The oil leak that seemed as if it would never end was finally plugged in July after three months of gushing, but not before almost 5 million bbl. of oil spilled into the Gulf. What began as an April drilling-rig explosion turned into weeks of environmental anxiety. After multiple attempts at blocking the leak, the wellhead was capped on July 15. In the end, it was the worst accidental spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The leak put an estimated 53,000 gal. of oil a day into the Gulf, and BP's estimated costs for the cleanup and compensation now sit at $40 billion.
With the founding of WikiLeaks.org, Julian Assange became a whistle-blower for the digital age. Previously, those wanting to unveil government secrets often had to go through the established media of the day (think Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers). But WikiLeaks has allowed Assange, along with virtually anybody else who gets his hands on classified material, to publish such files online for all to see. The biggest and most controversial release of documents came with the publication of the war logs from the Afghan and Iraq wars, which covered everything from Iraqi-prisoner abuse to Pakistan's dual role in Afghanistan to Iranian influence in the region. But that was before WikiLeaks released 251,287 secret U.S. State Department cables dealing with virtually every foreign policy hot spot around the world, leading some to allege that the documents dump weakened U.S. diplomacy. On Dec. 7, Assange was arrested by British police for alleged sex offenses, but he argues that the charges have been manufactured just to get him behind bars, where he can no longer release leaked materials.
The debate over health care reform dominated Washington for much of 2009 and continued into 2010. President Obama endlessly pushed for reform on the stump, on the Hill, in press briefings and even in a bipartisan health care summit. Likewise, the House and Senate debated the bill incessantly. And C-SPAN, the congressional TV station of record, was there to cover it all. Over the course of the debate, the network televised 266 hours of House proceedings (committee and floor hearings) and 475 hours of debate in the Senate. Although reform had looked dead at the beginning of the year, the Democratic leadership in both houses cobbled together enough votes for passage. In the end, President Obama more or less got what he wanted — an overhaul of the nation's health care system. But the victory cost the President and the Democratic Party politically in the 2010 midterms, as criticism of the bill helped put Republicans back in power in the House. The reform bill is now being challenged at almost every level of government, from governor's mansions to state houses to federal courts. Whether we'll see the same amount of C-SPAN programming next year regarding the repeal of health care reform has yet to be determined.
The images from Haiti's earthquake resonated around the world, triggering an outpouring of money and goodwill. But Pakistan's disastrous floods did not elicit the same feelings. Perhaps it's the country's history of supporting terrorism, its alleged harboring of Osama bin Laden, or its remote location in South Asia. But whatever the reason, donors hesitated to give the kinds of money it gave to Haiti. At one point an estimated one-fifth of the Pakistani population was under water. Flying over the scene of wrecked homes and mudslides, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he had never seen anything like it. An estimated 1,600 people died.
A few weeks after the floods, donors gave a little more than $16 per affected person to displaced Pakistanis. As the crisis developed, however, the international community began to contribute a bit more. Still, the aid gap was significant. According to the United Nations, in the first three months after each disaster, donors gave Haiti $996.72 per affected person while giving $96.80 per person to Pakistan.
The most devastated country in the Western hemisphere could not have had a more devastating year. The earthquake that struck in January destroyed a nation that had very little infrastructure to begin with, toppling schools, crushing roads and even ruining its presidential palace. The catastrophe led to a November outbreak of cholera that claimed more than 2,100 people and triggered protests by Haitians who accused the United Nations of bringing the disease inside their borders. But even with the world focused on the half-island nation for much of the first part of the year, aid organizations were still overwhelmed and much of the rubble from the quake still sits on Haiti's streets.
It was the costliest campaign in the history of U.S. elections. And it failed. Former eBay chairman Meg Whitman used $140 million of her own money in an attempt to become governor of California, surpassing the previous mark of $108 million set by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his victorious 2009 re-election campaign. But Whitman came up short, losing to Jerry Brown in November. The revelation that she had employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper while attempting to portray herself as tough on immigration certainly didn't help.
Economic anxiety often pushes people to invest in commodities they believe to be more stable than traditional stocks or retirement funds. When the economic crisis turned into a global downturn in 2009 and remained one in 2010, many who feared a mix of everything from inflation to deflation to plunging currencies looked to gold for protection. Those fears, driven home by the likes of Fox News' Glenn Beck (who is a spokesman for Goldline) pushed the metal to its highest ever price per ounce on Oct. 14. Adjusted for inflation, gold is still not as pricey as it was in the early 1980s. But the depth of the crisis showed itself in the clamor for the commodity; when the world's major economies inevitably get back on their feet, the buying of gold will almost surely wane.
James Cameron literally reinvented the way Hollywood makes movies in late 2009 when he released Avatar, a film more than a decade in the making. Just as important, he changed the way we watch movies. The stunning visuals of his 3-D extravaganza mesmerized moviegoers and raked in close to $3 billion worldwide. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It also unleashed an endless number of 3-D movies (some stunning, though the ones not actually filmed in 3-D were often disappointing) and stirred interest in the possibilities of three-dimensional viewing at home. Avatar now holds the U.S. and global box-office records, having surpassed Cameron's Titanic.
Can we buy happiness? According to a study released this year, yes, we can, and it costs $75,000. The study, by economist Angus Deaton and psychologist and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, analyzed Gallup surveys of Americans regarding their day-to-day contentment (basically, how you're feeling about your day) and overall life assessment (a deeper satisfaction with where your life's headed). It showed that $75,000 is the magic annual salary. But any earnings beyond that, according to the study's authors, have no effect on well-being.
Print has reigned for centuries. But the end of this decade may prove to be the beginning of an era for digital books. With the emergence of Amazon's Kindle in 2007, e-books have taken off, most notably in 2010. The Kindle spurred a number of rival platforms, as well as the iPad, and e-books now account for almost 10% of U.S. consumer book sales, according to the Association of American Publishers. The shift from print to e-ink has forced large book chain Barnes & Noble to not only shut a number of stores but also release its own reader, the Nook. The e-book revolution, it seems, has only
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