Top News Stories: #1 Election 2012
The 2012 election the most searched news topic on allfamousthings.blogspot.com! dominated news coverage and online conversation this year. Voters may have complained about the negative campaigning, but they heavily followed local, state and national races. On Nov. 6, citizens set their own records: The "youth" vote (ages 18 to 29) turned out in the same numbers as in 2008, in higher proportion than seniors, and may have helped to decide the election in swing states. The gender gap was the greatest in history. More Latinos than ever before registered, Across the nation, early voting surged. President Barack Obama beat Republican challenger Mitt Romney to win a second term, winning 332 electoral votes to Romney's 206.
Top News Stories: #2 Whitney Houston
Legendary singer and actress Whitney Houston was found dead on Feb. 11 in a Beverly Hills hotel. Tragically, the singer had just
talked about overcoming her much-publicized struggle with drugs and
alcohol. The movie in which she made her big-screen comeback, "Sparkle,"
was released after her death. Her funeral was attended by celebrities
and dignitaries and broadcast to millions around the world. News of Houston's death quickly
spread through social media sites. Mediabistro noted the following: "On
Twitter, hashtags related to Houston and her name itself dominated the
trending topics. YouTube's News channel featured her videos. Fan pages were created on Facebook."
Top News Stories: #3 Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy crashed into the Eastern Seaboard on Oct. 29, killing at least 128 people and leaving more than $71 billion worth of destruction in its wake.Sandy was dubbed a superstorm as it continued its progression over the East Coast.
The torrential wind and rain knocked out power to some parts of New
York City, leaving homes and businesses in the dark for days and
blacking out half the nighttime skyline of Manhattan.
Top News Stories: #4 Gas prices
As politicians offered their positions on the economy (or, at least, who was to blame for its slow recovery), voters kept a wary eye on gas prices. By December,
prices at the pump dropped slightly, and the month began with a
national average of $3.40. Even if that marked a month-over-month
decline, it continued the streak of highest-on-record days that began in
late August.
Top News Stories: #5 Trayvon Martin case
A chance-encounter killing caught the country's attention when George Zimmerman,
a neighborhood watch volunteer, allegedly followed 17-year-old Trayvon
Martin, a black teenager in a hooded sweatshirt, walking in a gated
community in Sanford, Fla.
After a call to a 911 operator, who advised Zimmerman to wait for
police, he instead confronted the unarmed teen. Within minutes, Trayvon was dead. A charge might not have been filed, but Trayvon's parents made the case public by filing a petition through Change.org, asking that charges be brought. Many showed support for Trayvon by wearing hoodies over their heads. Others organized a Million Hoodie March. Emerging from this incident was the debate over the "stand your ground"
defense, which allows a person to defend himself with lethal force
anywhere it's legal for that person to be. Zimmerman was charged with
second-degree murder, but the case has been marked by conflicting
reports of the encounter between Zimmerman and Trayvon. The trial for
Zimmerman is set for June 10, 2013.
Top News Stories: #6 Colorado shooting
Spree killings are rare, and yet 2012 witnessed a surge of them, from the Oikos University massacre in Oakland, Calif., to the Sikh temple killings in Oak Creek, Wis. Among them was the Aurora, Colo., shooting,
one of the worst massacres since Columbine. Confusion and chaos reigned
on July 20, when an early showing of the Batman movie "The Dark Knight
Rises" turned deadly. The gunman fired rounds of bullets in the theater,
killing 12 people and wounding 58. The criminal case against the
suspect, James Holmes, is in a preliminary stage with no trial date set.
Top News Stories: #7 Jerry Sandusky trial
Top News Stories: #7 Jerry Sandusky trial
Several high-profile cases of child molestation came to light in 2012. In one case, a high-ranking Catholic cleric was given a prison sentence for turning a blind eye to priests' abuse (in a prelude to the trial of the alleged molesters). And the Boy Scouts were ordered to release hundreds of so-called perversion files.
The most notorious event was the trial of Jerry Sandusky on charges that he abused young men and boys while an assistant coach for the Nittany Lions. Also facing judgment was the legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who failed to act on reports of the abuse. The university quietly removed a statue of Paterno from campus and Nike rechristened a childhood development center named after the coach. Penn State's storied football program was stripped of many football victories
because of the school's improper handling of reports of Sandusky's
abuse. Sandusky, who denied the charges throughout his trial, was
sentenced to 442 years in prison.
Top News Stories: #8 Joran van der Sloot
On Jan. 13, the Dutch citizen Joran van der Sloot was sentenced to 28 years in prison after pleading guilty to the 2010 robbery and murder of Stephany Tatiana Flores Ramirez, a 21-year-old Peruvian woman he had met in Lima. Van der Sloot has been a suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in 2005 in Aruba.
Top News Stories: #9 Connecticut school shootings
Top News Stories: #9 Connecticut school shootings
On Dec. 14, a spree shooting left 28 dead in the Connecticut town of Newtown.
America had already been roiled by eight rampages in 2012 among them the shootings at Oikos University in Oakland,
Calif., (7 dead); the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., (12 dead); and
the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., (6 dead). The horror in
Newtown—which saw its last homicide in 1984—unfolded among its most
vulnerable residents. The gunman, Adam Lanza, shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, in her bed. With his mother's guns—a Glock, a Sig Sauer and a semiautomatic .223 Bushmaster—Lanza then headed to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where his mother is said to have volunteered and where he had once briefly attended. There, he allegedly shot 20 children and six adults, then killed himself after police arrived. The investigation into his motives has surfaced questions about his
mental capacity (Lanza was reportedly a genius diagnosed with Asperger
syndrome) and his motives (rumors are surfacing about his mother's possible intention to move him elsewhere). Debate about gun control flared again, and President Barack Obama has appointed Vice President Joe Biden to look into the issue.
The more paramount concern in Newtown—and across the United States—was
mourning the lost and honoring last heroic acts. The names and ages of Sandy Hook's dead: Charlotte Bacon (6), Daniel Barden
(7), Rachel Davino (29), Olivia Engel (6), Josephine Gay (7), Ana M
Marquez-Greene (6), Dylan Hockley (6), Dawn Hochsprung (47), Madeline F.
Hsu (6), Catherine V. Hubbard (6), Chase Kowalski (7), Jesse Lewis (6),
James Mattioli (6), Grace McDonnell (7), Anne Marie Murphy (52), Emilie
Parker (6), Jack Pinto (6), Noah Pozner (6), Caroline Previdi (6),
Jessica Rekos (6), Avielle Richman (6), Lauren Rousseau (30), Mary
Sherlach (56), Victoria Soto (27), Benjamin Wheeler (6), Allison N Wyatt
(6).
Top News Stories: #10 Miami cannibal attack
A series of bizarre killings, led by the so-called Miami cannibal attack on May 26, triggered an outbreak of searches such as "zombie apocalypse." The story of Ronald Poppo,
a South Florida homeless man, generated lurid attention for days
because his attacker, Rudy Eugene, was nude when he attacked Poppo by
chewing off much of his face. A police officer shot and killed Eugene, and no motive has surfaced.
Speculation ran high that inexpensive synthetic drugs, or "bath salts," were involved, but an autopsy revealed that was not the case. Poppo shockingly survived and has even given interviews about his attack, telling a Miami TV station, "He just ripped me to ribbons."
No comments:
Post a Comment