Portal:Current events/2018 January 31

January 31, 2018 (Wednesday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
- A BBC study finds that, as of October 2017^[update], 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). (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

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. (NPR)

Law and crime

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. (De Standaard)
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. (Los Angeles Times)
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. (NPR)

Politics and elections

Politics of the United Kingdom
- 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. (The Independent)
- 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. (Sky News)
Politics of Guinea-Bissau
- President José Mário Vaz appoints Artur Silva as Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau, succeeding Umaro Sissoco Embaló, who resigned on January 16th. (CGTN Africa)
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. (CNBC)
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. (The Guardian)

Science and technology

Sports

2018 FIA Formula One World Championship
- The upcoming Formula One season will abandon the practice of using "grid girls", arguing that the practice does not "resonate" with Formula One's values. Four days before, the Professional Darts Corporation abandoned the use of "walk-on girls" to accompany men onto the stage. (CNN)