Speaker Nancy Pelosi begins formal impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
Photo Credit: Erin Schaff/The New York Times
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Another year has almost passed, and the earth, lo and behold, hasn’t crumbled under our feet.
But the year didn’t pass before some pronounced rumblings, especially in Hong Kong, beginning in June, when the government introduced an anti-extradition bill, which would have allowed criminal suspects to be transferred to mainland China. The bill (later withdrawn) sparked outrage, with residents taking to the streets in violent protests, burning a Chinese flag, blocking roads and throwing petrol bombs at riot police, who responded in kind with volleys of tear gas. After five months of raging protests, two deaths have been reported.
Prior to the Hong Kong protests, in central London, back in March, citizens protested against Brexit (withdrawal from the European Union EU), calling for another EU referendum. Marchers expressed bitter anger with the vote (June, 2016 referendum) and claimed to have been ‘’sold down the river.”
In October, again, protesters, as many as a million strong, gathered outside the Palace of Westminster with chants of “No Brexit!”
The stalemate over Brexit forced British Prime Minister Theresa May to resign as leader of the Conservative Party on June 7. After beating Jeremy Hunt to become leader of the Conservative Party, Boris Johnson, former mayor of London, became the new Prime Minister on July 24th
Calamity hit Paris in April, during Holy Week no less, when a major fire engulfed the medieval Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, one of France’s most sacred landmarks. Firefighters bravely fought through more than five hours of rising flames in which the 850-year-old cathedral’s spire and two-thirds of its roof were destroyed; but the two iconic 226-foot bell towers, thankfully, remained intact.
President Donald Trump, as can be expected, was at center of a storm in 2019, this time a constitutional storm over whether he should be impeached for withholding military aid to Ukraine unless the Eastern European country investigated corruption charges against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Such a quid pro quo or abuse of power amounted to an impeachable offense, at least in the eyes of a majority of Democrats. Most Republicans argued Trump’s quid pro quo phone call was highly inappropriate, but didn’t rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
On December 5, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi asked the House Judiciary Committee to begin drafting Articles of Impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump.
Talk of impeachment clearly overshadowed the release of the Mueller Report in March in which Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigated Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election to determine whether there was a conspiracy or coordination between the Russians and Donald Trump, which raised alarming questions of obstruction of justice.
The Mueller Report included references to 14 criminal investigations that were referred to other offices. On the topic of obstruction of justice, the report stated that the investigation "did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference," but the same report did note that obstruction of justice could still occur "regardless of whether a person committed an underlying wrong.”
In preparation for the upcoming bruising 2020 U.S. Presidential election, Twitter publicly announced it was not accepting any political advertisements worldwide.
Once again, the year was stained by mass shootings. In August, there were two. On August 3, a 21-year-old from Allen, Texas killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. 22 others were injured. The next day, ten people, including the shooter, were killed along with 27 others injured in a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio.
As of December 12, there were 409 mass shootings in 2019.
And yet more disaster fell from the skies on September 1, when Hurricane Dorian, the first major hurricane of the 2019 Atlantic Hurricane season, made landfall on the Bahamas with sustained winds of 185 mph, leaving 43 dead.
If you forgot who won Super Bowl LIII (53); no worries, it was the lowest scoring game in Super Bowl history. Tom Brady and the Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams, 13-3, at the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.
In October, the Washington Nationals, a wild card team, stunned the Houston Astros in six games to win their first Series in franchise history. As of 2015, five NL wild-card teams went on to win the World Series.
Finally, comic book fans will be delighted to know, if they don’t know already, that the motion picture, Avengers: Endgame, based on the Marvel Comics superhero, smashed most box office records, becoming the highest grossing movie of all time, earning nearly $2.8 billion worldwide.
To get a sense of other major stories which dominated the headlines, I checked in with some news organizations to see which story drew the most traffic to their respective websites for 2019.
Here are some responses which came back to my inbox.
Photo Credit: CBS News
CNN: The blaze at the Notre Dame Cathedral drew 27 million viewers to this story
New York Times: The Most-Read NYT's Stories of 2019
Los Angeles Times: The Top 19 L.A. Times Stories of 2019
Fox News: Days 3 and 4 of the House Impeachment Hearings and the Mueller Report and its hearing were the top two most popular stories at FoxNews.com
Tampa Bay Times: The Tampa Bay Times splash that a ground-penetrating radar uncovered 150 coffins buried beneath a Tampa apartment complex was their most viewed story of the year. The story was a follow up to a major Times’ investigation , which reported that nearly 400 bodies were missing underneath five of the 67 buildings in the Robles Park public housing project in Tampa; dead bodies, left behind in what was once Zion Cemetery, the first African-American cemetery in Tampa. Robles Park Village first opened in 1954. The Zion Cemetery dated back to 1901.
Economist: The most viewed story at Economist.com was their report on “Millennial Socialism,” a new left-wing movement embraced by younger voters who have railed largely against capitalism, inequality, and neglect of the environment in America and Europe.
OpenSecrets: At OpenSecrets.org (Center for Responsive Politics), the top “feature” of the year was their Gun Profile , a mighty divisive issue in the country which takes a close look at where the hard cash is flowing in the lobbying battles between gun control vs gun rights advocates. The top ‘’story’’ at OpenSecrets.org was their analysis and guide to Donald Trump’s foreign policy interests, which includes his “sprawling web of foreign properties and investments.”
New York Magazine: The two top stories at NYMag.com centered on Caroline Calloway , a 27 year-old Instagram star, who leaped to internet fame, chronicling her misadventures as an American undergrad at Cambridge University and is now on tour promoting her “Creativity Workshop.” The other top story at NYMag.com for the year was “Hideous Men”, journalist and advice columnist, E. Jean Carroll’s first-person account of the 21 most revolting scoundrels she ever met, including Donald Trump, who she alleges assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 23 years ago.
Yahoo Finance: The two top most read stories of the year on Yahoo’s Finance page was their report that Amazon will pay nothing in federal taxes for the second year in a row, followed by their survey of America’s favorite burgers.
ProPublica: ProPublica’s (a non-profit newsroom that aims to produce investigate journalism in the public’s interest) most viewed investigation of the year, was their shocking exposé about a Border Patrol Facebook Page in which members made derogatory and racist remarks about migrants, including a vulgar joke about a female representative in Congress.
The Marshall Project: The Marshall Project’s (an online journalism organization focusing on issues related to criminal justice in the U.S.) most viewed story of the year, was their sharp analysis over whether there is a connection between undocumented workers and crime, based on newly released data from the Pew Research Center.
FBI: The most viewed “story” on FBI.gov’s website this year was their article about American serial killer Samuel Little who claims to have killed 93 people, stretching back to 1987. The FBI was able to confirm his involvement with at least 50 murders, making the Georgia native the most prolific serial killer in United States history. The most visited “page’’ on FBI.gov for their year was their list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
New York Review of Books: The most viewed article at NYBooks.com was Fintan O’Toole’s (Irish columnist and literary critic of the Irish Times) profile on Boris Johnson, the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and arguably the most polarizing figure to have taken up residence at 10 Downing Street.
ESPN: The news that generated the most traffic to ESPN.com this year was the tragic death of Los Angeles pitcher Tyler Skaggs, who died while under the influence of fentanyl, oxycodone, and alcohol.
Of ESPN.com’s “original reporting”, the most viewed story was their exclusive on former NBA referee Tim Donaghy conspiring to fix games.
Bleacher Report: The most read story of the year at Bleacherreport.com was Tyler Dunne exposé, chronicling how the relationship between Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay became shattered beyond repair.
Weather Channel: Favorite Photos of 2019
--Bill Lucey
December 16, 2019
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