What happened 2018 AD in United States of America

On January 11, 2018, Facebook announced that it would change the News Feed to prioritize friends/family content and de-emphasize content from media companies.

On January 22, 2018, the company crossed $100 billion in market capitalization, becoming the largest digital media and entertainment company in the world, bigger than every traditional media company except for AT&T, Comcast and Disney and the 59th largest publicly traded company in the US S&P 500 Index.

On January 22, 2018, Amazon Go, a store that uses cameras and sensors to detect items that a shopper grabs off shelves and automatically charges a shopper's Amazon account, was opened to the general public in Seattle.

On February 14, 2018, a gunman opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people and injuring 17 others. Witnesses identified Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old former student at the school, as the assailant. Cruz fled the scene on foot by blending with other students. He was arrested without incident about an hour later in nearby Coral Springs.

Pearl Fernandez plead guilty on February 15, 2018 to her charge as part of a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

In a company public announcement on March 15, 2018, Parker said Trevor Edwards, a top Nike executive who was seen as a potential successor to the chief executive, was relinquishing his position as Nike's brand president and would retire in August.

Millard's song "I Can Only Imagine" was inspired by his father's death, and was made into a film also titled I Can Only Imagine. The film was released on March 16, 2018.

On March 20, 2018, Oracle released Java SE 10.

On 23 March 2018, Ibrahimović signed for Major League Soccer (MLS) club LA Galaxy.

On March 26, the Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into the matter. The controversy led Facebook to end its partnerships with data brokers who aid advertisers in targeting users.

On April 10 and April 11, 2018, Zuckerberg began testifying before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation regarding the usage of personal data by Facebook in relation to the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data breach.

On May 1, 2018, it was announced that Chairman Robert Keegan and CEO Jeff Jacobson and four other directors would resign as part of a deal with investors Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason, who had mounted a proxy fight to oppose the Fujifilm deal. On May 4, Xerox backed away from the deal after stipulations about ceasing litigation were not met.

On 7 May 2018, Nokia announced that it has acquired a California-based IoT startup, SpaceTime Insight.

On 7 May 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes revealed that they had begun dating.

Icahn and Deason responded with an open letter to shareholders blaming the board and management. On May 13 a new deal was reached that additionally canceled the Fujifilm transaction.

On May 17, 2018, YouTube announced the re-branding of YouTube Red as YouTube Premium (accompanied by a major expansion of the service into Canada and 13 European markets), as well as the upcoming launch of a separate YouTube Music subscription.

A school shooting occurred at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, United States, in the Houston metropolitan area, on May 18, 2018. Ten people – eight students and two teachers – were fatally shot, and thirteen others were wounded. The suspected shooter was taken into custody and later identified by police as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, a 17-year-old student at the school.

On June 7, 2018 Facebook announced that a bug had resulted in about 14 million Facebook users having their default sharing setting for all new posts set to "public".

Aguirre was charged with first degree murder with special circumstances of torture for murdering Gabriel Fernandez. He pleaded not guilty; however, the jury found him guilty and recommended he be sentenced to death, which was accepted by Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli. Aguirre was admitted to San Quentin State Prison on June 13, 2018, where he is currently awaiting execution.

In 2018, Apple added Juneteenth to its calendars in iOS under official US holidays.

Currently, Pearl Fernandez is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for first degree murder with special circumstances of torture at Central California Women's Facility. Pearl was admitted to the facility on June 21, 2018.

On June 29, 2018, James opted out of his contract with the Cavaliers and became an unrestricted free agent.

Throughout the rest of the first half of 2018, bitcoin's price fluctuated between $11,480 and $5,848. On 1 July 2018, bitcoin's price was $6,343.

The deal was officially completed to Lakers on July 9.

On July 11, 2018, news outlets reported that during a conference call with Papa Johns' marketing agency Laundry Services, Schnatter had used the word "nigger" by saying "Colonel Sanders called blacks niggers and Sanders never faced public backlash." Schnatter alleged that referencing the quote by the KFC founder was meant to convey his dislike for racism. After the call, the owner of the marketing agency moved to end their contract with Papa John's. Schnatter resigned as chairman of the board on the same day the incident was reported.

On July 18, 2018, the European Commission fined Google €4.34 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules.

On July 26, Facebook became the first company to lose over $100 billion worth of market capitalization in one day, dropping from nearly $630 billion to $510 billion after disappointing sales reports.

On July 26, 2018, John Schnatter filed a lawsuit against Papa John's Pizza to give him access to the company's books and records after they fired him from the company after the teleconference call scandal. He describes the company's procedures as an "unexplained and heavy-handed way" to cut ties between him and the company that he founded. In addition to preventing him from accessing information, the corporation has also implemented a poison pill strategy in order to limit Schnatter's chances of buying back a majority stake in the company.

On July 31, Facebook said that the company had deleted 17 accounts related to the 2018 American elections.

According to an August 8, 2018 story in Bloomberg Businessweek, Amazon has about a 5 percent share of US retail spending (excluding cars and car parts and visits to restaurants and bars), and a 43.5 share of American online spending in 2018. The forecast is for Amazon to own 49 percent of the total American online spending in 2018, with two-thirds of Amazon's revenue coming from the US.

In August 2018, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (NDAA 2019) was signed into law, containing a provision that banned Huawei and ZTE equipment from being used by the U.S. federal government, citing security concerns.

On August 21, 2018, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted on eight felony counts of false tax filing and bank fraud. Trump said he felt very badly for Manafort and praised him for resisting the pressure to make a deal with prosecutors, saying "Such respect for a brave man!" According to Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, Trump had sought advice about pardoning Manafort but was counseled against it.

On 22 August 2018 an arrest warrant was issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Meng (Huawei vice-chairwoman and CFO) was charged with "conspiracy to defraud multiple international institutions", according to the prosecutor.

On August 27, 2018, Netflix signed a five-year exclusive overall deal with international best–selling author Harlan Coben. Under the multi-million pact, Netflix will work with Coben to develop 14 existing titles and future projects. On the same day, the company inked an overall deal with Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch.

August 31, 2018, Ford announced that the Focus Active will not go on sale in North America because of the tariffs that would be placed on vehicles built overseas.

On August 31, 2018, Eminem released his previously unannounced tenth studio album Kamikaze, making it his second full-length studio album in 8 months.

On September 19, Facebook announced that, for news distribution outside the United States, it would work with U.S. funded democracy promotion organizations, International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, which are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic parties.

MacOS 10.13 High Sierra successor, macOS 10.14 Mojave, was released in 2018, adding a dark user interface option and a dynamic wallpaper setting.

On 25 September 2018, Java 11 was released, a currently supported long-term support (LTS) version.

Amazon announced to debut the Amazon 4-star in New York, Soho neighborhood Spring Street between Crosby and Lafayette on 27 September 2018. The store carries the 4-star and above rated products from around New York.

On September 28, 2018, Facebook experienced a major breach in its security, exposing the data of 50 million users. The data breach started in July 2017 and was discovered on September 16.Facebook notified users affected by the exploit and logged them out of their accounts.

On 4 October 2018, Musk issued a sarcastic tweet, describing the SEC agency as the "Shortseller Enrichment Commission", despite having agreed to settlement terms a week earlier that his company, Tesla, would monitor his tweets and other communications.

Back in the United States, Kenin won another $60K title at the Berkeley Tennis Club Challenge. She reached the third round of the US Open for the second consecutive year, losing to Plíšková at the event for the second time. Kenin's best performance during the rest of the season came at the Tournoi de Québec, where she reached another semifinal. At her next tournament, she defeated world No. 10 Julia Görges at the Wuhan Open for her second top ten victory of the year. These results helped Kenin advance into the top 50 for the first time.

On October 9, 2018, Google confirmed that it had appealed the fine to the General Court of the European Union.

On October 10, 2018, Microsoft joined the Open Invention Network community despite holding more than 60,000 patents.

On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.

On October 25, 2018, The New York Times published the exposé, "How Google Protected Andy Rubin, the ‘Father of Android’". The company subsequently announced that "48 employees have been fired over the last two years" for sexual misconduct.

The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was a mass shooting that took place on October 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The congregation was attacked during Shabbat morning services. The shooter killed eleven people and wounded seven (he was among the wounded). Robert Gregory Bowers, 46-years-old, was arrested at the scene and charged as the suspect with 63 federal crimes, some of which are capital crimes. He has pleaded not guilty. He separately faces 36 charges in Pennsylvania state court.

On November 1, 2018, more than 20,000 Google employees and contractors staged a global walk-out to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment complaints.

In the 2018 midterm elections, the Democrats regained a majority of seats in the House.

The Camp Fire was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history and the most expensive natural disaster in the world in 2018 in terms of insured losses. The fire caused at least 85 civilian fatalities, with one person still missing, and injured 12 civilians, two prison inmate firefighters, and three other firefighters.