D.C. won't work, which the lying PC media twists into a statement that all schools need guns to fight grizzlies to prove she's unqualified. On Feb. 8 Pres. meets with U.S. big city police chiefs and sheriffs, and blasts the so-called judges pretending to deliberate on his suspended travel ban apparently solely on the basis that they are Islamophiles and don't like Trump's campaign statement that he wanted to ban all Muslims, not just ones from terrorist countries like in his executive order, which was a backing down, uttering the soundbyte: "Anyone would understand this. This is for the security of the country.. Because you could be a lawyer, or you don't have to be a lawyer. If you were a good student in high school or a bad student in high school, you could understand this", blasting the oral arguments presented to the super-leftist U.S. 9th Circuit "Circus" Court of Appeals in San Francisco (most overturned in the U.S.) the night before, with the soundbyte: "We're talking about things that had just nothing to do with it"; the real reason a cabal of liberal justices iintervened is to appease the Muslim World, even at the cost of destroying the U.S. Constitution in an attempted power grab and coup; the 3-judge panel incl. Michelle T. Friedland, William C. Canby Jr., and Richard R. Clifton; too bad, they intervened too quickly, before any pres. order banning all Muslims, much less a congressional order, and shot their bolt and gave themselves away so that they can be removed before they get another chance? On Feb. 8 despite an intimidation campaign by al-Shabaab, Tayo Party founder (PM in Nov. 2010-June 2011) Mohamed Abdullahi "Farmajo" (It. for cheese) Mohamed (1962-) is elected pres. of Somalia, becoming pres. #9 on Feb. 16 (until ?), known for his rep of not being corrupt. On Feb. 8 after a desperate attack on him by Dems., who claim he is a white supremacist in disguise, U.S. Sen. (R-Ala.) (since Jan. 3, 1997) Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions (1946-) becomes U.S. atty. gen. #84 (until Npv. 7, 2018). On Feb. 8 (eve.) ISIS fires rockets on the Israeli resort of Eilat from Sinai, causing the Israelis to retaliate with an air strike, killing two. On Feb. 9 the super-liberal U.S. 9th Court of Appeals in San Francisco upholds Seattle Judge James Robert's restraining order on Pres. Trump's travel ban from seven Muslim nations in a purely political decision designed to let as many illegals rush in as possible, failing to even state the law involved, 8 U.S. Code 1182, and spitting in Trump's face for his assertion that the court doesn't have any constitutional authority to second-guess his order because the defense of nat. borders is solely the responsibility of Congress and the president, with the soundbyte: "There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy", causing Trump to tweet: "See you in court, the security of our nation is at stake!" On Feb. 9 U.S. Gen. John Nicholson, cmdr. of U.S. forces in Afghanistan tells Senate Armed Services Committee chmn. Sen. John McCain "I believe we're in a stalemate" in Afghanistan. On Feb. 9 senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway issues a free add for Ivanka Trump's clothing line in her official capacity on TV, violating ethics rules and causing the PC police to come out, after which she is given counseling and the matter dropped by the Trump admin., if not the Dems. On Feb. 10 U.S. Rep. (R-Ga.) (2005-) and physician Thomas Edmund "Tom" Price (1954-) becomes U.S. secy. of health and human services #23 (until ?). On Feb. 11 North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un's pesky exiled (since 2003) older half-brother Kim Jong-nam (b. 1971) is assassinated in Kuala Lumpur Internat. Airport at Jong-Goon's orders with nerve agent VX. On Feb. 12 after unusually high water levels cause an emergency spillway to be opened, authorities issue an evacuation order for 200K downstream of the crumbling 770-ft. Lake Oroville Dam in N Calif., tallest in the U.S. On Feb. 12 (eve.) the 2017 (59th) Grammy Awards, presented at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif. and hosted by James Cordon (first time) is a clean sweep for Adele, who gives a speech all-but giving her awards to Beyonce; singer Joy Villa wears a Make America Great Again dress, which immediately becomes a runaway bestseller on Amazon.com; Chance the Rapper wins the first Grammy for a streaming-only album, "Coloring Book" (#8 in the U.S.). On Feb. 13 Pres. Trump meets in the White House with Islamonymphomaniac Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, who announces that "We continue to pursue our policies of openness towards immigration and refugees without compromising security", while Trump continues his hard line on refugees and illegal immigrants. On Feb. 13 Goldman Sachs banker Steven Terner "Steve" Mnuchin (1962-) becomes U.S. treasury secy. #77 (until ?). On Feb. 13 after admitting that he lied to U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence about discussions with Russia over sanctions (a possible violation of the 1799 U.S. Logan Act), U.S. nat. security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn resigns; he already was convicted in 2015 for mishandling classified info; on Feb. 13 Pres. Trump offers the position to retired vice-adm. Robert S. "Bob" Harward Jr., who passes, after which on Feb. 20 Trump nominates U.S. Army lt. gen. Herbert Raymond "H.R." "the Iconoclast" McMaster (1962-), who on ? becomes U.S. nat. security advisor #26 (until ?). On Feb. 13 after criticizing him, King Jong-nam (b. 1971), half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is assassinated by poison in Kuala Lumpur by two female assassins. On Feb. 16 U.S. Rep. (R-S.C.) (2011-) John Michael "Mick" Mulvaney (1967-) becomes OMB dir. #? (until ?). On Feb. 16 A Day Without Immigrants is a gen. strike around the U.S. - Trump supporters wish they'd never quit striking? On Feb. 16 after a sudden urge, Pres. Trump gives a long (75 min.) press conference, his first solo press conference, redefining the concept, calling his admin. a "fine-tuned machine" and lambasting the press for bias and hate, claiming that he inherited a "mess" and denying all stories about his campaign being in constant contact with Russia as "fake news", blaming the resignation of Michael T. Flynn on leaks, and uttering the soundbyte: "Tomorrow they will say Donald Trump rants and raves at the press. I'm not ranting and raving, I'm just telling you. You know, you're dishonest people. but, but I'm not ranting and raving. I love this. I'm having a good time doing it." On Feb. 16 Hardee's and Carl's Jr. CEO (since Sept. 2000) Andrew Franklin "Andy" Puzder (1950-) resigns, and on Feb. 16 Pres. Trump nominates R. Alexander Acosta (1968-), who on Apr. 28 becomes U.S. labor secy. #27 (until ?). On Feb. 16 Parliamentary Motion M-103 passes in Canada, adding "Islamophobia" to Canada's hate crime laws, becoming a de facto enactment of Sharia? On Feb. 16 a male suicide bomber wearing a burqa in the Sufi Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sehwan, Sindh Province, Pakistan kills 70+ incl. 20 children and nine women; Pakistani army chief Gen. Qmar Javed Bajwa vows to retaliate, warning that there will be "no more restraint". On Feb. 17 Danville, Ky.-born Okla. Repub. atty. gen. #17 (since Jan. 10, 2011) Edward Scott Pruitt (1968-) (anthropogenic climate change denier) (activist against the EPA's activist agenda, as well as gay marriage, the Affordable Care Act, and abortion) becomes dir. #14 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), going on to work at breakneck speed to dismantle Obama admin. environmental legislation while sinking into pitty-pat personal misconduct scandals that finally turn conservatives against him, causing him to resign on July 6, 2018. On Feb. 17 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!" On Feb. 18 9K-y.-o. Kennewick Man AKA the Ancient One is reburied in the high desert of the Columbia Plateau before a crowe of 200+. On Feb. 19 David E. Kelley's drama series Big Little Lies, based on the 2014 novel by Liane Moriarty and set in Monterey, Calif. debuts on HBO for ? episodes (until ?), starring Reese Witherspoon as Madeline Martha Mackenzie, Nicole Kidman as Celeste Wright Alexander Skarsgard as her husband Perry, Shailene Woodley as Jane Chapman, Laura Dern as Renata Klein, and Zoe Kravitz as Bonnie Carlson. On Feb. 20 10 U.S. Jewish community centers receive telephone bomb threats, becoming the 4th time this year. On Feb. 23 U.S.-backed Iraqi forces retake the airport in Mosul, Iraq from ISIS. On Feb. 23 U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson and homeland security secy. John Kelly meet with Mexican foreign affairs secy. Luis Videgaray in Mexico City, who complains that Mexico "does not have to accept provisions that one government wants unilaterally to impose on another", threating to go to the U.N. to defend human rights of Mexicans, while they respond: "In our meetings, we jointly acknowledged that, in a relationship filled with vibrant colors, two strong sovereign countries from time to time will have differences. We listened closely and carefully to each other as we respectfully and patiently raised our respective concerns." On Feb. 24 the Pentagon announces that it's ditching Pres. Obama's names for it and calling it ISIS. On Feb. 25 Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera announces that the Vatican has hired the law firm of Baker McKenzie to protect its copyright on Pope Francis. On Feb. 26 former U.S. labor secy. (2013-7) Thomas Edward "Tom" Perez (1961-) becomes chmn. of the Dem. Nat. Committee (DNC), defeating Muslim U.S. Rep. (D-Minn.) (2007-) Keith Maurice Ellison (1963-), who becomes deputy chmn. On Feb. 26 the 2017 (89th) Academy Awards, presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. are hosted by Jimmy Kimmel; "Moonlight" wins best picture, as well as best supporting actor for Mahershala Ali (first Muslim to win an Oscar) and best adapted screenplay; Casey Affleck wins best actor for "Manchester by the Sea"; Damien Chazelle wins best dir. for "La La Land", which also wins for best actress (Emma Stone), best score, best song ("City of Stars"), and two others (six total out of 14 nominations); Viola Davis wins best supporting actress for "Fences"; "Zootopia" wins best animated feature film; Kenneth Lonergan wins best original screenplay for "Manchester by the Sea"; Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney win best adapted screenplay for "Moonlight"; the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers hands presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway the wrong envelope for best picture, instead giving them the one for best actress, causing Dunaway to mistakenly announce "La La Land", resulting in a major snafu. On Feb. 27 "King of Bankruptcy" billionaire investor ($2.9B) Wilbur Louis Ross Jr. (1937-) becomes U.S. commerce secy. #39 (until ?). On Feb. 27 after Pres. Trump gives them 30 days, the Pentagon announces their new plan to "soundly and quickly" defeat ISIS, shifting from flushing ISIS out of safe locations in an attrition fight to surrounding them in their strongholds and annihilating them. On Feb. 27 (eve.) the 8-hour LGBT docudrama miniseries When We Rise debuts on ABC-TV (until Mar. 3, 2017), pushing the gay agenda on the viewing audience Hollyweird style; too bad, ratings tank (2.07M viewers). On Feb. 28 ((eve.) Pres. Trump addresses a joint session of Congress, giving a speech that finally makes him look presidential, starting with the soundbyte: "Tonight, as we mark the conclusion of our celebration of Black History Month, we are reminded of our nation's path toward civil rights and the work that still remains. Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week's shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms", going on to use the term radical Islamic terrorism" so much hated by Pres. Obama, and announcing a new VOICE (Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement office in the Dept. of Homeland Security, drawing groans from the usually icily quiet Dems., who do stand and clap for veterans, paid family leave, a tribute to U.S. Navy SEAL Senior Chief William "Ryan" Owens et al., and ending with a very presidential call for unity, silencing many critics, with the soundbyte: "Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed. Every problem can be solved. And every hurting family can find healing, and hope. "Our citizens deserve this, and so much more — so why not join forces to finally get it done? On this and so many other things, Democrats and Republicans should get together and unite for the good of our country, and for the good of the American people." In Feb. the exasperated loser Dems. begin making allegations of sinister connections between Pres. Trump and Vladimir Putin, calling for an investigation by the House select committee on intelligence, which chmn. U.S. Rep. (R-Calif.) (2015-) Devin Gerald Nunes (1973-) rejects, saying that it isn't necessary because "there's nothing there", and it would amount to a "witch hunt"; on Mar. 1 after stating under oath on Jan. 17 that he has never been in contact with the Russian govt. about the 2016, election U.S. atty.-gen. Jeff Sessions is accused by the Wall Street Journal of being investigated for illegal contact with the Russians, which he denies, but adds that he talked with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Ukraine and terrorism, causing Trump-hating U.S. Sen. (D-S.C.) Lindsey Graham to call for him to recuse himself from any investigations, and Trump-hating U.S. Rep. (D-Calif.) Nancy Pelosi to accuse him of lying under oath and call for his resignation, which is seconded by Trump-hating Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, causing Sessions to recuse himself on Mar. 2; on Mar. 3 Pres. Trump tweets that he has full confidence in Sessions, that Schumer and Pelosi had meetings with the same ambassador, and should be investigated instead; on Mar. 4 (early a.m.) Trump issues more tweets that "sick" Pres. Obama had his "phones tapped in Trump Tower" before the election; on Mar. 13 White House press secy. Sean Spicer explains that "The President used the word wiretaps in quotes to mean, broadly, surveillance and other activities"; on Apr. 6 despite Speaker Paul Ryan expressing full confidence in him, Nunes temporarily steps down from the U.S. House investigation on Russia's meddling in the U.S. pres. election, calling ethics charges by the Office of Congressional Ethics claiming he made unauthorized disclosures of classified info. "entirely false and politically motivated"; in Dec. the House Committee on Ethics clears Nunes. In Feb. U.S. unemployment drops to 4.7% (vs. 4.8% in Jan.), adding 238K new jobs. In Feb. the 2017 South Sudan famine in the N half affects 5M (ends June). On Mar. 1 as part of Cutwater ad agency's #StrengthHasNoGender Twitter campaign and Women's History Month, Brawny brand paper towels replaces the Brawny Man with a Brawny Woman wearing the same red lumberjack shirt. On Mar. 2 retired neurosurgeon Benjamin Solomon "Ben" Carson Sr. (1951-) becomes U.S. HUD secy. #17 (until ?). On Mar. 2 former Repub. gov. #47 of Tex. (2000-15) James Richard "Rick" Perry (1950-) becomes U.S. energy secy. #14 (until ?). On Mar. 2 Snapchat (SNAP) goes public, with the stock zooming from $17 on Mar. 1 (eve.) to $24.48. On Mar. 3 Pres. Trump visits the new nuclear-powered USS Gerald R. Ford, which he calls "a monument of American might", vowing to pump billions of dollars into new military hardware. On Mar. 6 (Mon.) Pres. Trump signs a revised executive order barring citizens from six Muslim-majority nations from the U.S. for 90 days starting Mar. 16, with Iraq removed; on Mar. 15 his order is blocked by Honolulu, Hawaii federal judge Derrick Kahala Watson, an appointee and Harvard Law School classmate of Pres. Obama, who visited his town 48 hours earlier, and decides to elect himself to the White House in an arrogant abuse of judicial power. On Mar. 7 WikiLeaks releases 8K pages of info. containing the entire hacking capacity of the CIA, dealing them a major blow. On Mar. 8 an ISIS attack on the 400-bed Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan Hospital for wounded soldiers in Kabul, Afghanistan kills 30+ and injures 50+. On Mar. 8 A Day Without a Woman sees protests by anti-Trump women across the U.S. On Mar. 8 U.S. homeland security secy. John F. Kelly announces that illegal immigration across the SW U.S. border plummeted since Pres. Trump took office, with coyotes hiking their rates from $3.5K to $8K. On Mar. 10-12 the Biafran Genocide Exhibition is held in the Biafran Embassy in Victoria, Spain, becoming the first exhibition of atrocities committed by the Nigerian govt. against Biafra. On Mar. 13 Hasbro announces that an online vote has caused them to replace the boot, wheelbarrow, and thimble from the board game Monopoly, and replace them with the T-Rex, rubber ducky, and penguin. On Mar. 14 the Russian Orthodox Church announces that it is adding 15 W European saints to its Menaion (liturgical calendar), incl. "St. Patrick the Enlightener". On Mar. 15 Donald Trump's tax returns for 2005 are leaked, with Trump-hater Rachel MadCow, er, Maddow of MSNBC stinking herself up by crowing that they prove that Trump is a tax cheat, liar, and parasite, but instead showing that he paid $38M in taxes on a profit of $150M, and not zero like Hillary's people were claiming, at a 25% rate that is higher than Obama's or Bernie Sanders'. On Mar. 16 U.S. Sen. (R-Ind.) (2011-17) Daniel Ray "Dan" Coats (1943-) becomes U.S. nat. intel dir. #5 (until ?). On Mar. 18 39-y.-o. French Islamist Zyed Ben Belgacem (b. 1977) is killed at Orly Airport S of Paris after trying to wrestle away a soldier's weapon. On Mar. 19 a U.S. air strike in Paktika Province, Afghanistan kills al-Qaida leader Qari Yasin. On Mar. 19 popular TV judge Andrew Napolitano claims that Pres. Obama asked British intel officials to wiretap Trump Tower, causing Fox News to fire him. On Mar. 20 FBI dir. James Comey testifies before the House Intelligence Committee, revealing that the FBI is investigating "the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts." On Mar. 21 the U.S. orders nine airlines from eight countries to ban devices larger than a cellphone or smartphone from passenger cabins. On Mar. 22 World Water Day. On Mar. 22 British-born Islam convert jihadist Khalid Masood (b. 1964) tries to attack the Parliament Bldg. in Westminster, London, England, driving his gray 4x4 car into a crowd on Westminster Bridge, killing two and injuring 50 before emerging with an 8-in. knife and stabbing a policeman to death before he is killed, causing Parliament to go into Code Red lockdown; ISIS claims responsibility; before the attack he sent his wife a photo of himself in Mecca along with verses from the Quran to justify his attack. On Mar. 22 the Tomb of Christ in Jerusalem is reopened after restoration; meanwhile team from the Nat. Technical U. of Athens (NTUA) reveals that the foundations are crumbling, and that a 6-mo. 6M Euro project is needed to save them. On Mar. 22-23 the Anti-ISIS Coalition meets in Washington, D.C. (first since Dec. 2014). On Mar. 22-25 the George Soros-backed Dem. Alliance meets in Washington, D.C. to plan resistance to Pres. Trump. On Mar. 24 after mo. of wrangling between themselves over Pres. Trump's new Am. Health Care Act (AHCA) health care bill to replace Obamacare, which some call Ryancare or Obamacare 2.0, causing Trump to issue various ultimatums and call for a floor vote, speaker Paul Ryan pulls it before the scheduled vote after failing to convince enough Repubs. to vote for it and at Trump's request; no Dems. will vote for it either way; Obamacare remains the law of the land. On Mar. 25 senior ISIS propaganda official Ibrahim al-Ansari is killed in a U.S. air strike in Al-Qa'im Iraq; U.S. official Joe Scrocca utters that he was responsible for "the brainwashing of young children". On Mar. 26 (4:00 a.m.) U.S. Army medic Joseph Scott Giaquinto (1981-) throws rocks and a New Testament at the Islamic Center of Fort Collins, Colo., and is captured on video, causing him to be easily tracked down and arrested and charged with criminal mischief, trespass, and hate crime after the Council on Am.-Islamic Relations (CAIR) intervenes to make an example of him; on Dec. 18 he pleads guilty, and is sentenced to three years in a Wellness Court program which incl. drugs to get his mind right. On Mar. 27 U.S. atty. gen. Jeff Sessions holds a press conference, in which he warns sanctuary cities that they might lose some federal financial assistance, causing Chicago, Ill. mayor Rahm Emanuel to announce a new municipal ID for illegal aliens that help them avoid repatriation. On Mar. 27 after it is revealed that he met on the White House grounds with a source claiiming that communications involving Pres. Trump and/or his associates were caught up in "incidental" surveillance, U.S. Rep. (D-Calif.) Adam Schiff, top Dem. on the House Intel Committee calls on U.S. Rep. (R-Calif.) Devin Nunes to recuse himself from the witch hunt investigation into possible ties between Pres. Trump's campaign and Russia. On Mar. 28 the U.S. House by 215-205 (incl. 15 Repubs.) passes a law killing online privacy regs issued by the FCC last Oct., allowing Internet providers Comcast, AT&T, Verizon et al. to keep up with Google and Facebook and sell their customers' browsing habits. On Mar. 28 after slithering out of her rock, Hillary Clinton gives a speech to businesswomen in San Francisco, Calif. dissing Pres. Trump, with the soundbyte: "These are bad policies that will hurt people and take our country in the wrong direction. It's the kinds of things you think about when you take long walks in the woods... Resist, insist, persist, enlist"; she gives the speech dressed up like the Joker? On Mar. 29 Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump is given the special job of asst. to the U.S. pres., with no salary. On Mar. 29 the Arab League Summit in Amman, Jordan. On Mar. 29 North Carolina promises to repeal its HB2 Bathroom Law in response to threats from the NCAA to pull all postseason events between 2018-2022. On Mar. 30 the U.S. Senate uses the U.S. Congressional Review Act to vote 51-50 to overturn the Obama admin. rule to stop states from defunding Planned Parenthood, with vice-pres. Mike Pence casting the deciding vote; Repubs. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski vote with the Dems. In Mar. IBM ends telecommuting, forcing employees to work in their offices instead of their homes. In Mar. U.S. unemployment is 4.5% (vs. 4.7% in Feb.), with 98K new jobs added; avg. private sector earnings are up 2.7% over the previous year (vs. 2.8% in Feb.); manufacturing jobs reach 12,392,000, highest level in eight years. On Apr. 3 (2:40 p.m.) 23-y.-o. ethnic Uzbek suicide bomber Akbarzhon Jalilov detonates a shrapnel-filled briefcase bomb at the Sennaya Ploshchad Metro Station in St. Petersburg, Russia, killing 14 and injuring 45 while pres. Vladimir Putin is visiting the city (his hometown); another bomb is found and dismantled; Pres. Trump talks on the phone with Vladimir Putin about it. On Apr. 3 Pres. Trump meets in the White House with Egyptian pres. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, promising a U.S. military buildup "probably more than ever before", and praising him as doing a "fantastic job", promising "strong support" for battling terrorism. On Apr. 3 ex-CIA dir. John O. Brennan gives an interview to "BBC Newsnight", calling Donald Trump's Muslim travel ban "simplistic and wrongheaded", claiming that Trump's insistence on using the term "radical Islamic terrorism" helps legitimize ISIS. On Apr. 4 a chemical attack in Idlib Province, Syria kills 58 incl. 11 children. On Apr. 4 the U.S. Senate passes Senate Resolution 118, "Condemning hate crime and any other form of racism, religious or ethnic bias, discrimination, incitement to violence, or animus targeting a minority in the United States"; it was drafted by the Muslim org. EmgageUSA (formerly EmergeUSA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and sponsored by senators Marco Rubio, Dianne Feinstein, Susan Collins, and Kamala Harris; it calls on "Federal law enforcement officials, working with State and local officials... to expeditiously investigate all credible reports of hate crimes and incidents and threats against minorities in the United States and to hold the perpetrators of those crimes, incidents, or threats accountable and bring the perpetrators to justice; encourages the Department of Justice and other Federal agencies to work to improve the reporting of hate crimes; and... encourages the development of an interagency task force led by the Attorney General to collaborate on the development of effective strategies and efforts to detect and deter hate crime in order to protect minority communities"; an insidious attempt to end free speech and enact Muslim Sharia blasphemy laws? On Apr. 6 Russia recognizes West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. On Apr. 6 the U.S. Mint issues a Black Lady Liberty Coin with a $100 face value to commemorate the 225th anniv. of the Mint, becoming the first non-white. On Apr. 6 (8:40 p.m. ET) in response to the gassing attack of children et al., as he sat down to dinner with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Palm Beach, Fla., Pres. Trump orders a 59-missile Tomahawk cruise missile ($1.5M apiece) strike by USS Ross and USS Porter on the Shayrat Airfield in Homs Province, where the attack originated "to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons"; Dems. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi endorse the action, while most other Dems. condemn it because he didn't ask Congress for permission first, which isn't required by law. On Apr. 7 (2:50 p.m. local time) a hijacked beer truck driven by 39-y.-o. Uzbek Muslim Rakhmat Akilov plows into pedestrians in Drottninggatan, the busiest shopping street in Stockholm, Sweden, killing five and injuring 15; he planned the attack for months, wanting to "create fear in the population at large" and "run over unbelievers" to stop Sweden from fighting ISIS. On Apr. 7 New York becomes the first U.S. state to offer four years of public college to residents, with strings attached incl. living and working in the state for four years after graduation. On Apr. 9 (Palm Sun.) two Coptic Christian churches in Tanta and Alexandria, Egypt are bombed, killing 25 and injuring 60 in St. George's Church in Tanta, and killing 11 and injuring 35 in St. Mark's Cathedral in Alexandria; Egyptian pres. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi declares a 3-mo. state of emergency; ISIS claims responsibility; on Apr 10 police kill seven of the terrorists in a shootout in Assiut, Upper Egypt; on Apr. 10, 2018 a military court in Alexandria sentences 36 perps to death out of 48 defendants, 17 of which are fugitives. On Apr. 10 after he refuses to take $800 to get off an overbooked plane voluntarily so that a crew member can take his seat, airport police bloody and drag Chinese physician David Dao off United Airlines Flight 3411 en route from Chicago, Ill. to Louisville, Ky. like a sack of manure, leaving him bloody, after which CEO Oscar Munoz stinks himself up more by downplaying the man's suffering and only talking about "lessons we can learn from this experience"; the video pisses-off the 340M users of the Chinese Weibo social media platform, many of whom call for a boycott; on Apr. 14 United Airlines announces a policy change to board crews 60 min. before departure to avoid a repeat, and later agrees to pay up to $10K to bumped passengers, and ends the practice of forcing passengers to give up their seats unless they pose a safety risk; meanwhile Dao hires lawyers to sue. On Apr. 11 three pipe bombs explode near a bus carrying the German Borussa Dortmund Soccer Team, injuring one player and one police officer; it is later linked to ISIS. On Apr. 11 White House press secy. Sean Spicer makes remarks that Hitler didn't use chemical weapons, bring out the PC police and causing him to apologize; they did, but not on the battlefield like Assad? On Apr. 11 U.S. atty. gen. Jeff Sessions gives two speeches in Ariz., announcing new measures to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, with no mention of the Trump Wall. On Apr. 12 U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson meets in Moscow with Russian pres. Vladimir Putin; meanwhile in the White House Pres. Trump utters the soundbytes: "We may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with Russia", and "I said it [NATO] was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete", dropping his characterization of China as a currency manipulator to get them to help him spank Kim Jong-un's hiney et al., and announcing "We are sending an armada" to deal with pesky North Korea, incl. aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. On Apr. 12 N.Y. Court of Appeals judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam (b. 1952) (ex-wife of a Muslim, who never converted herself) commits suicide in the Hudson River of New York City after issuing a landmark ruling in Aug. in Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A. that a lesbian from a broken partnership has the right to seek visitation rights of their adopted son. On Apr. 12 an Allah Akbar-shouting Muslim waving a knife and destroying windows in Schilderswijk, The Hague, Netherlands is shot in the leg by police. On Apr. 13 Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi visits Palestinian authority foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki, issuing the soundbyte: "This year marks the 70th anniversary of the United Nations' passing of Palestine-Israel Partition Plan. Acording to the resolution at that time, Israel had the right to statehood, Palestine also had the right to statehood. However, after 70 years, what we can see is that Palestinian brothers have yet to establish an independent country with full sovereignty. This is unfair. This kind of historical injustice must be corrected and cannot continue." The Trump admin. fires the first 21st cent. shot heard around the world, but not quite on Friday the 13th? On Apr. 13 (7:00 p.m. local time) (Thur.) the U.S. drops its 21.6K-lb. GBU-43/B MOAB (Massive Ordinance Air Bomb) (Mother of All Bombs) (largest non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal) in Nangarhar Province, Achin District, E Afghanistan on an ISIS tunnel and cave complex, becoming the first use in combat, killing 94 ISIS fighters incl. four cmdrs.; the U.S. had already decimated ISIS forces in Afghanistan by 80% to about 600; U.S. Gen. John Nicholson made the decision to drop the big bomb, not Pres. Trump. On Apr. 13 CIA dir. Mike Pompeo gives a speech at the Center for Strategic and Internat. Studies calling WikiLeaks a "non-state hostile intelligence service". On Apr. 15 (Sun Day) North Korea bows to economic pressure from China and military pressure from the U.S. and refrains from holding a promised 6th nuclear test, but on Apr. 16 it blows up a missile on the launching pad to prove what inept stooges they are. On Apr. 15 a bomb on a crowded bus convoy full of Shiite refugees outside Aleppo, Syria kills 112+, bringing condemnation from Pope Francis, who calls it "ignoble". On Apr. 16 (Sun.) (Easter) a referendum in Turkey on granting nearly unlimited dictatorial powers to pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan gives him a blank check, making the PM office impotent. On Apr. 17 the 54-member U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) hands out 13 leadership posts in U.N. orgs. dealing with gender equality and the advancement of women, with all but seven countries voting to give Saudi Arabia a slot on the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in 2018-22. On Apr. 17 the U.S. Supreme Court rejects the request of Ark. to lift a stay that would allow it to conduct its first execution 11 years, for Don Davis, as part of a plan to execute eight inmates before the end of Apr. when the lethal injection drug midazolam expires. On Apr. 18 after a smear campaign incl. allegations of blaspheming Islam shrinks his lead, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, Christian gov. of Jakarta, Indonesia loses an election to Muslim education minister Anies Baswedan. On Apr. 18 African-Am. Muslim Kori Ali Muhammad (1977-) kills three whites in a rampage in Fresno, Calif. while shouting "Allahu Akbar", claiming he wanted to kill as many whites as possible. On Apr. 19 U.S. maj. gen. Joseph Martin, cmdr. of coalition ground forces in Iraq gives a news conference, in which he claims that hundreds of Iraqi civilians are killed by ISIS "on a weekly basis", and that they used chemical weapons in Mosul over the weekend on liberating forces. On Apr. 19 Fox News kicks cable's top news anchor Bill O'Reilly off The O'Reilly Factor amid sexual harassment allegations, changing the name to The Factor - score one for the anti-Trump crowd? On Apr. 19-Nov. 9 the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season sees 10 hurricanes in a row and six major hurricanes incl. Harvey, Maria, Irma, and Nate, costing a record 3K deaths and $282.16B damage, coming in #2 after the 2005 season. On Apr. 20 Islamist Karim Cherufi attacks a standing police car in Paris, France on the Champs Elysees killing one officer and wounding one before being killed near a Marks & Spencer store; ISIS claims responsibility. On Apr. 20 the annual 420 Denver Weed Rally in the Denver, Colo. Civic Center leaves piles of trash. On Apr. 22 a nationwide cyber attack hits power grids in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City, causing traffic backups. On Apr. 22 1M protesters in 600 U.S. cities stage an anti-Trump March for Science, incl. the Scientists' March on Washington in Washington, D.C., attended by 100K concerned over climate change and Pres. Trump's stance on it; on Apr. 29 (100th day of the Trump admin.) another People's Climate March in Washington, D.C. is atttended by thousands in sweltering heat, while the U.S. EPA announces that its main climate change Web site is "undergoing changes" to better reflect its "new direction"; 300 sister marches are held in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle et al.; the march in Denver is held in a spring snowstorm. On Apr. 23 the 2017 French pres. election are a V for Emmanuel Macron of the Liberal Party (23.7%), and Marine Le Pen of the Nat. Front (21.7%); on May 7 runoff election. On Apr. 23 10 Taliban fighters dressed as Afghan army soldiers attack the Mazar-i-Sharif Army Base, killing 160+ troops, becoming the biggest defeat for the Afghan army since 2001; nine Taliban are KIA, and one captured. On Apr. 24 Pres. Trump meets with U.N. Security Council ambassadors at the White House, describing the U.N. as an "underperformer", complaining about costs going "out of control", and how unfair it is that the U.S. has to pay 22% of the operating budget and 28.6% of the peacekeeping budget; with the soundbyte: "It hasn't lived up to the potential. I see a day when there's a conflict where the United Nations, you get together, and you solve the conflict. You just don't see the United Nations, like, solving conflicts. I think that's going to start happening now." On Apr. 25 U.S. federal judge William Orrick III in San Francisco blocks Pres. Trump's order to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities, claiming that the city of San Francisco and county of Santa Clara are likely to succeed in proving it unconstitutional, foiling plans by the U.S. Dept. of Justice to cut-off funding to eight sanctuary cities if they don't provide proof that they are deliberaly sheltering illegal aliens; Orrick previously raised $200K for Obama. On Apr. 25 Pres. Trump speaks at the U.S. Holocaust Museum's Days of Remembrance in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., uttering the soundbytes: "This is my pledge to you: we will confront anti-Semitism,. We will stamp out prejudice, we will condemn hatred, we will bear witness and we will act", "Those who deny the Holocaust are an accomplice to this horrible evil. We'll never be silent, we just won't. We will never, ever be silent in the face of evil again", and "The state of Israel is an eternal monument to the undying strength of the Jewish people." On Apr. 25 tennis star Serena Williams announces her pregnancy by a white guy, causing tennis star Ilie Nastase to utter the comment: "Let's see what color it has. Chocolate with milk?", pissing-off the PC police, who get the ITF to suspend him; he already accused her of using performance-enhancing substances. On Apr. 26 the Trump admin. announces sketchy plan for their tax reform, incl. reducing the seven tax brackets to three (10%, 25%, 35%), doubling the standard deduction, tax relief for families with dependents, eliminate tax breaks for the wealthy, repeal the alternative min. tax, death tax, and 3.8% Obamacare tax, while protecting deductions for mortgages and charitable donations. On Apr. 26 U.S. Adm. Harry Harris, chief of the U.S. Pacific Command speaks to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, uttering the soundbyte about pesky North Korea: "Kim Jong-Un is clearly in a position to threaten Hawaii today, in my opinion. I have suggested that we consider putting interceptors in Hawaii that... defend [it] directly, and that we look at a defensive Hawaii radar"; currently the U.S. only has interceptors in Calif. and Alaska. On Apr. 27 Pres. gives an interview to Reuters, uttering the soundbyte: "I loved my previous life. I had so many things going. This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier." On Apr. 27 U.S. Special Forces kill Abdul Hasib, head of ISIS in Afghanistan in a joint U.S.-Afghan operation in Nangarhar Province. On Apr. 28 North Korea stages another ballistic missile test; too bad, it fails. On Apr. 29 Pres. Trump's Day 100 comes after signing 24 executive orders (most since WWII), 22 pres. memoranda, 20 pres. proclamations, and 28 bills, none major. On Apr. 29 (11:00 p.m.) unarmed 15-y.-o. black teenie Jordan Edwards (b. 2001) is shot in the back of the head by white police officer Roy Oliver in Balch Springs, Tex. with an AR-15 rifle while riding in the front passenger's seat of a vehicle driving away from a party, lying that the vehicle was backing into the officers, then admitting it was driving away from them; on May 5 after being fired, Oliver is arrested, and charged with murder; on Aug. 28, 2018 he is found guilty, and sentenced to 15 years in prison, becoming the 33rd police officer convicted of a crime resulting from an on-duty fatal shooting since 2005, and the 2nd convicted of murder out of a total of 93 arrested for on-duty murder or manslaughter. On Apr. 30 Bryan Fuller's and Michael Green's American Gods debuts on Starz for ? episodes (until ?), based on the 2001 novel by Neil Gaiman, starring Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday (Odin), Ricky Whittle as his ex-con bodyguard Shadow Moon, Emily Browning as Shadow Moon's wife Laura Moon, Crispin Glover as Mr. World, leader of the New Gods, Bruce Langley as Technical Boy, Yetide Badaki as Bilquis, the Queen of Sheba, and Pablo Schreiber as leprechaun Mad Sweeney. In Apr. an extensive neo-Nazi network is discovered in the German armed forces (Bundeswehr), which was planning terrorist attacks on high-ranking politicians and glorified Hitler's Wehrmacht. In Apr. a new mosque opens in Athens, Greece, becoming the first in Greece since the Ottomans were expelled in 1833. In Apr. U.S. unemployment falls to 4.4%, with 211K jobs created. On May 2 the U.S. State Dept. issues a new terror alert for citizens traveling to Europe, saying that attacks are possible anywhere anytime. On May 2 (a.m.) 95-y.-o. Prince Philip of Britain (b. 1921) announces his retirement from royal duties stating in the fall. On May 2 (Israel's 69th Independence Day) UNESCO by 22-10-23 passes a resolution calling Israel an "occupying power" in Jerusalem, submitted by Muslim nations Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, and Sudan, pissing-off Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who utters the soundbyte: "The absurd decisions n UNESCO have to not merely be reduced in the number of their supporters. That's happening. I'm glad to say, went down from 32 to 26, today to 22. There are more countries today that are abstaining or supporting Israel than there are those opposing Israel. But my goal is to have no votes in UNESCO on Israel." On May 2 Hillary Clinton gives an interview to Christiane Amanpour of CNN, claiming that if the election had been held on Oct. 27, "I would be your president", and uttering the soundbyte: "I was on the way to winning, until the combination of Jim Comey's letter on October 28th, and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off", causing Pres. Trump to Tweet: "FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that the gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!", and "Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?" On May 3 Pres. Trump meets with Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmud Abbas at the White House, calling for an end to hisprogram of paying terrorists and their families, saying that Palestinians cannot expect to see a lasting peace until their "leaders speak in a unified voice against incitement to... violence and hate"; Abbas lies to Trump to play him, with the soundbyte: "Mr. President, I affirm to you that we are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace." On May 3 Lost At Sea Women Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava launch their sailing boat Sea Nymph from Hawaii en route 2.7K mi. to Tahiti, getting lost after a storm, then rescued by the U.S. Navy in Oct., causing their stories to be questioned when they fail to use their distress beach. On May 4 (Nat. Day of Prayer) the U.S. Senate passes as $1.2T spending bill to keep the govt. open through Sept.; it incl. an additional $1.5B for border security; meanwhile the the U.S. House of Reps by 217-213 passes legislation beginning the process of repealing and replacing Obamacare; meanwhile Pres. Trump signs an executive order weakening the 1954 Johnson Amendment, instructing the IRS to back off and allow religious leaders to endorse political candidates; too bad, only Congress can absolish their amendment, and Trump's protection will end when he leaves office; also too bad, it chucks the free exercise of religion clause in the First Amendment, relying only on the free speech clause; the ACLU declines to file a lawsuit over it, calling it "a sham because what it actually does is instruct the IRS to enforce the law as written". On May 4 Pres. Obama releases a video endoring Emmanuel Macron over Marine Le Pen for pres. of France, saying that he "appeals to people's hopes and not their fears". On May 4 Russia, Iran, and Turkey sign a Memorandum on the Creation of De-Escalation Areas in the Syrian Arab Republic, to last 6 mo. On May 4 World Password Day. On May 5 a U.S. Navy SEAL is killed and two more U.S. servicemembers wounded in a raid in Somalia, becoming the first U.S. combat death there since the 1993 Black Hawk Down battle. On May 5 gay organist George Nathaniel Stang (1981-) at St. David's Episcopal Church in Bean Blossom, Minn. admits that he spray-painted anti-Trump hate graffiti "Heil Trump" and "Fag Church" on the church on Nov. 13; it received nat. publicity from the anti-Trump PC press. On May 7 elections in France give a V to 39-y.-o. liberal pro-EU Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frederic Macron (1977-) over populist nationalist anti-EU Marine Le Pen by 65.1%-34.9%; on May 14 Macron becomes pres. of France (until ?), becoming the youngest pres. ever and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon - France is heading for national suicide via Islam? On May 7 Tex. gov. Greg Abbott signs SB4 banning sanctuary cities in the state, with a $25.5K/day fine for violations; on Mar. 13, 2018 the Tex. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds it. On May 7 retired USMC lt. col. Oliver North is named as the next pres. of the Nat. Rifle Assoc (NRA). On May 9 Pres. Trump says "You're fired!" to FBI dir. #7 (since Sept. 4, 2013) James Comey (1960-), citing his mishandling of the Hillary Clinton email scandal along with a memo by deputy U.S. atty. gen. Rod Rosenstein, with the soundbyte: "While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau"; on May 10 Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell refuses calls to appoint a special prosecutor or commission for the Trump-Russia probe, calling them "partisan". On May 9 (early a.m.) 300 illegal immigrants from Africa storm the fence on the Moroccan border with the Spanish autonomous city of Melilla. On May 10 leftist pro-North Korea Moon Jae-in (1953-) becomes pres. #12 of South Korea, succeeding Park Geun-hye. On May 10 after a radical Islamist mob marches on the supreme court to demand a heavy sentence, outgoing Christian Jakarta gov. Basuki Tjahaja Purname is sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy against Allah by quoting the Quran 5:51 and suggesting that his opponents were twisting it into saying that Muslims should not be ruled by non-Muslims, pissing-off Am. evangelist Franklin Graham who utters the soundbyte "Islam wants domination" - the Quran isn't negotiable? On May 10 Pres. Trump meets in the White House with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak; later after a leak from his own admin., Trump is accused of giving them sensitive foreign intel, with some claiming it came from Israel; on May 22 Trump tells reporters that he never mentioned the word Israel, proving that it was Israel, or merely denying it was Israel without saying what the source really was? On May 11 (early a.m.) authorities remove a statue of Confed. Pres. Jefferson Davis in New Orleans, La. in front of pissed-off crowds, becoming the 2nd of four Confed. monuments on the slate after a 2015 city council vote and a court battle. On May 11 Pres. Trump issues Executive Order No. ? calling for "a comprehensive review of the federal government's cybersecurity risk management policies and procedures", with special attention to the electric grid. On May 11 the LDS (Mormon) Church announces that effective Jan. 1 it will pull out, er, drop the Boy Scouts of Am. (BSA) from its young men's program for ages 14-17, a total of 180K boys in the U.S. and Canada, causing evangelist Franklin Graham to call on all churches to do ditto; church leaders deny that their decision has anything to do with BSA decisions to accept gay Scout leaders and Scouts, and to admit more girls. On May 11 Philly-born #1 leftist brain man Avram Noam Chomsky (1928-) gives an interview to the BBC, uttering the soundbyte that the U.S. Repub. Party is "the most dangerous organisation in human history"; when asked if that means it's worse than ISIS, he replies: "Is ISIS dedicated to trying to destroy the prospects for organised human existence? What does it mean to say not only are we not doing anything about climate change but we're trying to accelerate the race to the precipice? It doesn't matter whether they genuinely believe it or not... If the consequence of that is 'let's use more fossil fuels, let's refuse to subsidise developing countries, let's eliminate regulations that reduce greenhouse gases'. If that's the consequence, that's extremely dangerous." On May 14 the Miss USA 2017 (66th) Pageant is held at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nev., hosted by Julianna Hough and Terrence J; the winner is Naples, Italy-born Miss Washington D.C., Kara Deidra McCullough (1991-), (runner-up in 2015 and 2016), becoming the first 2-peat for Washington, D.C. since 1988-9; she pisses-off the PC police by calling health care a privilege for the working and not a right, and for calling herself an equalist rather than a feminist; 7th winner born outside the U.S. On May 14-15 the First Belt and Road Forum for Internat. Cooperation (BRFIC) in Beijing, attended by 29 heads of state and reps from 130+ countries and 70 internat. orgs. is billed as founding China's New World Order. On May 15 the anti-Trump Washington Post claims that Pres. Trump gave Russian officials top secret intel info. at a meeting in the White House; too bad, the murky sources can't be pinned down. On May 16 the New York Times pub. a report claiming that fired FBI dir. James Comey wrote a memory claiming that Pres. Trump asked him to quash the investigation of Gen. Michael Flynn, causing calls for impeachment; all he did was ask him real nicely, not order him? On May 15 after revelations by SinoHawk Holdings CEO Tony Bobulinski in Oct. 2020, it is revealed that Chinese energy co. CEFC Energy, headed by Chinese tycoon Ye Jianming offered a $5M non-secured forgivable loan to the Biden family; Kamala Harris is listed on a list of "key domestic contacts"; Joe Biden met with his son Hunter Biden and James Biden and Hunter's business partner Bobulinski about the same time?; Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was included in the deal? On May 16 the Mormon Church pulls older boys (ages 14-18) out of the Boy Scouts of Am., causing evangelist Franklin Graham to call on all churches to do ditto. On May 16 Fx News finally wakes up and begins admitting that the July 10, 2016 murder of 27-y.-o. Seth Conrad Rich (1989-2016) during the 2016 pres. race, officially called a botched robbery might be connected with his leaking of info. from Dem. Nat. Committee records to WikiLeaks, meaning that the Trump-Russia story is moose hockey and that Hillary might be a murderer and coverup queen, causing Newt Gingrich et al. to call for an official investigation; meanwhile WikiLeaks offers a $20K reward for info. leading to Rich's murderer; meanwhile Kim Dotcom announces that Rich was the real DNC WikiLeaks leaker and that he knows because he was involved; meanwhile it comes out that the FBI never directly investigated the DNC case, but relied on U.S.-based private co. Crowdstrike, which was founded by a Ukrainian who hates Putin. On May 17 deputy U.S. atty. gen. Rod Rosenstein appoints former FBI dir. Robert Muller as special prosecutor for the Trump-Russia investigation, causing Pres. Trump on May 18 to tweet the soundbyte that it is the "single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history", telling reporters: "As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know, there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity." On May 18 after several warnings and exchanges of gunfire, the U.S. carries out an air strike in At Tanf, S Syria against Syrian govt.-supported militia. On May 19 Harvard U. releases a study reporting that in Pres. Trump's first 100 days in office, the tone of his news coverage was 80% negative and only 20% positive, with CNN and NBC being 93% negative, CBS 91% negative, and pro-Trump Fox News 52% negative. On May 19 pres. elections in Iran is a V for incumbent Hassan Rohani over Ebrahaim Raisi by 57%-23%, with 41M votes cast. On May 20 Pres. Trump begins a 9-day trip, starting with a visit to Saudi Arabia to discuss a $110B-$350B 10-year arms deal to counter Iran, receiving a royal welcome; his speech goes mainstream, backing down from his anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric while urging Arab leaders to "fight Islamic extremism" (not "radical Islamic terrorism"); he gives the Saudi king a handshake instead of bowing like Pres. Obama; First Lady Melania Trump and daughter Ivanka are given a pass on wearing a headscarf; on after ending the Saudi prohibition on flying directly there from Meccaland, May 22 Trump visits Israel, meeting with PM Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Sara, pres. Reuven Rivlin, and members of the cabinet, praying at the Western Wall (first U.S. pres.) and visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; on May 23 he visits Bethlehem in the West Bank; on May 23 (8:00 a.m.) he visits Pope Francis in the Vatican, who doesn't talk or smile at first, during which visit First Lady Melania reveals that she's a devout Roman Catholic, with the pope giving Trump a copy of his May 24, 2015 encyclical "Laudato Si" preaching climate change theory, and Trump giving the pope a set of books by MLK Jr., a piece of granite from his memorial, and a sculpture representing "hope for a peaceful tomorrow"; on May 25 Trump visits Brussels, where the Marxist leftist overlords give him an icy reception. On May 21 elections in Iran give a V to incumbent pres. Hassan Rouhani, with 57% of the vote in a 75% turnout. On May 21 after a show at the Nassau County Coliseum in N.J., the Ringling Brothers Circus closes after 146 years; they had planned to phase out elephants from their Greatest Show on Earth in 2018. On May 22 (10:30 p.m. local time) at the end of an Ariana Grande Dangerous Woman Tour concert in the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, British-born Islamic suicide bomber Salman Ramadan Abedi (b. 1995) (son of Libyan immigrant) goes off in the exit area where parents are waiting for their children, killing 22 and injuring 120+, mainly children and teenies, becoming the deeadliest attack in the U.K. since July 7, 2005, and the first in Manchester since the Provisional IRA bombing of June 15, 1996; Pres. Trump calls the Islamists "losers"; ISIS claims responsibility; on May 23 British PM Theresa May calls it an act of "sickening cowardice", and raises the threat level to critical (martial law); on May 23 (eve.) a vigil is held in Albert Square, attended by Britain's multicultural pop. incl. Muslims, all claiming that the attack had nothing to do with Islam :); on May 23 after learning that Abedi recently returned from Libya and Syria, police make three arrests; he was linked to ISIS but trained by al-Qaida?; on May 25 May announces that the U.K. has stopped sharing intel from the bombing after some was leaked by U.S. sources to journalists, leaving police "furious", after which Trump fixes things up with them; on June 4 (eve.) the One Love Manchester Concert features Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Pharrell Williams, Chris Martin, Liam Gallagher, Robbie Williams et al. On May 23 John O. Brennan testifies before the House Intelligence Committee, refusing to use the word "collusion" to describe the Trump campaign's relationship with Russia, but adding "I know that therre was a sufficient basis of information and intelligence that required further investigation by the bureau to determine whether or not U.S. persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials." On May 23 the Washington Post pub. an article claiming that Pres. Trump asked NSA dir. Mike Rogers and DNI Dan Coats to push back on the Trump-Russia story after James Comey's congressional testimony, and that White House officials had tried to get them to lobby the FBI to drop the Gen. Michael Flynn probe. On May 23 the Web site of the Qatari news agency posts an article claiming that the emir of Qatar has made several controversial statements, incl. that the country is withdrawing its ambassadors from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, and UAE, that it opposes a hostile stance against Iran, and that it looks favorably on the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah. On May 23 Lt. Col. Khallid Shabazz becomes the U.S. Army's first div.-level chaplain for the 7th Infantry Div. On May 24 after ISIS-connected Islamists begin sieging Marawi City in Mindanao on May 23, Philippine pres. Rodrigo Duterte declares martial law for 60 days, abruptly returning from Moscow to deal with them, taking until Oct. 23 to defeat them. On May 24 the supreme court of Taiwan rules in favor of same-sex marriage, giving the govt. two years to implement the ruling. On May 25 Pres. Trump attends a NATO meeting in Brussels, Belgium, scolding members for not paying their fair share, then attends a G7 summit in Sicily on May 26. On May 25 (Jerusalem Day) the parliament of Czech Repub. recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital. On May 26 2017 Ramadan begins (ends June 24), with a record 1,150 casualties caused by Islamic terrorists in 15 countries; in the first 12 days there are 60 terror attacks, killing 832 and injuring 912, ending with 174 attacks and 1,595 kills, vs. 2 Muslims killed by "Islamophobes", becoming the bloodiest Ramadan in modern history. On May 26 masked Islamist gunmen attack a group of Coptic Christians traveling in Minya Province, Egypt en route to pray at the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 26 and injuring 26, incl. many children. On May 29 Philippines pres. Rodrigo Duterte announces tht he will give soldier pay to soldiers of the Islamist Moro Nat. Liberation Front et al. who fight the Maute terrorist group, which has killed 100 in Marawi City. On May 30 (midnight) a car bomb detonates near the popular Al-Faqma ice cream shop in a Shiite area in Karrada District, Baghdad, Iraq, followed by another in Shawaka, Baghdad, the two explosions killing 30+ and injuring 40; ISIS claims responsbility. On May 31 the FBI and NYPD arrest 19 members of the Lucchese crime family incl. acting boss Matthew Madonna, underboss Steven Crea, and consigliere Joseph DiNapoli, charging them with racketeering incl. the 2013 murder of mob hitman Michael Meldish. On May 31 the U.S. Missile Defense Agency reports its first successfull exo-atmospheric interception and destruction in flight of an ICBM. On May 31 Pres. Trump tweets about his campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page that the Dems. in the House Intel Committee "don't wnt him to testify... [because he] blows away their case against him"; at 12:06 a.m. he tweets the word "covfefe", which is taken up by the PC press as a subject of speculation. On May 31 after a huge backlash, comedian Kathy Griffin apologizes for a photo showing her holding Pres. Trump's bloody head, which he calls "sick", after which CNN fires her. On May 31 USAF vet Tairod Pugh, who was convicted in Mar., becoming the first American to be convicted of attempting to join ISIS is sentenced to 35 years in priz, with U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis interrupting his long rant with "You made your choice. I have no sympathy." On May 31 Hillary Clinton speaks at the Codecon Conference in Rancho Palos Verde, giving a diatribe blaming everybody but herself for losing the 2016 U.S. pres. election, starting with the snaky soundbyte "I take responsibility for every decision I made, but that is not why I lost", blaming Russian hackers, weaponized data, content farms in Macedonia, corrupted algorithms, fingering Pres. Trump for orchestrating it, esp. the "fake news" on Facebook incl. Pizzagate. On June 1 (early a.m.) a jihadist attacks the Resorts World Manila Casino in Manila, Philipppines, killing 35 and injuring 70 before killing himself; ISIS claims responsibility, while the govt. rules out terrorism. On June 1 Ontario Province, Canada passes a law allowing the govt. to remove children from families that refuse to accept their chosen gender identity. On June 1-3 the 21st St. Petersburg Internat. Economic Forum (SPIEF) is attended by Russian pres. Vladimir Putin, who is interviewed by U.S. journalist Megyn Kelly, who pooh-poohs suggestions that Russia influenced the 2016 U.S. pres. election, saying: "It reminds me of anti-Semitism: the Jews are to blame for everything." On June 3 the 2017 London Massacre sees three British Muslim jihadists drive a van into pedestrians on London Bridge in England, then stab people in the nearby Borough Market area, killing seven and injuring 48 before being killed by police; parallel universe PM Theresa May utters the soundbyte that the British people must come together to fight "extemism", with the soundbyte: "It is an ideology that claims our Western values of freedom, democracy, and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam"; on June 5 police arrest two of the three attackers, Pakistan-born Khuram Shazad Butt (27) and Moroccan or Libyan-born Rachid Redouane (Elkhdar) (30), members of the militant jihadist network al-Muhajiroun; the third is Youssef Zaghba; Muslim London mayor Sadiq Khan utters the soundbyte: "Terrorism is part and parcel of living in a great global city", assuring people there is nothing to fear, causing Pres. Trump to tweet that he's nuts, causing him to change his story to assuring people that there is nothing to fear from heightened security. On June 3 25-.y.-o. Reality Leigh Winner (1992-) is arrested after the Web news site The Intercept pub. a top-secret NSA document giving details of Russian hacking attempts, and it is traced to her. On June 3 Allah-Akbar-screaming Canadian Muslim Rehab Dughmosh (1985-) begins swinging a golf club at employees of Cedarbrae Mall in Scarborough, Toronto, Ont., Canada, then pulls out a large knife before being subdued by the employees; at her first court appearance she swears allegiance to "the leader of the believers, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi" of ISIS. On June 3 Alex Honnold scales El Capitan sans ropes or gear. On June 5 (8:00 a.m.) disgruntled ex-employee John Robert Neumann Jr. returns to Fiammi Inc. and kills five in Orange County, Fla.. On June 5 Pres. Trump announces his proposal to privatize the air traffic control (ATC) system, saying it was designed to handle 100K people/year, not the 1B people/year needed today; meanwhile after the U.S. Supeme Court takes his case, he tweets that his proposed travel ban should be called just that, pissing-off the PC police, along with another tweet criticizing Muslim London mayor Sadiq Kahn, whose comments on the 2017 London Massacre that the pop. should still feel they're safe a "pathetic disgrace", adding: "The FAKE MSM is working so hard trying get me not to use Social Media. They hate that I can get the honest and unfiltered message out"; meanwhile Muslim CNN host Reza Aslan dumps on Pres. Trump, calling him "a piece of shit" et al., causing conservatives L. Brent Bozell III et al. to call for his firing. On June 5 U.S. atty. gen. Jeff Sessions orders Justice Dept. attys. to quit diverting legal settlement funds to non-govt. special interest groups, as the Obama admin. had done. On June 5 (eve.) Somali-born jihaist Yacqub Khayre (1988-) murders a Chinese-born receptionist at an apt. complex in Melbourne, Australia, then takes an escort girl hostage, calling a local TV station and telling them "This is for ISIS, this is for al-Qaeda" before getting into a fatal shootout with police. On June 6 (8:06 a.m.) Pres. Trump issues a tweet about Qatar: "During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar — look!"; at 9:36 a.m. he follows with: "So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding… extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!" On June 6 U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition forces bomb forces loyal to Syrian pres. Bashed Ass, er, Bashar al-Ass near the Syria-Jordan-Iraq border. On June 6 an Algerian jihadist wielding a hammer attacks police outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, injuring one officer and shouting "This is for Syria" before being shot dead. On June 6 U.S. homeland security secy. John Kelly addresses Congress, complaining about the leftist federal courts, saying, "Bottom line, I've been enjoined from doing these things that I know would make Americans safe, and I anxiously await the court to complete its action one way or the other so I can get to work." On June 6 U.S. deputy atty. gen Rod Rosenstein, acting head of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) annunces that drug OD is now the #1 cause of death for Americans under age 50. On June 7 ISIS jihadists stage two attacks in Tehran, Iran, one in parliament and the other in the nearby shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, killing 12 and injuring dozens, becoming ISIS' first attack in Iran. On June 7 U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson issues a declaration for 2017 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) Pride Month. On June 8 after calling a snap election to win a stronger mandate, and a 24-point poll lead, only to see a 70% youth turnout, British Parliamentary elections are a defeat for PM Theresa May, whose Conservative Party wins but loses its majority in Parliament, with 314 seats, 12 less than the 326 needed. On June 8 former FBI dir. James Comey testifies before an eager Congress and press about alleged misconduct of Pres. Trump, calling him a liar yet ending up clearing him of anything criminal, because he failed to understand that as Da President Trump has the authority to order an investigation and prosecution to stop, and can even pardon the target to stop it; he claims that he made memos because "I was honestly concerned that he might lie", coming across as a disgruntled employee; Comey reveals that U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynch asked him to describe the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server "a matter", which "gave me a queasy feeling"; CNN "Hardball" host Chris Matthews utters the soundbyte that the Trump-Russia collusion theory "came apart"; after it ends, Trump's atty. Marc Kasowitz issues a statement accusing him of being another illegal leaker who should be the one criminally investigated; on June 9 Pres. Trump tweets: "Despite so many false sttements and lies, total and complete vindication... and WOW, Comey is a leaker!"; on June 13 Trump accuses Loretta Lynch of "illegal behavior", claiming that she provided Hillary with "protection". On June 8 German authorities announce the arrest of Mohammed G., ISIS's correspondent in Europe. On June 8 30-y.-o. African-Am. man David Jones (b. 1987) stopping for reckless riding of a dirt bike then shot twice in the back and killed as he flees in Philly by white police officer Ryan Pownall, who is charged with murder after a year-long coverup, er, investigation. On June 9 Russian ambassador to Israel Alexander Shein utters the soundbyte that Russia doesn't consider Hamas and Hezbollah to be terrorists because they have not attacked Russian territory or Russian interests. On June 12 Delta Air Lines announces that it's terminating its 4-y.-o. sponsorship of New York City's Public Theater for producing a version of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in Central Park that portrays Caesar as Donald Trump, showing him being stabbed to death onstage; Bank of America does ditto. On June 14 Leo Eric Varadkar of Fine Gael becomes PM (Taoiseach) #14 of Eire (until ?), becoming the first openly gay, first of Indian heritage, and youngest (until ?). On June 14 (Flag Day) the 2017 Congressional Baseball Field Massacre sees La. Repub. House whip Stephen Joseph "Steve" Scalise (1965-) and five others are shot at a congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Va. by Trump-hating Bernie Sanders supporter James T. Hodgkinson (b. 1951), who was targeting Repubs. only before police kill him; a Dem. plot? On June 14 (1:00 a.m. local time) a fire in 24-story Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, London, England kills 30+ of 120; the bldg. had highly flammable exterior cladding recently added. On June 14 Tex. Gov. Greg Abbott signs the American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) AKA House Bill 45, prohibiting use of any foreign law in state courts, esp. in family cases. On June 15 the U.S. Senate by 98-2 passes a bipartisan agreement to impose new sanctions targeting Iran's ballistic missile program, support of terrorism, and humans rights abuses, and impose new financial penalties on Russia for messing with Ukraine, supporting the Syrian regime, and allegedly tampering with the 2017 U.S. pres. election, limiting Pres. Trump's ability to lift them without Congressional approval. On June 16 Israeli border police officer Hadas Malka (b. 1984) is stabbed to death by three young men in Jerusalem; ISIS claims responsibility, becoming their first operation inside Israel; too bad, Hamas also claims responsibility. On June 18 a Taliban suicide team attacks the provincial police HQ in Gardez, Paktia Province, Afghanistan, killing six policemen before being killed. Ramadan becomes Ram-a-van? It's payback time in London? On June 18/19 (midnight) a white man in a white van shouting that he wants to kill all Muslims drives over Muslims leaving notorious extremist Finsbury Park Mosque on Seven Sisters Rd. after ending Ramadan fasting in North London, England, injuring 10 before being grabbed by bystanders and handed over to police, after which PM Theresa May gives a speech dissing his kind of extremism ("Islamophobia") as morally equivalent to Islamist extremism. On June 19 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 4-2 in Ziglar v. Abbasi that high-level George W. Bush admin. officials John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller, amd James Ziglar can't be held personally liable for violating the constitutional rights of Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians rounded up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks because Congress must authorize it first. On June 19 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 8-0 in Matal v. Tam to overturn the U.S. Lanham Act as unconstitutional because there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment, thus the band The Slants can register their trademark. On June 19 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 8-0 in Packingham v. North Carolina that registered sex offenders have a First Amendment right to use social Web sites incl. Facebook. On June 20 119F temps in Phoenix, Ariz. cause 40 airline flights to be canceled or delayed. On June 21 after being chosen to meet with Pres. Trump at the White House in Mar. Saudi Arabia announces that Mohammed bin Salman, the king's son and defense minister is next in line to the thrown (crown prince), replacing 31-y.-o. Muhammad bin Nayef, the king's nephew, who was made crown prince in Jan. 2015. On June 21 the 2017 Bishop Internat. Airport Incident at Bishop Internat. Airport in Flint, Mich. sees Allah Akbar-shouting Tunisian-born Canadian Muslim Amor M. Ftouhi (1967-) stab airport police officer Lt. Jeff Neville in the neck after he fails to purchase a gun at a gun show, later crying when told he failed to kill him because it might hurt his chances of being in paradise with Allah; on Mar. 21, 2018 he is charged with committing an act of terrorism over nat. boundaries. On June 22 a car bomb outside a bank in Helmand Province, Afghanistan kills 34 and injures 58. On June 24 the continental U.S. goes a record 140 straight mo. without a major hurricane landfall, the last being Hurricane Wilma in Fla. on Oct. 24, 2005. On June 26 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 9-0 to agree< to review Pres. Trump's travel ban on six Muslim-majority nations, allowing it to be partially implemented while they consider it by Oct., excepting only foreign nationals who have a "bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States", which Trump calls a clear victory. On June 26 Pres. Trump tweets that ex-Pres. Obama "didn't choke, he colluded or obstructed" after learning about Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. pres. election, adding: "The reason that President Obama did NOTHING about Russia after being notified by the CIA of meddling is that he expected Clinton would win... and did not want to 'rock the boat'." On June 26 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 7-2 in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer that the state of Mo. can't exclude a church from a program providing funds for a neutral secular purpose such as resurfacing its playground with rubber from recycled tires. On June 29 after the U.S. Senate keeps stalling, Pres. Trump utters the soundbyte that Senate Repubs. should kill Obamacare now and worry about replacing it later, which doesn't stop moderate Repubs. from blocking all bills. On June 29 (9:11 a.m.) Kentucky Fried Chicken launches a spicy crispy Zinger chicken sandwich into the stratosphere on a high-alt. balloon, where it stays at an alt. of 50K-80K ft. for four days. On June 30 Iraqi forces recapture the ancient mosque in Mosul where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Bahdad made his first public appearance three years earlier. In June the Los Angeles Regional Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the U.S. Dept. of Justice bust a Hollywood Pedophilia Network, arresting 238 incl. entertainers, community leaders, white-collar professionals, and high-ranking clergy members incl. a monk. In June 30-y.-o. African-Am. man David Jones (b. 1987) is killed during a traffic stop in Philly by police officer Ryan Pownall, who is charged with murder after a year-long coverup, er, investigation. In June the GoldenEye (Petya) Virus of Ukrainian hackers, allegedly based on stolen Eternal Blue malware from the U.S. Nat. Security Agency (NSA) wreaks havoc on corporate computers worldwide, incl. Merck, Rosneft, airports, banks, hospitals, and transportation cos. incl. the Danish Maersk Line. In June U.S. unemployment is 4.4%, adding 220K jobs; new manufacturing jobs: 1K (12,396,000); new govt. jobs: 35K (22,353,000); the participation rate is 62.8% vs. a high of 67.3% in Jan. 2000 and low of 62.4% in Sept. 2005. In June monthly U.S. federal spending is $428.894B, topping $400B for the first time. On July 4 police in New York City deploy sand trucks for the first time to stop madass Muslim jihadists during Independence Day celebrations; ditto Wimbledon. On July 4 North Korea launches the 2-stage Hwasong-14, their first ICBM, which travels 800 mi. but could reach Alaska, with Kim Jong-un saying it is a message to "the American bastards". On July 5 Pres. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visit Warsaw, Poland before attending the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany on July 6-8, where they are met by 12K protesters, who clash with police, while on July 7 Trump meets with Russian prev. Vladimir Putin for over 2 hours despite Melania being sent in at the 1 hour mark in vain; Trump presses Putin twice about meddling in the 2016 pres. election, but he denies everything, and Trump lets it slide, drawing howls from the Hillary, er, supposedly netrual mainstream media; in Warsaw Trump gives a speech, with the soundbyte: "Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail. Our people will thrive. And our civilization will triumph"; on July 7 Pres. Trump meets at the G20 Summit with Mexican pres. Enrique Nieto Pena, repeating his insistence that Mexico pay for his wall. On July 8 Pres. Trump announces that the U.S. is pledging $50M to a World Bank program dedicated to women's entrepreneurship in developing countries; Trump also promises $639M in aid to the U.N. World Food Program for starving people in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria, and Yemen. On July 8 Sgt. 1st Class Ikaika Erik Kang (1983-) is arrested at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii after pledging loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; the court-appointed defense atty. claims service-related mental health problems; on Dec. 5, 2018 he is sentenced to 25 years in prison for providing material support to ISIS, along with 20 years of supervised release. On July 9 Trump-hating fake news New York Times pub. an article revealing a meeting between Russian atty. Natalia Veselnitskaya and Donald Trump Jr. during the 2016 pres. campaign, after which he admits it and adds that she promised to give some dope on Hillary, which amounted to nada, which is twisted by the Trump-hating PC media into yet another fake reason to dump Trump. On July 9 (eve.) after a 280-mi. justice march by Repub. People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a mass gathering in Istanbul, Turkey calls for an end to persecution. On July 9 the Gen. Synod of the Church of England votes 30-2-0 (House of Bishops) and 127-28-16 (House of Clergy) and 127-48-8 (House of Laity) to "welcome and affirm" transgenders. On July 10 after Pres. Trump tweets his support on July 4, the case of terminally-ill British baby Charlie Gard, who was ordered by a high court judge in Apr. to be withdrawn from a ventilator to allow him to die returns to court after claims of an experimental treatment available in the U.S.; too bad, the doctor involved admits the baby is hopeless, and the plug is pulled. On July 10 the White House announces the liberation of Mosul, Iraq from ISIS control by Iraqi and U.S. forces. On July 11 42-y.-o. British Muslim Shahid Ali (1974-) of Birmingham drives over the head of Patrick Colbert in an attempted murder, and is later acquitted but convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent; he was previously jailed for 27 mo. in 2009 for material support of jihadists in Pakistan. On July 15 pampered (affirmative action?) Muslim Minneapolis, Minn. police officer Mohamed Noor shoots bride-to-be Justine Diamond (Ruszczyk) (who called about an assault) as she sits in her car near her home for making a "loud noise", after which the corrupt authorities cover for him like all sacred cow pigs, er, cut him loose and let him go in Mar. 2018, after which he is charged with murder and pleads self-defense before being convicted of 3rd-degree murder on May 6, 2019. On July 16 elections in the Repub. of Congo. On July 16 China requires all 90M members of the Chinese Communist Party to "be firm Marxist atheists, obey Party rules, and stick to the Party's faith. They are not allowed to seek value and belief in religion." On July 17 Jordanian Sgt. Mareek Abu Tayeh is convicted of the murder of three U.S. soldiers on Nov. 4, 2016 at the Prince Faisal Air Base, and sentenced to life in prison, causing demonstrations by his Howeitat tribe. On July 19 Hawaii passes a 100% Renewable Electric Energy Plan, setting a 2040 target date and a 2045 limit. On July 19 the Trump admin. announces that it will halt CIA's program of arming and training of Syrian rebels, as Russia has been recommending. On July 19 Pres. Trump gives an interview to the New York Times, grumbling about his atty. gen. Jeff Sessions and how he recused himself from the Russia probe, saying: "Sessions should have never recused himself. And if he would, if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else." On July 20 infamous celeb O.J. Simpson is granted parole after serving 9 years of a 33-year sentence for armed robbery in Las Vegas, Nev. On July 21 a riot by Palestinian Muslims at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem over Israel's decision to put metal detectors at the entrances results in three killed and 200+ injured - all without any metal? On July 21 White House press secy. Sean Spicer resigns, and Long Island, N.Y.-born financier (founder of SkyBridge Capital) Anthony "Scar" "the Mooch" Scaramucci (1964-) becomes the new White House communications dir., stinking himself up by a profanity-laced critique of White House staff, causing him to receive the boot on July 31, the same day that Gen. John F. Kelly becomes White House chief of staff. On July 21 after a May memo by Nat. Security Council (NSC) strategist Rich Higgins claiming a conspiracy by Repubs. and Dems. in league with globalists like George Soros, along with bankers, Islamists and the media to subvert Pres. Trump via "political warfare agendas that reflect cultural Marxist outcomes" is circulated, he is fired by nat. security advisor (Soros puppet?) H.R. McMaster. On July 23 Israeli security guard Ziv Moyal is attacked with a screwdriver in his apt. in Amman, Jordan by a Jordanian assassin, killing him and accidentally killing the landlord, causing a protest at the Israeli embassy by Israel-haters calling on the 1994 peace treaty to be canceled, holding Moyal and 20 other Israeli diplomats incl. ambassador Einat Schlein to be held hostage until Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu intervenes, arranging with King Abdullah II for safe passage in exchange for Jordanian officials to attend Moyal's questioning by Israeli officials and metal detectors to be removed from the Temple Mount; after they are evacuated, Jordan refuses to permit Schlein to return to her duties, and calls for Moyal to be tried for murder, refusing to let a replacement for Schlein into Jordan. On July 24 a Taliban suicide car bomber detonates near the house of deputy govt. chief exec Mohammad Mohaqiq in W Kaboom, er, W Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 35 and injuring 40. On July 24 Pres. Trump addresses the 2017 Boy Scout Jamboree; too bad, on July 27 its pres. Michael Surbaugh apologizes for his insertion of political rhetoric. On July 24 after being tricked by her Moroccan ISIS terrorist husband Moussa Elhassani into traveling to Syria to live in ISIS-controlled Raqqa, only to be KIA Samantha Sally (Marie) Elhassani (1986-) of Elkhart, Ind. is flown back to the U.S. with her four children, facing a charge of lying to the FBI; on Aug. 22, 2018 she is charted with conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and aiding and abetting individuals in providing material support to ISIS. On July 25 the U.S. Federal Appeals Court in Washington, D.C. rules 2-1 in Wrenn v. District of Columbia that people seeking concealed handgun permits don't have to show "good reason", but have a 2nd Amendment right regardless of reasons. On July 26 Pres. Trump announces a ban on transgender people in the U.S. armed forces, citing costs and disruption, pissing-off the PC police; on July 27 House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi claims that there are 14K-15K transgenders in the military. On July 26 the U.S. Senate by 45-55 rejects a proposal to repeal Obamacare without replacing it; on July 25 (eve.) they rejected a comprehensive replacement plan drafted by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell; on July 28 (early a.m.) they reject the "skinny repeal" bill after renegade Repub. Sen. John McCain kills it 51-49. On Juy 27 the U.S. State Dept. issues a warning to tourists about adulterated alcohol in Mexican resorts after authorities seize 1.4M gal. since 2010. On July 27 the White House announces the arrest of 1K+ MS-13 gang members in the last three days; on July 28 Pres. Trump gives a speech to a convention of cops in Long Island, N.Y., praising them to the skies and calling for the "liberation" of whole towns and cities from gangs' grip, incl. his native Long Island; in Nov. ICE arrests 267 more MS-13 gangbangers incl. 53 in El Salvador. On July 28 the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly votes 98-2 to impose new sanctions on Russia; on Aug. 2 Pres. Trump reluctantly signs the legislation, despite Moscow's threats to retaliate by seizing two U.S. diplomatic properties and ordering the U.S. to cut hundreds of diplomatic staff, uttering the soundbyte that the bill is "seriously flawed, particularly because it encroaches on the executive branch's authority to negotiate." On July 31 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin signs a law revoking Russian citizenzhip of any person convicted of terrorism, effective Sept. 1. In July after quitting her job, Pakistani Muslim immigrant Zoobia Shahnaz (1990-) of Long Island, N.Y. is arrested at Kennedy Airport while trying to fly to Pakistan; in Dec. she is charged with laundering Bitcoin and wiring money to ISIS. In July Pope Francis utters the soundbyte that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is "dangerous and harmful", calling for a OWG with the political authority to combat climate change et al. In July Google changes its algorithm to downgrade and conceal sites that tell the truth about Islam, while promoting Islam propaganda sites, bowing to their jihad like chumps and potentially opening the West open to infilration of takeover; pizza-faced 20-something geeks are the easiest targets for Islamist agitprop artists? In July after attending a Google diversity program, Google engineer James Damore pub. an internal memo claiming that there are genetic differences between men and women that explain disparities in tech employment, causing a firestorm of PC controversy, after which he is fired on Aug. 7, and sues. In July the city of Farmersville, Tex. denies an application by the Islamic Assoc. of Collin County to build a cemetery, causing the U.S. Dept. of Justice to come down on them, forcing an agreement to build it anyway on Apr. 18, 2019. In 1T ton Iceberg A-68 (the size of Del.) breaks off from Antarctica, causing PC media incl. CNN to paint it as proof of global climate change; too bad, in July 2018 it becomes trapped by dense ice off the coast of Antarctica. On Aug. 1 Jordan abolishes Article 308, which protects rapists from punishment if they marry their victims - cheap date? On Aug. 2 after Pres. Trump announces his nomination on June 7 to replace James Comey, telling the Senate that he didn't believe the Trump-Russia investigation is a witch hunt and being confirmed by 92-5, Repub. Yale U. grad Christopher Asher Wray (III) (1966-) becomes FBI dir. #8 (until ?). On Aug. 2 a suicide bomber attacks a NATO-led convoy of internat. troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan. On Aug. 2 (Wed.) the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. climbs above 22K for the first time ever (22,016), buoyed by healthy quarterly sales of the Apple iPhone, up 36% for the year. On Aug. 2 Amazon.com holds Jobs Day to hire 100K people by next year. On Aug. 2 Pres. Trump announces plans to introduce the U.S. RAISE (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment) Act, sponsored by U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) to slash legal immigratin by prioritizing those with education, English language proficiency, and earning power. On Aug. 3 a grand jury convened by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Trump campaign ties with Russia issues its first subpoenas. On Aug. 5 after Pres. Trump announced his intentions in June, with the soundbyte: "As President, I can put no other consideration before the well-being of American citizens. The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers - who I love - and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production... Not only does this deal subject our citizens to harsh economic restrictions, it fails to live up to our environmental ideals. As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States - which is what it does - the world's leader in environmental protection, while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world's leading polluters", the U.S. formally Watch video. On Aug. 7 the Pentagon issues new regs allowing U.S. military bases to shoot down commercial or private drones deemed to be a threat. On Aug. 8 elections in Kenya reelect pres. Uhuru Kenyatta with 54% of 19.7M registered voters, vs. 44% for Raila Odinga, who refuses to accept the results. On Aug. 12 after marching on the U. of Va. campus the night before, the white nationalist Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Va. to protest the removal of a statue of Confed. Gen. Robert E. Lee ends in violent clashes with counter-protesters, after which a car driven by white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. rams the crowd, killing 32-y.-o. Heather Heyer and injuring 19; on Aug. 12 Pres. Trump speaks, saying that he and his admin. "condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, many sides", adding: "It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. I t's been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America", which only pisses-off the PC police, who accuse him of supporting white supremacists, with Repub. Colo. Sen. Cory Gardner tweeting: “Mr. President - we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism"; on Aug. 15 black protesters pull down a statue of a Confed. soldier in Durham, N.C., after which Pres. Trump utters the soundbytes: "Excuse me, they didn't put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.... I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally - but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group too", to which a reporter asks: "I just didn't understand what you were saying. You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?", to which Trump responds: "No, no. There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before. If you look, they were people protesting very quietly the taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee", which doesn't stop Joseph Biden from misquoting him in an op-ed. in Atlantic mag. on Aug. 27, 2017, with the soundbyte: "Today we have an American president who has publicly proclaimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and Klansmen and those who would oppose their venom and hate. We have an American president who has emboldened white supremacists with messages of comfort and support. This is a moment for this nation to declare what the president can't with any clarity, consistency, or conviction: There is no place for these hate groups in America"; on Aug. 15/16 (night) Baltimore, Md. mayor Catherine Pugh orders four Confed. monuments taken down. On Aug. 13 (9:30 p.m.) a jihadist attack in a 4x4 outside the Aziz Istanbul Restaurant in Burkina Faso kills 17 and injures two. On Aug. 14 after the fake news media blasts him for not explicitly calling out white supremacists in his criticism of the Charlottesville protest, as if he supports them, Pres. Trump meets in the White House with atty. gen. Jeff Sessions and FBI dir. Chris Wray, then delivers a gives a Speech on Racism, with the soundbyte: "Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans", confirming that the FBI and Dept. of Justice are investigating the car attack; too bad, on Aug. 15 Trump doubles down with observations that "both sides" were to blame for violence in Charlottesville, mentioning "the alt-left that came charging at them", that "Not all of those people were neo-Nazis... [or] white supremacists... Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue", claiming that many "fine people" were among the protesters, and that the movement to strip the U.S. of its 850+ Confed. monuments is an effort to "change history" and "change culture", mentioning George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, which only makes the PC police madder; on Aug. 16 after some CEOs quit to protest his remarks, Trump disbands two high-profile business advisory councils; on Aug. 18 House Dem. Leader Nancy Pelosi endorses a measure to censure Trump, joining 79 Dem. colleagues, and calls on House Speaker Paul Ryan to remove all Confed. statues from the U.S. Capitol; meanwhile on Aug. 7 U.S. Rep. (D-Tenn.) Steve Cohen introduces articles of impeachment against Trump after his no confidence resolution in July went nowhere. On Aug. 15 (p.m.) a U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk heli goes missing near Oahu, Hawaii during a night training mission, killing all five aboard. On Aug. 16 as renegotiation talks begin in Washington, D.C., thousands of farmers and union workers stage a protest in Mexico City against NAFTA. On Aug. 17 a jihadist van ramming attack in the Las Ramblas area of Barcelona, Spain kills 14 and injures 88; one terrorist is killed by police in a shootout, and two more are arrested; the driver is 22-y.-o. Younes Abouyaaqoub, who is killed by police on Aug. 21 in Subirats near Barcelona; ISIS claims responsibility; on Aug. 18 (early a.m.) another van ramming attack in Cambris, Spain 70 mi. S of Barcelona fails, and after it stops the police kill four knife-wielding jihadists with fake suicide vests; on Aug. 16 their bombmaking factory in Alcanar 120 mi. S of Barcelona exploded, killing one and injuring 16, forcing them to go with van ramming; the suspected ringleader is Ripoll imam Abdelbaki Es Satty; meanwhile Barcelona's chief rabbi Meir Bar-Hen utters the soundbyte: "This place is lost", urging his congregation to emigrate to Israel; Pawel Soloch of the Polish Nat. Security Office announces that Poland will no longer be accepting Muslim immigrants, with the soundbyte: "We are convinced by the latest attacks that there is a natural base for terrorists where a large number of poorly integrated Muslims live." On Aug. 17 Category 4 (130 mph) Hurricane Harvey (wettest tropical cyclone until ?) starts E of the Lesser Antilles, crossing the Windward Islands on Aug. 18, then entering the Caribbean Sea after passing S of Barbados and skirting Saint Vincent, degenerating into a tropical wave N of Colombia on Aug. 19, then rapidly intensifying on Aug. 24, growing to Category 4 on Aug. 25 before making landfall near Rockport, Tex., stalling in Nederland, Tex. (near Houston) for six days and dropping a record 60.58 in. of rain, causing catastrophic flooding in Houston and turning it into the Great Houston Swamp, killing a total of 106 in the U.S. and one in Guyana and displacing 30K, causing $125B damage (tied as most costly hurricane with Hurricane Katrina in 2005), becoming the worst disaster in Tex. history, first major hurricane to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Wilma in 2005, first hurricane to hit Tex. since Hurricane Ike in 2008 and the strongest to hit Tex. since Hurricane Carla in 1961, also the strongest hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico since Hurricane Rita in 2005, and the strongest to make landfall in the U.S. since Hurricane Charley in 2004, joining Hurricane Matthew (2016) as the 2nd U.S. hurricane to cause tornado-like winds warnings to be issued; it was engineered and used as a weapon? On Aug. 18 Pres. Trump fires his chief strategist Steve Bannon. On Aug. 18 an 18-y.-o. Moroccan jihadist stabs two women to death in Turku, Finland before being shot and arrested by police. On Aug. 18 Mali pres. Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announces a suspension of the referendum procedure to revise the constitution. On Aug. 19 a white supremacist rally in Boston, Mass. is outnumbered by counter-protesters; police arrest 27. On Aug. 20 a petition is launched to "declare George Soros a terrorist and seize all of his related organizations' assets under RICO and NDAA law." On Aug. 21 (Mon.) there is a total solar eclipse, visible in the U.S. (Ore. to S.C.) for the first time since Feb. 28, 1979 (before that June 8, 1918); next in Apr. 2024 (Tex. to Maine), followed by Aug. 2045 (Calif. to Fla.). On Aug. 21 (eve.) Pres. Trump gives a Speech on Afghanistan, starting out saying that it his gut instinct to pull out now, but that his generals talked him into staying, but that they don't have a blank check; in accordance with his criticism of Pres. Obama for announcing moves in advance, he keeps his plans close to the vest; U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson utters the soundbyte: "I think the president was clear, this entire effort is intended to put pressure on the Taliban to have the Taliban understand you will not win a battlefield victory. We may not win one, but neither will you, so, at some point, we have to come to the negotiating table and find a way bring this to an end." On Aug. 22 India's supreme court invalidates Sharia-based triple-talaq (instant) divorce, becoming a V for women's libbers. On Aug. 22 French police uncover a jihadist plot against gay nightclubs in Paris, France, becoming the 12th plot thwarted since the start of the year. On Aug. 22 (eve.) after visiting the border near Yuma, Ariz., Pres. Trump gives a speech in Phoenix, Ariz., uttering the soundbyte: "We are building a wall on the southern border, which is absolutely necessary. The obstructionist Democrats would like us not to do it, believe me, [but] if we have to close down our government, we are building that wall"; protesters draw tear gas from the police. On Aug. 23 ISIS jihadists overrun al-Fogha checkpoint in Jufra, Libya, killing nine soldiers and two civilians by beheading. On Aug. 25 Burmese Muslim Rohingya jihadists attack govt. security outposts in Myanmar (Burma), causing a govt. crackdown that results in 600K Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh by Nov., causing the Kofi Annan Commission to lay out a reconciliation plan, and U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson to announce $150M in humanitarian assistance. On Aug. 25 controversial former Maricopa County, Ariz. sheriff Joe Arpaio is pardoned by Pres. Trump. On Aug. 25 (8:35 p.m.) a knife-wielding jihadist stops his car on the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace in London, injuring three police officers. On Aug. 28 Ill. Repub. Gov. Bruce Rauner signs a law makng Ill. into a sanctuay state for illegal aliens, all 500K of them. On Aug. 28 after being appointed by Pres. Trump, former U.S. Tex. Repub. Sen. (1993-2013) Kay Bailey Hutchinson (Kathryn Ann Bailey) (1943-) becomes U.S. NATO rep #22 (until ?). On Aug. 29 North Korea fires a ballistic missile over Japan, becoming the 3rd time since 1998 and 2009 and the 1st time for Kim Jong-un, pissing-off Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and South Korean Pres. Moon Jae-in, along with Pres. Trump, who says that "talking is not the answer" with them. On Aug. 30-Sept. 13 Category 5 (180 mph) Hurricane Irma starts near Cape Verde, moving to the Leeward Islands, Barbuda, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Martin, Anguilla, Virgin Islands, French West Indies, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Fla. Keys, causing 52 direct and 82 indirect deaths, and $64.76B damage, becoming the first Category 5 hurricane of 2017 and the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic ever observed (until ?). In Aug. refugee admissions to the U.S. are 913, becoming the first time below 1K since Oct. 2002. On Sept. 1 Pres. Trump nominates former Navy pilot U.S. Rep. (R-Okla.) (2013-) James Frederick "Jim" Bridenstine (1975-) as the new dir. of NASA, who vows to compete with China in space and wants a new Moon visit. On Sept. 3 North Korea explodes a nuke that causes a 6.3 earthquake, claiming it's an H-bomb, becoming their 6th nuke test, causing U.S. defense secy. James "Mad Dog" Mattis to warn them that any more major threats will be met with a "massive military response" that will be "both effective and overwhelming"; on Sept. 4 U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley gives a speech on Iran in the U.N., saying that they are inviting war; on Sept. 5 she gives a speech on Iran, saying that Pres. Trump has reason to find that it has violated the terms of the JCPOA. On Sept. 4 the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launch a 2-week exercise to prepare for a possible war with Hezbollah, becoming their largest exercise in 20 years; too bad, on Aug. 27 an Israeli delegation meets with the Nat. Security Council (NSC) at the White House to discuss Hezbollah's threat, only to be blown off by U.S. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who refuses their request to excuse his pro-Hezbollah appointee Mustafa Javed Ali from the meeting room - where's Trump? On Sept. 5 U.S. atty. gen. Jeff Sessions announces that Pres. Obama's DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program is being "rescinded" as an "unconstitutional exercise of authority, giving Congress 6 mo. to pass a final legislative solution; 800K illegal immigrants are affected. On Sept. 6 (5:38 p.m.local time) hours after U.S. Maj. Gen. James Linder apologizes for dropping leaflets containing images of a dog holding a Taliban flag that the local yokel Muslims find offensive, a suicide bombing attack in Bagram Air Base near Kabul, Afghanistan. On Sept. 6 Pres. Trump shocks Repubs. by reaching a spending and debt ceiling agreement with Dems., incl. a 3-mo. increase in the debt ceiling. On Sept. 6 47 leaders of conservative nonprofits send an open letter to the media denouncing the "hate map" pub. by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), with the soundbyte: "The SPLC is an attack dog of the political left. To associate public interest law firms and think tanks with neo-Nazis and the KKK is unconscionable, and represents the height of irresponsible journalism." On Sept. 7 Israel stages air strikes on a suspected chemical weapons facility near Masyaf, Syria, run by Bashar al-Assad's regime. On Sept. 7 Equifax announces a massive security breach by hackers back in May-July, compromising the personal info. of millions (half of the U.S. public?), and drawing public outrage along with numerous lawsuits. On Sept. 8 Pres. Trump holds a joint press conference with Qatari emir Tamim ibn Hamad Al-Thani, expressing williness to help resolve the Gulf crisis; on Sept. 9 Saudi Arabia announces that it's cutting off dialog with Qatar over the Gulf crisis. On Sept. 10 the Miss America 2018 (91st) Pageant in Atlantic City, N.J. is won by Miss N.D. Cara Mund (1933-). On Sept. 12 an ISIS ambush of a convoy in Sinai Peninsula, Egypt kills 18 police officers and injures seven. On Sept. 13 (4:00 p.m.) a 42-y.-o. Allah Akbar-shouting screw-loose looney tunes Muslim attacks seven people incl. three police officers in Toulouse, France. On Sept. 14 Pres. Trump meets with Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and other Dems., who announce an alleged deal they made withhim to save Obama's DACA Dream Act, causing Trump to deny that he's offering them amnesty or citizenship, saying that the border must first be secured. On Sept. 15 (8:20 a.m. local time) a jihadist bomb attack during rush hour on the Parsons Green Tube Station in London, England injures 22; ISIS claims responsibility; Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte that Scotland Yards hould have been tracking the "loser terrorist", adding that he should make his travel ban far more stringent, pissing-off PM Theresa May, who says "I never think it's helpful for anybody to speculate on what is an ongoing investigation"; too bad, they later discover that they let the jihadist loose two weeks earlier. On Sept. 16-Oct. 2 Hurricane Maria becomes the 2nd Category 5 hurricane and deadliest storm of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, devastating the NE Caribbean and becoming the worst disaster so far in Dominica and Puerto Rico, killing 146-8,580 and causing $91.61B damage; power is not restored to every home for 328 days. On Sept. 17 U.S. soldiers kill several ISIS suicide bombers attacking a base near Hawija, Iraq. On Sept. 17-28 the 10-part 18-hour TV documentary series The Vietnam War debuts on PBS-TV, written by Geoffrey C. Ward and dir. by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, costing $30M and taking 10 years to make. On Sept. 19 (a.m.) Pres. Trump gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, touting his America First policy and advising other nations to put their countries first too, adding: "We will stop radical Islamic terrorism, because we cannot allow it to tear up our nation and, indeed, to tear up the entire world", warning "Rocket Man" Kim Jong-un of the "depraved regime" in North Korea: "No nation on Earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and missiles... The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime", warning that if he attacks the U.S. his country will be totally destroyed, and demanding that Iran "stop supporting terrorists" and "begin serving its own people", saying that the world will see "very soon" his position on the Iranian nuclear deal, which has an Oct. 15 decision date to cancel or remain in the deal another 90 days; he goes on to describe Assad's rule in Syria as a "criminal regime", and diss the Maduro regime in Venezuela, with the soundbyte: "The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented", saying that the U.S. will not stand by while "the government of Venezuela persists on its path to impose authoritarian rule on the Venezuelan people." On Sept. 22 Pres. Trump utters the soundbyte: "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he's fired!'"; on Sept. 24 200+ NFL players show their disagreement by kneeling during the playing of the nat. anthem, incl. almost the entire Pittsburgh Steelers team and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, vs. less than 10 the week before; the brouhaha causes U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and U.S. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) to co-sponsor a bill to end taxpayer funding for NFL stadiums. On Sept. 23 gen. elections in New Zealand are a V for the center-right Nat. Party, which wins 56 seats, down from 60 in 2014, while the Labour Party wins 46, up 14 from 2014, after which Nat. Party PM Bill English resigns in favor of Socialist pro-same-sex-marriage, pro-abortion, pro-marijuana, anti-nuclear ex-Mormon Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern (1980-) of the Labour Party, who leads a minority coalition govt. supported by the Greens; on Jan. 19 Ardern announced that she is pregnant, expecting her first child in June; next Apr. 19 she announces that her govt. will stop granting offshore oil and gas exploration permits, pissing-off the country's oil and gas industry. On Sept. 23 women are allowed to sit in King Fahd Stadium in Saudi Arabia for the first time, but are still segregated from single men. On Sept. 24 masked Somali Muslim immigrant Emanuel Kidega Samson (1992-) attacks the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Nashville, Tenn., killng one and wounding six before being subdued. On Sept. 24 elections in Germany give chancellor Angela Merkel a 4th term as her conservative CDU/CSU alliance wins 32.5% of the vote and its partner the Social Dem. Party (SPD) wins 20%; the anti-Islam AfD Party wins 13.5%, coming in 3rd. On Sept. 24 black gunman Emanuel Kidega Samson (1991-) attacks the Burnett Chapel Church of Christ in Nashville, Tenn., trying to kill at least 10 white churchgoers but only killing one woman and wounding seven others, claiming revenge for the 2015 Dylann Roof massacre at a black church in Charleston, S.C. On Sept. 25 separatist elections for Kurds in Iraq are an overwhelming V, with 93% in favor of independence vs. 7.3% against; 72% of 3.3M eligible voters vote. On Sept. 25 Pres. Trump signs new travel restriction for people in eight Muslim-majority countries plus North Korea and Venezuela, effective Oct. 18. On Sept. 26 Saudi king Salman issues a decree allowing women to drive for the first time ever, effective June 2018. On Sept. 26 Palestinian jihadist Nimr al-Jamal from Beit Surik, West Bank murders three Israelis at the entrance to the Israeli settlement of Har Adar, Israel before he is killed, causing Fatah to celebrate him as a martyr. On Sept. 26 the Taliban tries to kill U.S. defense secy. James Mattis during a visit to Kabul, Afghanistan, but attacks too late after he already left. On Sept. 27 the Trump admin. announces a refugee resettlement limit of 45K for FY 2018, lowest since the passage of the U.S. Refugee Act in 1980; Obama's FY 2017 ceiling was 110K. On Sept. 29 after being caught taking private flights, pissing-off Pres. Trump, U.S. HHS secy. Tom Price resigns. On Sept. 29 (8:15 p.m.) Somali refugee Abdulahi Hasan Sharif rams his white Chevy Malibu through a barrier outside a football game in Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Ont., Canada and hits Edmonton police Const. Mike Chernyk, then gets out and attacks him with a knife before fleeing and being caught hours later near the stadium driving a U-Haul truck, hitting pedestrians before flipping. On Sept. 30 an Allah-Akbar-shouting illegal Algerian or Tunisian immigrant jihadist dressed in black kills two women with a knife in Marseilles, France; ISIS claims responsibility. On Oct. 1 despite the Spanish govt. declaring it illegal and sending police, the Catalonia Independence Referendum. On Oct. 1 Austria bans full-face Islamic veils, with a 150 Euro fine; it also bans public distribution of Qurans. On Oct. 1 Tunisian illegal immigrant Ahmed Hanachi (1988-) stabs two young women cousins at the Saint-Charles Train Station in Marseille, and is linked to ISIS; he spent time in Aprilia, Italy S of Rome, and had been arrested for shoplifting two days earlier and released; on Oct. 16 French pres. Emmanuel Macron gives a TV address from the Elysee Palace in Paris, with the soundbyte that illegal immigrants caught committing even minor crimes incl. shoplifting will be deported. On Oct. 1 (10:00 p.m.) after renting two rooms (32134, 32135)on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Strip in Las Vegas, Nev. under the name of his out-of-state girlfriend Marilou Danley, and bringing in 10 suitcases full of guns, accountant, serious gambler, and real estate millionaire Stephen Paddock (b. 1953) of Mesquite, Nev. shoots into a crowd of 22K attending the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival featuring country music star Jason Aldean, killing 58 and injuring 527 then killing himself before police break into his room, becoming the deadliest gun massacre in U.S. history (until ?); police find 19 military rifles, some fitted with bump stocks to make them into automatics, plus 23 more at his home; Pres. Trump calls it "an act of pure evil", saying "We pray for the day when evil has vanished"; ISIS claims that he converted to Islam and was doing Allah's work, later calling him Abu Abd Abdulbar al-Ameriki, which the FBI is all-too quick to deny?; CBS-TV vice-pres. Hayley Geftman-Gold stinks herself up on Facebook by saying that she has no sympathy for the victims because country music fans "often are Republican", getting her fired; he is later found to have research other attack sites in Boston and Chicago; the motive eludes investigators until ? On Oct. 3 police foil an attempted jihadist apt. bombing in a chic neighborhood of Paris, France, causing French interior minister Gerard Collomb to utter the soundbyte "Is this not a sign that no one is safe?" On Oct. 4 AQIM jihadis ambush Green Berets in SW Niger near the Mali border, killing three and injuring two. On Oct. 4-11 Hurricane Nate becomes the costliest natural disaster so far in Costa Rica, also devastating Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, and the U.S., killing 48 and causing $787M damage. On Oct. 5 U.S. officials announce the capture of Hawija, Iraq, the last major Iraqi town held by ISIS. On Oct. 5 Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown signs the Calif. Values Act, making Calif. a sanctuary state, effective Jan. 1. On Oct. 6 federal prosecutors announce the arrest of three Am. Muslims (Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, Talka Haroon, and Russell Salic) for an ISIS-inspired plot to target concerts, landmarks, and crowded subways in New York City in 2016. On Oct. 7 2:20 p.m.) a Muslim drives into people outside the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London, England. On Oct. 8 the White House releases a Statement on Immigration Priorities, incl. building the U.S.-Mexico border wall, ending abuse of the asylum system, discouraging reentry of illegals, hiring 10K new ICE officers, 300 federal prosecutors, 370 judges, and 1K attys., ending visa fraud, stopping catch-and-release, protecting innocent people in sanctuary cities, and implementing a merit-based immigration system. On Oct. 8-17 Muslim Fulani herdsman attack Jos, Nigeria, killing 48 Christians and destroying 249 homes in 13 Chritian villages. On Oct. 8-31 amid unusually high temps, the Oct. 2017 Northern Calif. Wildfires consist of 250 wildfires, 21 major, incl. the Atlas Fire in Napa County, and the Tubbs Fire (most destructive in Calif. history until ?). On Oct. 10 pres. elections in Liberia to replace pres. (since 2006) Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of the Unity Party, who failed her pledge to end corruption. On Oct. 10 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously throws out an appeal court ruling that struck down Pres. Trump's temporary travel ban targeting eight Muslim-majority nations, becoming a moral V for the Trump admin. On Oct. 10 Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown signs a law criminalizing willful failure to address transgender patients by their preferred pronouns by health care workers. On Oct. 10 after articles in The New York Times and The New Yorker report about more than a dozen women accusing him of sexual harassment or assault, English fashion Georgina Chapman, wife since 2007 of film producer (Miramax founder) Harvey Weinstein (1952-) announces that she's leaving him, after which he is fired from his own production co. the Weinstein Co. and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciencies; by Oct. 31 the list grows to 80+ women incl. Ashley Judd, Jennifer Lawrence, Alyssa Milano, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Uma Thurman, causing the #MeToo social media campaign to be launched, leading to an open season on all powerful males in the U.S. incl. Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman, with visions of downing Pres. Trump dancing in their heads. On Oct. 11 the Boy Scouts of Am. (founded 1910) announce that they will begin admitting girls into the Cub Scouts next year, allowing them to aspire to the Eagle Scout Rank. On Oct. 11 Bitcoin breaks the $5,000 mark. On Oct. 12 Pres. Trump signs an executive order making it easier for people to buy cheaper bare-bones health insurance; meanwhile the Trump admin. withdraws from UNESCO for its anti-Israel bias. On Oct. 12 after a tip from the U.S. allows them to make a rescue, Pakistan frees Canadian Joshua Boyle and his U.S. wife Caitlan Coleman, who were kidnapped by the Afghan Taliban while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012. On Oct. 13 (Fri.) Pres. Trump announces that he won't certify the Iran nuclear deal, and might ultimately terminate it. On Oct. 14 a 600kg bomb explodes in a crowded street in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing 587 and injuring 316, becoming the deadliest single attack in Somalian history (until ?), and the 3rd deadliest attack in modern history after 9/11 and the Aug. 2007 Yazidi attacks in N Iraq; the govt. blames al-Qaida-linked Al-Shabaab for a "national disaster". On Oct. 17 British MI5 chief Andrew Parker warn that the U.K. is suffering its most severe terror threat ever, with the soundbyte: "That threat is multi-dimensional, evolving rapidly and operating at a scale and pace we've not seen before." On Oct. 18 Israeli minister Naftali Bennett warns that if another war breaks out in Lebanon, Israel will target the Lebanese govt. infrastructure, not just Hezbollah. On Oct. 18 French pres. Emmanuel Macron signs a new counterterrorism law, effective Nov. 1, extending the Nov. 2015 state of emergency and allowing authorities to close mosques for up to 6 mo. if the preachers express "ideas or theories" that "incite violence, hatred or discrimination, provoke the commission of acts of terrorism, or express praise for such acts"; on Oct. 9 Le Journal du Dimanche reports that French authorities are surveilling about 15K jihadists living in France, of which 4K are at "the top of the spectrum" and likely to stage a jihadist attack; on Oct. 26 Le Figaro reports that 20% of 1.9K French ISIS jihadists have received up to 500K Euros in social welfare payments. On Oct. 20 Am. Muslim convert Vicente Solano is arrested by the FBI for trying to explode a bomb at Dolphin Mall in Doral, Fla. On Oct. 20 Avoyelles Parish sheriff's deputies Brandon Spillman and Alexander Daniel, along with police officer Kenneth Parnell confront Armando Frank (b. 1974) on his tractor in front of a WalMart in Marksville, La. to service a trespassing warrant, and when he asks to see the warrant and refuses to dismount they attack, putting him in a choke hold that kills him, causing a civil suit. On Oct. 24 (a.m.) U.S. Sen. (R-Tenn.) (2007-) Robert Phillips "Bob" Corker Jr. (1952-) speaks out against Pres. Trump, with the soundbyte that he will be remembered most for "the debasement of our nation", causing Trump to fire back, Tweeting that Corker is the "incompetent" head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and "doesn't have a clue". On Oct. 26 the U.S. House by 423-2 passes the Iran Ballistic Missiles and Internat. Sanctions Enforcement Act, targeting Iran's ballistic missile program, requiring restrictions on entry into the U.S. of persons found to be supplying or financing it. On Oct. 26 on Pres. Trump's order, the Nat. Archives releases the long-secret JFK files; too bad, he bows to the CIA and withholds some files for a 6-mo. review; Trump made a deal with them to drop the Russian collusion investigation? On Oct. 26 Pres. Trump declares a nat. public health emergency in the fight against opioid abuse, saying "I will be pushing... non-addictive painkillers very, very hard." On Oct. 27 Catalonia declares independence, causing massive celebrations, while the Spanish govt. declares it a criminal act; on Oct. 29 a pro-Spain demonstration is held in Barcelona. On Oct. 27 after winning admission to the U.S. in 2011 via the diversity visa lottery, Uzbekistani immigrant Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev (1990-) of Brooklyn, N.Y. is sentenced to 15 years in prison for planning a terrorist attack in Coney Island for ISIS, posting online on Aug. 8, 2014 that he would even assassinate Pres. Obama for them. On Oct. 30 Russian pres. Vladimir attends the opening of the Wall of Grief (Sorrow), a memorial to victims of Soviet-era political repression; Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill gives a speech criticizing the Bolshevik Rev. on its 100th anniv., warning against fomenting new revs. On Oct. 31 (Halloween) (1:30 p.m. local time) the 2017 New York City Halloween Massacre sees Uzbek Muslim Sayfullo ("sword of Allah") Habibullaevich Saipov (1988-) of Tampa, Fla. plow a rented Home Depot truck down a bike path in Lower Manhattan, N.Y. near the World Trade Center, killing eight and injuring 11 before getting out of his truck wielding a BB gun and a paintball gun and running at police shouting Allah Akbar until they shoot him in the stomach, becoming the biggest jihadist attack in New York City since 9/11; he leaves a note claiming that he did it for ISIS, after which Pres. Trump tweets that he has "just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this"; on Nov. 1 Trump calls the suspect an "animal" and threatens to send him to Guantanamo Bay, and says that he wants Congress to do away with the Diversity Lottery Program and limit immigration to a merit-based system, causing Saipov's attys. to argue in court that the tweets make it impossible for the govt. to pursue the death penalty. On Oct. 31 Muslims in Cologne, Germany sexually harass three women, causing the police to have to call for reinforcements and arrest 33. On Oct. 31 the 500th anniv. of the nailing of the 95 Theses on the door of Wittenberg Castle Church by Martin Luther. In Oct. wildfires in Sonoma County Wine Country in Calif. are set by illegal Mexican alien Jesus Fabian Gonzalez, who enjoys Calif.'s status as a sanctuary state. On Nov. 1 metal fabricator Scott Ostrem 1971-) walks off his job at B&M Roofing in Frederick, Colo. and drives to the Walmart in Thornton, Colo., shooting and killing three at random before other shoppers who are packing draw back and he flees, causing police to search for him until the next day when they raid his home, find it empty, and sit around puzzled until he drives on by and is chased and captured. On Nov. 2 the Repubs. present their new tax plan, which doubles the standard deduction and reduces corporate tax rates from 35% to 20%, withPres. Trump praising it as "all about jobs"; it also ends tax credits for illegal immigrants, saving $23.1B over the next 10 years. On Nov. 2 former interim Dem. Nat. Committee (DNC) chairperson Donna Brazile slams former chairperson Debit, er, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Pres. Obama for handing over complete control of the Dem. Party to Hillary Clinton almost a year before she secured the nomination. On Nov. 2 the 100th anniv. of the 1917 Balfour Declaration; on Nov. 5 Palestinian-backed Anti-Balfour Declaration Protests in London, Ankara, Ramallah, and Gaza turn out to be duds. On Nov. 3 after a rogue employee temporarily shuts down his Twitter account, Pres. Trump tweets: "Bernie Sanders supporters have every right to be apoplectic of the complete theft of the Dem primary by Crooked Hillary!", and "Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems". On Nov. 3-14 Pres. makes a tour of Asia. On Nov. 4 (Sat.) (night) 32-y.-o. Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud purges 11 princes and dozens of ministers, incl. prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the head of the nat. guard, and the gov. of Riyadh. On Nov. 5 (11:30 a.m. local time) the Sutherland Springs Church Shooting in Sutherland Springs (30 mi. SE of San Antonio), Tex. sees shooter Devin Patrick Kelley (b. 1991) (dishonorably discharged from the USAF in 2013 before teaching at a Bible school) kill 24 aged 5-72 and injure 20+ church members at the First Baptist Church with a Ruger AR-15 rifle before being killed by rifle-toting area residents Johnnie Langendorff and Stephen Willeford after a chase, becoming the deadliest church shooting in modern U.S. history (until ?). On Nov. 5 a Shiite Houthi rebel attack on Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is viewed as a possible act of war by the Saudis. On Nov. 7 nine Islamists are arrested in France for a suspected terrorist plot in Nice, plus a tenth in Switzerland. On Nov. 7 (Tues.) the 2017 U.S. election elects anti-Trump Dem. physician Ralph Shearer Northam (1959-) as gov. of Va., and Danica Roem (1984-) to the Va. legislature, who becomes the first openly transgender person; Dem. Andrea Jenkins is elected to the city council of Minneapolis, Minn., becoming the first openly transgender black woman. On Nov. 9 Pres. Trump visits China, becoming the first foreign leader allowed to tour the Forbidden City. talking Chinese pres. Xi Jinping into releasing three black UCLA basketball players being held for shoplifting and facing 10-year sentences; on Nov. 10 he visits Vietnam for bilateral talks with Pres. Tran Dai Quang; on Nov. 12 he tweets: "Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me 'old,' when I would NEVER call him 'short and fat?' Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend - and maybe someday that will happen!" On Nov. 9 a Greek judicial council allows convicted Marxist terrorist Dimitris Koufodinas, serving 11 life sentences for killing U.S. and British diplomats to go on a 2-day furlough, pissing-off the U.S. and U.K. On Nov. 9 the Vatican announces that it is banning the sale of cigarettes but not cigars; cigarettes had been sold at a reduced price to employees and pensioners. On Nov. 10 coloratura soprana Audrey Luna hits A above high C at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, becoming the highest note sung there in its 137-year history. On Nov. 13 (Mon.) a 7.3 earthquake hits Iraq and Iran, killing 400+ and injuring 6.6K. On Nov. 13 North Korean soldier Oh Chung Sung (Oh Chong Song) successfully escapes to South Korea after being shot several times. On Nov. 14 (8:00 a.m. local time) a shooter in a car opens fire at the Rancho Tehama Elementary School in N Calif., killing four and injuring a dozen. On Nov. 15 (a.m.) after he dismisses vice-pres. Emmerson Mnangagwe for plotting a takeover, a coup in Zimbabwe ousts ogre pres. Robert Mugabe. On Nov. 20 a video purporting to show African migrants auctioned as slaves in Libya casues a global outcry. On Nov. 21 six Syrian asylum seekers are arrested in Germany for plotting a terror attack for ISIS at a Christmas market in Essen. On Nov. 21 53-y.-o. Am. Muslim Mohamed Yussuf Jama (1964-) of Greeley, Colo. crashes his tractor-trailer into several vehicles on I-55 near Hamel, Ill., killing four. On Nov. 22 Bloomberg reports that Uber tries to coverup a cyberattack dating back to Oct. 2016 that stole personal data of 57M customers, causing chief security officer Joe Sullivan to be fired. On Nov. 22 new Iranian navy head Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi announces plans to "fly the Iranian flag in the Gulf of Mexico"; meanwhile Iranian top general Hossein Salami announces that it can increase their missile ranges to target Europe if threatened. On Nov. 22 British Muslim Husnain Rashid (1986-) of Nelson, Lancashire is arrested for plotting acts of terrorism incl. encouraging attacks on 4-y.-o. Prince George, incl. posting a photo of his school in Battersea, SW London on Oct. 13 with two masked jihadist figured superimposed, along with the message: "Even the royal family will not be left alone. School starts early." On Nov. 23 Pres. Trump declares North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism. On Nov. 24 (noon) an ISIS flag-waving Sunni Islamist terrorist bombing-shooting attack in the polytheist Sufi al-Rawdah Mosque in Bir al-Abd, North Sinai 25 mi. W of El-Arish kills 305 worshipers and injures 120, incl. 27 children. On Nov. 24 U.N. report claims that missiles fired by the Houthis of Yemen at Saudi Arabia were manufactured in Iran. On Nov. 26 300 mainly black protesters assail the Ink! Coffee Shop at 28th Ave. and Larimer St. in the mainly black Five Points area of Denver, Colo. for displaying a sign reading "Helpingly gentrifying the area since 2014", complaining about poor residents losing their homes to rising prices while splattering graffiti across the front, forcing it to close for several days while gaining global publicity. On Nov. 26 the Miss Universe 2017 (66th) Pageant, held at the AXIS at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, Nev. is won by 5'7" Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters (1995-) of South Africa, 2nd winner after Margaret Gardiner in 1978. On Nov. 27 Mount Agung erupts in the paradise land of Bali, shooting ash 2.5 mi. high and stranding tens of thousands of tourists; its last eruption was in 1963, killing 1.1K. On Nov. 27 the Catholic Herald in Poland that the lower house of parliament (Sejm) voted 254-156 to restrict Sunday shopping to the first and last Sun. of each month in 2017-18, the last Sun. only in 2019, and ban Sun. shopping totally in 2020. On Nov. 28 North Korea tests their most powerful ICBM ever, with a range of 8.1K mi., able to each the U.S. mainland all the way to New York City or Washington, D.C. On Nov. 28 a 20-y.-o. Muslim man is arrested in Melbourne, Australia for planning a New Year's Eve jihad with an automatic rifle at Federation Square. On Nov. 28 20-y.-o. Muslim Naa'imur Zakariyah Rahman (1997-) is arrested for planning to assassinate Islamophile British PM Theresa May. On Nov. 28 Howell Emanuel Donaldson III AKA the Seminole Heights Serial Killer is apprehended for the murder of four victims in the Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa, Fla. between Oct. 9-Nov. 14. On Nov. 29 the U.S. House votes unanimously to mandate sexual harassment training; the U.S. Senate did ditto on Nov. 9. On Nov. 29 NBC-TV "Today" show reporter Savannah Guthrie announces that 20-year $20M/year anchor Matt Lauer has been fired for "inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace". On Nov. 29 Pres. Trump retweets videos from Britain First showing Muslims beating a man up, destroying a statue of the Vigin Mary, and throwing a gay man off a roof, causing the PC police to come out and try to shout him down without judging the videos or sacred cow Muslims, with British PM Theresa May slamming him, and Trump's own nat. security adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster issuing that soundbyte "Those who adhere to this ideology are really irreligious criminals who use a perverted, what the president has called a wicked interpretation of religion in an effort to... recruit young, impressionable people to their cause", becoming a new low point for Western appeasement of Islam? On Nov. 29 the Danish art collective The Other Eye of the Tiger debuts their Martyr Museum of 20 portraits of people touted as martyrs who "died for their convictions", incl. Socrates, Martin Luther King Jr., 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, and French Bataclan jihadist Ismael Omar Mostefai, causing global outrage. On Nov. 30 illegal immigrant Jose Ines Garcia Zarate is found not guilty of the murder of Kate Steinle in 2015 on a pier in San Francisco, Calif. by shooting her in the back, only of being a felon in possession of a firearm, not even manslaughter, causing an outcry and pissing-off Pres. Trump, who calls it a "disgraceful verdict". On Nov. 30 former nat. security adviser Michael Flynn is charged with making false statements to the FBI about interactions with the Russian ambassador in late Dec.; on Dec. 1 he pleads guilty. In Nov. Mattel introduces Hijab Barbie for the Muslim market. On Dec. 1 an Allah Akbar-screaming jihadist attack on the Agriculture Training Inst. in Peshawar, Pakistan kills 13; an inside job? On Dec. 1 Hawaii resumes monthly air-raid sirens to warn of a nuke attack by North Korea. On Dec. 1 former U.S. Pres. Obama gives a speech in New Delhi, India, saying that India needs to "cherish and nurture" its Muslim pop., calling them integrated and considering themself Indian; he neglects to mention er, Pakistan? On Dec. 4 the U.S. Supreme Court rules 7-2 (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor) to uphold Pres. Trump's travel ban of people from Muslim countries incl. relatives; meanwhile on Dec. 4 former FBI counterintel asst. dir. Frank Figliuzzi writes an op-ed for NBC News, with the soundbyte that Americans will have to "adjust" to a new country where terrorism is routine, because Pres. Trump's pipe dream of halting immigration is "not who we are"; meanwhile Zoltan Kovacs of Hungary issues a soundbyte that is just the opposite: "The Hungarian government has vowed it will never accept radical Islamic terrorism as 'something we have to live with.'" On Dec. 4 the Dec. 2017 Southern Calif. Wildfires, whipped-up by Santa Ana winds hits Ventura and Los Angeles Counties, forcing 200K to evacuate and burning over 140K acres; on Dec. 5 the Thomas Fire in Ventura County begins, forcing 50K to evacuate and becoming the largest wildfire of the 2017 Calif. wildfire season, which becomes the most destructive on record, seeing 9,133 fires burn 1,381,405 acres, destroying 9,470 bldgs. and damaging 810, killing 43 incl. two firefighters; on Dec. 10 Calif. "Gov. Moonbeam" Jerry Brown appears on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes", lamenting Pres. Trump's denial of climate change, uttering the soundbytes: "I don't think President Trump has a fear of the Lord, the fear of the wrath of God, which leads one to more humility"; "The truth of the case is that there's too much carbon being emitted, that heat-trapping gasses are building up, the planet is warming and all hell is breaking loose. So I'd say to Mr. Trump, take a deeper look. Now is not the time to undo what every country in the world is committed to." On Dec. 5 the U.S. Senate votes 62-37 to confirm Gen. John Kelly's deputy Kirstjen Michele Nielsen (1972-) as the dir. of the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHA). On Dec. 5 Saudi coalition warplanes attack the pres. palace in Sana'a, Yemen, killing Ali Abdullah Saleh. On Dec. 5 after being summoned to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last month by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and resigning, Lebanese PM Saad Hariri suddenly rescinds his resignation. On Dec. 5 British police announce the arrest of British Muslims Naa'imur Zakariyah Rahman and Mohammed Aqib Imran for plotting to bomb Downing St. and murder British PM Theresa May. On Dec. 5 the U.S. House unanimously passes the U.S. Taylor Force Act, sponsored by U.S. Reps. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) and Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), calling on the Palestinian Authority (PA) to stop their practice of paying convicted terrorists and their families or else lose U.S. funding. On Dec. 5 Hadrian's Wall and the Great Wall of China announce the signing of the World Heritage Wall to Wall Collaboration Agreement. On Dec. 6 (70 years 7 days after the U.N. vote to create Israel on Nov. 29, 1947) (3 days shy of the centenary of the British conquest of Jerusalem from the Ottomans) after signing the semi-annual waiver of the 1995 U.S. Jerusalem Embassy Act on Dec. 4, despite dire warnings from Muslim and Euro leaders incl. the EU, U.K., Egypt, Abdullah II of Jordan, Saudi King Salman, who calls it "a flagrant provocation of Muslims all over the world", Hamas, which threatens to "open the gates of Hell", and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who calls it a "grave mistake", and warns "Jerusalem is our red line", Pres. Trump announces that the U.S. is recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and that he is ordering the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv to move there, keeping a campaign promise no matter how much flak results; wasting no time, on Dec. 6 Hamas issues a call for a Day of Rage on Dec. 8, which incl. protests in Indonesia and Malaysia; a Jewish synagogue in Gothenburg, Sweden is torched by migrants from Palestine and Syria. On Dec. 6 the parliament of Bulgaria passes a law criminalizing the promotion of radical Islam incl. advocating religious violence, Sharia, or a caliphate. On Dec. 7 after Dutch PM Mark Rutte calls Pres. Trump's declaration of Jerusalem as Israel's capital "terrible", and 15 lawmakers eat there as a gesture of solidatiry, pissed-off PLO flag-waving Syrian refugee Saleh Ali (1988-) attacks the HaCarmel Kosher restaurant in the Amstelveenseweg area of Amsterdam, smashing windows with a wooden club while police do nothing, finally being arrested when he is done; despite declaring that he wants to commit more jihadist attacks, with the soundbyte that the window-smashing was "only the first step", police release him after 60 hours, causing a firestorm of controversy. On Dec. 7 after eight separate sexual harassment allegations surface, and at least half of his colleagues turn on him incl. 16 female senators, U.S. Dem. Sen. Al Franken resigns, claiming to be an innocent martyr. On Dec. 7 acting Dept. of Homeland Security Elaine Duke testifies before Congress, uttering the soundbyte: "The primary international terror threat facing our country is from global jihadist groups. However, the department is also focused on the threat of domestic terrorism. Ideologically-motivated violence here in the United States is a danger to our nation, our people, and our values." On Dec. 7/8 (night) a rare snowstorm in Houston, Tex. also blankets S Tex. On Dec. 9 Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi announces that ISIS has been driven out of Iraq. On Dec. 11 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin makes a suprise visit to Syria, and announces the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces. On Dec. 11 (7:20 a.m. local time) after posing the message "#Trump You Failed to Protect Your Nation" on Facebook, 27-y.-o. ISIS-inspired Bangladeshi citizen Akayed Ullah (1990-) detonates a homemade IED pipe bomb strapped to his body near Times Square in New York City, but it misfires, badly injuring him but only causing minor injuries to three bystanders; he arrived via chain migration, causing Pres. Trump on Dec. 12 to call for an end to the diversity lottery program and chain migration. On Dec. 11 Pres. Trump signs an executive order to NASA to prepare a return to the Moon for the first time since 1972, followed by Mars, with the soundbyte: "We're dreaming big." On Dec. 11 18-y.-o. Am. Muslim Kaan Sercan Damlarkaya (1989-) is charged with supporting ISIS and planning a firearms attack, becoming the 3rd Houston Muslim arrested for supporting ISIS after Asher Abid Khan (23) and Omar Faraj Saeed El Hardan (25). On Dec. 12 U.S. nat. security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster issues the soundbyte that Russia has been waging "campaigns of subversion" against the U.S., and announces that Pres. Trump will unveil his first formal Nat. Security Strategy on Dec. 18. On Dec. 12 after traveling to Libya 2x in 2011, former Washington, D.C. Metro Transit police officer (Muslim convert) Nicholas Young (1979-) of Fairfax, Va. is charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIS and giving misleading statements to federal agents, becoming the first U.S. law enforcement officer to be charged with a terror-related crime; his computer reveals his fascination with Nazis and hatred of Israel, complete with photos of him in Nazi SS uniform; on Dec. 18, 2017 he is found guilty, and on Feb. 23 is sentenced to up to 60 years in priz. On Dec. 12 reporters U Kyaw Soe Oo (28) and U Wa Lone (31) are arrested in Myanmar for violating the Official Secrets Act after investigating the Sept. massacre of 10 Rohingya civilians by Buddhist mobs and the military in Inn Dinn, Rakhine State, taking photos of 10 victims kneeling before being secuted; on Mar. 13 a court sentences four army officers and three soldiers to 10 years at hard labor, and order the journalist case to proceed, with up to a 14-year sentence. On Dec. 12 the Hope for the Middle East Petition signed by 800K from 143 countries is presented to the U.N. secy.-gen., calling on the U.N. to protect the rights of Iraqi Christians. On Dec. 13 English Muslim dentistry student Mohammed Abbas Idris Awan of the U. of Sheffield in England is found guilty of three terrorism counts incl. engaging in the preparation of an act of terrorism. On Dec. 13 a 25-y.-o. Canadian Muslim with nine bombs strapped to a suicide vest invades the RBC branch bank in Warmington (near Toronto), Canada, taking 13 hostages and demanding to speak to Pres. Trump before police kill him. On Dec. 13 U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence meets with 12-y.-o. Christian Iraqi Noeh, whose home in the Nineveh Plains was burned down by ISIS. On Dec. 14 the U.S. FCC votes 3-2 to end Net Neutrality after two years. On Dec. 14 Disney announces the acquisition of 21st Cent. Fox for $52.4B in stock. On Dec. 14 Bermuda bans same-sex marriage 6 mo. after its supreme court approved them. On Dec. 15 a Palestinian jihadist wearing an explosive belt stabs a border police officer in West Bank, Ramallah during a violent Palestinian protest. On Dec. 17 a Taliban attack in Helmand Province, Afghanistan kills 11 Afghan police. On Dec. 17 a Muslim suicide bomber at the main entrance of the Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta, Pakistan kills nine and injures 50+ out of 400 attending pre-Christmas services; a 2nd suicide bomber is stopped. On Dec. 18 an Egyptian-sponsored U.N. Security Council draft resolution to require Pres. Trump to rescind his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital is vetoed by the U.S., with U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley calling it an insult that won't be forgotten; the vote is 14-1; on Dec. 20 Pres. Trump threatens to cut off financial aid to countries that vote in favor of a draft resolution submitted by Yemen and Turkey. On Dec. 18 Pres. Trump introduces his 2018 Nat. Security Strategy, calling out Russia and China, mentioning electromagnetic pulse (EMP) protection, dropping climate change, and restoring reference to Islam as a nat. security threat, with the soundbyte: "The primary transnational threats Americans face are from jihadist terrorists and transnational criminal organizations." On Dec. 18 Queens, N.Y.-born U.S. rep. (D-Tex.) (1995-) Sheila Jackson Lee (1950-) gets passenger Jean-Marie Simon of Washington, D.C. bumped from a United Airlines flight from Houston, Tex. to Washington, D.C., causing a pissing contest that is ended by Lee pulling out the race card. On Dec. 19 the U.S House by ?-? passes Pres. Trump's $5.5B tax cut bill, which also repeals the Obamacare mandate; on Dec. 21 after a revote on Dec. 20 Pres. Trump signs it. On Dec. 19 four Muslims are arrested in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, England for a Christmas jihadist terror plot. On Dec. 19 Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels attack the royal palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with a ballistic missile. On Dec. 20 after he pleads guilty in Aug., 27-y.-o. Muslim convert Lionel Williams (1990-) is sentenced in Norfolk, Va. on terrorism charges for telling undercover FBI agents that he wanted to kill police officers and giving them $250 to send to ISIS. for a Day of Rage on Dec. 8, which incl. protests in Indonesia and Malaysia. On Dec. 20 after a speech by U.S. U.N. ambassador #29 (since Jan. 27) Nimrata "Nikki" Haley (nee Randhawa) (1973-) bemoaning the U.N.'s longtime hostility to Israel and threatening the it with defunding, saying that the U.S. will be "taking names" of nations that vote for it, the U.N. Gen. Assembly votes 128-9-35 (U.S., Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Togo vote against, 22 of 28 EU countries incl. U.K., France, and Germany vote for, five EU states, Australia, Canada, Colombia, and Mexico abstain, 21 delegations are absent) to adopt U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution ES-10/L.22, titled "Status of Jerusalem", submitted by Yemen and Turkey, declaring "null and void" all actions intended to alter Jerusalem's character, status, or demographic composition, asking nations not to follow Pres. Trump and establish diplomatic missions in Jerusalem, claiming his decision risks igniting a religious war in the Middle East "that has no boundaries" (Palestinian foreign affairs minister Riad al-Malki), whining about the "negative tends" imperiling the Two-State Solution; on Dec. 21 after creating an account on Twitter, John O. Brennan tweets the soundbyte (his 2nd): "Trump Admin threat to retaliate against nations that exercise sovereign right in UN to oppose US position on Jerusalem is beyond outrageous. Shows @realDonaldTrump expects blind loyalty and subservience from everyone - qualities usually found in narcissistic, vengeful autocrats." On Dec. 21 (4:40 p.m.) 32-y.-o. Afghan immigrant Saeed Noori plows his white Suzuki 4-wheel drive through Christmas shoppers outside Flinders St. station in Melbourne, Australia, injuring 18 incl. one young child; police blame it on mental abuse and drug abuse not jihadism until he opens his mouth and attributes his actions to perceived mistreatment of Muslims. On Dec. 21 the 2017-18 North Am. Winter begins (ends Mar. 20), starting with the 2017-18 North Am. Cold Wave on Dec. 23-Jan. 18, bringing temps 10F-20F (6C-11C) below avg., incl. a low temp of -32F (-36C) in Internat. Falls, Minn. on Dec. 17; in the first week of 2018 a bomb cyclone (explosive cyclogenesis) causes frozen iguanas to fall from trees in Fla. and dead sharks killed by cold water to wash up on beaches in New England; of course, Al Gore calls it part of "climate change", with the soundbyte that "Bitter cold... [is] exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis." On Dec. 22 Pres. Trump signs the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, with the tax cuts set to expire in 2025. On Dec. 22 the FBI announces the arrest of Muslim convert Modesto, Calif. tow truck driver (ex-Marine sharpshooter) Everitt Aaron Jameson (1991-) for plotting a Christmas terror attack on Pier 39 in San Francisco; on Aug. 6, 2018 he is sentenced to 15 years in prison. On Dec. 22 after the Huffington Post pub. an expose, and 49 former Miss Americas call on them to resign, Miss America Org. CEO Sam Haskell is suspended for exchanging crude sexist emails about the contestants, causing pres. Josh Randall and board member Tammy Haddad to resign and Dick Clark Productions to cut ties; their careers were hanging on the words "cunt", "huge", and "gross"? On Dec. 22 (4:00 p.m.) Egyptian-born Am. Muslim Ahmed Aminamin El-Mofty (b. 1966) (family chain migration immigrant) goes on a shooting spree near the Penn. Statehouse in Harrisburg, Penn., firing a police in several locations and wounding one before being killed, after which the PC press tries to whitewash it; too bad, on Dec. 23 the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security calls it a terror attack. On Dec. 22 the U.N. Security Council unanimously imposes new sanctions on North Korea, causing its foreign ministry on Dec. 24 to reject them and call them an act of war. On Dec. 23 (9:00 p.m.) a lone Muslim gunman in Nindem, Nigeria kills four and injures eight at a Christmas caroling event. On Dec. 24 (Sun.) the U.S. announces a $285M reduction in the 2018-9 U.N. budget out of the usual $3.3B/year (22%). On Dec. 25 Muslim mayor Ali Salam of Nazareth cancels traditional outdoor songs and plays celebrating Christmas to get even with Pres. Trump for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. On Dec. 25 (Mon.) Pope Francis delivers his Christmas 2017 Message, calling for a 2-state solution to Israel and the Palestinians. On Dec. 25 Queen Elizabeth II delivers her 2017 Christmas Message, mentioning the jihadist attacks in London and Manchester, stating that courts that protect jihadist preachers "denigrate" Britain, and claiming that she asked her dinner guests to give her three good reasons why Britain should remain in the EU. On Dec. 27 (a.m.) a jihadist explosion in a storage area of a supermarket in St. Petersburg, Russia injures 13, causing Russian pres. Vladimir Putin to order his security services to either arrest the perps or "liquidate on the spot". On Dec. 28 an ISIS suicide attack on the Shiite Tebyan Center in Pule Sokhtia, Kabul kills 40+ and injures 80+. On Dec. 28 amid a record cold spell in winter 2017, Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte; "In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!" On Dec. 29 Muslim terrorists attack the Mar Mina Church in Cairo, Egypt, killing 8-10 incl. three police officers and wounding 5+ more before one terrorist wearing a suicide vest is killed. On Dec. 29 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!" On Dec. 29 after police in Iran announce that they will no longer arrest women not wearing the hijab, and local protests begin on Dec. 28 in Mashad against high food prices, a mass protest of hundreds of thousands incl. many un-hijabed women in Tehran, Iran and other cities features protesters shouting "We don't want an Islamic republic", "Death to the dictator", and "Clerics, shame on you, let go of our country", praising the former shah; a lone Iranian woman waving a white hijab on a stick on Enqelab St. in Tehran becomes the poster girl of the protests, although she did it on Dec. 27; protests continue to ? On Dec. 29 an apt. bldg. fire in Bronx, N.Y. caused by a child playing with a stove kills 12 incl. five children; New York City mayor Bill de Blasio calls it the city's worst fire in a quarter-century. On Dec. 31 37-y-o. ex-soldier Matthew Riehl (b. 1990) ambushes police at his home in the Copper Canyon Apts. in Highlands Ranch, Colo., firing 100+ shots and killing Douglas County deputy Zackari Parrish and wounding four officers before being killed. In Dec. "The Apprentice" star Omarosa Manigault is fired from the White House, claiming on Oct. 10, 2018 to have been offered $15K/mo. to keep quiet. In Dec. Queensland, Australia experiences its coldest summer in a cent. In Dec. the U.S. unemployment rate hits a record low of 6.8% for blacks (vs. 7.4% in 2000), while the white unemployment rate is 3.7%, the Asian rate is 2.5%, and the overwall rate is 4.1%, with 148K new jobs created. The Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA) is created by Saudi Arabia, along with Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and UAE; in Apr. 2019 Egypt pulls out. A report by Europol reveals that 5K organized crime groups in the EU are under investigation. 800+ breweries in the U.S. begin printing Certified Independent Craft seals on their beers to differentiate them from beers made by the megacorps. After pressure by Dallas, Tex. imam Omar Suleiman (1986-), Google lowers the ranking of pages criticizing Islam, causing even former U.S. pres. Obama to mumble about them having too much power to shape political discourse; in Mar. ISIS called for Suleiman's death in their film "Kill the Apostate Imams" for calling for unity among Muslims and Christians. The Stram Kurs (Hard Line) Party is founded in Denmark by atty. Rasmus Paludan to fight to ban Islam and deport Muslims; in 2019 they win 2.4% of the vote, enough to gain seats in parliament. The state of New Calif. attempts to get approval of Congress to start over sans sanctuary cities and illegal immigrants, corruption, high taxes, etc. The Technion Cornell Inst. of Innovation (TCII) (AKA School of Genius) on Roosevelt Island in New York City opens on Sept. 13. Ebooks overtake print and audiobooks? Simon & Schuster launches their Salaam imprint for Muslim books. Architecture: On Jan. 11 the 789M Euro Elbphilarmonie (Elbe Philharmonic Hall) AKA Elphi in Hamurg, Germany is inaugurated, becoming one of the largest and most acoustically advanced concert halls on Earth. On May 8 Israeli construction minister Yoav Galant unveils the David Center Archeological Garden of Jerusalem near the Temple Mount arund the SW section of the Western Wall to commemorate the 50th anniv. of Jerusalem's reunification. On June 2 the $1.4B Mercedes-Benz Stadium (begun May 19, 2014) in Atlanta, Ga. opens, replacing the Georgia Dome as home of the NFL Atlanta Falcons. 2.8M sq. ft. Apple Campus 2 in Cupertino, Calif. opens. On Dec. 9 the $20M Miss. Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Miss. opens, becoming the first state-sponsored civil rights museum in the U.S.; the opening is attended by Pres. Trump amid protesters, while U.S. Rep. (D-Miss.) Bennie Thompson, U.S. Rep. (D-Ga.) John Lewis, and Jackson mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba refuse to attend. The $136M Museum of the Future in Dubai opens. The $3.5B 45-story 10K-bedroom 70-restaurant Abraj Kudai Hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia opens, becoming the world's largest hotel (until ?) - until the Meccan 9/11? Challakere secret nuclear city in Karnataka, India is completed. Sports: On Jan. 9 the 2017 College Football Nat. Championship in Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. sees the Clemson Tigers come from behind to defeat the favorite Alabama Crimon Tide 35-31 with 1 sec. remaining, avenging their 45-40 loss in 2016 and becoming their first nat. championship since 1981. On Jan. 11 the BIG3 summer basketball league is announced by Ice Cube and Jeff Katinetz, with eight teams composed of three retired NBA stars each playing on a half-court, with the first team to get to 50 points winning the game; the first season stars on June 25 and ends on Aug. 13 after 32 games; the title is won by Trilogy; MVP is forward Rashard Lewis of the 3 Headed Monsters. On Apr. 26 Mpho' Gift Ngoepe (1990-) of South Africa becomes the first African-born player to appear in a ML baseball game, getting a hit in his first at-bat for the Pittsburgh Pirates off Chicago Cubs pitcher Jon Lester. On May 6 the 2017 (143rd) Kentucky Derby is won by 5-1 Always Dreaming (jocky John Vlazquez) in 2:03.59; on May 20 the 2017 (142nd) Preakness Stakes is won by Cloud Computing (jockey Javier Castellano) in 1:55.98; on June 10 the 2017 (149th) Belmont Stakes is won by Tapwrit (jockey Jose Ortiz) in 2:30.03. On May 29 after attempting a return to the PGA after a nearly 2-year layoff, golfer Tiger Woods is caught sleeping at the wheel of his Mercedez-Benz by police in Jupiter, Fla., and charged with DUI, claiming "an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications" after a back surgery; he describes himself to police as "Cablinasian" (Caucasian, black, Am. Indian, Asian), which they list as "black". On May 28 (Sun.) the 2017 Indianapolis 500 features the first active world champion Fernando Alonso, whose engine fails on lap 179; the winner is Takuma Sato (1977-) of Japan, who becomes the first Asian winner. On May 29-June 7 the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals see the Pittsburgh Penguins defeat the Nashville Predators 4-2; Penguins captain Sidney Crosby is MVP. On June 1-12 the 2017 NBA Finals sees the Golden State Warriors (67-15) (coach Steve Kerr) defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers (51-31) (coach Mike Brown) 4-1, becoming the first time that two NBA teams meet in the finals for a 3rd straight years; LeBron James scores a record 5,995th playoff point, beating Michael Jordan's record of 5,987; MVP is Kevin Durant of the Warriors, who end up with a 16-1 record, becoming the highest winning percentage so far in NBA history (.941). On June 8 at a game with the Australian nat. team in Adelaide, the Saudi nat. soccer team stinks themselves up when they fail to join a minute of silence for the victims of the London terrorist attack. On June 15-18 the 2017 U.S. Golf Open at Erin Hills Golf Course in Erin (NW of Milwaukee), Wisc. is won by Brooks Koepka (1990-), whose 16-under-par-272 matches the 2011 record of Rory McIlroy. On July 3-16 the 2017 (131st) Wimbledon Championships sees defending champ Andy Murray lose to Sam Querry in the quarterfinals, and two-time defending champ Serena Williams not play after ending her season in Apr. due to pregnancy; Roger Federer win the gentleman's singles title for a record 8th time, passing Pete Sampras and William Renshaw; the ladies' singles title is won by Spanish-Venezuelan player Garbine Muguruza Blanco (1993-), who won the 2016 French Open. On Aug. 17 Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Chris Long (#56) becomes the first white NFL player to demonstrate while the Nat. Anthem is being played at an NFL game, joining safety Malcolm Jenkins (#27) during a game in Philly. On Sept. 14 the Cleveland Indians break the ML record with 22 consecutive wins; on Sept. 15 the Kansas City Royals defeat them 4-3; the MLB record is held by the 1916 New York Giants (26 consecutive wins), but it incl. one suspended game; the AL record was held by the 2002 Oakland A's (20); the 1935 Chicago Cubs had 21. On Oct. 24-Nov. 1 the 2017 (113th) World Series sees the 101-61 Houston Astros defeat the 104-58 Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1, becoming the first WS played by two teams with 100+ wins since ?; Game 1 is played in a temp of 103F, hottest in WS history; on Oct. 25 Game 2 sees retired Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully introduce Fernando Valenzuela, who throws out the ceremonial first pitch; on Oct. 29 Game 5 is won by Houston 13-12 in the 10th inning after lasting 5 hours 17 min., with a record 22 homers, record 14 players hitting homers in the series, and a record three game-tying homers by Houston. On Dec. 5 the Internat. Olympic Committee (IOC) bans Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea for widespread state-supported cheating by athletes using performance-enhancing drugs. On Dec. 6 Trump-hating Olympic alpine skier Lindsey Vonn utters the soundbyte to CNN: "I hope to represent the people of the United States, not the president." Nobel Prizes: Peace: Internat. Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN); Lit.: Kazuo Ishiburo (1954-) (Britain); Physics: Rainer "Rai" Weiss (1932-) (U.S.), Barry Clark Barish (1936-) (U.S.), and Kip Stephen Thorne (1940-) (U.S.) [gravitational waves]; Chem.: Jacques Dubochet (1942-) (Switzerland), Joachim Frank (1940-) (U.S.), and Richard Henderson (1945-) (Britain) [cryo-electron microscopy]; Med.: Jeffrey Connor Hall (1945-) (U.S.), Michael Morris Rosbash (1944-) (U.S.), and Michael Warren Young (1949-) (U.S.) [circadian rhythms]; Econ.: Richard H. Thaler (1945-) (U.S.) (behavioral economics). Inventions: On Jan. 3 the video hosting service BitChute is launched by Ray Vahey to host videos censored and/or demonetized by leftist-run YouTube; no surprise, leftist-run pay Web blocking services Palo Alto Firewall et al. block it. On Jan. 14 (9:54 a.m.) SpaceX avenges its Sept. 2016 launchpad explosion with the successful launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg AFB. On Jan. 15 Japan unsuccesfully launches the 9.65m x 0.52m 2.6-ton SS-520 rocket from Uchinoura Space Center on Kyushu, carrying a 3kg cubsat, which would have become the smallest rocket to deliver a payload into orbit. In Jan. the FaceApp mobile app for iOS and Android is released by the Russian co. Wireless Lab, using neural network technology to generate highly realistic transformations of faces, becoming super-popular before generating concerns about the images being sent to Russian intel. On Mar. 14 DMOZ: The Open Directory Project (opened June 1998) closes. In spring the firt 12M trees are planted in Wash., producing Cosmic Crisp apples, a cross between Honeycrisp and Enterprise apples known for superior sugar and acidity On May 12 the WannaCry cryptoworm is launched, using Microsoft Windows' Server Message Block to infect 230K computers in 150 countries, blackmailing them for bitcoin ransoms; British-born hacker Marcus Hutchins (1994-) of Malware Tech quickly nullifies the program's spread with a kill switch that allows emergency patches to be created and ransoms to be cancelled, becoming a celeb. In May the WannaCry ransomware attack begins, encyrypting and rendering useless hundreds of thousands of computers, shutting down emergency rooms in the U.K., U.S. et al.; on Dec. 19 the U.S. In May the Fuze Card is launched, a super credit card that can hold account data for up to 30 credit cards; perfect for credit card thieves? blames North Korea. On Sept. 12 Apple unveils the $1K Apple X, which doesn't have a Home button because it automatically recognizes the owner's face. On Nov. 19 Denver Furniture Row driver (#78) Martin Lee Truex Jr. (1980-) wins the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway to win his 8th race of the year, and his first 2017 NASCAR championship. On Dec. 22 (5:30 p.m.) SpaceX conducts its 18th launch of 2017, launching a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenburg AFB in Santa Barbara County, Calif., causing a Twitter frenzy as people confuse it with a UFO. NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket in history makes its test flight. The Airbus CityAirbus flying taxi makes its test flight, eventually ferrying passengers with a robot pilot. Science: On Jan. 11 an article is pub. in Science Advances announcing that analysis of samples brought back by the 1971 Apollo 14 mission indicate that the Moon is at least 4.51B years old, 40M-140M older than previously thought. On Jan. 13 after the Chinese Lunar Rover produces no evidence of Apollo Moon landings, 200 officials of the Chinese Space Program pub. a petition in the Beijing Daily Express asking NASA for an explanation; zonk, that's fake news :); On Jan. 23 Floyd Romesberg et al. of the Scripps Research Inst. pub. an article in Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences announcing the first stable semi-synthetic organism, which adds synthetic bases X and Y to the usual A, T, C, and G. On Feb. 22 astronomers announce four additional planets around TRAPPIST-1, an ultra-cool dwarf star about the size of Jupiter 39.5 l.y. from the Sun in the constellation Aquarius, yielding a record of seven temperate terrestrial planets. On Mar. 30 Am. astronaut Peggy Annette Whitson (1960-) goes on a spacewalk outside the ISS, setting the record for most spacewalks (8) and most cumulative time by a woman (53 hours 22 min.), also becoming the first woman astronaut to command the ISS 2x. In Apr. the FDA approves the first consumer DNA tests for disease risks, granting approval to 23andMe to market genetic tests for 10 diseases or conditions incl. Parkinson's, late-onset Alzheimer's, and celiac disease. On May 19 the hoax article The Conceptual Penis As A Social Construct is pub. in the peer-reviewed journal Cogent Social Sciences, written by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay under aliases, which they later celebrate in an article announcing their hoax; on May 25 t he Australian Senate holds a hearing on the article, in which climate change denier sen. Malcolm Roberts grills scientists over their peer-review methods. On June 11 Johannes Krause et al. of the Max Planck Inst. pub. a study in Nature Communications, using DNA from mummies to determine that ancient Egyptians were white not black, most closely related to the peoples of the Levant (E Mediterranean), with far less than the modern value of 8% of their genome shared with central Africans. On June 20 NASA announces the discovery of 10 new rocky Earth-sized planets with water by the Kepler spacecraft, bringing the total to 50. On June 30 the Journal of Climate pub. a paper claiming that new data from Remote Sensing Systems of Calif. shows that the lower part of the Earth's atmosphere has warmed 140% faster since 1998 than previous satellite data showed, and 36% faster since 1979, shutting the climate skeptics up? On July 10 China announces that it has transported a photon from the ground to its Micius satellite orbiting at 300 mi. alt. On July 19 Bridgett vonHoldt of Princeton U. et al. pub. an article in Science Advances, reporting that mutations on the game WBSCR17 cause stunted social development and overly-friendly behavior in dogs and domesticated wolves, similar to Williams-Beuron Syndrome in humans, making them into man's best friends. In Aug. NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is launched to survey the brightest stars near Earth for transiting exoplanets over a 2-year period. On Sept. 14 Jean-Pierre Issa et al. of Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple U. pub. an article in Nature Communications revealing that calorie restriction slows the speed at which the epigenome changes with age, increasing lifespan. On Sept. 15 the NASA Cassini spacecraft crashes into Saturn, ending a 20-year mission after revealing oceans on Enceladus and Titan, traveling 4.9B mi, and taking 453K photos at a cost of $3.9B. On Sept. 20 a German-led group of astronomers pub. an article in Nature announcing Astroid 228P, the first known binary asteroid also classified as a comet, orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, discovered using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. On Sept. 20 MIT geophysicist Daniel H. Rothman pub. the paper Thresholds of catastrophe in the Earth system in Science Advances, predicting a 6th mass extinction by 2100 due to "thresholds of catastrophe" in "the mass of carbon that human activities will likely have added to the oceans". On Sept. 22 the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole detects a neutrino, tracing it to blazar TXS 0506-056 off the shoulder of Constellation Orion 3.5B l.y. from Earth, suggesting that blazars might be sources of cosmic rays. On Nov. 6 Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy et al. of Scripps Research Inst. pub. an article in Nature Chemistry claiming the discovery of synthetic enzyme diamidophosphate (DAP), which drives phosphorylation, claiming it might be the missing link to the first life on Earth. On Nov. 17 scientists pub. an article in Neurology announcing the first detection of CTE in brain scans of a living 59-y.-o. former NFL player, Fred McNeill. On Nov. 20 NASA scientists pub. an article in Nature announcing the discovery in Oct. by Robert Weryk of the U. of Hawaii of the asteroid Yo Mama, er, Oumuamua (11/2017 U1) (pr. ooh-mooh-ah-mooh-ah), a 400m-long rocky cigar-shaped object with a reddish hue and 10.1 aspect ratio, becoming the first confirmed visiting object from another star; Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb claims that there's a "serious possibility" that "Oumuamua was an alien spacecraft", a light sail. On Dec. 5 Alphabet-owned DeepMind's AlphaZero AI deep neural network computer program defeats world-champion programs Stockfish, elmo et al. after only four hours of self-play, going on to achieve superhuman levels of play; Stockfish 8 looks at 70M positions/sec. vs. 80K/sec. for AlphaZero, yet it wins by 28-72-0. On Dec. 14 NASA announces the first solar system other than our own with eight planets, Kepler-90; planet #8 Kepler-90i was discovered with AI software developed by Google. On Dec. 15 the first transplanted dead womb birth takes place in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The first gene therapy treatments are approved by the FDA. Nonfiction: Kurt Anderson (1954-), Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire; A 500-Year History; NYT bestseller; the spread of magical thinking; "America was created by true believers and passionate dreamers, by hucksters and their suckers - which over the course of four centuries has made us susceptible to fantasy... In other words: mix epic individualism with extreme religion; mix show business with everything else; let all that steep and simmer for a few centuries; run it through the anything-goes 1960s and the Internet age; the result is the America we inhabit today, where reality and fantasy are weirdly and dangerously blurred and commingled." Sharyl Attkisson (1961-), The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote (June 27). Mehrsa Baradaran (1987-), The Color of Money: Black Banking and the Racial Wealth Gap; why she advocates reparations for U.S. blacks. Nir Baram, A Land Without Borders: My Journey Around East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Mark Bray, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook (Aug. 14). Kate Andersen Brower, The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies (Jan. 17). Carl M. Cannon, On This Date: Discovering America One Day at a Time (July 18). Hillary Clinton (1947-), What Happened (Sept. 12); "In the past, for reasons I try to explain, I've often felt I had to be careful in public, like I was up on a wire without a net. Now I'm letting my guard down"; claims to blame herself for losing to The Donald, then blames everybody but herself, incl. her emails, Kellyann Conway, the Russians and fake news, ending with FBI dir. James Comey. Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975-), We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy (Oct. 3). John Crowley et al. (eds.), Atlas of the Irish Revolution (Sept. 1); bestseller; pub. on the centenary of the Easter Rising and the Irish rev. of 1913-23; made into a TV series in 2019 narrated by Cillian Murphy. David W. Daniels, You Don't Know Jack: The Authorized Biography of Christian Cartoonist Jack T. Chick. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism's Money Masers (Nov.); the Harpoon unit of the Israeli intel apparatus that fights terrorism financing esp. Palestinians and Hezbollah. Rupert Darwall, Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex (Oct. 3); the history of the Green Party and how it turn against nuclear power in favor of wind and solar because of its Nazi roots. Kelley Fanto Deetz, Bound to the Fire: How Virginia's Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine (Oct. 18); plantation cooks weren't all Aunt Jemimas? Joan Didion (1934-2021), South and West: From a Notebook; her road trip through Miss., Ala., and La., plus her childhood memories triggered by the kidnapping of Patty Hearst. David Garrow, Rising Star (May 9); another expose of Pres. Obama's memoir "Dreams of My Father", bringing up his ex-girlfriend Sheila Miyoshia Jager, whom he broke up with after seeing a play by August Wilson that caused him to gain a black consciousness that she couldn't understand. Pamela Geller (1958-), Fatwa: Hunted in America (Nov. 1). Louise Gluck (1943-), American Originality: Essays on Poetry. Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple (Apr. 11); the events leading up to the Nov. 18, 1978 mass suicide in Guyana. Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease & The End of an EmpireStealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and Resettlement Jihad (Jan. 24). Kim Holmes, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left. David Horowitz (1939-), Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America (Jan. 17). Raheem Kassam, No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You. Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America (June 13). Michele R. McPhee (1970-), Maximum Harm: The Tsarnaev Brothers, the FBI, and the Road to the Marathon Bombing (Apr. 4). Koichi Mera, Whose Back was Stabbed?: FDR's Secret War on Japan (Apr. 5); the Japanese side of the Pearl Harbor attack, claiming it was self-defense. Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World (Sept. 21). Greg O'Brien (1966-) and Tim Alan Garrison (ed.), The Native South: New Histories and Enduring Legacies. David Patrikarakos, War in 140 Characters: How Social Media Is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (Nov.); Clausewitz is passe, and wars will be won with smartphones and Facebook feeds? Jeff Pegues (1974-), Black and Blue: Inside the Divide between the Police and Black America (May 9). Dennis Michael Quinn (1944-), The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth & Corporate Power. Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (May 2); racial segregation is the direct production of unconstitutional govt. action? Richard Saul, ADHD Does Not Exist: The Truth About Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (Feb.). Robert Spencer (1962-), Confessions of an Islamophobe (Dec. 5). Brandon Vallorani, The Wolves and the Mandolin: Celebrating Life's Privileges in a Harsh World (autobio.) (Mar. 20). Assaf A. Voll, A History of the Palestinian People: From Ancient Times to the Modern Era; a blank book, with the message that there has never been any Palestinian people; after becoming a bestseller, Amazon.com removes it as a "poor customer experience". Joshua M. White, Piracy and Law in the Ottoman Mediterranean. Gregory Wrightstone, Inconvenient Facts: The science that Al Gore doesn't want you to know (Oct. 24); Am. geologist debunks climate alarmists, claiming that the Earth is thriving because of increasing CO2 and warmer temps. Novels: David Grossman, A Horse Walks into a Bar: A Novel (Feb. 21); Israeli comedian Dov Greenstein and his big night of stand-up. Music: Lady Antebellum, Heart Break (album #7) (June 9) (#4 in the U.S.) (#1 country); incl. You Look Good (#59 in the U.S.) (#4 country), Heart Break (#11 in the U.S.) (#22 country) (not heart break but giving your heart a break). Justin Bieber, featuring Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, Despacito. Luke Bryan (1976-), What Makes You Country (album #6) (Dec. 8) (#1 country) (#1 in the U.S.) (260K copies); incl. Light It Up, Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset (May 2018) (#1 country), Most People Are Good (#43 U.S.) (#1 country). Glen Campbell (1936-2017), Adios (June 9) (album #64) (last album) (#40 in the U.S.) (#7 country) (#3 in the U.K.); incl. Adios (by Jimmy Webb). Morgan Evans (1984-), Kiss Somebody (#12 country). Chris Janson (1986-), Everybody (album #2) (Sept. 2) (#7 country); incl. Fix a Drink (#2 country) (#67 in the U.S.), Drunk Girl. Jake Owen (1981-), I Was Jack (You Were Diane) (Mar. 12) (#12 country); a tribute to John Mellencamp's 1982 single "Jack & Diane". Rat Boy (1996-), Scum (album) (debut); incl. Revolution. Thomas Rhett (1980-), Life Changes (album #3) (Sept. *) (#1 in the U.S.) (#1 country); incl. Life Changes, Craving You (w/Maren Morris), Unforgettable, Marry Me. Darius Rucker (1966-), When Was the Last Time (album #7) (Oct. 20) (#8 in the U.S) (#2 country) (100K copies); incl. For the First Time (#82 in the U.S.) (#5 country), If I Told You (#53 in the U.S.) (#1 country). Douglas Valentine, The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World (Jan. 15). Morgan Wallen (1993-) and Florida Georgia Line, Up Down (Nov. 27) (#83 in the U.S.) (#12 country). Movies: Zak Hilditch's horror drama film 1922 (Oct. 22) (Campfire Productions) (Netflix), based on the 2010 Stephen King novella stars Thomas Jane as 1922 Hemingford Home, Nebr. farmer Wilfred "Will" James, who commits murder and gets away with it so long that he goes mad in a house infested with rats. Johannes Roberts' 47 Meters Down (June 16) (Entertainment Studios) stars Mandy Moore and Claire Holt as sisters Lisa and Kate, who go in holiday in Mexico and get suckered into a shark cage dive, only to end up trapped on the ocean floor while being stalked by great whites; does $52M box office on a $5M budget. Elliott Lester's Aftermath (Apr. 7) (Lionsgate) stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Viktor, who loses his wife and child in a plane crash, and blames it on the air traffic controller; based on the real life Uberlingen mid-air collision and the murder by architect Vitaly Kaloyev of Swiss air traffic controller Peter Nielsen. Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant (May 19) (20th Cent. Fox), a sequel to the 2012 film "Prometheus" stars Michael Fassbender as Walter and David, Katherine Waterston as Daniels, and Billy Crudup as the Capt. Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World (Dec. 18) (TriStar Pictures), based on the 1995 book by John Pearson stars Christopher Plummer (after Kevin Spacey is booted) as J. Paul Getty, who refuses to pay a dollar to get his kidnapped grandson John Paul Getty III back in 1973 until the kidnappers send his ear to a newspaper; does $4.4M box office on a $50M budget. John McPhail's Christmas zombie musical film Anna and the Apocalypse (Sept. 22) (Blazing Griffin) (Orion Pictures) stars Ella Hunt as Anna, whose sleepy town of Little Haven is threatened by zombies; on Nov. 30, 2018 it is relaunched in the U.S. and U.K.; "'Twas the night before Christmas, and all the through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Anna was nestled, all snug in her bed, not knowing that tomorrow, she'd meet the undead"; "Oh no, Justin Bieber's a zombie". David Leitch's Atomic Blonde (Mar. 12), based on the 2012 graphic novel "The Coldest City" by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart and set during the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 stars Charlize Theron as MI6 spy Lorraine Broughton, who has to work with Berlin station chief David Percival (James McAvoy) to find a list of double agents being smuggled into the West; Sofia Boutella plays Lorraine's French lover Delphine Lasalle; a ripoff of "John Wick"?; does $95.7M box office on a $30M budget. Edgar Wright's Baby Driver (Mar. 11) (TriStar Pictures) stars Ansel Elgort as Miles "Baby", whose mother crashed the car with him in it as a baby, giving him tinnitus, ending up as the driver for Atlanta, Ga. crime boss Doc (Kevin Spacey) while courting hot Bo Diner's waitress Debora (Lily James); Jamie Foxx plays Leon "Bats" Jefferson III; Jon Hamm plays Jason "Buddy" van Horn; does $226.9M box office on a $34M budget. Ana Lily Amirpour's The Bad Batch (June 23) (Neon) stars Suki Waterhouse as Arlen, Jason Momoa as Miami Man (whose bulging muscles make him look way too well fed?), and Jim Carrey as the Hermit, societal rejects who are quarantined in a desert and left to scrape for a living; Keanu Reeves plays the Dream; does $201.9K box office on a $6M budget. Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 (Oct. 3) (Warner Bros.) stars Ryan Gosling as Blade Runner Officer K, who tries to locate missing Blade Runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) to save the world; does $258.2M box office on a $185M budget. Tom McGrath's The Boss Baby (Mar. 12) (20th Cent. Fox) (DreamWorks Animation) is about 7-y.-o. Timothy "Tim" Templeton (voiced by Miles Bakshi), who goes nonlinear when he sees his new baby brother Theodore Lindsay "Ted" Templeton Jr. (voiced by Alec Baldson) acting like a grown business mogul whenever adults aren't looking; Jimmy Kimmel voices Ted Templeton Sr., and Lisa Kudrow voices his wife Janice; does $528M box office on a $125M budget. Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name (Jan. 22) (Desire Trilogy #3), written by James Ivoery based on the 2007 Andre Aciman novel stars Timthee Chalamet as 17-y.-o. Jewish-Am. boy Elio Perlman in Italy, who has a gay love affair with Jewish-Am. grad student Oliver (Armie Hammer); does $12.6M box office on a $3.5M budget. John Curran's Chappaquiddick (Sept. 10) (Apex Entertainment), set in 1969 stars Kate Mara as doomed secy. Mary Jo Kopechne, Jason Clarke as Ted Kennedy, Bruce Dern as Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., and Clancy Brown as Robert Strange McNamara. Lee Unkrich's computer-animated Coco (Oct. 20) (Walt Disney Pictures) (Pixar Animation Studios) is about 12-y.-o. wannabe musician Miguel of Santa Cecilia, Mexico, who travels to the Land of the Dead to get his great-great-grandfather to return and reverse his family's ban on music; does $807.8M box office on a $225M budget. David Leitch's The Coldest City (July 28) (Denver and Delilah Productions) (Focus Features), based on the 2012 graphic novel by Antony Johnston stars Charlize Theron as MI6 spy Lorraine Broughton, who is sent to take down a ruthless espionage ring as the Berlin Wall is falling. Nikolaj Arcel's The Dark Tower (July 28) (Columbia Pictures), based on the Stephen King series stars Tom Taylor as Jake Chambers, and Matthew McConaughey as Walter Padick, the man in black; does $101.4M box office on a $60M budget. Joe Wright's Darkest Hour (Sept. 1) (Perfect World Pictures) (WOrking Title Films) (Focus Features) (Universal Pictures) stars Gary Oldman as Sir Winston Churchill taking on Hitler; Kristin Scott Thomas plays his wife Clementine; Ben Mendelsohn plays George VI; best performance of Oldman's career?; does $150.2M box office on a $30M budget; "A man with the heart of a nation." Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin (Sept. 8) (Gaumont) (France 3 Cinema) (eOne Films) is a political satire comedy depicting the power struggle after the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin); Steve Buscemi plays Nikita Khrushchev; Simon Russell Beala plays Lavrentiy Beria; Jason Isaacs plays Georgy Zhukov; Paul Whitehouse plays Anastas Mikoyan; Paul Chahidi plays Nikolai Bulganin; a favorite of Pres. Barack Obama; does $24.6M box office. banned in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan; Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit (July 25) (Annapurna Pictures) (MGM), about the July 23, 1967 12th Street Riot stars John Boyega, Will Poulter, Algee Smith, Jacob Latimore, Jason Mitchell, and Hannah Murray; does $16.3M box office on a $34M budget. Alexander Payne's Downsizing (Aug. 30) (Paramount Pictures) stars Matt Damn and Kristen Wiig as Paul and Audrey Safranek of Omaha, Neb., who sign up for a downsizing project to shrink their bodies to 5 in. so they can start a new life in the experimental community of Leisureland and save money, only to see the wife opt out and divorce him. Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (July 13) (Syncopy Inc.) (Warner Bros.) is about the Dunkirk evacuation of May 26-June 4, 1940, ignoring the action in the town for the action on the beach, with first-person visual effects making the audience seasick and airsick at the same time; stars Fionn Whitehead as British Army Pvt. Tommy, and Kenneth Branagh as pier master Cmdr. Bolton; does $525.6M box office on a $100M budget, becoming the highest grossing WWII film so far (unti ?). Jordan Peele's Get Out (Jan. 23) (Blumhouse Productions) (Universal Pictures) stars Daniel Kaluuya as black photgrapher Chris Washington, who hooks up with white Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), and drives with her to the country to visit her family, pshrink Missy (Catherine Keener) and neurosurgeon Dean (Bradley Whitford), who hypnotize blacks and transplant the brains of white people into them to gain their superior physical and artistic talents; does $256.4M box office on a $4.5M budget. Rupert Sanders' Ghost in the Shell (Mar. 31) (Paramount Pictures), based on the Japanese manga by Masamune Shirow stars Scarlett Johansson as cyborg counter-terrorist cmdr. The Major of Section 9. Andy Nyman's and Jeremy Dyson's Ghost Stories (Oct. 5) (Attitude Film Entertainment) (Lionsgate Films), based on the 2010 stage play stars Nyman as Jewish psychic debunker Philip Goodman, becoming the best British horror film of the year; also stars Martin Freeman, Alex Lawther, and Paul Whitehouse; does $3.9M box office. Michael Gracey's The Greatest Showman (Dec. 8) (Chernin Entertainment) (20th Cent. Fox) stars Huge Actman, er, Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum struggling to set up his freak show circus; co-stars Michelle Williams as his wife Charity, Zac Efron as his partner Phillip Carlyle, Rebecca Ferguson as Swedish nightingale Jenny Lind, and Keale Settle as bearded lady Lettie Lutz; does $150M box office on an $84M budget. Christopher B. Landon's Happy Death Day (Oct. 13) (Blumhouse Productions) (Universal Pictures) (original title "Half to Death") stars Jessica Rothe as Theresa "Tree" Gelbman, who is killed on her birthday by a slasher, and begins reliving the day over and over, with the only way to stop it being to figure out who it is; does $125.5M box office on a $4.8M budget; followed by "Happy Death Day 2U" (2019). Scott Cooper's Hostiles (Sept. 2), based on a story by Donald E. Stewart stars Christian Bale, as U.S. Cavalry officer Joseph J. Blocker, who must escort dying Cheyenne war chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) and his family back to their home in Mont. in 1892 accompanied by suicidal widow Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike); does ? box office on a $40M budget. Andres Muschietti's It (Sept. 5) (Lin Pictures) (New Line Cinema) (Warner Bros. Pictures), based on the 1986 Stephen King novel set in summer 1989 in Derry, Maine stars Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, Jaeden Lieberher as Bill Denbrough, lead of the Losers' Club, Jeremy Ray Taylor as Ben Hanscom, Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh, Finn Wolfhard as Richie Tozier, Chosen Jacobs as Mike Hanlon, Jack Dylan Grazer as Eddie Kaspbrak, Wyatt Oleff as Stan Uris, Nicholas Hamilton as Henry Bowers, and Jackson Robert Scott as 7-y.-o. Georgie Denbrough; does $700.4M box office on a $35M budget, becoming the highest-grossing horror film (until ?), and most profitable (until ?). Craig Gillespie's I, Tonya (Sept. 8) (Lucky Chap Entertainment)stars Margot Robbie as white trash ice skater Tonya Hadrding, Allison Janney as her mother LaVona Fay Golden, Sebastian Stan as her beau Jeff Gillooly, and Caitlin Carver as Snow White ice skater Nancy Kerrigan; does $5.3M box office on an $11M budget. Michael Spierig's and Peter Spierig's Jigsaw (Oct. 27) (Twisted Pictures) (Lionsgate) (Saw #8), a sequel to the supposed final installment "Saw 3D" (2010) set a decade after the death of the Jigsaw Killer stars Callum Keith Rennie as Det. Halloran, Cle Bennett as Det. Keith Hunt, Matt Passmore as Logan Nelson, Paul Braunstein as Ryan, Mandela Van Peebles as Mitch, Brittany Allen as Carly, and Tobin Bell as Jigsaw/John Kramer; does $103M box office on a $10M budget. Chad Stahelski's John Wick: Chapter 2 (Jan. 30) (Lionsgate) (Thunder Road Pictures) (Summit Entertainment) stars Keanu Reeves, who refuses to honor his blood oath medallion, pissing-off Italian crime lord Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), escalating to a full-scale global hitman war; does $171.5M box office on a $40M budget; "Tell them... tell them all... whoever comes, whoever it is, I'll kill them, I'll kill them all." Jake Kasdan's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Dec. 5) (Columbia Pictures), a sequel to "Jumanji" (1995) filmed in Hawaii and set in 1996 Brantford, N.H. stars Dwayne Johnson as archeologist Dr. Smolder Bravestone, Jack Black as paleontologist Prof. Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon, Kevin Hart as zoologist Franklin "Mouse" Finbar, Karen Gillan as dance fighter Ruby Roundhouse, and Nick Jonas as Jefferson "Seaplane" McDonough, who must recover the Jaguar's Eye and put it back to escape from the game, while being pursued by evil explorer Russel Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale); Rhys Darby plays game guide Nigel Billingsley; does $680M box office on a $110M budget. Jordan Vogt-Roberts' Kong: Skull Island (Mar. 10) (Warner Bros.) stars Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, and Brie Larson in a reboot of the worn-out film; does ? box office on a $190M budget. Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird (Sept. 1) (Scott Rudin Productions) stars Soirse Ronan as h.s. senior Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson, and Laurie Metcalf as her mother Marion in Sacramento, Calif.; does $34M box office on a $10M budget. Julien Maury's and Alexandre Bustillo's Leatherface (Aug. 25) (Millennium Films) (Lionsgate Films) (Texas Chainsaw Massacre #8) is a prequel to the original 1974 film, filmed in Bulgaria and starring Stephen Dorff as Texas Ranger Hal Hartman, and Sam Strike as Jedidiah Sawyer, who an escaped mental institution inmate who morphs into a mentally disabled serial murderer who likes to wear masks of human skin and use a chainsaw and mallet; does $956K box office. Chris McKay's The Lego Batman Movie (Jan. 29) is a 3-D computer-animated superhero comedy film starring the voices of Will Arnett as Batman, Zach Galifianakis as the Joker, and Ralph Fiennes as Alfred Pennyworth. Daniel Espinosa's Life (Mar. 18) (Columbia Pictures) stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson and Ryan Reynolds as David Jordan, Miranda North, and Rory "Roy" Adams, crewmmembers of the Internat. Space Station (ISS), who discover the first evidence of life on Mars, only to watch it grow into a monster named Calvin; does $51M box office on a $58M budget. James Mangold's Logan (Feb. 17) (Marvel Entertainment) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the Marvel Comics X-Men series set in 2029 stars Hugh Jackman as Logan Howlett AKA Wolverine, who is aging along with the rest of the X-Men and is forced to take on Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) and his Reavers with the help of Caliban (Stephen Merchant); does $616.8M box office on a $97M buget. Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky (Aug. 9) (Bleecker Street), written by Rebecca Blunt stars Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, and Seth MacFarlane, Katie Holmes as an unlucky W. Va. family planning to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway and mistakenly trying it during a NASCAR game, drawing FBI agent Sarah Grayson (Hilary Swank) on their trail; does $41.5M box office on a $29M budget. James Gray's The Lost City of Z (Apr. 14) (Plan B Entertainment) (Amazon Studios) (Bleeker Street), based on the 2009 book by David Grann stars Charlie Hunnam as British explorer Percy Fawcett, who disappears in the Amazon jungle in 1925 while searching for the you know what; does $17.2M box office on a $30M budget. Gabriela Cowpertheaite's Megan Leavey (June 5) (LD Entertainment) is based on the true story of Yankees fan USMC Cpl. K9 handler Megan Leavy (1983-) (Kate Mara) and her German shepherd working dog Rex (E168) (1999-2012), who are deployed to Fallujah, Iraq in 2005 and Ramadi in 2006, where they are blown up by an IED, after which she fights to adopt him, going all the way to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer; Common plays Gunnery Sgt. Massey; Ramon Rodriguez plays her beau Cpl. Matt Morales. Aaron Sorkin's Molly's Game (Sept. 8) (Huayi Brothers Pictures) (STXflms), based on her memoir stars Jessica Chastain as Molly Bloom, who set up an underground poker empire for Hollyweird celebs and other high rollers; too bad, this incl. the Russian mob, causing the FBI to target her; Sorkin's dir. debut. Hany Abu-Assad's The Mountain Between Us (Oct. 6) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 2011 novel by Charles Martin stars Idris Elba and Kate Winslet as neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Bass and photojournalist Alex Martin, who survive a plane crash in the High Uintas Wilderness and must fight the elements, which keeps them too busy to fight their racemixing urges, which doesn't stop them; does $54.7M box office on a $35M budget; "Heart is just a muscle." Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread (Dec. 11) (Focus Features) stars Daniel Day-Lewis in his last film role as 1950s London dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock, who hooks up with babe Alma Elson (Vicky Krieps), who lures him into giving up bachelorhood with poison mushrooms; does $1.1M box office on a $35M budget. Joachim Roenning's and Espen Sandberg's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Salazar's Revenge), #5 in the series and sequen to "On Stranger Tides" (2011) stars Johnny Deep as Capt. Jack Sparrow, Javier as Capt. Armando Salazar, and Geoffrey Rush as Capt. Hector Barbaossa, who all search for the Trident of Poseidon, which bestows control over the seas; does $794.7M box office on a $230M budget. Steven Spielberg's The Post (Dec. 14) (DreamWorks Pictures) (20th Cent. Fox) stars Meryl Streep as Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, Tom Hanks as journalist Ben Bradlee struggling to pub. The Pentagon Papers. Paul W.S. Anderson's 3-D Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Jan. 27), #6 (last in the series), sequel to "Resident Evil: Retribution" (2012) stars Milla Jovovich as Alice, who takes on Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) and Umbrella; does $312.2M box office on a $40M budget. Stuart Hazeldine's The Shack (Mar. 3) is a Christian film based on the 2007 William P. Young novel, starring Sam Worthington as Mackenzie "Mack" Phillips, whose young daughter Missy is kidnapped during a camping trip by a serial murderer, causing him to freak out until he receives a letter from Papa (Octavia Spencer), who turns out to be God, and who invites him to a shack where he meets Jesus (Aviv Alush); features Tim McGraw as Willie, and Graham Greene as the male Papa; does $96.4M box office on a $20M budget. Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water (Fox Searchlight Pictures), set in 1962 Baltimore, Md. stars Sally Hawkins as mute night janitor Elisa Esposito at the Occam Aerospace Research Center, who falls in love with the Asset, an amphibious humanoid creature from the rivers of South Am. and helps him escape. Amr Salama's Sheikh Jackson (Sept. 11); an Islamic cleric who likes to dress up as Michael Jackson. Chris Overton's The Silent Child (Aug. 8) (Slick Films) (20 min.) is about 4-y.-o. British deaf girl Libby (Maisie Sly), who learns sign language from social worker Joanne (Rachel Shenton). Jon Watts' Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7) (Columbia Pictures) stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker alias Spider-Man. Rian Johnson's Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (Lucasfilm Ltd.) (Walt Disney Studios) (Dec. 9) stars Mark Hamill as old fart hermit Luke Skywalker, who has given up on the Jedis until Rey (Daisy Ridley) talks him into making her one to help her save the failing Resistance that's being decimated by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the First Order; Carrie Fisher plays aging Princess Gen. Leia Organa in her last film appearance before her Dec. 27, 2016 death; introduces Kelly Marie Tran as Resistance worker, Rose Tico as a sop to please the huge Chinese audience?; Laura Dern plays Resistance vice-dm. Amilyn Holdo; Benicio del Toro plays underworld codebreaker DJ; has it all, reviving the franchise? George Clooney's Suburbicon (Sept. 2) (Paramount Pictures) stars Matt Damon as mild-mannered Gardner Lodge in 1959 peaceful all-white Suburbicon, who sees it shaken up by the arrival of the African-Am. Mayers family, Julianne Moore as Gardner's wife Rose and twin sister Margaret, and Oscar Isaac as insurance agent Bud Cooper; does $9M box office on a $25M budget. Jason Hall's Thank You for Your Service (Oct. 27) (Universal Pictures), based on the 2013 book by David Finkel stars Miles Teller as Sgt. Adam Schumann, Scott Haze as Michael Adam Emory, Joe Cole as Will Walter, and Beulah Koale as Tausolo Aieti, who return from Iraq and struggle with PTSD back home with wives Saskia Schumann (Haley Bennett) and Amanda Doster (Amy Schumer). Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Sept. 4) (Fox Searchlight Pictures) stars Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes, who takes the law into her own hands after the police fail incl. police chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) to find her daughter Angela's murderer; does $53.9M box office on a $12M budget. Michael Bay's Transformers: The Last Knight (June 23) (Paramount Pictures), #6 in the series stars Mark Wahlberg as Cade Yeager, and Stanley Tucci as Joshua Joyce, who go back to the days of King Arthur (Liam Garrigan) in 484 C.E.; does $605.4M box office on a $260M budget. Michael Apted's Unlocked (May 5) (Di Bonaventura Pictures) (Lionsgate) stars Noomi Rapace as CIA super-spy Alice Racine, who works for station chief Eric Lasch (Michael Douglas) and division chief Bob Hunter (John Malkovich) to track down Am. Muslim convert terrorist David Mercer (Michael Epp) before he can release biological weapons for radical Islamic preacher Imam Yazid Khaleel (Makram Khoury); also stars Orlando Broom as bad guy Jack Alcott, and Philip Brodie as bad guy John Wilson; too bad, the critics pan it for telling too much truth about Islam, and it only does $4.7M box office. Luc Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (July 17) (EuropaCorp) (Lionsgate) is a French 3-D scifi adventure film based on the comics series "Valerian and Laureline" by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres, starring Dane DeHaan as Maj. Valerian, and Cara Delevingne as Sgt. Laureline, who work for a special police div. on Alpha (formerly the ISS) in the 28th cent., and are sent by their commander Arun Filitt (Clive Owen) on a mission to find the Mul Converter that can replicate anything; co-stars Rihanna as shapeshifting entertainer Bubble, Ethan Hawke as Jolly the Pimp, and Herbie Hancock as the defense minister; does $211.3M worldwide box office on a $209M budget, becoming the most expensive Euro and independent film made to date (until ?). Paco Plaza's supernatural horror drama Veronica (Aug. 25) stars Sandra Escacena as 15-y.-o. Veronica of working class Vallecas, Madrid, who likes to conducts seances using a Ouija board, ending up getting trapped by a demon; scariest horror film ever? Stephen Fears' Victoria & Abdul (Sept. 3) (BBC Films) (Universal Pictures), based on the book by Shrabani Basu stars Dame Judi Dench as Queen Victoria, and Ali Fazal as Indian clerk Abdul Karim, who travels to England to present her with a mohur (gold coin) for her Golden Jubilee in 1887 and ends up moving in, threatening to Islamize her; does $65.4M box office. Matt Reeves' War for the Planet of the Apes (July 14), the sequel to "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (2011) and "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" (2014) stars Andy Serkis as Caesar, who engages in a grim war of survival with U.S. army troops led by Col. McCullough (Woody Harrelson); does $484.8M box office on a $150M budget. Stephen Chbosky's Wonder (Nov. 17) (Lionsgate, based on the 2012 R.J. Palacio novel stars Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson as Isabel and Nate Pullman, and Jacob Trembly as their son August "Auggie" Pullman, a kid with Trecher Collins Syndrome who tries to fit in at Beecher Prep. Woody Allen's Wonder Wheel (Oct. 14) (Amazon Studios) stars Kate Winslet as Rinny Rannell, wife of a carousel operator, who falls for handsome lifeguard Mickey Rubin (Justin Timberlake) until her hubby's estranged daughter Carolina (Juno Temple) resurfaces and vies for his attentions, causing her to unravel; does ? box office on a $25M budget. D.J. Caruso's xXx: Return of Xander Cage (Jan. 6) (Revolution Studios) (Paramount Pictures) stars Vin Diesel; does $155M box office on a $85M budget. Niki Caro's The Zookeeper's Wife (Mar. 8) (Focus Features), based on the 2007 book by Diane Ackerman stars Jessica Chastain and Johan Heldenbergh as Antonina and Jan Zabinski of the Warsaw Zoo, who rescue 300 Jews during WWII; does $27.6M box office on a $20M budget. Art: Tayeba Begum Lipi, Unveiling Womanhood; hijab and niqab made of razor blades. Lorenzo Quinn, Support (sculpture of giant hands rising from the water to symbolize climate change); made for the 2017 Venice Biennale. Plays: Poetry: C.K. Williams (1936-2015), Falling Ill: Last Poems (posth.) (Jan. 3). Births: Deaths: Portuguese pres. #17 (1986-96) and PM #105 (1983-5) Mario Soares (b. 1924) on Jan. 7 in Lisbon. Liberian politician Ruth Perry (b. 1939) on Jan. 8 in Columbus, Ohio. Iranian pres. #4 (1989-97) Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (b. 1934) on Jan. 8 in T*ehran (heart attack). Am. "The Lady Is a Trump", er, "The Lady Is a Tramp" jazz musician Buddy Greco (b. 1926) on Jan. 10 in Las Vegas, Nev.; sold 1M+ records. Am. astronaut Gene Cernan (b. 1934) on Jan. 16 in Houston, Tex. British-born Am. geneticist Oliver Smithies (b. 1925) on Jan. 10 in Chapel Hill, N.C.; 2007 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. "The Exorcist" novelist William Peter Blatty (b. 1928) on Jan. 12 in New York City. English photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones, 1st earl of Snowdon (b. 1930) on Jan. 13 in Kensington, London. English "Kane in Alien" actor Sir John Hurt (b. 1940) on Jan. 25 in Cromer, Norfolk (pancreatic cancer). Hungarian politician Jozsef Torgyan (b. 1932) on Jan. 22 in Budapest. English scholar George Albert Wells (b. 1926) on Jan. 23. Am. actress Mary Tyler Moore (b. 1936) on Jan. 25 in Greenwich, Conn. (pneumonia). British Black Sabbath musician Geoff Nicholls (b. 1948) on Jan. 28 (lung cancer). Am. "Capt. Apollo in Battlestar Galactica" actor Richard Hatch (b. 1945) on Feb. 7 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pancreatic cancer). Swedish "Factfulness" physician Hans Rosling (b. 1948) on Feb. 7 in Uppsala (pancreatic cancer). U.S. "We Were Soldiers" lt. gen. Hal Moore (b. 1922) on Feb. 10 in Auburn, Ala. South Korean fallen heir Kim Jong-nam (b. 1971) on feb. 13 in Sepang District, Selangor, Malaysia (assassinated with nerve agent VX at Kuala Lumpur Airport). Egyptian Muslim terrorist leader "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman (b. 1938) on Feb. 18 in Butner Federal Prison, Granville County, N.C. Am. celeb plaintoff Jane Roe (Norma Leah McCorvey) (b. 1947) on Feb. 18 in Katy, Tex. Am. radio-TV journalist Alan Colmes (b. 1950) on Feb. 23 in Manhattan, N.Y. (lymphoma). Am. actor Bill Paxton on Feb. 25 in Los Angeles, Calif. (complications from heart surgery). Am. "People's Court Judge" Joseph Wapner (b. 1919) on Feb. 26 in Los Angeles, Calif. (respiratory failure). German-born Am. physicist Hans Georg Dehmelt (b. 1922) on Mar. 7 in Seattle, Wash.; 1989 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. "Johnny B. Goode", "Maybellene", "Roll Over Beethoven" hall-of-fame rocker Chuck Berry (b. 1926) on Mar. 18 in Wentzville (near St. Charles), Mo. (cardiac arrest); leaves a $50M estate: "I grew up thinking art was pictures until I got into music and found I was an artist and didn't paint." Am. journalist Jimmy Breslin (b. 1928) on Mar. 19 in Manhattan, N.Y. (pneumonia). Am. comedian Don Rickles (b. 1926) on Apr. 6 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (kidney failure). Am. judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam (b. 1952) on Apr. 12 in New York City (suicide). Am. football player Aaron Hernandez (b. 1989) on Apr. 19 in Leominster, Mass. (suicide by hanging in jail). Am. "Joanie Cunningham in Joanie Loves Chachi" actress Erin Moran (b. 190) on Apr. 22 in Corydon, Ind. English historian Hugh Thomas, baron Thomas of Swynnerton (b. 1931) on May 7. Turkish pres. #9 (9182-94) Mauno Koivisto (b. 1923) on May 12 in Helsinki. Am. Fox News CEO (1996-2016) Roger Ailes (b. 1940) on May 18 in Palm Beach, Fla. Am. Soundgarden/Audioslave rocker Chris Cornell (b. 1964) on May 18 in Detroit, Mich. (suicide). English "James Bond 007" actor Sir Roger Moore (b. 1927) on May 23 in Switzerland (cancer). Am. rocker Gregg Allman (b. 1947) on May 27 in Richmond Hill, Ga. English psychologist Christopher Brand (b. 1943) on May 28. Greek PM (1990-3) Constantine Mitsotakis (b. 1918) on May 29 in Athens. Panamanian dictator (1983-9) Manuel Noriega (b. 1934) on May 29 in Panama City (brain hemorrhage). Am.-born Nicaraguan diplomat Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann (b. 1933) on June 8 in Manuagua (stroke). Am. actress "Tess Trueheart in Dick Tracy", "Bonnie Holland in The Circle" Glenne Headly (b. 1955) on June 8 in Santa Monica, Calif. (pulmonary embolism). Am. "Batman" actor Adam West (b. 1928) on June 9 in Los Angeles, Calif. (leukemia). English "Paddington Bear" children's writer Michael Bond (b. 1926) on June 27 in London. Egyptian Muslim Botherhood supreme leader (2004-10) Mohammed Mahdi Akef (b. 1928) on July 2. Trinidad-born Kiwi climate scientist Chris de Freitas (b. 1948) on July 5 in New Zealand. Italian "Hilda in The Trial" actress Elsa Martinelli (b. 1963) on July 8 in Rome (cancer). Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani (b. 1977) on July 14 in Stanford, Calif. (breast cancer). Am.-Canadian "Night of the Living Dead" filmmaker George Andrew Romero (b. 1940) on July 16 in Toronto, Ont. (lung cancer). Am. "Rollin Hand in Mission: Impossible" "Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood" actor Martin Landau (b. 1928) on July 15 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. Linkin Park, Stone Temple Pilots singer Chester Bennington (b. 1976) on July 19/20 in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif. (suicide by hanging). Am. "Bronco" actor Ty Hardin (b. 1930) on Aug. 3 in Huntington Beach, Calif. Am. "Rhinestone Cowboy" singer Glen Campbell (b. 1936) on Aug. 8 in Nashville, Tenn. (Alzheimer's); released 70+ albums; sold 45M records incl. 29 top-10 and nine #1. Am. comedian Dick Gregory (b. 1932) on Aug. 19 in Washington, D.C. (heart failure). Am. comedian Jerry Lewis (b. 1926) on Aug. 20 in Las Vegas, Nev. German Nazi-era film actress Anneliese Uhlig (b. 1918) on June 17 in Santa Cruz, Calif. Am. poet John Ashbery (b. 1927) on Sept. 3 in Hudson, N.Y. Am. "I Believe in You" country singer Don Williams (b. 1939) on Sept. 8. English theater dir. Sir Peter Hall (b. 1930) on Sept. 11 in London (pneumonia). Am. actor Harry Dean Stanton (b. 1926) on Sept. 15 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. Playboy mag. founder Hugh Hefner (b. 1926) on Sept. 27 in Los Angeles, Calif. Canadian-Am. "Let's Make a Deal" TV game show host Monty Hall (b. 1921) on Sept. 30 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (heart failure). Am. hall-of-fame rocker Tom Petty (b. 1950) on Oct. 2 in Santa Monica, Calif. (heart failure from accidental OD); sold 80M records worldwide. Am. football hall-of-fame QB Y.A. Tittle (b. 1926) on Oct. 8 in Stanford, Calif. Am. chess grandmaster Father William Lombardy (b. 1937) on Oct. 13 in Martinez, Calif. Italian mathematician Corrado Boehm (b. 1923) on Oct. 23 in Rome. Am. rock & roll demigod Fats Domino (b. 1928) on Oct. 24 in Harvey, La.; had 11 top-10 and 35 top-40 records. Am. publisher Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr. (b. 1927) on Oct. 1 in Manhattan, N.Y.; leaves a $9.5B fortune, #46 on the Forbes 100 List. Am. hall-of-fame pitcher Ray Halladay (b. 1977) on Nov. 7 in the Gulf of Mexico near Holiday, Fla. (airplane rash). Am. "Jonathan Quayle Higgins III in Magnum, P.I." actor John Hillerman (b. 1932) on Nov. 9 in Houston, Tex. Am. gossip columnist Liz Smith (b. 1923) on Nov. 12 Manhattan, N.Y. Am. criminal mastermnd Charles Manson (b. 1934) on Nov. 19 in Bakersfield, Calif. Am. Partridge Family singer David Cassidy (b. 1950) on Nov. 21 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. U.S. postmaster gen. #58 (1968-9) William Marvin Watson (b. 1924) on Nov. 26 in The Woodlands, Tex. Egyptian actress-singer Shadia (b. 1931) on Nov. 28 in Cairo (stroke and pneumonia). U.S. liberal Rep. (R-Ill.) (1961-81) John Bayard Anderson (b. 1922) on Dec. 3 in Washington, D.C. Am. Filmways producer Martin Ransohoff (b. 1927) on Dec. 13 in Belair, Los Angeles, Calif. Welsh-born Irish actress Peggy Cummins (b. 1925) on Dec. 29 in London, England (stroke).



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