January 2018 lunar eclipse A lunar eclipse is seen in Oceania, Asia, and North America, coinciding with a supermoon and blue moon.
2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis Private messages between former President of the Generalitat of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont and Antoni Comín, the exiled regional minister of Health, come to light, in which the former President confesses that the secession procedure "is over", opening, once again, tensions between the pro-independence political parties and more confusion about the future of Catalonia.
Political appointments by Donald Trump Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald resigns as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention following a report that she purchased stock in food, health insurance, and tobacco companies shortly after taking up her federal government position.
Guinea-Bissauan government President José Mário Vaz appoints Artur Silva as Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau, succeeding Umaro Sissoco Embaló, who resigned on January 16th.
Politics of the United Kingdom MPs vote 236–220 in favour of moving out of the Houses of Parliament for six years while the Palace of Westminster undergoes repairs at a cost of around £4 billion. The move out of Westminster will not occur before 2025. It will be the first time MPs have moved out of the Palace of Westminster since World War II.
Prime Minister Theresa May orders Phillip Lee, a Justice minister, to "air his views in private" after he suggested that Brexit planning should be based on evidence rather than dogma.
Federal Reserve System The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rules, by a 7–3 vote, that the independent structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutional. A separate case involving directorial succession is under appeal; lower courts have approved the president's selection of Mick Mulvaney as head of CFPB.
Cannabis in California San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón announces the city will retroactively apply California's new marijuana laws to nearly 5,000 felony convictions, expunging or reducing misdemeanors and felonies dating to 1975.
Crime in Belgium Renaud Hardy, a suspected serial killer from Mechelen, Belgium, confesses to two murders and two attempted murders ahead of his February assizes case in Tongeren.
2018 Crozet, Virginia train crash An Amtrak train carrying Republican lawmakers to a retreat in West Virginia collides with a garbage truck in Crozet, Virginia. At least one person dies and one person is seriously injured. The White House states that there are no serious injuries among members of Congress or their staff.
War A BBC study finds that, October 2017 lc=y, the Taliban presently maintains control of or has some territorial presence in 70% of Afghanistan, with full control of 14 districts (totaling 4% of the country) and demonstrating an open physical militant presence in 263 others (encompassing the remaining 66% of the group's occupied territory).