Portal:Current events/October 2017

• Yemeni Crisis (2011–present)
  • Houthi forces claim to have shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Yemeni capital Sana'a. Footage released by Saba News Agency appears to show crowds gathering around the wreckage of an aircraft. (Reuters)
• Marseille stabbing
  • A knife-wielding man at Saint Charles train station in Marseille, France, kills two women. Police kill the suspect and are treating the attack as a terrorist incident. ISIL claims responsibility. (CNN) (Daily Mail)
• Anglophone problem (Cameroon)
  • Soldiers in Buea and Bamenda, Cameroon, shoot dead a total of at least eight people during various protests by Anglophone separatists. (Reuters)
• Syrian Civil War
  • The Islamic State group seizes the Al-Qaryatain town in the central province of Homs in a surprise attack against Syrian government forces. (First Post)
• 2017 Las Vegas shooting
  • A gunman opens fire in Paradise, Nevada, at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino from the upper floors down upon a Jason Aldean outdoor concert, with at least 59 people dead and 527 others injured. Authorities believe the lone gunman is dead. (The New York Times)

• The United Kingdom's Monarch Airlines goes into financial bankruptcy administration, suspending all flights, cancelling 300 thousand bookings, and leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded. (Reuters)
• Skanska USA implodes the Old Kosciuszko Bridge in New York City after 78 years of connecting Brooklyn and Queens. (NBC)

• Vanuatu begins evacuating 11,000 islanders from the island of Ambae because of the erupting volcano Manaro Voui which pollutes the water. (Reuters)

• O. J. Simpson robbery case
  • Nevada prison authorities release former NFL player O. J. Simpson on parole after serving nine years for a 2007 Las Vegas armed robbery. Previously, a jury had acquitted Simpson of the 1995 murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. (CNN)

• Catalan independence referendum, Operation Anubis, Spanish constitutional crisis
  • The government of Catalonia holds a public referendum on whether their region should gain independence from Spain, despite the Spanish courts and government declaring the vote illegal and deploying police to deter voters. Catalan President Carles Puigdemont says Catalonia "has won the right to become an independent state." (BBC) (The Independent)
  • Spanish riot police clash with some protesters in various cities and towns, with 844 people and 33 police reported injured. (Sky News) (NBC News) (BBC) (The Independent)
  • The Mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau calls on Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to resign following the police crackdown on Catalan protestors which has left hundreds injured. (Euronews)
  • Guardia Civil riot police officers and Catalonia's Mossos d'Esquadra clash in Sant Joan de Vilatorrada as tensions rise between the rival police forces. (The Spain Report)
  • The government of Catalonia declares that the "yes"-to-independence-vote has won a landslide victory. (AP)
  • Catalans defy police orders to leave polling places. (AP)
• New Democratic Party leadership election, 2017
  • Canada's left-leaning New Democratic Party elects Jagmeet Singh its leader. (The Guardian)

• U.S. national anthem protests (2016–present)
  • Some players throughout the National Football League hold demonstrations before or during the U.S. national anthem. These demonstrations include kneeling, raising fists, or praying, as a show of unity or protest of social and racial injustice. (CNN)

• 2017 Las Vegas shooting
  • The Luxor Hotel is placed on lockdown due to a bomb threat. (Express)
  • The death toll rises to at least 59 people with an additional 527 others injured. (The New York Times) (The Washington Post)
  • Authorities name the shooter, who killed himself before police arrived at his room in the Mandalay Bay casino and hotel, as 64-year-old Nevada resident Stephen Paddock. Police find 23 guns in Paddock's hotel room, and 19 more at his Mesquite, Nevada, home. (CNBC) (ABC News)
  • The attack is the deadliest mass shooting in recent U.S. history. (The Guardian)
  • Stephen Paddock's former neighbors in Reno, Nevada, describe him as having a possible gambling problem. (Newsweek)
  • CBS fires Hayley Geftman-Gold, vice president and senior counsel of strategic transactions at CBS, for a social media post stating that she did not have sympathy for the shooting's victims because "country music fans often are Republican gun toters". (Fox News) (The Hill)
  • Without providing evidence, ISIL claims responsibility for the attack. U.S. law enforcement say they have found no evidence linking the perpetrator with international terrorist groups. (CBS News)
• Syrian Civil War
  • Two suicide bombers attack a police station in the Al-Midan neighbourhood of Damascus, killing at least 15 people. (Reuters)

• After suffering a cardiac arrest in his Malibu, California home, American singer and songwriter Tom Petty dies at the UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 66. (Rolling Stone)

• Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
  • The Nobel Prize committee awards Americans Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young the prize for their work on molecular mechanisms that control circadian systems. (The Guardian) (Nobel Prize.org)

• Egypt–North Korea relations
  • Thirty-thousand North Korean rocket propelled grenades are seized off the coast of Egypt by American forces after being purchased by Egyptian business executives for $23 million (E£406 million/₩20 billion). (Haaretz)
• Thailand–United States relations
  • Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Trump says he wants to lower the U.S. trade deficit with Thailand. (Reuters)

• Russian presidential election, 2018
  • Russian opposition leader and hopeful presidential candidate Alexei Navalny is sentenced in Moscow to 20 days detention for organizing unauthorized public meetings. This is Navalny's third jail term this year. (Reuters) (RT)
• Politics of Ecuador
  • Ecuador's Supreme Court orders that Vice President Jorge Glas be jailed for his alleged acceptance of bribes from the Odebrecht construction company. Prior to this, Glas had been free but barred from leaving the country. (AP)
• Assassination of Kim Jong-nam
  • Two women charged with the assassination of Kim Jong-nam plead not guilty in a Malaysian court because they thought it was a TV prank. Kim Jong-nam was the eldest son of deceased North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and the half-brother of current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. (BBC)

• Politics of Canada
  • After her appointment by Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, former astronaut Julie Payette, in an installment ceremony, becomes the 29th Governor General of Canada. (CBC)

• Syrian Civil War
  • ISIL releases video footage of two alleged Russian soldiers it captured. However, Russia denies the claims. (Newsweek)

• Hydraulic fracturing in the United Kingdom
  • The Scottish Government Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse announces that he will seek an indefinite ban (an existing moratorium has been in place since 2015) on crude oil recovery in Scotland by means of the process of hydraulic fracturing. (BBC)
• Yahoo! data breaches
  • Yahoo! reports that all three billion of its accounts were hacked in the August 2013 data theft. (Reuters)

• Hurricane Maria death toll controversy
  • Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló's office reports that the number of deaths related to Hurricane Maria has risen to 34. (Reuters)

• Iran–United States relations
  • U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Ellen S. Huvelle awards Amir Mirza Hekmati, a U.S. Marine who was imprisoned in Iran as a falsely accused CIA spy, a default judgment of $63 million for his ordeal. (The Washington Post)
• Cuba–United States relations
  • The Trump administration, through the Department of State and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, expels 15 Cuban diplomats, after pulling half of its own embassy staff from Havana on Sept. 29, due to the alleged failure of Cuba to take appropriate steps to protect American personnel against the mysterious health attacks. (Reuters)

• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • Catalan general strike
    • Pro-independent trade unions, businesses, and schools in Catalonia hold a general strike to protest Spanish police brutality during the October 1 independence referendum. (CNBC)
    • King Felipe VI addresses a message to the Nation in an exceptional speech, since it has only happened five times in 40 years of democracy amid the escalation of tension Catalonia is suffering. Noting the seriousness of the situation, condemns the irresponsibility of the Generalitat of Catalonia in wanting to break the unity of the country, the society and the legality. (The Guardian) (Reuters)
• Politics of Portugal
  • Former Prime Minister of Portugal Pedro Passos Coelho steps down as the leader of the opposition Social Democratic Party in local elections. (Politico)
• Abortion in the United States
  • The U.S. House of Representatives passes legislation (Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act) which would criminalize abortions made 20 weeks into a pregnancy, except for cases endangering the mother's life, rape, or incest. (CNN)
• Politics of Iraq
  • Former President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, dies at the age of 83. He was the first non-Arab president of Iraq. (Reuters) (BBC)

• Nobel Prize in Physics
  • The Nobel Prize committee awards Americans Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish, and Kip Thorne the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration that discovered gravitational waves. (Nobel Prize.org) (The Washington Post)

• Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017)
  • Hawija offensive (2017)
    • The Iraqi Army and allied paramilitary fighters storm the ISIL-held city of Hawija in the Kirkuk Governorate. Hawija is one of the last remaining ISIL strongholds in Iraq. (BBC)
• Insurgency in the Maghreb
  • 2017 Tongo Tongo ambush
    • An apparent ambush in Niger near the Malian border leaves three U.S. Special Forces soldiers and five Nigerien soldiers dead during a joint patrol. (Reuters) (NBC News)
• Syrian Civil War
  • Suspected Russian military jets target makeshift rubber dinghies and boats carrying dozens of families fleeing the town of al-Ashara along the western banks of the Euphrates that lies south of Deir Ezzor city, killing at least 60 civilians. (Middle East Eye)
  • According to the Russian Defense Ministry's spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov, ISIL has undertaken several attacks on Syrian positions from U.S.-controlled areas, implying that the recent well-coordinated actions of the terrorists indicate that they somehow possess intelligence data that could only be obtained as a result of air reconnaissance. (CNBC)
  • The human rights group, Physicians for Human Rights, accuses Russia and the Syrian government of mounting the "worst string of attacks" on hospitals in Syria since April despite an agreement on "de-escalation" zones, saying it believes either Russian or Syrian government jets were behind at least five air raids on three hospitals in September in rebel-held Idlib province. (Al Jazeera)

• Crime in Brazil
  • Brazilian police detain fugitive Italian former left-wing guerrilla and convicted murderer Cesare Battisti, as he was attempting to flee across the border into Bolivia to avoid extradition back to Italy and facing his life sentence prison term for four murders in the 1970s. (Reuters)
• Cybercrime
  • U.S. fast-food chain operator Sonic Drive-In may have had a malware attack at some of its drive-in outlets and may have allowed hackers to access customers’ debit and credit card information. (Reuters)
• Aftermath of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting
  • Monday, October 2, the day following the shooting, is now the saddest officially recorded day on Twitter, according to the Hedonometer, which has been measuring happiness since 2008. The increased use of negative words such as "shooting" and "gun" after the shooting resulted in a score of 5.77 on the 9-point scale, where one indicates pure sadness and nine indicates pure happiness. (Vox)

• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy deploys the 41st Logistic Support Group of the Spanish Armed Forces in Catalonia to support riot police in Barcelona. (The Sun)

• Nobel Prize in Chemistry
  • The Nobel Committee awards Swiss Jacques Dubochet, German Joachim Frank, and British Richard Henderson the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structural determination of biomolecules in a solution. (The Guardian)

• Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017)
  • Hawija offensive (2017)
    • The Iraqi Army fully retakes the city of Hawija in the Kirkuk Governorate from ISIL. Fighting continues to the north and east of the city as Iraqi troops continue anti-ISIL operations in the Hawija District. (The Guardian)

• Nobel Prize in Literature
  • The Nobel Committee awards Japanese-born British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro the Nobel Prize in Literature for his "novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world." (Nobelprize.org)

• Energy infrastructure firm TransCanada abandons two Canadian pipeline projects. (BBC)

• 2017 Atlantic hurricane season
  • Tropical Storm Nate
    • In Nicaragua, flooding from Tropical Storm Nate, kills at least fifteen people. In Costa Rica, the storm kills at least seven people with fifteen missing. (AP via ABC News)
    • Oil and gas companies evacuate production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards declares a state of emergency in anticipation of Tropical Storm Nate. He says southeast Louisiana should prepare for a "direct hit" this weekend. (AP via ABC News) (NOLA) (CBS News)
  • Florida Governor Rick Scott declares a state of emergency for North Florida. (Orlando Sentinel via MSN)

• Russia–Saudi Arabia relations
  • King Salman of Saudi Arabia visits Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Moscow Kremlin. They discuss oil prices and the Syrian Civil War. (Reuters)

• Janaúba Tragedy
  • In the town of Janaúba, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, a recently dismissed security guard set fire to a childcare center, killing at least four children and a teacher and leaving 25 others, mostly children aged four and five, injured. (BBC)
• Cybercrime
  • Alleged Russian government-backed hackers stole highly classified U.S. cyber secrets in 2015 from the National Security Agency after a contractor put information on his home computer. The entrance to the computer was speculated to have possibly been through an installed Kaspersky Lab antivirus. U.S. rules governing federal computers now ban installation of Kaspersky Lab software. (Reuters)

• LGBT employment discrimination in the United States
  • The Trump administration, through the Department of Justice, reverses an Obama-era policy which used Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to protect transgender employees from discrimination. (CBS News)
• Governor Jerry Brown signs legislation to make California a sanctuary state. Next January, this law will prevent police from inquiring about immigration status during routine interactions, and will reduce law enforcement cooperation with U.S. immigration officers. (Reuters)

• Syrian Civil War
  • According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Russian airstrikes kill at least 14 civilians, including three children, as they cross the Euphrates river near the ISIL-held city of Mayadin in eastern Syria while fleeing the village of Mahkan. (TRT World)
  • Jaysh al-Islam Islamist rebels launch a successful counter-attack in the East Ghouta region of rural Damascus, targeting the points they lost to the Syrian government over the course of seven days near the town of Hawsh Dawahra, and recovering all of the lost territories. (Al-Masdar News)

• Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct allegations
  • American film producer Harvey Weinstein (including Pulp Fiction, Clerks, The Crying Game, and Sex, Lies, and Videotape) answers allegations made by a report in The New York Times that he had settled eight sexual harassment claims made over three decades. Multiple Democratic recipients of Weinstein's political donations give the funds to women's charities. (Reuters)

• AIM (software)
  • AIM's owner, Oath Inc., announces it will discontinue AOL Instant Messenger service on December 15, 2017. (USA Today)
• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • Spain's third largest bank, CaixaBank, announces it is moving its legal base out of Catalonia to Valencia. This follows a similar move yesterday by Catalan banking group Banco Sabadell who announced they are moving their headquarters to Alicante in response to growing political insecurity in Catalonia. (The Guardian)

• A train hits a bus on a crossing in Vladimir, Russia, killing at least 19 people on the bus. No train passengers were injured. (BBC)
• An Indian Air Force Mi-17 helicopter ferrying military officials crashes in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, a remote mountain region near the border with China, killing all seven personnel on board. (Reuters)
• 2017 Atlantic hurricane season
  • Tropical Storm Nate
    • Tropical Storm Nate heads for the Gulf Coast of the United States after causing dozens of deaths in Central America and severe flooding in the Nicaraguan town of Rivas. (News Limited)
• A Mexican military Bell 412 model helicopter crashes northeast of the town of El Salto in the mountainous state of Durango, seriously injuring one military member aboard and likely killing seven others. (Reuters)

• Nobel Peace Prize
  • The Nobel Committee awards the global civil society coalition of The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons the Nobel Peace Prize "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons". (Nobel Prize.org) (BBC)

• Unnamed White House officials believe White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly's personal cellphone was hacked, possibly since December 2016. Kelly was Secretary of Homeland Security from January 20 to July 31, 2017, when he moved to his current position. (Politico) (Reuters)

• Birth control in the United States, List of executive actions by Donald Trump
  • A Trump administration executive order reverses an Obamacare policy which mandated that employers and insurers provide their employees with birth control, regardless of one's "religious beliefs" or "moral convictions". (BBC)

• A Saudi national opens fire at the Al-Salam Royal Palace in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing two guards and injuring three others. Security guards shoot and kill the gunman. (Arab News) (BBC)

• 2017 Atlantic hurricane season
  • Hurricane Nate
    • Hurricane Nate makes landfall near the mouth of Mississippi River and near Biloxi, Mississippi, as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour (137 km/h). (WJLA)
  • Aftermath of Hurricane Maria
    • The Federal Communications Commission approves Google's plan to restore some cell phone service in hurricane-hit Puerto Rico with Project Loon balloons. (The Telegraph)
• An explosion at a liquefied natural gas depot leads to a second explosion at a gas station in Legon, a suburb of the Ghanaian capital Accra, killing at least seven people and injuring sixty-eight more. (AP via Fox News) (StarrFM)
• 2017 Madagascar plague outbreak
  • Since August 1, another round of pneumonic, bubonic, and septicemic plague spreads in Madagascar, killing at least 45 people. (The Washington Post) (Relief Web)
• A car mounts the pedestrian sidewalk near the Natural History Museum on Exhibition Road, and injures 11 people. London police believe the incident is not terror related. They arrested the driver but later released him. (BBC)

• 2017 Russian protests
  • Russian police arrest 290 protesters calling on President Vladimir Putin to resign. (Reuters) (CNN)

• Rohingya genocide
  • A refugee boat en route to Bangladesh from Myanmar capsizes, resulting in at least 12 deaths. (Global News)
• 2017 Atlantic hurricane season
  • Hurricane Nate
    • Hurricane Nate weakens to a tropical storm, and causes flooding and power outages in Mississippi and Alabama. (ABC News)

• Turkey–United States relations
  • The U.S. Mission in Turkey suspends all non-immigration visa services in the country citing security concerns. (Reuters)
  • In a reciprocal action of retaliation, the Turkish mission in the United States suspends all non-immigration visa services in the country, via a reversed-role copy of the U.S. statement. (Reuters)
  • The Turkish lira (TRY) falls 3.2% intraday on worries for tourism in Turkey. (Reuters) (Bloomberg)

• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • At least 350,000 people attend a rally in Barcelona to oppose Catalan independence. (BBC)

• Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
  • The Nobel Prize committee awards American Richard Thaler the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel "for his contributions to behavioral economics." His work focuses on the psychology of the human conflict of what we plan for the financial present versus what we plan for the future. (Nobel Prize.org) (BBC)
• 2017 Kobe Steel falsification of data scandal
  • Japan's third-biggest steelmaker, Kobe Steel, admits to falsification of product data. About four percent of the aluminum and copper products that it shipped from September 2016 to August 2017 were falsely labeled as meeting the specifications requested by 200 customers, including Toyota Motor Corp, Central Japan Railway Company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mazda Motor Corp, and Subaru Corp. (Reuters)

• A fire at the Sindika Trade Center, a construction materials shopping center in the northwestern edge of Moscow, Russia, forces the evacuation of at least 3000 people. (BBC) (Reuters)
• October 2017 Northern California wildfires
  • More than a dozen wildfires around Mendocino, Napa, Sonoma, and Yuba counties in California, kill at least ten people, destroy at least 1500 homes and businesses, and force 20 thousand people to evacuate. The Governor of California, Jerry Brown, declares a state of emergency. (AP) (The Washington Post) (NBC)

• Bosnian War
  • The presiding judge Šaban Maksumić of the Sarajevo, Bosnian war crimes court acquits former Bosnian military officer Naser Orić of the charge of killing three Bosnian Serb prisoners of war during the Bosnian War. In July 2008, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Netherlands acquitted Orić for failing to prevent the deaths of five Bosnian Serb detainees and the mistreatment of eleven other detainees from late 1992 to early 1993. (Reuters)

• 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification
  • Iceland qualifies for the 2018 FIFA World Cup after defeating Kosovo 2–0 to win UEFA Group I, becoming the smallest nation by population to qualify for a FIFA World Cup. (The Guardian)

• 2017 North Korea crisis
  • A South Korean lawmaker claims that in 2016, North Korean hackers stole classified military documents detailing joint operations between the South Korean and United States military forces in the event of war with North Korea. (The Financial Times)

• Economy of the United States
  • Multinational U.S. conglomerate Honeywell announces plans to spinoff its Homes, ADI Global Distribution, and Transportation Systems businesses into two separate, publicly-traded companies by the end of 2018. (PR Newswire)

• October 2017 Northern California wildfires
  • U.S. President Donald Trump declares the 17 Northern California wildfires a major disaster. The fires have destroyed 180 square miles in California's wine country where mass evacuations are underway. The fires have killed at least 15 people with more than 150 others missing and at least 2,000 homes and businesses destroyed. (NBC) (The Weather Company)
• Syrian Civil War
  • A Russian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 crashes at the Khmeimim air base in Latakia province in northwestern Syria, killing the two crewmen. (i24 News) (RT)

• Cybercrime
  • According to The Guardian, the September disclosed hack attack at United Kingdom accounting firm Deloitte compromised a server with emails of some 350 clients, including U.S. government agencies and large corporations. Deloitte disputes the story, saying "very few" clients were affected. (Reuters)
  • U.S.-based credit reporting agency Equifax discloses that 15.2 million United Kingdom records were compromised in its May–July 2017 data breach. (Reuters)
• Prison riot in Mexico
  • A riot at Cadereyta Jiménez prison located outside the city of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, kills at least 13 people. (Reuters)
• Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct allegations
  • A report by Ronan Farrow published in The New Yorker alleges that Weinstein had sexually assaulted or harassed 13 women, and raped three of them. (ABC News) (The New Yorker)
  • Questions arise against NBC News President Noah Oppenheim, who The New York Times alleges blocked for several months NBC's own reporter, Ronan Farrow, from detailing a story about Harvey Weinstein. (The New York Times)
  • Questions arise against Noah Oppenheim, who Fox News alleges blocked NBC'S own reporter, Ronan Farrow, from detailing a story about Harvey Weinstein while at the same time Oppenheim owns a film screenwriter company which has done business with Weinstein's company. (Fox News)

• Environmental policy of the Donald Trump administration
  • The United States Environmental Protection Agency, on behalf of the Trump administration, announces that it will roll back clean energy regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, imposed under the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. (The Wall Street Journal) (The New York Times)
• Liberian general election, 2017
  • Voters in Liberia go to the polls to elect members to the country's House of Representatives and to replace President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term. (The Guardian)
• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • President of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont gives a speech regarding independence from Spain where he proposes to suspend the effect of the independence declaration in order to hold talks with Madrid. (The Guardian)
• Politics of the United States
  • The Cook County Board of Commissioners' Finance Committee, which includes Chicago, repeals the tax approved in November 2016 on soft drinks and other sugary beverages. (Reuters)
  • California’s governor, Jerry Brown, signs a law that lowers the penalty for exposing partners to HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) from a felony to a misdemeanor, which includes those who donate blood without informing the center about their HIV status. (FOX News)
• Kenyan general election, 2017
  • In an unprecedented move, Kenya's presidential aspirant, Raila Odinga, pulls out of a repeat presidential election just 15 days before the election. This action comes after the supreme court nullified the elections run on August 8 as being unconstitutional. (Business Daily Africa)

• 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification
  • The United States men's national soccer team loses 2–1 to Trinidad and Tobago, thus being eliminated from making it to the 2018 FIFA World Cup. This is the first time the U.S. will miss the tournament since the 1986 edition. (ESPN)

• Syrian Civil War
  • Three suicide bombers attack a police command center in Damascus, killing two people and injuring six others. (Reuters)
  • The Sun reports that the CIA informed UK intelligence agencies that British-born ISIL activist and recruiter Sally Jones was killed in a U.S. drone strike in June along with her 12-year-old son while they were fleeing Raqqa in Syria. (The Guardian)

• Boy Scouts of America membership policies
  • The Boy Scouts of America announces that girls may join as full members of the Cub Scouts beginning in 2018. Young women may join as full members of the Boy Scouts and earn the highest rank of Eagle Scout beginning in 2019. (AP)

• October 2017 Northern California wildfires
  • The death toll grows to 23 people with 285 people still missing. (BBC) (Los Angeles Times)
  • The property destruction now includes more than 3500 homes and businesses. (Reuters)
• Mount Kirishima
  • Shinmoedake volcano erupts for the first time in six years. (The Japan Times)

• Cybercrime
  • Last year a hacker stole non-classified information about Australia’s Joint Strike Fighter program and other military hardware after breaching the network of a defense contractor. (Reuters)
• Kidnapping of Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman
  • Pakistani troops rescue Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman, who have been held captive since 2012, and their three children from the Taliban. (The Guardian)

• Politics of Peru
  • The Peruvian Pedro Pablo Kuczynski Administration, through the Ministry of Justice, appoints a new head to the Direction of Presidential Graces, which is believed to be a first step towards granting a pardon to 79-year-old former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), although President Kuczynski has denied it. In April 2009, a three-judge panel had sentenced Fujimori for acts of corruption, human rights violations, and various others crimes. Fujimori, who has been in jail since 2007 and whose health has deteriorated, including alleged tongue cancer, has applied for a pardon unsuccessfully on two occasions. (RPP Noticias) (El Comercio) (Diario Correo)

• Discovery and exploration of the Solar System
  • Nature publishes research from The Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia at the Glorieta de la Astronomía of Granada, Spain, describing the discovery that a ring system orbits the trans-Neptunian dwarf planet Haumea. (The Verge) (Nature)
• 2017 in spaceflight
  • SpaceX launches a Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to supersynchronous orbit an Airbus-built communications satellite SES-11 for Luxembourg-based SES, and EchoStar 105 for U.S.-headquartered EchoStar. It's the third time when a Falcon 9 first stage is re-used. (Space Flight Now)

• War in North-West Pakistan
  • Pakistani forces rescue Canadian Joshua Boyle, American Caitlan Coleman, and their family, in the Kurram Valley. The family had been kidnapped by the Taliban nearly five years ago in Afghanistan's Wardak Province. (Global News) (The Washington Post)

• 2017 Kobe Steel falsification of data scandal
  • As had been previously reported on October 9, Japan's third-biggest steelmaker, Kobe Steel, now admits to further falsification of product data. Steel wire products did not meet the specifications requested by customers. The scandal now affects about 500 customer companies. (Reuters) (BBC)

• Tropical Depression 23W (2017)
  • Floods and landslides in Yên Bái and Hòa Bình provinces in Vietnam kill at least 54 people with 39 more missing. (BBC) (Reuters)
• October 2017 Northern California wildfires
  • Various local safety officials report a total of at least 31 people have been killed by the 17 fires, while 400 people are reported as missing. (Los Angeles Times)

• Gene therapy
  • A panel of external experts to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration unanimously vote that the benefits of the gene replacement treatment made by Spark Therapeutics of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, called voretigene neparvovec (trade name, Luxturna), which treats Leber's congenital amaurosis (LCA), a form of hereditary blindness, outweigh its risks. The treatment, which targets a specific disease-causing mutation, is designed to treat individuals who have two mutated copies of a gene called RPE65 and consists of a virus injected into the eye loaded with a normal copy of the RPE65 gene. Further, this technique utilizing adeno-associated virus as a vector may, in the future, be used for the treatment of heart disease and also mutations other than LCA, including some cancers. (Nature) (MIT Technology Review)

• Membership in UNESCO
  • The United States Trump administration and the government of Israel announce their plans to withdraw as members of UNESCO. (The Washington Post) (BBC)

• Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct allegations
  • The New York Police Department and London's Metropolitan Police Service open investigations into alleged sexual assault allegations against the American film producer Harvey Weinstein. (BBC)
  • Amazon puts Amazon Studios chief Roy Price on an immediate leave of absence, following allegations that he harassed producer Isa Dick Hackett, the daughter of author Philip K. Dick, by propositioning her in 2015, and that he ignored actress Rose McGowan's claim of a sexual assault by producer Harvey Weinstein. (Reuters)
• Beating of DeAndre Harris
  • DeAndre Harris, a black man beaten by white supremacists during the Unite the Right rally, turns himself in to Charlottesville after he is served an arrest warrant for an alleged attack on a white supremacist during the same rally. (BBC)

• Fatah–Hamas reconciliation process
  • Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, sign a unity deal in Cairo, that is also publicly supported by the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The Fatah-controlled Palestinian National Authority (PNA), along with Israel, currently govern the West Bank. According to the signatories of the deal, the PNA will take administrative control of the Gaza Strip, and, along with Hamas, police its borders. The signatories consider the agreement a first step, and, if productive, plan to meet next month to address the remaining issues. The government of Israel opposes any involvement by Hamas in a Palestinian government. (The New York Times) (BBC)
• Trumpcare Executive Order
  • U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order allowing the sale of health insurance plans that are exempt from some Obamacare regulations including purchases effective across state lines. (BBC)

• Asteroid close approaches to Earth in 2017
  • As predicted by NASA, the Apollo-group-type asteroid 2012 TC4 (approximately 15 m (49 ft) in diameter) passes a distance of 0.0003352 AU (50,150 km; 31,160 mi) from Earth, well within the Moon's orbit. (CBC) (NASA)

• Human rights in the Philippines
  • A group of civil society organizations, "among them groups working on human rights, youth and drug policy reform," have demanded that Apple Inc. remove from its App Store games it said violated the tech firm's guidelines and promoted violence and killings commonplace in the Philippine Drug War. (Reuters)
• Economy of the United Kingdom
  • The head of the United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority Andrew Bailey admits to meeting oil giant Saudi Aramco over a potential £1.5 trillion listing on the London Stock Exchange. The regulator has been criticised for proposing changes to listing rules to accommodate sovereign-owned companies. (BBC)
• Economy of the United States
  • U.S.-based electric automobile maker Tesla fires 400 employees. (Reuters)

• October 2017 Northern California wildfires
  • Among the property damage from the wildfires in California is the Santa Rosa home of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz; his widow was evacuated Monday. Peanuts featured the characters Snoopy and Charlie Brown. (CNN)
  • The death toll grows to 35 people with hundreds still missing. (BBC) (Los Angeles Times) (Reuters)
  • The property destruction now includes more than 5700 homes and businesses. (Reuters)
• Wildlife of Antarctica
  • Conservation biologists describe Adélie penguin east Antarctic colony population conditions as catastrophic for the second time in five years as excessive ice kills birds travelling for food. (BBC)

• Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
  • U.S. President Donald Trump chooses not to certify that Iran complies with the 2015 agreement. The United States Congress now has 60 days to decide whether to lift the sanctions relief, possibly breaching the agreement. (Reuters)

• Cybercrime
  • U.S.-based Hyatt Hotels discovers another (the other much larger one being in 2015) unauthorized access to payment card information at certain Hyatt-managed locations worldwide between March 18 and July 2, at a total of 41 properties in 11 countries. (Reuters)
• MS-13
  • Police in Chimaltenango, Guatemala capture Ángel Gabriel Reyes Marroquin, a leader of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, street gang. Prosecutors say he is connected to the deaths of at least 287 people. In 2014 Reyes escaped while facing charges including murder from a maximum security prison. Currently, he was also wanted for an August 17 armed attack on Roosevelt Hospital in Guatemala City in which seven people were shot dead. (BBC) (BBC)

• 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification
  • Bruce Arena resigns as manager of the United States men's national soccer team following the failure of the team to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the first time the U.S. has failed to qualify for a FIFA World Cup since 1986. (The Guardian)

• 14 October 2017 Mogadishu bombings
  • At least 276 people are killed when a lorry filled with explosives detonates outside a hotel in the capital Mogadishu, becoming the worst terrorist attack in Somalia's history. (NBC News)
• Battle of Raqqa (2017)
  • The Syrian Democratic Forces carry out a deal to evacuate dozens of ISIL militants from Raqqa to Deir ez-Zor. (Rudaw)

• Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct allegations
  • The Board of Directors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decides to strip Harvey Weinstein of membership following several allegations of predatory sexual behavior. (Los Angeles Times)

• A small-scale study has determined that psilocybin mushrooms, which contain the drug psilocybin, can treat depression. (BBC)

• 2017 Iraqi–Kurdish conflict
  • Battle of Kirkuk (2017)
    • Iraqi forces advance into Kurdish-held territory around the city of Kirkuk. Clashes have been reported in the surrounding cities. (Reuters) (RT)

• Pope Francis announces a special assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region. The synod is planned for October of 2019. (Vatican Radio)

• Kyrgyz presidential election, 2017
  • Voters in Kyrgyzstan go to the polls to elect a new president, with current president Almazbek Atambayev constitutionally barred from seeking a second term in office. (BBC)
  • Sooronbay Jeenbekov is elected President of Kyrgyzstan in the first peaceful transfer of power after a full term in the country's history. (BBC)
• Austrian legislative election, 2017
  • Voters in Austria go to the polls to elect a new National Council. (Euro News)
• Venezuelan regional elections, 2017
  • Voters in Venezuela go to the polls to elect new state governors, resulting in the incumbent socialist party winning the majority of the governorships, a result disputed by the opposition. (Reuters)

• War in Somalia
  • 14 October 2017 Mogadishu bombings
    • Somalis march to demonstrate their anger at the presence of al-Shabaab, the group believed to be responsible for a recent bombing attack. (BBC)
  • Battle of Kirkuk (2017)
    • Iraqi government forces have captured key installations outside the disputed city of Kirkuk from Kurdish fighters. (BBC)
    • Concern over oil supplies from Iraq has pushed crude prices higher as the country's government continues its move against Kurdish forces. (BBC)
• Moro conflict
  • Battle of Marawi
    • Filipino ISIL leaders Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute are reportedly killed during the siege of Marawi. (ABS-CBN)
• Spillover of the Syrian Civil War
  • The Israeli Air Force (IAF) destroys a Syrian S-200 anti-aircraft battery near Damascus after it fired on its aircraft patrolling in Lebanese air space on a reconnaissance mission. (The Guardian)

• 2017 Atlantic hurricane season
  • Hurricane Ophelia (2017)
    • Schools and hospitals are closed in Ireland and Northern Ireland as the extratropical cyclone Ophelia is forecasted to make landfall on the island. (Reuters)
    • At least three people are killed in Ireland as over 360,000 homes lose power due to the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia. (BBC)
• October 2017 Iberian wildfires
  • Wildfires in Spain and Portugal kill at least 31 people, which were worsened by strong winds brought by Hurricane Ophelia. (BBC)

• North Korea–Russia relations
  • Russian president Vladimir Putin signs decree to implement U.N. resolution sanctioning on North Korea. (TASS)

• Reactions to the Panama Papers and Maltese general election, 2017
  • The Maltese blogger and journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose corruption allegations against prime minister Joseph Muscat led him to call early elections, is killed by a car bomb near her home. (The Times of Malta) (Politico.eu)

• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • In the mark of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, two independentist leaders, Jordi Sànchez i Picanyol (President of ANC) and Jordi Cuixart i Navarro (President of Òmnium Cultural), are in pre-trial detention during the sedition trial. These events outraged the population of the State and the Government of Catalonia, causing a new escalation of tension between both governments. (Independent) (BBC News)

• Gravitational-wave astronomy, GW170817
  • Scientists announce that the LIGO and VIRGO gravitational wave observatories detected for the first time gravitational waves from the merger of two neutron stars. The event coincided with a short gamma ray burst GRB 170817A detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, leading to SSS17a, the immediate follow-up observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and numerous ground-based telescopes. This confirms the theory according to which neutron star mergers are the cause of at least some short gamma-ray bursts. (LIGO press release)(The Verge)
• Wireless security, KRACK
  • Researchers discover a vulnerability in the WPA2 protocol, leaving devices running Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Android, Linux and OpenBSD operating systems vulnerable to attack over wireless connections. (Ars Technica)

• Syrian Civil War
  • Battle of Raqqa
    • The Syrian Democratic Forces announce the end of the battle for ISIL's de facto capital. (Al Jazeera)
• War in Afghanistan
  • A suicide attack on a police compound in Gardez, Paktia Province, kills at least 20 people, while a separate gun attack at a training facility in neighboring Ghazni Province leaves another 15 people dead. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
• 2017 Iraqi–Kurdish conflict
  • The Iraqi Army and allied militias continue to seize Kurdish-held territory, taking over several key cities including Khanaqin near the Iranian border, Jalawla, Bashiqa, Sinjar and Rabia, as well as the Mosul Dam. (The Washington Post)

• Aftermath of Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct allegations
  • Roy Price, chief of Amazon Studios, resigns amid accusations that he harassed a female producer and ignored an actress' allegation of sexual assault by producer Harvey Weinstein. (Reuters)

• Ukrainian crisis
  • Three protestors and one police officer are injured in clashes between anti-corruption demonstrators and Ukrainian police in front of the parliament building in Kiev, Ukraine. (BBC)
• Executive Order 13780, Hawaii v. Trump
  • A federal judge in Hawaii blocks enforcement of the latest version of President Donald Trump's travel ban. (ABC News)

• Syrian Civil War
  • Syrian Republican Guard major general Issam Zahreddine, known for leading battles against the rebels in Homs and Aleppo, is killed by a landmine in Deir ez-Zor, according to Syrian media. (Al Arabiya)

• Man Booker Prize
  • A 2017 experimental novel, Lincoln in the Bardo by American writer George Saunders, wins the 2017 Man Booker Prize. (BBC)

• Crime in Maryland
  • A workplace shooting in Edgewood, United States, kills three and critically injures two. The suspect, Radee Labeeb Prince, flees to neighboring Delaware, where he allegedly shoots a man in Wilmington hours later, before his capture in Newark. (CNN)
• Law in Quebec
  • The Quebec National Assembly passes legislation banning individuals who cover their faces to receive or give public services, including riding public buses. (Al Jazeera)

• 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China
  • China's leader and Party General Secretary Xi Jinping addresses more than 2,000 delegates in Beijing. The congress is expected to finish next week. (BBC)
• Ukrainian crisis
  • Eleven anti-corruption protestors are detained in Kiev, Ukraine, where police attempted to enter a protestor camp near the parliament building. (RT)

• War in Afghanistan
  • At least 43 Afghan soldiers are killed in a Taliban attack on an army base in Kandahar Province. Around 10 Taliban fighters also died in the attack. (Business Insider)
• 2017 Tongo Tongo ambush
  • The United States Africa Command sends a team to Niger to investigate an October 4 ambush which killed four U.S. soldiers. (NBC News)

• Crime in Florida
  • Two people are arrested and five people suffer minor injuries at the University of Florida during protests of Richard B. Spencer's speech at an event there. (ABC News)

• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy warns Catalonian President Carles Puigdemont that the region's autonomy will be suspended if he fails to drop the Catalonian government's bid for secession by 10:00 a.m. CEST (08:00 a.m. GMT). (BBC)
  • Rajoy announces that he will begin the process of stripping Catalonia of its autonomy starting on October 21. This follows a letter Puigdemont wrote before the deadline again asking for dialogue, and blaming Rajoy for escalating the crisis. Rajoy had wanted dialogue after reassurances that the independence bid was dropped. (Vox)
• Aftermath of the New Zealand general election, 2017
  • New Zealand First leader Winston Peters chooses to create a minority coalition with the Labour Party and form the sixth Labour government. (NZ Herald)
  • Jacinda Ardern, the leader of the Labour Party, will be the next prime minister. (Newshub)

• Scientists studying flying insects in nature reserves and protected areas of western Germany report a decline of more than 75% of the population in about three decades. (The Atlantic) (PLOS One)

• 2017 Major League Baseball postseason
  • The Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the defending World Series champion Chicago Cubs 11–1 in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, winning the series 4–1. This will be the Dodgers' first World Series appearance since 1988. (AP via ESPN)

• Syrian Civil War
  • Battle of Raqqa (2017)
    • The Syrian Democratic Forces announce the "total liberation" of Raqqa, previously the de facto capital of ISIL. (CNN)
• War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
  • Two suicide bomber attacks, one on a Shia mosque in Kabul and one on a Sunni mosque in Ghor Province, kill approximately 60 people. Approximately 180 people have been killed in bombing attacks this week. (BBC)
• Insurgency in Egypt (2013–present)
  • Sixteen members of the Egyptian Police have died in a clash with Islamic militants from the Hasm Movement. More than fifteen militants have been killed. (Al-Ahram)

• Crime in Malawi
  • Police in Malawi arrest 140 people after nine people were lynched for suspected vampirism. (Reuters)
• Pope Francis and Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta express sorrow over the death of Daphne Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist who died in a car bomb attack. (Catholic News Agency)

• Czech legislative election, 2017
  • Voters in the Czech Republic go to the polls to elect new members of the Chamber of Deputies. (BBC News)
• Brexit
  • The European Union heads of state prepare to start negotiations on a future UK–EU trade agreement in December, depending on progress with the financial "exit bill" negotiations by then. (Reuters)

• War in Somalia
  • 14 October 2017 Mogadishu bombings
    • The death toll in Somalia's deadliest terror attack rises up to 358, making it the fifth-deadliest terror attack worldwide. (Irish Independent)
• Insurgency in the Sahel
  • Gunmen coming from Mali kill 13 gendarmes and injure five on a base in western Niger. (Reuters)
• War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
  • A suicide bomber kills at least 15 people in Kabul. (CNN)

• 2017–18 UK and Ireland windstorm season
  • Storm Brian, the third windstorm of the season, causes severe flash flooding in Ireland and coastal flooding in parts of England and Wales, although disruption is not as severe as initially expected. (BBC)
• Helicopter accidents and incidents
  • A helicopter carrying five people crashes into Kenya's Lake Nakuru. (Capital FM)
• Landslides in Malaysia
  • At least two people are dead and twelve missing after a landslide on the Malaysian tourist island of Penang. (CBC.ca)

• 2017 Madagascar plague outbreak
  • The death toll from an outbreak of plague in Madagascar nears 100. So far, there have been 911 cases recorded. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)

• Czech legislative election, 2017
  • The ANO movement of billionaire Andrej Babiš wins a sizeable plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies, but falls short of a majority. (The New York Times)
  • The three next largest parties become the Civic Democratic Party, the Czech Pirate Party, and the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy, as support for the governing Czech Social Democratic Party collapses. (DW)
• Argentine legislative election, 2017; Santiago Maldonado case
  • Parties in Argentina halt their election campaigns due to the appearance of a body thought to be Santiago Maldonado, an indigenous rights activist who disappeared at the beginning of August 2017. (The Guardian)
• 2017 Iraqi–Kurdish conflict
  • Iraqi forces complete the takeover of Kirkuk Governorate, which is outside the autonomous zone accorded by the Constitution of Iraq. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani calls for the state to protect Kurds in northern Iraq. (Reuters)
• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • The Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, activates Article 155 of the Constitution of Spain. This will put Catalonia under the direct control of the central government, removing the regional government and completely limit the power of the Parliament of Catalonia. The regional police and media will also be under its control. (The New York Times)

• Boko Haram insurgency
  • A suicide bomber kills 13 people and injures five others in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri. According to the police, 13 more civilians were injured in separate attacks. (Reuters)

• Israeli–Palestinian conflict
  • A Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank is arrested and questioned for a few hours by Israeli police after Facebook mistranslates his Arabic-language message saying "good morning" into Hebrew for "attack them". (Sky News)

• Japanese general election, 2017
  • Shinzō Abe is re-elected prime minister as his Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition wins 312 seats and retains its two-thirds supermajority in the 465-member House of Representatives. (BBC) (Reuters)
• Slovenian presidential election, 2017
  • Voters in Slovenia go to the polls to elect their president. Opinion polls predict that the independent incumbent Borut Pahor will retain the largely ceremonial role despite being challenged by noted actor and comedian Marjan Šarec. (Bloomberg)
• Argentine legislative election, 2017
  • Voters in Argentina go to the polls to elect half of the members of the Chamber of Deputies and Senate. Cambiemos, the national government coalition led by president Mauricio Macri, got a clear victory in the four most populated provinces and the city of Buenos Aires. Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner ran for senator of Buenos and ended second, leading the opposition. (The Washington Post)
• Referendums in Italy
  • Lombard autonomy referendum, 2017 and Venetian autonomy referendum, 2017
    • Set on the same day, two regions of Italy hold non-binding referendums aimed to decide whether citizens want greater autonomy or not. (BBC News)

• 2017 Major League Baseball postseason
  • The Houston Astros defeat the New York Yankees 4–0 in the seventh and deciding game of the American League Championship Series, thereby advancing to the World Series for the second time in team history and the first as an American League team. (AP via ESPN)

• Battle of Marawi
  • The Philippines Armed Forces declares an end to military operations in the southern city of Marawi after 5 months of fighting. (Reuters)
• Syrian Civil War
  • The Palmyra Coordination Committee reports that 67 bodies, victims of summary execution by ISIL, were found in Al-Qaryatayn in the Homs Governorate in central Syria. (AP via MSN.com)

• 2017 Pacific typhoon season
  • Typhoon Lan makes landfall in the Shizuoka Prefecture of Japan, causing at least two deaths and 10 injuries. (ABS-CBN News)

• Terrorism in Germany
  • German police find guns and ammunition in a raid on suspected Islamist militants. (Reuters)
• Terrorism in Indonesia
  • Indonesia arrests nine with alleged Islamic State links. (Reuters)
• Six crew from a German ship are kidnapped in Nigerian waters. (Reuters)

• Economy of the European Union
  • The European Commission scraps the draft legislation that would have permitted the EBA regulator to order "too big to fail" banks to split off their trading activities, citing "no foreseeable agreement" in sight on criteria. The draft was supposed to be the EU's answer to the United States' Volcker Rule. (Reuters)
• Banking in the United States
  • Vice President Mike Pence casts the tie-breaking vote late Tuesday night to repeal a rule that would have made it easier for Americans to sue their banks and credit card companies. (CNN)

• Immigration policy of Donald Trump
  • U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order which allows U.S. to resume its refugee program, with a 90-day review period for 11 countries identified as "high risk". (The Guardian)

• Ransomware
  • Security researchers report on the outbreak of the ransomware nicknamed Bad Rabbit, which has affected computer networks throughout the world, with Russia and Ukraine being the worst affected. (International Business Times) (BBC)

• 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China
  • The week-long Communist Party congress in Beijing draws to an end, with General Secretary Xi Jinping set to become its most influential leader since Party Chairman Mao Zedong. (BBC)
• United States Senate elections, 2018
  • Republican Senator Jeff Flake, a vocal critic of the Trump administration from Arizona announces that he will not run again in 2018. (Politico)
• Nuclear power in the United States
  • Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives launch an investigation into the Obama administration's decision in 2010 to allow Rosatom to purchase Canada-based Uranium One. (Los Angeles Times)

• Congressional Gold Medal
  • The Congressional Gold Medal is awarded to Filipino American veterans of World War II more than 70 years after the end of that war. (Manila Bulletin)

• Floodings in Burgas Province, Bulgaria, claim 3 victims. (Novinite) (Radio Bulguria)

• 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China
  • At the National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping assumes his second term as General Secretary (China's paramount leader), and the political theory Xi Jinping Thought is written into the party's constitution. (BBC) (Guardian) (Telegraph)
• Politics of Saudi Arabia
  • Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia announces that a majority of Saudis want a return to moderate Islam. 70% of the kingdom is made up of residents under the age of 30 who welcome the idea of new reforms. (BBC)

• Ukrainian crisis
  • A parked scooter explosion in Kiev, thought to be an assassination attempt on Ukrainian Radical MP Ihor Mosiychuk, kills his bodyguard and one more man. Mosiychuk, political scientist Vitaliy Bala and a woman are injured. (DigitalJournal)

• Interstellar comet
  • The discovery of an asteroid with a record high eccentricity, A/2017 U1, is announced. It is almost certainly the first known example of an interstellar object. While initially thought to be a comet, it is now considered an asteroid. (IAU Minor Planet Center)

• Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
  • Twitter bans all ads from Russian news agencies RT and Sputnik based on U.S. intelligence's conclusion that both attempted to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election on behalf of the Russian government. (Business Insider)

• Tangerang fireworks disaster
  • An explosion in a fireworks plant located west of the Indonesian capital Jakarta kills at least 47 and injures 35. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• Rail accidents in 2017
  • Four people (three military conscripts and a train passenger) are killed and four conscripts are injured after a passenger train collides with an off-road military truck in Raseborg, Finland. (Yle)
• Helicopter accidents and incidents
  • A Russian Mi-8 helicopter crashes into the sea off Svalbard with eight people reported missing. A search and rescue operation is underway. (BBC)

• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • At least two Catalan officials defect from the ruling Junts pel Sí party as Catalan president Carles Puigdemont cancels a speech regarding snap elections. Puigdemont plans to draw back from declaring independence from Spain. (Bloomberg)
• Politics of the Netherlands
  • Prime Minister Mark Rutte presents his third cabinet. It took a record 225 days of negotiations to form the government composed of VVD, D66, CDA and CU. (Deutsche Welle)
• IRS targeting controversy
  • The Trump administration's Department of Justice settles two lawsuits which alleged that the Obama administration's Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups. (The New York Times)
• Assassination of John F. Kennedy
  • Nearly 3,000 files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 have been released, while U.S. President Donald Trump orders others to be withheld citing national security concerns. The documents were scheduled for release today in a 1992 law. (BBC)
• Kenyan presidential election, October 2017
  • Voters in Kenya go to the polls following the annulment of the results in the Kenyan general election. The President of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta wins with a 98% majority following an opposition boycott. (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
• Sakharov Prize
  • Venezuela's democratic opposition wins the Sakharov Prize, the European Union's top human rights award. (BBC)

• Kazakh alphabets
  • President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan announces that the Kazakh language will begin using a Latin script, rather than the current Cyrillic script. (Official site of the Kazakh presidency) (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

• Burundian unrest (2015–2018)
  • Burundi becomes the first country to leave the International Criminal Court amid accusations the government committed crimes against humanity, including torture of political opponents. Burundi has accused the ICC of deliberately targeting Africans for prosecution. (BBC)
• Russia–United States relations
  • The United States releases a list of 39 Russian military companies and intelligence agencies targeted by economic sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. (CBS News)

• 2017 Special Counsel investigation
  • A federal grand jury approves the first charges from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 federal elections. The charges are sealed by a court order. (CNN) (The Hill)

• Catalan independence referendum, 2017, Catalan Republic (2017), 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • Catalonia declares independence from Spain as the Catalan Republic. (CNN)
  • The Parliament of Catalonia votes and starts a "constituent" process towards independence from the Kingdom of Spain. The Senate of Spain votes to permit direct rule according to article 155 of the Spanish Constitution. (BBC) (NPR) (Reuters)
  • The euro drops to a three-month low after the declaration is made. (Fund Strategy) (Reuters)
  • Prime Minister of Spain Mariano Rajoy dissolves the Parliament of Catalonia, dismisses the Government of Catalonia and calls a regional election for December 21. He also fires the police chief, announces the takeover of regional ministries by national ministries and closes overseas representations of Catalonia. (Reuters) (The New York Times)
• 2017 Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis
  • The High Court of Australia finds that Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce of the National Party and several senators were ineligible for the 2016 federal election. (ABC)
  • The government led by Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull loses its one-seat majority unless Joyce wins a by-election in the Division of New England. (9 News)

• 28 October 2017 Mogadishu bombings
  • Two car bombs kill at least 25 people, mostly police officers, near the national theater area in Mogadishu, Somalia, two weeks after a similar attack killed hundreds. Islamist group Al-Shabaab claims responsibility. (Reuters)

• At least 19 people are killed and 16 others are injured when a bus skids off the road in the Dhading District and falls into the Trishuli River in central Nepal. (AFP via MSN.com)
• 2017 Atlantic hurricane season
  • Tropical storm warnings are issued for western Cuba and the northwestern Bahamas, and tropical storm warnings are announced for coastal South Florida in the U.S., as a strengthening Tropical Storm Philippe treks north-northeast with maximum sustained winds at 35 mph (55 km/h). (The Weather Channel) (National Hurricane Center)

• Black Lives Matter
  • A "White Lives Matter" gathering takes place in Shelbyville, Tennessee, with 200+ WLM protestors met by 700+ counter-protesters. (USA Today)
• Icelandic parliamentary election, 2017
  • Voters in Iceland go to the polls to elect 63 members of the Althing. (BBC News)

• Northern Rakhine State clashes
  • More than 2,000 people march in Yangon to show support for the military, urging the military to secure the country's sovereignty, protect national security and stop illegal intruders (referring to the Rohingya people). (ABC News)
• Libyan Civil War
  • In coordination with Libya’s internationally recognized government, American special operations forces and FBI agents capture Mustafa al-Imam, a militant who allegedly was involved in the 2012 Benghazi attack, at an unknown location in Libya. (Fox News)

• October 2017 Northern California wildfires
  • Archives from Hewlett-Packard founders William Hewlett and David Packard are among those destroyed by fires in a Santa Rosa neighborhood. (Quartz)
• A pickup truck crashes into an Amish horse-drawn buggy, killing three preteen children and injuring six other passengers in Bushnell Township, Michigan. Police say the survivors' injuries are life-threatening. (The Detroit News) (FOX17) (AP)

• Politics of Iraqi Kurdistan
  • Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq since 2005, announces that he will step down after November 1. The Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament now has to redistribute the authorities of the presidency. (AFP via SBS)
• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
  • Hundreds of thousands of supporters for a unified Spain gather in Barcelona, the capital and largest city of Catalonia, in one of the biggest shows of force against Catalan independence. (The Washington Post) (Reuters)

• 2017 FIA Formula One World Championship
  • After a first-lap collision and a ninth-place finish in the Mexican Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton becomes the fifth driver to win four FIA Formula One World Championship titles. (The Guardian)
• 2017 World Rally Championship
  • Sébastien Ogier clinches his fifth successive World Rally Championship title, finishing third in the 2017 Wales Rally GB. (BBC)
• 2017 WTA Finals
  • Danish tennis player Caroline Wozniacki wins the WTA Finals defeating American Venus Williams in the final match, 6–4, 6–4. (BBC)

• Gaza–Israel conflict
  • The IDF destroys a partly-completed tunnel from the Gaza Strip border near the town of Khan Yunis that crossed into Israeli territory, killing seven Hamas militants. Several more died in the rescue efforts. (Reuters)

• Syrian Civil War
  • A U.N. and Syrian Arab Red Crescent interagency convoy brings food and medical aid to 40,000 people on the verge of starvation in the towns of Kafr Batna and Saqba in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus for the first time since June 2016. (Reuters)

• 2017 Special Counsel investigation
  • Paul Manafort and Rick Gates surrender to the FBI after both are indicted on multiple charges stemming from the investigation into the Donald Trump presidential campaign's possible associations with the Russian government. The two men—who respectively served as manager and deputy manager of the campaign from March to August 2016—are being charged on twelve counts, which include conspiracy against the U.S., money laundering and failing to register as foreign agents. (USA Today)
  • George Papadopoulos, who worked as a foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, is also revealed to have plead guilty on October 5 to making false statements to FBI agents about contacts that he had with the Russian government during the campaign. (Los Angeles Times)
  • Tony Podesta, brother of John Podesta, resigns from the Podesta Group lobbying firm. A spokesperson for the group says they are cooperating with the Special Counsel's team. (Reuters)

• 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis, Catalan Republic (2017)
  • The Spanish attorney general, José Manuel Maza, requests a lawsuit against (former) Catalan government members, seeking charges of sedition, rebellion and embezzlement. The Catalan parliament is formally dissolved. (San Francisco Chronicle)
  • A Spanish government source says that Carles Puigdemont and part of his cabinet has fled to Belgium to escape prosecution. International media agree the situation in Catalonia—under direct Spanish rule—is quiet. (Reuters) (El Diario)
  • A Belgian federal government source says Puigdemont and about five ministers would attend a "private reception" in Brussels by the N-VA party. Prime Minister Charles Michel (MR) has no comment. Interior Minister Jan Jambon (N-VA) says he "knows nothing". N-VA replies that it "did not invite [them]". (Het Laatste Nieuws) (7sur7)

• Women's rights in Saudi Arabia
  • Starting in 2018, women will be allowed to attend sports events in stadiums in Saudi Arabia for the first time in the country's history, officials say. (BBC)
• Transgender personnel in the United States military
  • The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia blocks President Donald Trump's proposed ban on new transgender recruits in the U.S. military. (The Hill)

• Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere
  • Concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the Earth's atmosphere surged by a record amount in 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization. (BBC)

• 2017 Lower Manhattan attack
  • Eight people are killed and at least 11 others injured when a man in a rented pickup truck drives down a bike path along the West Side Highway in Lower Manhattan. The 29-year-old suspect, later identified as Uzbekistani immigrant Sayfullo Saipov, is shot and taken into custody by police. Police are treating this incident as an act of terrorism. (New York Post) (AP) (UPI) (NBC News)
• War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
  • A suicide bombing in Afghanistan's capital Kabul kills at least 8 civilians and leaves numerous wounded. The Islamic State claims responsibility. (Reuters)

• North Korea tunnel collapse
  • A tunnel under construction at North Korea's nuclear test site collapses, killing as many as 200 workers. (Yonhap News Agency)

• Road accidents in 2017
  • A car accident on highway 400 involving 14 vehicles, including two tanker trucks, results in three deaths near Barrie, Ontario. Police suspect distracted driving to be the cause. (CBC)

• Crime in Utah
  • A shooting on the campus of the University of Utah leaves one student dead. A suspect is taken into custody. (CNN)
• Crime in California
  • At an elementary school in Riverside, California, police shoot a parent who reportedly took a teacher hostage. (Los Angeles Times)

• Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
  • U.S. senators question lawyers representing Facebook, Twitter and Google about Russian activity on their platforms during the 2016 United States presidential election. (BBC)
• Virginia gubernatorial election, 2017
  • The Latino Victory Fund withdraws an anti–Ed Gillespie political advertisement because of scenes which loosely resemble a recent terror attack in New York City. The ad was originally meant to improve Ralph Northam's standing with minority voters. (New York Daily News), (The Washington Post)

• 2017 in spaceflight
  • A Minotaur-C rocket launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and deploys 10 commercial Earth-imaging satellites for Planet Labs. It is the first successful mission for the Minotaur-C, formerly known as Taurus, since 2004. (Spaceflight 101)