W"Gunwalking", or "letting guns walk", was a tactic used by the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office and the Arizona Field Office of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which ran a series of sting operations between 2006 and 2011 in the Tucson and Phoenix area where the ATF "purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them". These operations were done under the umbrella of Project Gunrunner, a project intended to stem the flow of firearms into Mexico by interdicting straw purchasers and gun traffickers within the United States. The Jacob Chambers Case began in October 2009 and eventually became known in February 2010 as "Operation Fast and Furious" after agents discovered Chambers and the other suspects under investigation belonged to a car club.
WThe Countrywide financial political loan scandal in 2008-2009 involved U.S. politicians who allegedly received favorable mortgage rates.
WOn April 15, 2008, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines announced a merger agreement. The merger of the two carriers formed what was then the largest commercial airline in the world, with 786 aircraft. Delta Air Lines' brand survived, while Northwest's brand officially ended in 2009.
WThe 2008 G20 Washington Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy took place on November 14–15, 2008, in Washington, D.C., United States. It achieved general agreement amongst the G20 on how to cooperate in key areas so as to strengthen economic growth, deal with the 2008 financial crisis, and lay the foundation for reform to avoid similar crises in the future. The Summit resulted from an initiative by the French and European Union President, Nicolas Sarkozy, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. In connection with the G7 finance ministers on October 11, 2008, United States President George W. Bush stated that the next meeting of the G20 would be important in finding solutions to the economic crisis. Since many economists and politicians called for a new Bretton Woods system to overhaul the world's financial structure, the meeting has sometimes been described by the media as Bretton Woods II.
WImplied Spaces is a 2008 space opera novel by American author Walter Jon Williams. It explores themes of transhumanism, artificial intelligence and ontology.
WMiss America 2008, the 81st Miss America pageant, was held on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada on Saturday, January 26, 2008.
WPope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States took place from April 15, 2008 to April 20, 2008. It was his only visit to the United States. It was officially titled the "Apostolic Visit to the United States of America and to the Seat of the United Nations". It was the sixth official papal visit to the United States since the U.S. established full diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1984. In addition to his 1979 visit, Pope John Paul II visited the United States in 1987, 1993, 1995, and 1999. Pope Francis visited the United States in 2015.
WThe 2008 State of the Union Address was given by the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, on Monday, January 28, 2008, at 9 p.m. EST, in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives to the 110th United States Congress. It was Bush's seventh and final State of the Union Address and his eighth and final speech to a joint session of the United States Congress. Presiding over this joint session was the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, accompanied by Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States.
WThe withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq began in December 2007 with the end of the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 and was mostly completed by December 2011, bringing an end to the Iraq War. The number of U.S. military forces in Iraq peaked at 170,300 in November 2007.
WYouTube Live was a 2008 event streamed live on the Internet from San Francisco and Tokyo. It was launched November 22–23, 2008. It was hosted by a variety of YouTube celebrities, including The Black Eyed Peas rapper will.i.am, Tom Dickson of Will It Blend, Michael Buckley, The Happy Tree Friends, Fred, Smosh, Esmée Denters and singer Katy Perry, among others. On April 8, 2011, The channel was closed, effectively removing all videos. It was replaced by the YouTube live section page.