With only two weeks left in 2007, the year is ending on a sour note, with our national pastime stained with evidence of widespread steroid use and performance enhancing drugs, when the Mitchell report, issued on Thursday, listed 89 players as steroid users; 22 were former and current New York Yankees, including Roger Clemens and Andy Petitte. One glimmer of hope, though, was fans taking comfort in knowing that no players from the 2007 World Championship team, the Boston Red Sox, were named in the report 
        Not even the NFL was spared suspicions of cheating in 2007. The New England Patriots (14-0), two games away from being the first team to go undefeated since the 1972 Miami Dolphins, were charged with spying, after their season opener, when a Patriots employee was caught filming New York Jets defensive coaches signaling plays, a malfeasance that resulted in the loss of the Pats’ number one draft choice for next season, and a team fine of $250,000, putting a blemish on their undefeated season.
        Another scandal in the NFL, this one off the field, and much more repugnant, involved Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons charged, along with three others, with engaging in dogfighting, a felony in 48 states, resulting in the Falcons field general being sentenced to serve 23 months in federal prison for participating in an illegal dogfighting operation.
        The year was mostly noted for the U.S. presidential campaign, getting into full swing, as a swarm of Democratic and Republican candidates took to the campaign trail and wrestled with such contentious issues as immigration, health care reform, social security, and the future of Iraq. And speaking of Iraq, opponents of the war, during the year, butted heads with supporters of President’s Bush’s decision to put into operation a surge of ground forces in Iraq. Despite skepticism of  the administration’s Iraqi policy, and the president’s standing in public opinion polls dipping to historic lows, the case for the ``surge’’ was helped, in part, by the findings of a report issued by Gen David H. Petraeus, which showed the United States armed forces was meeting its objectives in Iraq, supported by data showing car bombs, suicide attacks, and civilian casualties, being reduced significantly since the end of  2006. Still, the United States was dealt a fresh embarrassment in Iraq, when reports surfaced in October that guards from a U.S. security firm, Blackwater USA, opened fire on Iraq civilians without provocation in which 14 people were killed, including 18 wounded.
        Mass violence wasn’t only being reported in the provinces of Iraq; a shocking tale took place on American soil in August, when Seung-Hui Cho, a student at Virginia Tech, went on a shooting rampage, one of the deadliest in U.S. history, leaving 33 dead.
         The U.S. Supreme Court may not have been kind to Al Gore in 2000, when he lost his bid for the presidency, but in 2007, the former V.P’s.decision to share his global warming slide show with the world- paid huge dividends: earning him an Oscar, an Emmy, and Nobel Peace Prize, for his documentary  ``An Inconvenient Truth.’’
         While consumers prepared for the rush of the Christmas season; caution on which toys to buy for children was on high alert, soon after the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced 4.2 million Chinese-made toys were being recalled, following reports that children swallowing Aqua Dots had slipped into comas.
         Hollywood socialite Paris Hilton was in the news again in 2007, but it had nothing to do with her struts down the catwalk, her reality show, or pictures of her arm-in- arm with her latest boy toy, but instead, centered on the leggy blonde being sent to prison for violating her probation in a reckless driving case. Nearly 12 million viewers saw HBO’s epic drama, the Sopranos fade to black after six superb seasons, and a less than superb finale; while the Writer’s Guild of America took to the streets in their first strike since 1988.
         2007 ended with a change of residence for Joe Torre, who departed the Bronx as skipper of the New York Yankees after 12 seasons, moving to the west coast to manage the L.A. Dodgers; and Tony Blair departed No. 10 Downing Street after 10 years as Britain’s prime minister, when he tendered his resignation to the Queen.
         Finally, the opera world, suffered two major losses this year, when the ``King of the High Cs’’ Luciano Pavarotti; and Brooklyn born diva, Beverly Sills passed away.

     That’s a quick snapshot of the year in news. But hardly all the major stories that took place in 2007. So the Morning Delivery decided to survey other popular news sites and blogs, to find out which story was their most popular of the year, or drove the most traffic to their websites.
     Here, then, are a few responses that came back to us in an email.

1.) The Washington Post: The Virginia Tech Story(drove the most traffic on their website for the year)

2.) One of the most popular stories for the year on The New York Daily News website was when they reported the Rev. Al Sharpton was a descendent of the late South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond.
Here are a few excerpts from the original story, which appeared on February 25, 2007

``Today, in the first part of a Daily News series, Sharpton talks about the emotional shock of learning how his family was so closely linked to a man who embodied everything he despises.''

``They found incontrovertible data that the woman who owned Sharpton's great-grandfather was related to Sen. Thurmond, a champion of segregation..."The family that owned my great-grandfather was related to Strom Thurmond's family?" Sharpton said. "Now that's amazing''

NOTE: (The original online version of the story is not available through the Daily News' website)

3.)  The Village Voice:
Number one news story:``Rudy's Ties to a Terror Sheikh’’ (Rudy Giuliani's business contracts tie him to the man who let 9/11's mastermind escape the FBI, By Wayne Barrett).
 
Number one Arts story:``Hot Hot Heat’’’ (A graphical dissertation on the number one song in America, By Rob Harvilla).

4. One of the most popular sites on the Politico website for 2007 was Ben Smith’s exclusive on Rudy Giuliani billing city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars, while Mayor of New York.

5.) The second most popular story on ESPN's website for 2007, after  ``Who's Now: Determine the Ultimate Sports Star'' (a week long tournament feature that required voting), was the `` 2007-08 Bowl schedule, in which ESPN.com breaks it down for readers.
 
6.) MediaBistro had a post that generated 400,000 hits, when CNN displayed the wrong graphic on the air in May, which reads``Bush resigns’’

7.)   Jossip (popular entertainment blog); two stories that generated the most feed back were a Facebook survey; and  a Page Six investigation.

8.)   Times Literary Supplement (TLS)  Richard Dawkins review of Christopher Hitchens: ``GOD IS NOT GREAT’’drove the most traffic to their website in 2007

-Bill Lucey
billlucey@bellsouth.net