Political mudslinging, a blizzard, and terror in our own back yard. Many events shaped 2016 for people in New York, the Tri-State, and all Americans. David Ushery has more on the biggest stories of the year.
What to Know
- Point your telescope or binoculars to the west shortly after sunset Saturday; the comet should be to the left of the moon
- Comet 45P will swing back around the sun in February, offering an even brighter view
- NASA says 2017 should be a good year for comet viewing
The iconic Times Square ball with its 32,000 LED lights won't be the only thing lighting up the sky over the Crossroads of the World on New Year's Eve -- according to NASA, a comet might be visible as revelers ring in 2017.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages many of the agency's exploratory robotic missions, tweeted an image of the comet's previous tilt across the solar system from October 2011 with the message, "Say farewell to 2016 in cosmic style by looking up to see the #NewYearsEve #comet on December 31."
Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova returns to the inner solar system every half decade or so, NASA said.
The comet is visible now using a telescope or heavy duty binoculars, according to USA Today. On Saturday, anyone who wants a glimpse should angle their devices to the west shortly after sunset; the comet, a bluish-green body with a long tail, should be to the left of the moon, the website reported.
Comet 45P will swing back around the sun in February, offering an even brighter view.
Local
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nNeedless to say, the snowstorm brought the normally bustling region to a standstill, as subway service was curtailed, commuter trains brought to a halt and roads inundated snow. 17 people died in the storm and in its aftermath.
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nBut there was a touching story to come out of the tragedy, as well. The Rev. Ann Kansfield, an FDNY chaplain responding to the scene, saw a bride leaving a salon without a coat and offered to walk her six blocks to City Hall to get married. Then, when the officiant wasn't there, Kansfield married Nesh Pillay and her longtime boyfriend, Aaron Vanderoff.
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nThings kicked off in February, when former Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges; he was later sentenced to 46 months behind bars.n
nThen, several inquiries heated up in New York City. Investigators began looking into fundraising practices of Mayor de Blasio's nonprofit group, the Campaign for One New York. A separate investigation into the NYPD resulted in several arrests of officers accused of taking gifts and favors from influential businessmen who allegedly pulled strings on several occasions, once getting officers to shut down a lane of the Lincoln Tunnel so officers could escort a visiting businessman.n
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In August, federal prosecutors charged a man Gov. Cuomo once likened to a brother and a SUNY campus president with bribery and fraud. Joe Percoco and former SUNY Polytechnic Institute President Alain Kaloyeros were among several people accused of taking bribes to funnel contractors to a pair of high-tech government programs.
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nIn October, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, his wife and Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto were indicted on corruption-related counts. The indictment alleged the two elected officials took bribes from a restaurateur in exchange for town guarantees on loans, while Mangano's wife got a no-show job at the restaurant that paid her $450,000 as a "food-taster."
n51-year-old John Cramsey, who was arrested but had a daughter die from a drug overdose in February, later said that having the guns in the car an “oversight” and that he doesn’t regret his actions. He and his two accomplices pleaded not guilty to the charges, and their attorneys have called the search of the vehicle illegal.
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nGolden's family later told the I-Team they struggled with insurers for a prosthetic leg for three months.
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nPolice later said that she "fought ferociously" and that DNA was recovered from the scene, but there have yet to be any arrests in the case. And in December, Newsday obtained a forensic profile of the killer, which painted a picture of a man who visited the park regularly ahead of the killing who would have stopped going afterward.
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nVetrano's death came amid a rare outbreak of violence against runners across the country. Another New York City woman, Vanessa Marcotte, was killed while out for a jog near her mother's Massachusetts home just five days after Vetrano's death. And in July, Michigan runner Alexandra Nicollette Brueger was shot to death while jogging in Michigan.
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nAnd just like any Olympics, some athletes shined above the field in Rio. Simone Biles took home 4 gold medals in gymnastics and was listed among the finalists for Time's person of the year. Katie Ledecky likewise won four golds in the pool and blew away the field in the 800m freestyle race with the next closest finisher a staggering 11 seconds behind. And of course, Michael Phelps continued his historic run in the pool, winning five gold medals and one silver in what was likely his last games.n
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nThe tri-state was also well-represented in Rio, with several athletes from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut taking home medals. Most notably, New Jersey's Laurie Hernandez went to Wawa after her first gold medal.
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nThen, at 8:30 p.m. that day, a second device inside a dumpster went off on West 23rd Street in Manhattan's busy Chelsea neighborhoo, injuring 31 people. An hour-and-a-half after that, an undetonated pressure cooker bomb with a cellphone attached was discovered on West 27th Street.n
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nThat Monday, police found five more devices at a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Around that same time, police happened upon a man later identified as bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahimi, sleeping inside the doorway of a closed bar in Linden, New Jersey. Rahimi told police he was homeless before getting in a shootout in the rain with the officers.n
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nRahimi was seriously injured in the shooting, and spent several weeks in a hospital recovering. He was later charged with attempted murder in the shootout and faces federal terrorism counts for the bombings.
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nFahy had served in the department for 17 years and was on the force during the Sept. 11 attacks and was given a hero's send-off by his fellow firefighters. When suspect Julio Salcedo Contrer was arrested in the case, other firefighters waited in the rain outside a Bronx precinct to stare down the man they thought was responsible, jeering at the man and telling him to "burn in hell."
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nThe crash affected mass transit service between New York and New Jersey for weeks as crews gingerly extracated the train and made repairs to the damaged station. A black boxrevealed the train was traveling more than twice the speed limit as it plowed into the station.n
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nAn attorney for engineer Tommy Gallagher later said his client had undiagnosed sleep apnea, but had been cleared for duty in a physical in July.
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nFederal investigators haven't determined a cause for the crash, but said that the train began to accelerate shortly before the crash and the engineer only put on the brakes one second before impact. A full report could take a year or more.
First, police found the bodies of 15-year-old Nisa Mickens and 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas near one another on Sept. 13. The best friends had been hanging out on the eve of Mickens' 16th birthday when they were beaten, cut and left for dead near Stahley Street. Police said there was "strong indications" that gang members killed the teens.
Then, on Sept. 22, the bodies of Brentwood High School student Oscar Acosta, 19, and Miguel Garcia-Moran, 15, were found in the woods near Long Island Railroad tracks. Acosta had been missing since April; Garcia-Moran hadn't been seen since February, and authorities weren't able to identify his body until weeks after the discovery. Gang violence was again suspected in both students' death.
The body of Jose Pena-Hernandez, an 18-year-old who was a known member of the MS-13 stret gang, was found near a state-run psychiatric hospital in Brentwood on Oct. 20. The man hadn't been seen since June, but authorities said at the time that they were able to find his body by putting pressure on members of the gang.
As of December, no arrests have been made in any of the killings.
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nProsecutors in the case had argued that the pair were aware of a plot orchestrated by David Wildstein -- another Port Authority official who pleaded guilty and had helped the prosecution -- aimed at punishing the mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing Christie's re-election bid. Attorneys for Kelly and Baroni, meanwhile, maintained that they thought the closures were part of a legitimate traffic study and that they were tricked by Baroni.
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nBoth sides in the case were quick to point fingers at Christie, who had maintained that he didn't know anything about the closures. Not long after the trial, the governor -- who ran for the Republican presidential nomination but pulled out after a poor showing in the New Hampshire primary -- saw his approval flag to an all-time low. Perhaps coincidentally, the results of the trial also came just days before President-elect Donald Trump removed Christie -- once a presumptive cabinet pick -- from the top position of his transition team.n
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nBaroni and Kelly have vowed to appeal the verdict. Christie, meanwhile, will be investigated after a civilian filed a criminal complaint alleging that Christie didn't do anything to reopen the lanes on Sept. 9, 2013, after finding out they had been closed.
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nThe candidates finally sparred in their home state -- staging the first debate of the campaign at Long Island's Hofstra University. And later, on election day, both Clinton and Trump booked locations in Manhattan for their election-day parties. Clinton chose the Javits Center, which featured a glass ceiling she hoped would prove symbolic. Trump, meanwhile, eschewed one of the venues bearing his name for the Hilton on 53rd Street.
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nTrump struck a more conciliatory tone in his victory speech in a raucous convention hall at the New York Hilton Midtown hotel than during his campaign, promising that "the forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. We will all come together as never before." Clinton, meanwhile, waited until the day after the election to concede, wearing a purple-lapeled suit as she told little girls "never doubt that you are valuable" at the New Yorker Hotel, about half a mile from the site of her election night party at the Javits Center.n
nIn the weeks since the election, Trump has spent most of his time holed up in his eponymous East 56th Street tower, plotting out his transition to Washington and slowly announcing his picks for cabinet with Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who replaced New Jersey Gov. Christie as head of transition efforts. In the days that followed the election, demonstrators carrying "Love Trumps Hate" signs picketed outside Trump Tower, forcing police to maintain extra patrols outside the building and reroute traffic in one of the world's busiest intersections.
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nThere were other early bumps in the road for the president-elect, as well. His early pick of Breitbart editor Steve Bannon as a chief strategist was derided by opponents who viewed the media mogul as a white nationalist and anti-Semite. Other cabinet picks were also criticized. And the media cried foul when, a week after the election, he went to dinner at Manhattan's 21 Club without a protective press pool. Meanwhile, pro-Trump vandals in the tri-state and across the country scrawled hateful messages such as "Make America White Again" on walls and in yards -- despite Trump's call for vandals to "stop it" during a "60 Minutes" interview.
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nIt's a phrase that New Yorkers have wanted to hear for nearly 100 years, and 2016 could mark the year that it finally becomes a reality. After decades of false starts, delays, depression, recession and a World War all got in the way of the massive public works project, the the MTA seemed to be putting the final touches on the first section of the long-awaited line. The W train even came back in anticipation of the new line.n
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nAs of Dec. 16, the subway line hadn't opened, but Gov. Cuomo has promised to have the line open by the end of the year.
