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2016 Year in Review: Highlights and heartbreaks

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2016 was a year of surprises: President-elect Donald Trump, Nobel laureate Bob Dylan, the end of Angelina and Brad (or was that one inevitable?).

We were hacked by the Russians, panicked by Zika and horrified by shootings across the country. After the November election, adult Californians could smoke marijuana -- legally. We said goodbye to Kobe and Vin, binge-watched, rocked out to “Old-Chella” and signed up for the Tesla 3.

Beyoncé and “Hamilton” ruled.

So, yes, it was a big year. And we’d like to suggest that you take some time to recall the biggest stories of 2016 -- if only to prepare for the cacophony that undoubtedly will erupt in 2017.

Our 15 favorite recipes of 2016

A great recipe is something you can carry with you, from kitchen to kitchen, pulling out when you need it. So adding to your collection is not only fun — something new to make for dinner — but as useful as new pairs of Italian shoes.

Every year, we pick our favorite recipes from the last 12 months, recipes that we’ve tested, sometimes more than a few times, in the Los Angeles Times Test Kitchen, to get them just right.

Here are our favorite recipes from 2016, in no particular order. We hope your own recipe box just got a little bigger.

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Debbie Reynolds dies

My life has just spun along, sort of like a wheel on a car that somebody else is driving. I’ve just gone with it.

Actress Debbie Reynolds sang and danced her way into film history opposite Gene Kelly in the classic 1952 musical “Singin’ in the Rain,” a movie that helped turn her into a sweetheart of American film. She was 84.

Her death came just a day after her daughter, Carrie Fisher, died at the age of 60.

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Carrie Fisher dies

Actress and writer Carrie Fisher, who rose to global fame as the trailblazing intergalactic heroine Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” franchise and later went on to establish herself as an author and screenwriter with an acerbic comic flair, died at age 60.

I remember the first time it was weird to me was when someone wanted to thank me because they’d become a lawyer because of me. The main thing they said is that they identified with me. I felt like that was somebody that could be heroic without being a superhero and be relatable.

She was the child of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher and had the rare distinction of making the front page of the L.A. Times before she was even born.

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George Michael dies at 53

(Matt Sayles / Associated Press)

I got thrown out of choir, but that didn’t stop me from telling everyone I was going to be a famous pop star.

George Michael, the English singer-songwriter who shot to stardom in the 1980s as half of the pop duo Wham!, went on to become one of the era’s biggest pop solo artists with hits such as “Faith” and “I Want Your Sex.” He was 53.

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California ballot proposition campaigns rake in a record $473 million

This year’s crop of state propositions, the most appearing on a California ballot in 16 years, has attracted campaign contributions of $473 million, a record.

On average, more than $1.5 million was raised every day to influence the outcome of propositions.

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Farmworkers win overtime

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Gov. Jerry Brown signed historic legislation that will gradually add hundreds of thousands of California farmworkers to the ranks of those who are paid overtime after eight hours on the job or 40 hours in a single week.

Leaders of the United Farm Workers of America, which sponsored the overtime bill, called Brown’s decision a victory in a nearly 80-year quest to establish broad rights and protections for farm laborers. But the move shocked the agricultural community, which lobbied heavily against its provisions, saying the new law would hurt a valuable state industry already on the decline.

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Gov. Brown signs sweeping California climate change law

Legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday requires the state to slash greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, a much more ambitious target than the previous goal of hitting 1990 levels by 2020.

Cutting emissions will affect nearly all aspects of life in the state — where people live, how they get to work, how their food is produced and where their electricity comes from.

“What we’re doing here is farsighted, as well as far-reaching,” Gov. Jerry Brown said at the bill’s signing ceremony.

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American Independent Party ... oops

With nearly half a million registered members, the American Independent Party is bigger than all of California’s other minor parties combined. The ultraconservative party’s platform opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage, and calls for building a fence along the entire United States border.

Based in the Solano County home of one of its leaders, the AIP bills itself as “the Fastest Growing Political Party in California.”

But a Times investigation found that a majority of its members registered with the party in error. Nearly 3 in 4 people did not realize they had joined the party, a survey of registered AIP voters conducted for The Times found.

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Death row and the death penalty

In November, California voters narrowly approved Proposition 66, which speeds up the legal process leading to an execution. The California Supreme Court blocked that measure weeks later in order to take time to consider a lawsuit challenging it. Voters had rejected another death penalty measure on the same ballot, Proposition 62, which would have ended the state’s death penalty and changed sentences to life without parole. The state hasn’t executed a prisoner in a decade. Thirteen men have been put to death since the death penalty was restored here in 1978.

Here’s a look at the 728 men and 21 women on death row.

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Kamala Harris becomes first Indian American senator, and California’s first black senator

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

On election day, California voters chose Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, to the U.S. Senate, tearing down a color barrier that has stood for as long as California has been a state.

In January, Harris, who is currently California’s attorney general, will become only the second black woman in the nation’s history to serve in Congress’ upper chamber.

She was the favored candidate of California’s Democratic Party from the start of a campaign that was the first big test of California’s top-two primary system. She ran against longtime Orange County Rep. Linda Sanchez, another Democrat, but Harris started out ahead in polls and stayed there.

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California gets highest minimum wage in the country

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

California’s law, passed the same day as New York’s similar minimum wage law, is expected to benefit millions of workers. It will raise the base wage over the next six years, reaching $15 an hour by 2022.

“This is the work of many hands, and many minds and many hearts,” Gov. Jerry Brown said as he was signing the law.

Despite the fact that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed his state’s $15 minimum wage law a few hours before Brown did, California is still “the first in the nation, period,” Senate Pro Tem Kevin De León told reporters.

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L.A.’s downtown building boom

It reminds me of what’s happening in Beijing and Shanghai. Now it’s happening here.

— Winston Yan

The big real estate story in Los Angeles in 2016 was downtown’s incredibly resilient building boom, highlighted by the infusion of Chinese money and plans to build towering developments in the Arts District.

In September, an Orange County developer announced a massive mixed-use complex, rendering pictured, with twin towers soaring 58 stories that would dramatically remake the low-slung Arts District.

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The robot cars are coming

(Tony Avelar / Associated Press)

We are going to see a wave and an acceleration in automation, and it will affect job markets.

— Jerry Kaplan, Stanford lecturer

Car makers and ride-hailing companies are racing to develop autonomous vehicles, and that includes big-rig trucks. In September — the same month that Uber introduced a small fleet of self-driving vehicles in Pittsburgh — the Department of Transportation issued far-reaching guidelines that pave the way for self-driving cars to hit the roads without much red tape.

Long-haul truck driving is a great example, where there isn’t much judgment involved and it’s a fairly controlled environment

— Kaplan

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Reporting on California’s coast

(Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Columnist Steve Lopez and a team of reporters probed the state Costal Commission, the agency charged with protecting one of California’s most precious resources: Its epic coastline. They found the forces of development were gaining a foothold at a time when the coast’s ecology and access were under siege. In February, the commission fired its executive director, over the objections of hundreds of supporters. In the summer, the agency found itself defending some of its previous decisions in court. Later in the year, development interests helped defeat two bills designed to improve transparency at the powerful California Coastal Commission.

The Coastal Commission will have a new director soon, a new chair and at least two new commissioners, and we need to watch closely because what’s at stake is the greatest 1,100-mile coast in the world.

— Steve Lopez

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The debate over public release of police videos

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

They can’t just leave it to their discretion to release video if it exonerates officers and withhold it if it’s incriminating.

— Peter Bibring, ACLU

Once you open that Pandora’s box, who’s going to decide what’s going to be released?

— Craig Lally, Police Protective League

Police departments nationwide, lead by the LAPD, moved to equip officers with body cameras to offer a better view of how they do their jobs. But there was much debate about whether those videos should become public. Most police officials oppose public release of the videos. But when faced with controversial shootings, police in Fresno and El Cajon did release them.

In October, the Los Angeles Police Commission voted to require the LAPD to expand its real-world, role-playing training for officers, ensure that police who fire their guns receive more support, and collect feedback from residents on whether video from police shootings should become public.

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An explosion of growth in the Arts District

Downtown Los Angeles’ axis shifted east as the Arts District on the edge of the L.A. River became a focal point for more development and buzz. The trendy district got a bunch of new shops, galleries and eateries (even Warner Music is moving its offices there). But the big news was a series of mega-projects that will bring high-rise towers and offices there.

In September, noted European architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron announced it is working on a massive development at 6th and Alameda streets. Crowned by a pair of residential towers, it would fill an entire city block. In December, another high-design megaproject — two connected buildings with office space, apartments, hotels and shops — was pitched for the Arts District, this time right alongside the Los Angeles River.

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L.A.’s homeless crisis

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Southern California’s homeless crisis became impossible to ignore in 2016. It stretched from the misery of skid row to the Santa Ana River in Orange County and even the cliffs of Pacific Palisades. But the year also brought decisive action: In November, voters passed bonds to build more housing, and officials agreed on plans to provide homeless services at the veterans’ facility in Westwood.

We believe that there is a whole class of people out on the streets that can be made to be self-sufficient.

— Kevin Murray, Weingart Center

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The end of ‘locals only’?

(Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)

Surfers have long known about the Bay Boys, a “gang” accused of harassing outsiders who want to surf or just hang out on some beaches on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. This year, officials finally took action, and by early December, the “fort” structure that was for decades a symbol of the gang’s power was dismantled. There’s also been a class-action suit filed. But some wonder if the gang is really gone.

This is great. I’ve had rocks thrown at me and been intimidated twice … I never surfed the bay because of it.

— Surfer from Redondo Beach

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The Return of O.J. Simpson

The trial of the last century was revived in February with Ryan Murphy’s star-studded FX series “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson,” which enthralled audiences, critics and, later in the year, Emmy voters and gave new meaning to the term “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.”

Months later, Ezra Edelman’s amazingly ambitious documentary “O.J.: Made in America” debuted in theaters before moving to ABC and ESPN, making it the first television docu-series with real Oscar hopes. Meanwhile, the man himself remains just another number in the Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada.

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Winter came, and it was good

While George R.R. Martin continued working on his long-awaited sixth book in the series, HBO’s “Game of Thrones” roared on (Season 6 concluded in June), racking up record audiences and breaking Emmy records. The only question is, how will any show hope to replace it?

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Presidential campaign as reality TV

(Victoria Will / Invision/Associated Press)

Crowded with contentious candidates, the Republican debates raised the television profile, and profitability of politics in 2015 and continued into the new year as a ratings bonanza. Consider:

-- Megyn Kelly became a breakout star, turning her accusations of harassment by Donald Trump after an early showdown into a TV special and a memoir.

-- Increasingly, debate moderators drew more criticism than the candidates.

-- The release of an “Access Hollywood” tape on which Trump obscenely boasted about his ability to kiss women and grope their genitals with impunity because he is a celebrity left Billy Bush out of a job and “Apprentice” producer Mark Burnett under siege but in the end had no effect on the campaign.

-- In an election night that will go down in history, Trump’s surprising victory left TV anchors and late night hosts literally dumbstruck.

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Nate Parker and ‘The Birth of a Nation’

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Since Nate Parker’s story was revealed to me, I have found myself in a state of stomach-churning confusion.

— Gabrielle Union

In January, Nate Parker was the darling of the Sundance Film Festival. His film, “The Birth of a Nation,” which he wrote, directed and starred in, was acquired for a record-breaking $17.5 million and seemed fast-tracked to Oscar glory.

But what seemed a ready-made answer to the #Oscarssowhite issue soon morphed into scandal when accounts of his 1999 trial, and eventual acquittal, for rape resurfaced. Responding to the news that his accuser, a Penn State classmate, had committed suicide in 2012, Parker published a statement on Facebook, saying he was “filled with profound sorrow,” which prompted more headlines, as defenders and detractors continued to speak out. Some screenings of the film were canceled.

While “Nation” co-star Gabrielle Union shared her thoughts in an eloquent Op-Ed for The Times, Parker began deflecting questions in the weeks leading up to the film’s October opening. In the end, “Birth of a Nation” became the next big thing that wasn’t.

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‘Nebraska’ meets Trump Tower

Hillary’s candidacy is based on intelligence, experience, preparation and on an actual vision of an America where everyone counts.

— Bruce Springsteen

(Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

For decades, Bruce Springsteen has been the voice of the working man. He was also, during this presidential race, a outspoken supporter of Hillary Clinton, a preference many of his fans did not share. A visit to the Rust Belt illuminated the gap between art and reality. “Many of the machinists, miners and laborers who embody Springsteen’s lyrics... have turned to the swagger of Donald Trump in a long-denied bid for redemption,” Jeffrey Fleishman wrote, showing it is indeed possible to love both the Boss and the Donald.

Springsteen sang about hardship and misery, and it hasn’t gotten any better. We haven’t had the uplift I would have hoped for. Trump wants to make America great again. I guess everyone gets on their milk crate and makes promises. He’s worth a try.

— Bill Slanina, Youngstown resident

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And in celebrity news ….

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

That noise you heard coming from Hollywood in 2016? It was the sound of the space-time continuum being shredded as the impossible became celebrities’ reality.

Cases in point: Brangelina broke up. Kim Kardashian dropped off social media. Donald Trump won the election.

Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from Brad Pitt, breaking the hearts of those who want to believe that some Hollywood romances are destined to live forever. In the meantime, Amber Heard and Johnny Depp settled a rancorous divorce battle; a judge finalized the Lamar Odom-Khloe Kardashian divorce; Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne separated and reconciled; and Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston called it quits.

The presidential election ensured that some of Hollywood’s biggest names were out on the campaign trail or making TV appearances. Beyonce made a surprise appearance at a concert held to support Hillary Clinton. Katy Perry stumped for the Democratic candidate in Philadelphia, and Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi joined a Clinton rally at Independence Hall. Donald Trump’s celebrity supporters included Ted Nugent, Kid Rock, Stephen Baldwin, James Woods and Clint Eastwood.

But wait, there’s more: Leslie Jones was the victim of a cyberattack. Kim Kardashian disappeared from public view after she was held at gunpoint during a robbery in Paris. Kanye West had an apparent breakdown, and two weeks after his release from the hospital, he met with Trump for a chat and a photo opp.

Bottom line? Hollywood’s recovery from 2016 is far from assured.

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More notable deaths

Browse more notable deaths of 2016.

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Every shot Kobe Bryant ever took. All 30,699 of them

Kobe Bryant’s 30,699th and final field goal came from 19 feet with 31 seconds left against the Utah Jazz. During his 20 years with the Lakers, he fired up more than 30,000 shots, including the regular season and playoffs.

Take a tour of key shots over his 20-year career, or explore the makes and misses over his long career on your own.

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A Tragic Night in Berlin

(Tobias Schwarz / AFP/Getty Images)

At least a dozen people are killed and scores are injured when a 40-ton truck from Poland crashes into an outdoor Christmas market in Berlin. Police say the truck was intentionally driven into the crowd in what they are investigating as a suspected terror attack.

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Is it really over in Aleppo?

(George Ourfalian / AFP/Getty Images)

Military operations in eastern Aleppo have concluded.

— Vitaly Churkin, Russian ambassador to the U.N.

For more than four years, a battle between government and rebel forces has raged in Aleppo, which was once a city of 3 million people and the industrial and financial heart of Syria. The siege that has laid waste to much of Aleppo seemingly came to an end this month, with the last remaining rebels agreeing to leave. The cease-fire deal between rebels and the Syrian government stalled.at first, but then a carefully choreographed mass evacuation got under way, and residents long gone from the embattled city began returning to its ruins.

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South Korea’s president is impeached

(Ed Jones / AFP/Getty Images)

As the daughter of a one-time military dictator, South Korea’s Park Gyun-hye brought a certain amount of baggage with her to the country’s presidency. But few could have predicted the way in which her past would catch up with her. In early December, Park was impeached for, among other things, providing classified information to a close friend who was allegedly extorting huge donations from major corporations.

Park, who is South Korea’s first female president, has not yet been permanently removed from office. But with her approval ratings close to zero, it’s hard to imagine her bouncing back.

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An Assassination in Ankara

You will not taste security until our towns are secure! Do not forget about Syria and Aleppo!  Whoever is part of it will get their punishment!

— Turkish police officer who killed Russia’s ambassador

The video is chilling: Russia’s ambassador to Turkey is speaking at a photo exhibition in Ankara when shots ring out and he slumps to the ground. “We die in Aleppo, you die here!” the shooter yells before firing several shots into the air. Security forces would eventually gun down the assailant, a 22-year-old off-duty riot policeman, after what appears to be the latest violent incident in Turkey over the complex conflict in Syria.

There can only be one response — stepping up the fight against terrorism.

— Russian President Vladimir Putin

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John Glenn

It’s been a long day but it has been very interesting.

— Glenn, after returning to Earth

(Harvey Georges / Associated Press)

In his first historic flight, Glenn circled Earth for nearly five hours in a tiny spaceship on Feb. 20, 1962, the first American to orbit the planet. When he returned to space in 1998, his voyage did nearly as much to revive interest in America’s space program as his first pioneering voyage had to ignite the country’s fascination with space exploration. He was 95.

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Alan Thicke

I’m not doing anything Jack Nicholson turned down. Any part that required a character distanced from myself would have been a reach. But the one thing I’ve always done well at, and I’m most devoted to, is my children.

— Thicke

Actor Alan Thicke, best known for helping set a template for parenting ideals in the ’80s sitcom “Growing Pains,” suffered a heart attack while playing hockey with his son Carter. He was 69.

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The tragedy of the Ghost Ship

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

The deadliest fire in modern California history was the story of many things: How soaring rents push people into substandard housing, the gaps in the way cities inspect buildings illegally converted into housing and the underground electronic music scene that drew many Ghost Ship victims to their deaths. But it’s also the story of 36 young lives cut short.

The building was full of … driftwood and nails sticking out everywhere. There was no code. When you stepped on it, the whole thing jiggled all over the place.

— Danielle Boudreaux, former Ghost Ship resident

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On the Northern Plains, a battle over fossil fuels

(Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times)

A broad river valley in North Dakota became the scene of the highest-profile environmental fight of the year: the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s effort to block construction of a $3.8-billion oil pipeline under a reservoir on the Missouri River — the source of the tribe’s drinking water supply.

Environmental activists and nearly 2,000 military veterans joined a fight that would become not only about clean water and Native American rights, but about fossil fuel expansion and climate change.

Celebrities, including actors Shailene Woodley and Mark Ruffalo, and singer Neil Young, joined the campaign. Opponents won at least a temporary victory when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Dec. 4 denied permission for the pipeline to cross under the disputed area of the river.

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Fidel Castro

No sober person in Latin America wants to adopt the Cuban system. But wherever he went in Latin America he received a raving ovation. Why? Because he stood up to the United States, told us where to go, and got away with it.

— Wayne Smith, veteran U.S. diplomat

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro was the charismatic icon of leftist revolution who thrust his Caribbean nation onto the world stage by provoking Cold War confrontation and defying U.S. policy through 11 administrations. He was 90.

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An international accord on climate change

(Andy Wong / Associated Press)

A landmark climate change agreement approved by nearly 200 countries went into force in November, the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal. The agreement, negotiated in Paris in late 2015, sets out a global action plan to limit the average global temperature rise since pre-industrial times to well below 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold at which scientists say many of the worst effects of global warming could be avoided.

A crucial threshold was reached Oct. 5, when at least 55 nations that collectively account for 55% of global emissions had approved the Paris accord. That number had grown to 118 by mid-December, including the world’s top polluters, China, the United States, the European Union and India.

The Obama administration played a key role in bringing more than 20 years of difficult climate negotiations to a successful conclusion and pledged to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. But even as the agreement went into effect, there was concern among world leaders that the U.S. could ignore its commitments under the deal, or pull out entirely, once Donald Trump becomes president.

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Colombian peace agreement

(Ivan Valencia / AFP/Getty Images)

In late November, the Colombian legislature approved a peace deal aimed at ending a civil war that started in 1964. The accord between the government and the leftist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was approved two months after voters narrowly rejected a similar deal in a national referendum. This time President Juan Manuel Santos, pictured, who was award the Nobel Peace Prize in October, saved the deal by giving up on a popular mandate and going directly to Congress, where his party holds a majority. Opposition legislators boycotted the vote vowed to fight the new accord, which they argue goes too easy on the rebels.

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The end of an era in Arizona

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has long branded himself as “America’s toughest sheriff,” but this year proved to his undoing — Arpaio was voted out of office in November after six terms, and faced contempt of court charges to boot.

Arpaio was famous for talking tough about illegal immigration and housing jail inmates, in scorching Arizona temperatures, in canvas tents. U.S. District Judge Murray Snow found in May that the 84-year-old sheriff had ignored a court order to stop singling out Latino drivers for special scrutiny.

“I’m not stopping anything,” Arpaio famously told Fox News. But for the first time since 1993, he’ll have to stop being sheriff.

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The battle for Mosul

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

On the frontline in the fight against ISIS in the Cahra neighborhood of Mosul, an Iraqi special forces soldier makes his way to the roof where the lookout continues for the enemy.

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The evolution of Orange County and a state divided

(Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)

Orange County has long been considered a conservative bastion in an increasingly liberal state. But this year, voters in November’s presidential election backed Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, a milestone that has the local GOP doing some soul searching. Republicans have been trying to reach out more to minorities, who are now the majority in Orange County, but Trump’s rhetoric appears to have hurt those efforts.

In the meantime, in certain pockets of Northern California, the blue tide stopped and many voters said they feel greater affinity for Donald Trump’s America.

Deplorables! What is so insulting is to be called a racist.

— Nancy Hemphill, Northern California resident

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Wounds from a bombing

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Menar Hassan, 8, cries as doctors attend to her wounds from a suicide truck bombing in Iraq.

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New Jersey officials convicted in ‘Bridgegate’ case

Bill Baroni, a former Gov. Chris Christie appointee, was convicted with another aide of helping orchestrate massive traffic tie-ups at the George Washington Bridge in September 2013.
(Mel Evans/Associated Press)

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was not on trial himself, but his political career was jolted by the conviction in November of two close associates who orchestrated a four-day traffic jam from hell in 2013 at the George Washington Bridge, supposedly to punish a mayor who wouldn’t endorse the governor’s reelection bid.

Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, and Bill Baroni, a former official of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the world’s busiest bridge, were convicted on conspiracy and wire fraud charges. The scandal, which became known as “Bridgegate,” scuttled Christie’s presidential ambitions and was probably a factor in Donald Trump’s decision not to select him as his running mate or offer him a cabinet post.

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Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win!

(Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

It was just an epic battle. I can’t believe, after 108 years, we’re finally able to hoist the trophy.

— World Series MVP Ben Zobrist.

It only took 108 years for the Cubs to win another World Series title, as Bill Murray’s favorite team rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to defeat the Cleveland Indians in November.

It was a 108-year stretch that transformed black cats and billy goats into symbols of futility. To end the streak, the Cubs absorbed a series of knockout blows from the Indians, survived a collapse by their flame-throwing closer and weathered a storm sweeping off Lake Erie in an 8-7 victory in 10 innings.

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Farewell to Vin Scully

Vin Scully will call one final Dodgers-Giants game in San Francisco.

2016 brought to an end the legendary career of announcer Vin Scully, who began calling Dodgers games in 1950. In September, the final Dodger Stadium game of his career also provided a chance for the Dodgers to clinch the division title. Tributes to Scully played in each half-inning, but the Dodgers trailed most of the game until rookie Corey Seager hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth, sending the game into extra innings. Then Charlie Culberson stepped to the plate in the bottom of the 10th.

“Would you believe a home run?” Scully marveled as Culberson hit a ball that landed in the Dodgers bullpen for his first homer of the season. The finish provided a storybook ending to Vin Scully’s last broadcast at Dodger Stadium, allowing him to coat a walk-off, division-clinching victory in his unmistakable gloss.

Scully’s career came to an official end one week later in San Francisco, but for many Dodgers fans, Culberson’s homer marked the best true ending.

God has been so generous to allow me all this time, when I look back and I think, ‘I’ve had so many yesterdays, but I’m not sure how many tomorrows,’ I feel it’s best to see if I can enjoy whatever tomorrows are left.

— Scully

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Dodgers bring back memories of 1988

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

These Dodgers don’t do anything conventionally, don’t follow any old baseball code, do not adhere to any unwritten rules except the one that says you do everything it takes to win.

— Bill Plaschke

The Dodgers were leading in the decisive Game 5 of the NLDS against the Washington Nationals, but their closer was struggling and the win looked in doubt.

Enter Clayton Kershaw, who offered to pitch on one day of rest and eventually walked in from the left-field bullpen at Nationals Park to the same incredulous gasps that accompanied Orel Hershiser when he pitched on consecutive days in October 1988. He retired the final two batters — and this wasn’t supposed to happen. Kershaw had not pitched as a closer in 10 years, since doing so for the Dodgers’ rookie league team in the Gulf Coast League, on a day when his catcher was — get this — a young Kenley Jansen.

The Dodgers won that Oct. 13 game against the Nationals, 4-3. They ended up losing in the NLCS to the Chicago Cubs, but for a short time in Washington, a World Series win seemed like a definite possibility.

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James Comey redux

The FBI has a history of extreme caution near election day so as not to influence the results. Today’s break from that tradition is appalling.

— Sen. Dianne Feinstein

When the debates ended, Hillary Clinton held a small, but persistent lead over Donald Trump. Something big would have to happen if Trump were to reverse the tide. It did. FBI Director James Comey had overshadowed the race back in July. Ten days before the election, he did it again, with a letter to Congress revealing that agents had found a new trove of emails that might be related to Clinton’s handling of classified data. In the end, the emails turned out to be nothing of significance, mostly just copies of messages the FBI already had reviewed, but Comey’s letter refocused the campaign on Clinton’s biggest liability. Whether that was the singular turning point of the campaign, as many Democrats believe, or one of several factors that eroded Clinton’s lead, as Trump’s pollster argues, there’s no question it had impact, and in a very close race, may have been decisive.

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Gordon Davidson, the death of a local icon

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

His whole body of work at the Taper made me feel it was the place to go.

— Alan Alda

Upon his death in October, Gordon Davidson was mourned, but, more than that he was memorialized. The founder of the Mark Taper Forum, he didn’t just help bring serious theater to Los Angeles, he helped build the connections that made Los Angeles a world class center of the arts.

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‘Oldchella’ in the desert

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

In the digital world, even classic rock has gone niche so it’s only fitting that the baby boomers get their own music festival with the relaxed-fit Desert Trip, scheduled over two long weekends in the fall.

The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Roger Waters were among the headliners, playing to tens of thousands of fans, some of whom paid up for well-padded chairs. But for all the jokes and teasing, Desert Trip was a hit with all ages.

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Dylan Wins the Nobel

... for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.

— Swedish Academy

(David Vincent / AP)

Long considered by many to be the people’s poet laureate, it became official in October when it was announced that Bob Dylan had won the Nobel Prize in Literature, redefining the nature of the prize just as he redefined American music and culture. But while the world gasped, Dylan remained Dylan; the day after winning, he played Vegas and subsequently announced he would not be attending the December awards ceremony.

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Confrontation and conflict

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

LAPD disperses the crowd along Western and 107th Street after a vigil for Carnell Snell Jr., who was fatally shot by the LAPD during a vehicle pursuit.

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Desperate to escape

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

On the Mexico-Guatemala border, migrants from Africa and Haiti cross the illicit Rio Suchiate on make-shift rafts .

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Hurricane Matthew ravages the East Coast

(John Raedle/Getty Images)

It had been the strongest hurricane to menace the Atlantic seaboard in nearly a decade. But by the time Hurricane Matthew touched land near McClellanville, S.C., and slogged up the Southeast coast in October, it had spent its most dangerous energy in the Caribbean.

Hundreds of people died when the storm — rated at Category 5 at its peak — ravaged impoverished Haiti. In the U.S., it was quickly downgraded to Category 1, but was still very wet and dangerous. The storm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands, toppled trees and created torrential floods. It was blamed for more than 40 deaths in the U.S.

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The Rams return to L.A.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

After an absence of 22 years, the Rams returned to Los Angeles to the relief of many fans who still rooted for the team while they played in St. Louis.

It was a long, winding path to L.A. as NFL team owners debated two competing proposals: a stadium in Carson, which would allow the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers to move here, or one in Inglewood, allowing the St. Louis Rams to move. Ultimately, team owners voted in January to allow the Rams to move after they came up with a proposal that the NFL couldn’t refuse.

The Rams even had the first pick in the NFL draft and selected quarterback Jared Goff. Then the season started, and Rams fans began to realize the team that moved to L.A. wasn’t very good.

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Clinton wins first debate

I have a feeling by the end of this evening I am going to be blamed for everything that’s ever happened

— Hillary Clinton

Why not?

— Trump

Clinton led Trump coming out of their two conventions, but her lead dwindled in August. Then, in early September, as she battled what was later disclosed to be pneumonia, a video showed her nearly collapsing as she was helped into a van after a Sept. 11 memorial in New York. Trump’s poll standing shot upward. Coming into the debates, Clinton badly needed a boost, and she got one. Trump appeared rattled and ill prepared and Clinton successfully baited him into a fight with a former Miss Universe that dominated the following week of the campaign. Weeks later, Trump aides said that was their low point of the fall.

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For Wells Fargo, fines, hearings and a resignation

(Cliff Owen / Associated Press)

In December 2013, the Los Angeles Times uncovered a high-pressure sales environment at Wells Fargo Bank. The story led to a $185-million settlement in September and government investigations which revealed that bank workers has opened as many as 2 million accounts without customers’ knowledge. Former CEO John Stumpf resigned in October.

We are still waiting for answers as to how Wells Fargo plans to right its wrongs against customers and the low-paid employees who weren’t given the benefit of a retirement package when they were fired for refusing to cheat.

— Sen. Sherrod Brown

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And Gawker was no more

Gawker Media founder Nick Denton.
(Steve Nesius/Associated Press)

Gawker, the Internet’s loudest and most adversarial news outlet, shut down in August after 14 years in operation. Its parent company filed for bankruptcy after being hit with $140 million in legal damages after the site published a sex tape of pro wrestler Terry Bollea, known to the world as Hulk Hogan, and Bollea won a lawsuit in Florida.

The suit, ultimately settled for $31 million, was bankrolled by Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal, in retaliation against the site for outing him as gay back in the 2000s.

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Viacom: Sex, family feuds and a lovelorn billionaire

(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

“Sumner Redstone, through vision and ability, has created an enormously important legacy. But what is so surprising is this lack of concern for the preservation of his legacy. When emotions kick in, rational thinking takes a back seat.”

— Raphael Amit, Wharton Business School professor

It’s a Hollywood tale for the ages, colored by power struggles, family rifts, sex and a vast fortune. That, in a nutshell, was the story of Viacom, the struggling media company whose assets include MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures. Sumner Redstone, the 93-year-old patriarch of a family that controls Viacom and CBS Corp, reunited with his daughter, Shari Redstone, after years of sniping to solidify control of their empire in August — forcing out former girlfriends and entrenched management.

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Ryan Lochte robbed in Rio! Wait, no he wasn’t

(Patrick B. Kraemer / EPA)

It was the story that dominated the last week of the Olympics and made everyone who read it feel like they needed to take a shower.

At first, the story Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte told was frightening. A late-night robbery in Rio, with a pistol pressed to his head while he bravely said “Whatever.”

Turns out the truth was a little different. Lochte and three other U.S. swimmers had done a little drinking and did some minor damage to a gas station restroom. Armed security guards confronted them, demanding payment.

Lochte invented the robbery story, which fed into the deepest fears that the Olympics in Rio were not safe. In the aftermath, Lochte apologized and U.S. Swimming suspended him from competition for 10 months.

I accept responsibility for my role in this happening and have learned some valuable lessons.

— Lochte

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U.S women upset in soccer, then embarrassed by Hope Solo

(Andressa Anholete / EPA)

It was bad enough when the U.S. soccer team, expected to cruise to the gold-medal match at the Summer Games, lost in the quarterfinals to Sweden. Then goalkeeper Hope Solo had to speak and prove she never learned about good sportsmanship.

We played a bunch of cowards. The best team did not win today. I strongly, firmly believe that. They didn’t want to pass the ball around. They didn’t want to play great soccer. It was very cowardly. But they won. They’re moving on. And we’re going home.

For her actions, Solo was suspended for six months and her contract with U.S. Soccer was terminated.

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Michael Phelps ends career with 23 Olympic gold medals

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

In August, in his final race at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian in history, led the U.S. to victory in the 400-meter medley relay, ending his Olympic career with 28 medals, 23 of them gold. No other athlete in any sport has more than nine gold medals.

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Brazil political crisis

(Nelson Almeida / AFP/Getty Images)

I was no fan of Rousseff’s government. It made serious mistakes. But at least she was elected legitimately.

— Protester Michelle Brito

After months of bitterly contested proceedings, Brazil’s Senate voted in August to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office, marking a turbulent finale to 13 years of center-left government in Latin America’s largest country. Rousseff, a onetime guerrilla-turned-economist and the nation’s first female president, was convicted of breaking fiscal responsibility law. The more conservative vice president, Michel Temer, will serve out the rest of her term, which ends in 2018. The impeachment rocked a nation saddled by a crippling recession, an ongoing investigation into widespread corruption and a crisis of confidence in the political system — and it reached its boiling point just as Brazil was poised to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

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Zika reaches the United States

Larry Smart, a mosquito control inspector, uses an insecticide fogger to kill mosquitoes in Miami's Wynwood neighborhood
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The United States became the latest frontier for the Zika virus when mosquitoes were found to be spreading the virus in a bustling neighborhood north of downtown Miami. Four infections diagnosed there in July were the first U.S. cases transmitted not from travel to an affected country or by intimate contact with an infected person, but by a local mosquito bite.

Another affected neighborhood in Miami, north of the area known as Little Haiti, was identified in October. In all, four zones of local transmission were identified in Miami. Then late in November, Brownsville, Texas identified a locally transmitted case. By year’s end, there were at least 185 U.S. cases of Zika contracted through mosquito bites, out of a total of nearly 4,600 cases across the continental U.S.

In a grim milestone, the World Health Organization declared in November that Zika no longer presents a “public health emergency” and should now be treated like other established infectious diseases. Not that it’s not serious, said Dr. Pete Salama, director of the WHO’s health emergencies program. “We’re sending the message that Zika is here to stay.”

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Gunmen target police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge

At the end of a peaceful protest against police killings of black men, a lone gunman targeting officers opened fire in Dallas, Texas, on July 7, killing five and wounding nine. The shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson, a 25-year-old African American army reservist, told police that he had “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.” Ten days later, another gunman set out to kill police officers in Baton Rouge, La. Gavin Eugene Long, a 29-year-old black separatist from Kansas City, Mo., ambushed officers less than a mile from the city’s police headquarters, leaving three dead and three injured.

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Rising tensions in the South China Sea

(Cao Jun / Los Angeles Times)

When Chinese customers begin boycotting Kentucky Fried Chicken, it’s a sign that an international dispute has hit home. And that is what happened at a KFC outlet in Tangshan, China, in July, as tensions spiked between the United States and China over maritime rights in the South China Sea.

Put simply, China claims maritime territory it doesn’t own — at least, an international court says it doesn’t. Countries throughout the part of Asia continued to dispute China’s claims, and they are backed by the U.S. Political tensions continued throughout the year. As for the chicken? That’s just collateral damage.

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Turkey’s attempted coup

(Sedat Suna/EPA)

The Turkish military issued a statement late on July 15 proclaiming it had seized control of the country. After a long night of turmoil — a bomb exploded at the parliament building in Ankara, and civilians encouraged into the streets by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confronted soldiers on Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge — Turkish television reported in the morning that the coup was over. Afterward a state of emergency was imposed, enabling the government to detain individuals without charge for up to 60 days. Tens of thousands have been arrested and at least 120,000 public workers have been suspended from their jobs on suspicion of being linked to the failed coup.

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Billion Dollar Shave Club

Mike Dubin, Dollar Shave Club's founder.
Mike Dubin, Dollar Shave Club’s founder.
(Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

One of the darlings of Los Angeles’ start-up scene announced in July that it was cashing in on a $1-billion payday. Its business? Razors.

Dollar Shave Club’s sale to consumer products titan Unilever is the biggest acquisition ever of a venture-backed start-up in Los Angeles. And it’s a vote of confidence in the city’s start-up scene — one that has quietly emerged as a hub for e-commerce.

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Who you gonna call?

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Actors Leslie Jones, left, and Kate McKinnon clown around during a portrait session at the Four Seasons Hotel.

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The shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile

On July 5, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old African American man, was shot dead by two white police officers in front of a convenience store in Baton Rouge, La. Cellphone video appeared to show him pinned to the ground when he was shot. The next day, a police officer fatally shot Philando Castile, 32, during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minn. Castile’s girlfriend live-streamed his death on Facebook. His four-year-old daughter was also in the car. The deaths of the two men prompted renewed nationwide protests over police killings of black Americans.

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Supreme Court deadlocks on immigration case

Rosario Reyes, a Salvadoran mother in the U.S. illegally, reacts to the Supreme Court deadlock that blocks Obama's immigration reform plan.
(Allison Shelley/Getty Images)

President Obama’s plan to shield up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation was supposed to be one of the signature legacies of his administration — an attempt at immigration reform using executive power after Congress had failed to pass a comprehensive new law.

But the plan suffered a spectacular setback when the U.S. Supreme Court announced in June it was deadlocked in a case challenging the plan. Because a lower court in Texas had ruled against the president’s plan. The 4-4 tie meant Obama could not go forward with it. With Trump’s election, immigration policy will now move in a radically different direction.

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Brexit and the rise of populism in Europe

(Daniel Leal-Olivas / AFP)

The equivalent of a political earthquake struck Europe on June 23, when in a referendum over the United Kingdom’s future in the European Union, 52% voted to leave.

The vote was a measure of widespread unease over immigration, unemployment and the perception that bureaucrats in Brussels were calling too many of the shots. It led to Prime Minister David Cameron’s immediate resignation, replaced by Theresa May, who set a timetable for extricating Britain from the EU by the summer of 2019.

But Britain wasn’t the only country roiling with newly energized populist sentiment. Nationalists across Europe — in Germany, Denmark, Austria, Hungary, Italy and elsewhere — were riding the same wave of populism that seemed to propel Donald Trump into power across the Atlantic.

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LeBron brings a title to Cleveland

(Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

No major sports team in Cleveland had won a title since the Cleveland Browns had won the NFL championship in 1964. When LeBron James returned to the Cleveland Cavaliers as a free agent, he vowed to make the city a title town again. But it looked like 2016 was going to be a lost opportunity after the Cavaliers fell behind, 3-1, in the NBA Finals in June. James didn’t give up though, and led a remarkable comeback as Cleveland won three in a row.

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Net neutrality … for now

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

In June, a court ruled that federal regulators can strictly oversee the Internet to ensure that content flows freely to consumers — a major victory for President Obama and other supporters of the long-pursued concept of net neutrality.

But will that victory be short-lived? Republicans soon will take control of the Federal Communications Commission, which could spell the end for net neutrality.

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Trump wins Indiana, secures GOP nomination

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

With a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign.

— Ted Cruz

Donald Trump vanquished one GOP rival after another until, in the end, only Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio remained. Cruz bet his campaign on the possibility of beating Trump in May in Indiana, a state with a conservative electorate, heavy with evangelical Christian voters, whom he hoped would side with him. They didn’t. Trump’s victory forced Cruz out of the race, and despite much ineffective posturing, the #NeverTrump opposition never gained traction.

This cake is baked. California and the … remaining states will just be the icing on the cake for Donald Trump.

— Charlie Cook, campaign analyst

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The beauty of Coachella

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

Clarissa Swikard, from San Diego, sports jewels and a flower crown to day three of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio.

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Lakers hire Luke Walton as coach

(Rick Bowmer / Associated Press)

A pass-first role player who won championships as a player with the Lakers in 2009 and 2010, Luke Walton was hired in April to turn around the fortunes of a team that had become one of the worst in basketball. Walton will try to turn around a franchise that missed the playoffs the last three seasons.

He’s a natural — was a coach on the floor as a player.

— Phil Jackson

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Panama Papers

(Rodrigo Arangua / AFP/Getty Images)

In April, hundreds of reporters in more than 80 countries unveiled a nearly year-long global investigation and began publishing a series of articles on millions of leaked financial documents dubbed the “Panama Papers,” a trove of information bigger than anything WikiLeaks or Edward Snowden ever obtained. The effect has been like shining a flashlight into a series of dark rooms packed with money and lies. The documents leaked from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca — and examined by journalists at outlets including the Guardian, the BBC and the Miami Herald — have forced global leaders and public figures to answer for the massive amounts of wealth they had hidden in offshore tax havens, outside the scrutiny of auditors and voters.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif became the target of a corruption probe as a result of the leaked documents; Iceland’s prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, stepped down in April after reports that he and his wealthy wife concealed millions of dollars’ worth of investments.

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Trump wins South Carolina, Jeb Bush drops out

(Mark Makela / Getty Images)

I have stood my ground, refusing to bend to the political winds.

— Jeb Bush

Donald Trump’s Republican primary opponents didn’t realize what was happening to them until it was too late. First, Trump won the New Hampshire primary in early February. Then he won in Nevada. But Republican rivals clung to the belief that those states were exceptions. When the race hit South Carolina, with its conservative, Southern voters, the brash New York businessman would fail, they told themselves. Instead, he beat them all. Jeb Bush, the party’s one-time front runner, dropped out of the race that night, hoping the party would unite against Trump. It wasn’t to be. “We’re voting with our middle finger,” a Trump supporter in the state told one of our reporters.

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Peyton Manning caps his career with a Super Bowl victory

(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)

The 2016 Super Bowl was far from a tour de force for legendary quarterback Peyton Manning, who threw for only 141 yards, with no touchdowns. But Denver’s 24-10 win gave Manning an NFL record 200th career victory, his second Super Bowl title and guaranteed him a place among the all-time greats. His mom said it best after the Feb. 7 game:

“I would like for him to retire. I would. Physically, I just don’t think it’s worth going on. He won a Super Bowl — it’s the best way to go out.”

And retire he did, officially announcing it a few weeks later.

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El Chapo arrest

(Plaza de Armas / AFP/ Getty Images)

In a deadly, predawn shootout in early January, Mexican naval special forces captured Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the world’s most sought-after drug lord and commander of a vast narcotics empire that stretches across continents. Guzman, a billionaire thanks to his Sinaloa cartel, which traffics in cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine, had escaped from prison the previous July -- for the second time — using an elaborate tunnel out of Mexico’s top maximum-security facility. He had been jailed for less than 17 months, and there had been a great deal of doubt in Mexico that he’d ever see the inside of a cell again. The day after the arrest, Rolling Stone published a secret interview that the actor Sean Penn had conducted with Guzman that fall.

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A new leader for LAUSD

(Christina House / For The Times)

I believe you gather data before you strike out.

— Michelle King

In January, Los Angeles’ massive school system got a new leader in Michelle King at a moment of truth for the LAUSD. King’s appointment comes as charter school forces push for a major expansion of those institutions in the city. Some fear the expansion will batter the struggling school district even more. King is a longtime LAUSD insider, and the jury is still out on how effectively she will deal with these challenges.

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Medical scopes, superbugs and the threat of a deadly infection

Olympus’ silence on this important issue was unethical, irresponsible and dangerous.

— Dr. Andrew Ross

A U.S. Senate investigation released in January concluded that scores of hospital patients treated with medical scopes were infected with potentially deadly bacteria because of repeated failures by manufacturers, regulators and hospitals to report outbreaks.

The report confirmed the findings of a series of Los Angeles Times stories that concluded Olympus Corp., the leading maker of the device, knew of the potential flaws in the scope but failed to alert U.S. hospitals or regulators. Olympus is recalling and redesigning the troubled scope.

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Good time turns ugly for Blake Griffin and Clippers assistant

Clearly, we feel awful about it. He’s a good guy, he had a bad moment and it’s just part of life and you have to deal with it.

— Coach Doc Rivers

(Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)

What was supposed to be a dinner among friends in Toronto’s entertainment district took a horrific turn in January when Clippers star Blake Griffin, pictured right, repeatedly punched assistant equipment manager Matias Testi, leaving his longtime buddy with a severely swollen face and Griffin with a broken right hand.

Griffin publicly apologized to Testi, bringing to end a bizarre affair.

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A standoff at a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon

(Rick Bowmer/Associated Press)

Across the West, there were calls among conservatives for handing over more control of federal lands to state and local authorities. The burgeoning movement came to a head in Oregon, when two sons of renegade Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy led the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

The takeover began Jan. 2 and lasted more than a month. Supporters from around the country joined Ammon and Ryan Bundy in what had been a peaceful occupation until Jan. 26, when authorities moved in to arrest several people and one of the occupiers, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, was shot and killed.

Eventually, all the occupiers were arrested. But in a stunning blow to federal authorities, the Bundy brothers and five co-defendants were acquitted Oct. 27 of federal conspiracy and weapons charges.

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Water crisis in Flint, Mich.

(Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Lead contamination in the city’s drinking water from corroded pipes led to a state of emergency being declared by the state and federal government in January.

Gov. Rick Snyder mobilized the Michigan National Guard, which distributed water and water filters and testing kits to residents fearful of the tap water — for good reason. At one point, 5% of the children under 5 had elevated exposure to lead, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.

President Obama visited the city in May, demonstrating the reliability of water filters newly installed in many homes by taking a drink himself.

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Rise of white nationalism

(Joshua Roberts/For the Times)

There’s nothing wrong with being white.

— Richard Spencer

Richard Spencer, pictured, coined the term alt-right in 2010 to describe a white nationalist movement that few people had ever heard of. Then Donald Trump began to rise with a message that invited white people to join the fray of identity politics and emboldened groups known to espouse racist, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic views.

After Trump’s victory, Spencer, whose National Policy Institute has been described by the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, said he planned to move his office from Montana to Washington D.C.

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A bloody drug war in the Philippines

(Linus Guardian Escandor II / For The Times)

Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun — you have my support

— Rodrigo Duterte

Soon after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was inaugurated on June 30, he launched a war on drugs that has claimed the lives of more than 5,000 suspected drug dealers and users, most of them killed by vigilantes emboldened by Duterte’s rhetoric. “Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun you have my support,” he said on June 6, in a nationally televised address. “Shoot [the drug dealer] and I’ll give you a medal.” After United Nations human rights experts called on Duterte to stop the extrajudicial killings, the president threatened to pull the Philippines out of the U.N.

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Islamic State terror attacks in Europe

'Why the children?'
(Claude Paris / Associated Press))

It feels as though the ground has fallen away from beneath our feet

— Ines Gyger, whose grandson died

Terror struck Europe several times in 2016. Twin bombings in Brussels on March 22, carried out by a group that was also linked to the 2015 Paris attacks, killed 32. In June, suicide attackers hit Turkey’s largest airport, killing 41. The next month, an assailant drove a truck into a crowd of revelers who were celebrating the Bastille Day holiday in Nice, France, leaving 84 dead. Many of the victims were so badly crushed that several bodies took days to identify. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Brussels and Nice attacks, and was suspected in the attack on Ataturk airport.

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War in Iraq and Syria

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

America got further drawn back into the war in Iraq — with new fronts in neighboring Syria — as the effort to drive out the militant jihadists known as Islamic State led to a violent and protracted fight around the group’s Iraq stronghold in the city of Mosul.

The Pentagon now has more than 6,000 troops in Iraq, and on Dec. 10, announced plans to send 200 additional troops to northern Syria, in addition to the 300 already there. U.S.-led coalition warplanes carried out more than 17,000 airstrikes.

Islamic State is still firmly lodged in the two countries, though it lost significant territory. As for the aim of dislodging Syrian President Bashar Assad — the president, thanks to massive military help from Russia, is re-consolidating government control over much of the country. Peace talks failed.

The city of Aleppo has been left in a fight for its very survival, as Syrian rebels and government forces have turned it into a murderous battleground. Thousands of civilians have fled, and many of the rest are wounded or starving—an international nightmare that by year’s end was drawing to a close.

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Europe’s refugee crisis

(Aris Messinis / AFP/Getty Images)

The massive influx of migrants and refugees into Europe that began in 2015 continued into this year, as more than 300,000 people, most of them from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, made the dangerous Mediterranean crossing. In March, the EU and Turkey struck a deal that would deport migrants who crossed into Greece back to Turkey. In return, Turkey was promised visa-free travel for its citizens within the EU, and accelerated talks for the country to join the bloc of nations – promises the EU has been slow to deliver on, putting the future of the agreement into question.

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Theme park openings, expansions and a chance to buy a wand

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter cast its spell at Universal Studios Hollywood in April, presenting the first challenge to the pre-eminence of Disneyland. Disney, meanwhile, expanded its empire in June with the opening of the Shanghai Disney Resort. It also began construction on its 14-acre Star Wars land at Disneyland, part of a $1-billion upgrade effort.

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Elon Musk’s year of setbacks and big dreams

(Paul Sakuma / Associated Press )

No corner of Elon Musk’s empire was without drama or controversy last year:

March: Tesla CEO Musk unveiled the Tesla Model 3, the company’s first mid-priced car, to great fanfare.

April: SpaceX landed a rocket back on a floating barge, a step toward reusing it.

June: Federal regulators opened a probe into the Autopilot feature on a Tesla Model S after a fatal crash. Musk later announced software and hardware updates to improve the cars’ ability to detect objects.

September: An unmanned Space X rocket exploded on its launch pad, destroying the rocket.

September: SpaceX CEO Musk spoke of his vision for a Mission to Mars — with a fleet of 1,000 spaceships embarking en masse for the red planet, establishing a self-sustaining colony of as many as 1 million people.

November: Shareholders approved a $2.6-billion merger of Tesla and SolarCity, of which Musk is founder and chairman. The deal combines the electric car company with the nation’s largest provider of solar rooftop panels, creating a one-stop shop for clean energy customers.

How could Musk top that in 2017?

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The death of Arnold Palmer

(Dave Martin / Associated Press)

The camera is strange. It’s all revealing. It either loves you or hates you, and it loved Arnold.

— Frank Chirkinian, CBS golf producer

Arnold Palmer was the son of a Pennsylvania golf-course greens keeper who combined movie-star magnetism, go-for-broke daring and the nascent power of television to become a seven-time professional major tournament champion and the sport’s first international corporate icon. He was 87.

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The death of David Bowie

(Robert Lachman / Los Angeles Times)

David Bowie, the barrier-breaking British rock musician and actor, died just days after releasing a critically acclaimed album on his birthday. He was 69.

Everyone who worked with him had the same experience. This used to frustrate me, as a producer. He comes in with no songs and says, ‘Let’s jam.’ I’d say, ‘Oh, no, how’s this gonna turn out?

— Tony Visconti, producer

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The death of Garry Shandling

What I want at my funeral is an actual boxing referee to do a count. And at 5 just wave it off and say, ‘He’s not getting up.’

Shandling was among a generation of comics who helped revolutionize TV comedy by casting aside the setup-punchline mechanics of the traditional network sitcom and exploring characterization more deeply. He was 66.

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The death of Gene Wilder

(Mychele Daniau / AFP/Getty Images)

With his turn as the perpetually frazzled Leo Bloom in “The Producers,” Gene Wilder created an indelible portrait of comic neurosis and set the stage for two future collaborations with Mel Brooks – “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein,” both released in 1974 – that are among the most beloved comedies in Hollywood history. He was 83.

He did occasionally think of himself as a comic actor, but actor first. There were very few things that could hurt his feelings, and one of them was if he was described as a comedian as opposed to an actor.

— Nephew Jordan Walker-Pearlman

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The death of George Martin

Martin, second from right, was a music producer in London, on the prowl for rock ’n’ roll acts in the early 1960s, when he came across a band that had been turned down by every record company in town. A month later, Martin offered the group a contract. So began his long relationship with the Beatles. He was 90.

We could have gone on from ‘Abbey Road. It was showing the way that rock ‘n’ roll and classical music could have joined forces to become something really important. And because we didn’t go on, punk came along and put everything into reverse.

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The death of Janet Reno

(Dennis Cook / Associated Press)

She was very down to earth and simple in the sense that what drove her was the facts.

— Frances Fragos Townsend

Reno’s unusually long tenure as the United States’ first female attorney general began with a disastrous assault on cultists in Texas and ended after the dramatic raid that returned Elian Gonzalez to his Cuban father. She was 78.

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The death of Muhammad Ali

I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.

Ali was the brash and ebullient heavyweight boxer whose brilliance in the ring and bravado outside it made his face one of the most recognizable in the world. He was 74.

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The death of Morley Safer

(John Paul Filo / CBS via Associated Press)

It’s not literary, I wouldn’t presume to suggest that. But I think you can elevate it a little bit sometimes with the most important part of the medium, which is what people are saying.

With a craggy, time-weathered face, cigarette-burnished voice and a deep well of elegant yet unsparingly economical turns of phrase at his command, Safer, who died shortly after announcing his retirement from “60 Minutes,” produced a body of work spanning more than 60 years that casts a long shadow in an industry he helped define. He was 84.

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The death of Nancy Reagan

Reagan knew where he wanted to go, but she had a better sense of what he needed to do to get there.

— Biographer Lou Cannon

Former First Lady Nancy Davis Reagan, whose devotion to her husband made her a formidable behind-the-scenes player in his administrations, was one of the most influential presidential wives in modern times. She was 94.

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The death of Patty Duke

It seems like a dream. I’m still not sure if it happened. When they announced it, I just sat there. I couldn’t move.

— Duke, on her 1963 Oscar win

Duke came to fame as a teenager, combining both a masterful talent for dramatic acting with a sunny, all-American image that enchanted both TV and film audiences. At 16, she became the youngest person to receive an Oscar for “The Miracle Worker.” She was 69.

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The death of Harper Lee

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

— Atticus Finch

“To Kill a Mockingbird,” the classic 1960 novel about racism in a small Southern town, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, became a staple of high school reading lists and turned its author, Harper Lee, into one of American literature’s most revered figures. She was 89.

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Marijuana is now legal in more than half the states

(Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

I think it’s the beginning of the end of the war on marijuana United States.

— Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom

The campaign to legalize marijuana rolled along this fall, with voters approving recreational pot laws in several states, including California, and sanctioning medical use in others. Arizona defeated legalization, but pot is now legal in some fashion in more than half the states. But how legal is legal? Federal law still regards marijuana as a banned substance, and incoming Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions has said the country needs “grown-ups in charge” to just say no.

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Pulse nightclub massacre

(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

As Latin Night at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub was drawing to a close on June 12, about 320 people danced and drank to thumping reggaeton, salsa and merengue. Minutes later partyers were fleeing into the street. Some clutched gunshot wounds. Others were splattered with the blood of people they didn’t know. Those still trapped in the gay nightclub could only hide.

A total of 49 people were killed and 53 more injured — the deadliest shooting in modern American history. The gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, died in a shootout with SWAT officers three hours after his rampage began. Mateen called 911 during the siege, pledging his allegiance to the militant group Islamic State.

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Obama’s historic trip to Cuba

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The record will show that the Tampa Bay Rays defeated Cuba’s national baseball team on a March day in Havana, 4-1. But what most people will remember isn’t the score, but one of the fans in the stands: President Obama, making the first visit to Cuba by a U.S. president since 1928.

Obama was criticized by Republicans for making the trip, and for being in the ballpark in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in Brussels. But he argued that it was time to begin normalizing relations. Plus, the baseball score gave him bragging rights over Cuban leader Raul Castro.

Castro’s brother and predecessor, Fidel Castro, the charismatic icon of Cuba’s leftist revolution, died Nov. 25 at the age of 90.

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The death of Maurice White

(Tony Barnard / Los Angeles Times)

I have learned that music helps a lot of people survive, and they want songs that can give them something -- I guess you could call it hope.

White, center, was the co-founder and leader of the groundbreaking ensemble Earth, Wind & Fire, borrowing elements from funk, soul, gospel and pop for a distinctive sound that yielded six double-platinum albums and six Grammy Awards.

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The death of Florence Henderson

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

To many, Henderson’s perennially upbeat, smiling Carol Brady on “The Brady Bunch” was the center of the show, cheerfully mothering her brood in an era when divorce was becoming more common. She was 82.

We had to have security guards with us. Fans were hanging on our doors. We couldn’t go out by ourselves. We were like the Beatles.

— Florence Henderson

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The death of Leonard Cohen

(Oliver Morris / Getty Images)

There are very, very few people who occupy the ground that Leonard Cohen walks on. This is the rare, rare talent.

— U2 singer Bono

Cohen was a singer-songwriter whose literary sensibility and elegant dissections of desire made him one of popular music’s most influential and admired figures for four decades. He was 82.

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Sanders wallops Clinton in New Hampshire

Look at the line for people registering to vote. It’s fantastic. It is a lot of young people.

— Sanders supporter Tom Estabrook

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination had shocked Hillary Clinton’s aides by its ability to raise millions of dollars in small contributions. Then Sanders ran better than expected in the campaign’s first contest, the Iowa caucuses, where the Vermont senator fought Clinton to a draw at the start of February. But it was his overwhelming victory in New Hampshire, scene of the first primary of the year, that really propelled Sanders forward. His rout of Clinton, winning just over 60% of the vote, clearly established him as a threat to the front runner.

Read MoreWho gave money to Sanders? >

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Clinton clobbers Sanders on Super Tuesday, locks up nomination

(Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

The Democratic campaign would have more than three months of hard slogging to go before it would be officially over, but as a top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders later conceded, it was on March 1 that Hillary Clinton effectively won the Democratic nomination. With victories from Texas to Massachusetts, Clinton amassed more than twice as many convention delegates as Sanders. And her huge majorities among African American voters made clear that Sanders had not been able to broaden his appeal enough to catch her in the primaries ahead. The race would have several more twists, including an upset victory by Sanders in Michigan, but after Super Tuesday, Clinton’s hold on the nomination never truly faltered.

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FBI director drops a bomb on Clinton

FBI Director James B. Comey held a news conference about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email as secretary of State on Tuesday.

This will be an unusual statement in at least a couple ways.

— James Comey

For almost a year, Hillary Clinton’s campaign had been shadowed by stories about her handling of classified information in emails while she was secretary of State. Few experts believed that the FBI investigation into the matter would lead to criminal charges, but no one could be sure. And if the Justice Department decided not to prosecute, who would tell the public? After Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch took herself out of the process, FBI director James Comey decided he would run the show himself. In a news conference in July, he announced that the FBI would not recommend prosecution, but accused Clinton of being “extremely careless” in her handling of classified material, a mixed verdict that guaranteed the issue would linger. The announcement came without warning to the rest of the government. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, was on the phone with a senior White House official when Comey appeared on television. Neither knew what he was saying. “We better get off the phone and watch this,” Mook said.

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A dark, foreboding GOP convention

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

For Donald Trump’s aides, the main goal of the GOP convention was just to get through it. Preoccupied with putting down the final vestiges of GOP resistance to their nominee, the Trump camp had little time to plan a compelling convention. From an apparently plagiarized speech by Melania Trump to a somewhat ramshackle schedule, most of the July convention did little for the nominee, his advisors conceded. But Trump’s own speech, with its dark warnings that the country was on a disastrous course and that “I alone can fix it” hit the note his supporters wanted to hear.

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Clinton overshadowed at her own convention

No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.

— Michelle Obama

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

There were many stars of the Democratic convention; the nominee was not one of them. First Lady Michelle Obama provided the emotional high point for many Democrats. Her husband, the president, made a forceful case for his chosen successor. And former President Bill Clinton bathed the Democratic crowd in a nostalgic glow. But on the convention’s final night, the defining words were not from the nominee, but from a previously little-known lawyer from Virginia, a Pakistani immigrant whose son had died fighting for the U.S. in Iraq and who waved a pocket copy of the Constitution in the air as he denounced Donald Trump. Clinton received a big bump in polls from the convention, but the fact that so little was remembered of her own speech pointed to trouble ahead.

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The biggest political upset in decades

America will no longer settle for anything less than the best. We must reclaim our country’s best and dream big and bold and daring.

— President-elect Donald Trump

Had we caught him on Election Day, Trump’s pollster, Tony Fabrizio, later said, he would have predicted that Clinton had a 55% chance of winning. Clinton’s own aides would have put her chances higher. So would nearly all independent analysts. But it was not to be. The first sign of trouble came when polls closed in Florida. Clinton had amassed such a big lead in early voting that Democrats thought Trump could not possibly catch her, but suddenly the race in the state was too close to call. So it went through the evening as one after another, Trump eked out victories in the key contests. His victory was the biggest political upset since Harry Truman’s in 1948. In the end, Clinton would win the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes, but not enough in the states she really needed.

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AT&T and Time Warner’s blockbuster marriage

(Saul Loeb and Stan Honda / AFP / Getty)

I would be surprised if the antitrust authorities let this one pass.

— Mark Lemley, Stanford Law

In October, AT&T reached a deal to buy Time Warner Inc. for $85.4 billion — a merger that would transform the telephone company into the nation’s largest entertainment company with a portfolio that includes Warner Bros., HBO, CNN and TNT.

The election of Donald Trump could threaten AT&T’s plans. Trump initially declared that it was “a deal we will not approve in my administration because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few” but Wall Street is betting the deal will go through.

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Fairy tale ending for Kobe

(Christina House / For The Times)

Kobe Bryant has never cheated the game. He has never cheated us as fans.

— Magic Johnson

In April, Kobe Bryant played the final game of his 20-year Lakers career, ending an era with five championships, 18 All-Star game appearances and way too many outsiders’ opinions, pro or con, to ever tally.

His 1,556th and last box score showed a stunning 60 points on 22-for-50 shooting in a 101-96 Lakers victory over the Utah Jazz. But the raucous crowd couldn’t care less about the final score, cheering with piercing volume every time Bryant scored during his 42 minutes.

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Simone Biles becomes a household name

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

U.S. women’s gymnast Simone Biles departed the Olympic Games with five medals, four of them gold. The teenager from Spring, Texas, joined three other women in winning four gymnastics golds at an Olympics, last accomplished 32 years ago by Ekaterina Szabo of Romania.

It’s pretty insane of what I’ve accomplished my first Olympics.

— Simone Biles

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Preparing for the Big One

California got some dire warnings this fall that a major quake on the San Andreas fault was coming soon. But there was also a continued push to prepare for the Big One. Led by Los Angeles and San Francisco, more cities are moving to retrofit buildings that could collapse in a major quake.

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Drought and fire in the Golden State

(Josh Edelson / AFP/Getty Images)

California entered a sixth year of drought with 102 million trees dying in its forest and a summer of wildfires that swept through communities from the San Diego border to far northern California, leaving a trail of death and destruction. But rains and snow in the Sierras gave the state hope that the drought’s grip was slowly loosening.

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Charting a course for development in L.A.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles’ building boom reached new heights in 2016 as downtown got a new tallest building and whole neighborhoods were transformed by high-density projects. Voters approved a huge transit tax to fund a bevy of light-rail lines, which should bring even more development. For some residents, however, change is coming too quickly. A slow-growth measure has been placed on the March 2017 ballot.

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#Oscarssowhite

(Kevin Winter / Getty Images)

You realize, if they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even have this job.

— Chris Rock

In 2012, a Times investigative series called attention to the overwhelming white maleness of the film academy. So when, for a second year in a row, the acting categories of the 2016 Oscars were filled with white faces, #Oscarssowhite became more than a hashtag.

The ensuing criticism and calls for a boycott, which started right after the nominations were announced in January, made it clear changes must be made. A Times analysis found that wouldn’t be easy, but the academy began addressing the problem, vowing to double the number of women and minority members by 2020.

Times staff members offered their own list of 100 possible candidates, many of whom became part of the academy’s unprecedented opening up of its membership, achieved by inviting 683 to join its largest and most diverse class.

In a new Times analysis, we crunched the numbers on the new class and found the academy still has a long way to go. And yet, as we head into a new awards season, a slate of Oscar favorites include films revolving around female characters and what the African American Film Critics Assn. called the best year in film ever for people of color.

At least they recognize there’s a problem. And at least they’re embarrassed.

— Jennifer Warren, actress & director

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Beyoncé rules

(Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

While wave after wave of pop sensations have risen, crested and washed up in her wake, success has given Beyoncé the freedom to make her career her own.

— Lorraine Ali

In January, she rocked, and shocked, the Super Bowl with the militant grace of new single “Formation.” In April, she debuted her new album “Lemonade” with an hour-long concept film on HBO, which she then dropped on Tidal. Her “Formation” tour sold out, and in December, she became the year’s top Grammy nominee, preparing to enter the ultimate sing-off with Adele. Throughout the year, she proved that the most powerful women are the ones who write their own story.

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Zsa Zsa Gabor

Glamour, I found, is expensive.

— Second husband Conrad Hilton

Zsa Zsa Gabor was the best known of three glamorous sisters from Hungary, and pioneered a modern version of celebrity — she became famous for being famous. She was 99.

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The year in photos

It was another stunning year in images. See more highlights of 2016.

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Antonin Scalia dies, leaving the Supreme Court split

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

Get over it.

— Scalia on Bush vs. Gore

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an eloquent conservative who was one of the court’s most ardent combatants against what he saw as a tide of modern liberalism, died in February at the age of 79. His death left the court deadlocked on some important cases, including immigration and mandatory union fees.

President Obama nominated a successor, popular centrist judge Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. But Senate Republicans stalled on holding hearings on the nomination, and after the Nov. 8 presidential election, talked turned to likely nominees from the nation’s next president, Donald Trump.

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The death of Prince

(Balazs Mohai / EPA)

The tragic death of Prince in April brought the world to an immediate standstill as fans memorialized his impact on music, film and the lives of millions. The revelation that his death was caused by an overdose shocked many. For weeks, the color of grief was neither black nor blue, but purple. He was 57.

If we pause and look around at today’s wonderfully diverse music scene, it is a testimony to Prince’s boldness and influence.

— Pop music critic Robert Hilburn

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California: the island?

(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

The rise of Donald Trump and anti-illegal immigration sentiment placed California in a unique and isolated place. The state, which is now majority minority, has been a haven for those here illegally, with the state offering a variety of rights and services. But it remains unclear how these “sanctuary” policies will fare in a Trump administration.

...our law enforcement officers and LAPD don’t go around asking people for their papers, nor should they.

— Mayor Eric Garcetti

This is the same LAPD you had Monday, a week ago. We have not changed because of the election on Tuesday. We have the same principles. We have the same values.

— LAPD Chief Charlie Beck

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Struggle and signs of revitalization in San Bernardino

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The Inland Empire city started 2016 mourning the losses from a shocking terrorist attack. The pain continued as the city endured a major spike in homicides. Long struggling, San Bernardino also saw signs of hope: Revitalization in some areas and a likely exit from municipal bankruptcy.

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Here’s $100. Can you win $1.5 billion at Powerball?

Earlier this year, the Powerball jackpot shot to a record $1.5 billion. The odds of winning were 1 in 292,201,338, but someone had to win, right? We put that idea to the test.

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A web of campaign contributors

A Times investigation found that donors linked both directly and indirectly to real estate developer Samuel Leung gave more than $600,000 to politicians as Los Angeles officials were vetting his controversial apartment project. Explore that data in 3D.

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Terror’s daily reality

To capture the toll of terror, the Los Angeles Times tracked every fatal act of terrorism around the world in April. By the end of the month, terror had struck 180 times, wounded 1,385 and killed 858.

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Purple Patron: The artists Prince ushered into the spotlight

Besides giving rise to the “Minneapolis Sound,” Prince also had an exceptional eye for spotting talent. He created numerous musical groups and wrote hit songs for other artists. On the day of his death, we chronicled the artists he worked with over the years.

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California neighborhood election results

These precinct-level maps of several California counties show how similar – or different – voters in your neighborhood are.

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The death of Alan Rickman

(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

Possessing a mellifluous baritone and a congenital sneer that could signal aristocratic hauteur, Rickman invested dark, forbidding characters — from “Die Hard” to the “Harry Potter” movies — with alluring complexity and a winking self-awareness. He was 69.

Those characters “are just people to me,” he once told The Times.

I’m a lot less serious than people think.

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