Ranking 2014’s top stories
Jim Fall
It fell my lot this week to be the program guy for the Maryville group known as the Men’s Forum, an august group of, shall we say, “elderly gentlemen” who gather every Tuesday at the Maryville Community Center for lunch and a normally interesting program.
It has fallen my lot to be in charge of the “entertainment” for January and, therefore, was in charge of the program for Tuesday, Jan. 6.
Being somewhat interested in news events through my lifetime career and my most recent association with the Maryville Daily Forum, I decided to forego pulling in some unsuspecting soul to speak for the biggest part of a half hour in favor of a roundup of the Top 10 Stories of 2014 in the United States and the world, in Missouri, and in Maryville and Nodaway County.
Three tidy lists, one or more of which should be of at least some interest to most of the regular attendees.
First, however, let me ask the same question I posed to those gathered for Tuesday’s lunch:
What were the top two stories of 2013?
Give up?
The rollout of “Obamacare” and the Boston Marathon bombing. How soon we forget.
In inverse order, the Top 10 for 2014, as selected by Associated Press editors nationwide, includes:
10. The Veterans Administration scandal
9. Gay marriage — now legal in 35 states, encompassing 60 percent of the nation’s population
8. Turmoil in Ukraine
7. U.S. immigration situation
6. Malaysia Airlines disappearance
5. Obamacare
4. The U.S. elections, which put the Republican Party firmly in control of Congress, and gave them 31 governorships
3. The emergence of the Islamic State
2. The ebola outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea …
… and 1. Police killings in New York City and Ferguson.
The top story in Missouri is an easy determination after the top national story — the Michael Brown slaying in Ferguson and the subsequent riots and looting after a grand jury declined to indict former officer, Darren Wilson
2. A state judge’s overturning of the state’s constitutional ban on gay marriage
3.Execution of 10 inmates
4. The Kansas City Royals advance to final game of World Series before losing to the San Francisco Giants
5. The GOP landslide in November elections
6. Lawmakers enact one of nation’s longest waiting periods for abortions
7. State income tax reductions
8. Expansion of the potential for teachers to carry concealed weapons
9. Dismissal of murder charges against Mark Woodworth of Chillicothe
10. A Southwest Airlines plane with 124 passengers on board headed for Branson from Chicago Midway landed instead at the Taney County airport, seven miles away.
The Top 10 stories of 2014 from Maryville and Nodaway County are currently appearing in the Daily Forum, so I’ll skip that segment of the talk here.
Could you have passed a current events test?
