50 STORIES FROM 50 STATES
Before we usher in the new year, it’s time for a retrospective of 2015. Here’s our roundup of some of the biggest stories across the country, events that influenced national conversations on issues from police brutality to gay marriage, tragedies that sho
ALABAMA: Gay adoption. Two lesbian mothers fought for custody of their three children. Two state courts were at odds over adoption rights for same-sex couples — at least until the Supreme Court stepped in.
ALASKA: First income tax. This December, Gov. Walker called for the state’s first income tax in 35 years. Alaska is the only state that has neither a state-level sales tax nor a personal income tax.
ARIZONA: Lake Mead. Lake Mead shrank to a historic low this year. The reservoir, on the Colorado River, stores water for parts of Arizona, southern California, southern Nevada and northern Mexico.
ARKANSAS: The Duggars. It was a year of turmoil for Arkansas’ Duggar clan. TLC pulled the plug on the family’s hit series, 19 Kids and Counting, following the revelation that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s son Josh sexually molested five girls, including his own sisters.
CALIFORNIA: San Bernardino. In December, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, burst into a social services center and opened fire, killing 14 people and setting off an intense manhunt that ended with their deaths.
COLORADO: Abortion. Planned Parenthood found itself in a firestorm of controversy this year after an anti-abortion group released secretly filmed videos showing Planned Parenthood doctors. Fast-forward to November, when a gunman killed three people at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs.
CONNECTICUT: Refugees. Syrian refugees were destined for Indiana, but politics derailed that. Gov. Malloy welcomed to his state in November the Syrian family that was diverted from Indiana because of security concerns.
DELAWARE: Beau Biden. Former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden might have been the son of a larger-than-life politician, but in his own way, he was a quiet force of nature. Biden’s brain cancer was diagnosed in August 2013. He died in May.
FLORIDA: Search hits dead ends. The deepest fears of two Florida families came to fruition on July 24 when their 14-year-old sons, Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos, went missing at sea. The Coast Guard found their capsized 19-foot boat 67 miles off the coast of Daytona Beach.
GEORGIA: Bobbi Kristina Brown. Bobbi Kristina Brown, daughter of Whitney Houston, died in July in an Atlanta-area hospice, nearly six months after she was found unconscious in her Georgia home. She was 22.
HAWAII: Sun power. A solarpowered airplane that uses no fuel and can remain in the air indefinitely attempted a nearly 22,000-mile, round-the-world voyage — until it fried its batteries in July. Solar Impluse 2’s journey, which began March 9 with a flight from the United Arab Emirates, might continue in April. It’ll be housed on Oahu while repairs are made.
IDAHO: A harrowing tale. John Sain thought he would die alone. While on a solo hunting trip in the Idaho wilderness, the 50year-old snapped two bones in his right leg after an unlucky misstep. After almost four days of dragging himself through the wilderness, two men found him.
ILLINOIS: Laquan McDonald. Seventeen-year-old Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by police officer Jason Van Dyke on Oct. 20, 2014 — thirteen of those shots were fired while McDonald was on the ground. You’re reading about this story in 2015 because that’s when explosive video of the shooting was made public.
INDIANA: A ‘religious freedom’ law. At the end of March, Republican Gov. Pence signed a law that allows businesses to assert a religious defense if they decline to provide services to a customer. The state later passed an amendment to clarify the bill cannot be used to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
IOWA: Center of the political universe. It was Hillary Clinton’s first destination after she kicked off her White House bid in the spring. Iowa made campaigns (see Scott Walker’s rise and Ted Cruz’s recent surge) and helped end them (see Walker’s fall after his Iowa numbers plummeted).
KANSAS: Where is the water? Groundwater is disappearing beneath cornfields in Kansas. An investigation by USA TODAY and The Desert Sun reveals time is running out for portions of the High Plains Aquifer.
KENTUCKY: A famous county clerk. Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis made national news after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, claiming it conflicted with her Christian beliefs.
LOUISIANA: Major upset. Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards was elected governor of Louisiana, defeating two-term U.S. Sen. David Vitter, a Republican, in an almost unthinkable upset.
MAINE: Happy ending. Joel Carpenter lives in Portland, Maine, and found the dog of his dreams on petfinder.com. The only problem was she was across the country in a Minnesota shelter. Carpenter could afford to get to Minnesota, but he didn’t have enough money for the ticket home. That’s when strangers raised enough money for the two to return home.
MARYLAND: Riots in the streets. Freddie Gray, 25, died of a “high-energy injury” that likely occurred when the police van he was riding in suddenly slowed down, an autopsy showed. His death sparked “Justice for Freddie” protests in Baltimore, which later turned violent; a curfew was instituted, and the National Guard was brought in.
MASSACHUSETTS: Deflategate. Hours after the New England Patriots beat the Indianapolis Colts to reach Super Bowl XLIV, the Deflategate scandal broke. The NFL investigated whether Patriots employees — with the knowledge of quarterback Tom Brady — had lowered the air pressure of balls used by the team.
MICHIGAN: The Syrian refugee who moved America. A Michigan-bound Syrian refugee who lost his wife and daughter in a deadly attack became a worldwide viral sensation in December after sharing his story with Brandon Stanton, the creator of the popular photo blog “Humans of New York.”
MINNESOTA: Hunter becomes the hunted. Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer is a big-game hunter who shot and killed Cecil the lion in July. Cecil was one of the most famous animals at Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park.
MISSISSIPPI: Burned-alive teen. The mystery of 19-year-old Jessica Chambers, found on a rural road, burned alive, unraveled throughout 2015. Chambers was doused with gasoline and set afire on Dec. 6, 2014, near Courtland, Miss., and officials spent the ensuing months interviewing more than 150 people.
MISSOURI: About the First Amendment ... Students protesting racism at the University of Missouri saw their efforts lead to the ouster of University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe and University of Missouri-Columbia Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin.
MONTANA: Bear attack. One way to survive a grizzly bear attack? Shove your arm down the bear’s throat. That was Chase Dellwo’s technique when a bear thrashed the elk hunter around in the Montana woods.
NEBRASKA: Marijuana. Nebraska and Oklahoma are not fans of Colorado’s legal marijuana system, saying it has created a flood of modern-day bootleggers who are buying pot in Colorado and then illegally crossing state lines. They sued Colorado, asking the Supreme Court to block Colorado’s legal-marijuana system.
NEVADA: High hopes dashed. What cost $99.95, lasted 36 minutes and probably put you to sleep? The pay-per-view battle royale in Las Vegas between boxing legends Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao on May 2.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: A map of the USA? The GOP presidential campaign for Ben Carson shared a map in November that misplaced five New England states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
NEW JERSEY: ‘The Watcher’ A family was forced to forgo living in their New Jersey dream home after receiving threatening letters from a stalker called “The Watcher.” The letters taunt the new owners and their children to the point that the family did not move in and is seeking damages for fraud and breach of contract.
NEW MEXICO: Knockout seen ’round the world. New Mexico native Holly Holm became an overnight sensation after doling out a devastating roundhouse kick to UFC superstar Ronda Rousey’s face.
NEW YORK: It wasn’t “Shawshank.” The escape of two convicted murderers from a maximum-security facility in New York had all the plot points of a hit movie, The Shawshank Redemption. But Richard Matt and David Sweat, who escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in June, were murderers who wouldn’t hesitate to kill to get away. Nearly three weeks later, Matt was fatally shot. Two days after that, Sweat was shot and taken into custody.
NORTH CAROLINA: Speak in any language. This holiday season, 70 deaf and hard-of-hearing children from the Charlotte region got to tell Santa everything on their lists.
NORTH DAKOTA: “Deep-lung ” breath tests. Can states charge motorists with a crime for refusing to take a breath test on suspicion of driving drunk when police lack a warrant? The Supreme Court will decide, after it said in December it would hear cases out of Minnesota and North Dakota in which drivers were charged with a crime after they refused to take “deep-lung ” breath tests.
OHIO: “I didn’t even do nothing.” Samuel DuBose’s final words echoed across the country as a national conversation about race and police brutality churned on. White University of Cincinnati Police officer Ray Tensing said he shot 43-year-old DuBose, an unarmed black man, during a traffic stop after being dragged by DuBose’s vehicle. Then the video changed everything.
OKLAHOMA: Cop found guilty of serial rape. A former Oklahoma City police officer was convicted in December of sexually assaulting women he preyed upon in a low-income neighborhood he patrolled. A jury convicted Daniel Holtzclaw of four charges of first-degree rape and 14 other counts.
OREGON: Terror strikes. Before opening fire, Chris Harper Mercer asked students in a classroom if they were Christians. He targeted those who said yes. The 26-year-old gunned down nine people and injured nine more on Oct. 1 at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., before turning his gun on himself.
PENNSYLVANIA: Deadly Amtrak derailment. The cause of a catastrophic Amtrak crash in Philadelphia that killed eight and injured 200 people on May 12 remains under investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board determined Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188 was traveling 106 mph through a curve with a 50-mph speed limit when it jumped the tracks.
RHODE ISLAND: Don’t be too social. A recent rise in sexually transmitted diseases in Rhode Island could, in part, be due to social apps, the state’s Department of Health said this year.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Outcry against hate across the state. On June 19, hate walked into a Bible study at the historic black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., and opened fire. Nine people were killed, including the church’s pastor, a state senator. Dylann Roof, a 21-yearold white man who flaunted symbols of white supremacy and was linked to hate groups, was arrested a day later. As a direct response to the massacre, South Carolinians took up the issue of the Confederate battle flag on its Statehouse grounds.
SOUTH DAKOTA: A controversial peak. Harney Peak is a 7,244-foot-high South Dakota summit (once considered for the famous mountain carving of presidents that went to Mount Rushmore). Lakota Indians and their allies are fighting to get the federal government to change the name, which they find offensive. William S. Harney, its namesake, was an Army general whom Lakota tribes blame for massacring 86 people.
TENNESSEE: Email mix-up does good. Thad Livingston had never been to Mount Juliet (Tenn.) Elementary School. And he lives about 800 miles away. But the kids call him their “New Jersey grandfather.” An email blast from the school mistakenly went to Livingston in Eastampton Township, N.J., at the start of the school year. Instead of ignoring it, he started to help with small things he learned the school needed.
TEXAS: The mysterious death of Sandra Bland. Just what happened to Sandra Bland? It’s the question her family has been asking since her death in a Texas jail cell in July. Authorities say she was arrested for getting confrontational during a traffic stop, went to jail and committed suicide in her cell a few days later. Her family doesn’t believe it.
UTAH: A 100-year weather event. On Sept. 14, a seasonal storm system dropped heavy rains on mountains between the Grand Canyon and Zion national parks, prompting flash flooding that claimed several lives.
VERMONT: Sanders has a big 2015. The self-described Democratic socialist proved himself a heavy-hitting contender for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 presidential race, going toe-to-toe with front-runner Hillary Clinton.
VIRGINIA: On-air killing leaves nation stunned. Two young journalists at Roanoke’s WDBJ 7-TV were fatally shot on live television by a disgruntled former colleague, who then posted video footage of the crime from his perspective to social media.
WASHINGTON: A white woman identifies as black. This is the saga of Rachel Dolezal, who resigned in June as president of the Spokane, Wash., chapter of the NAACP after it was revealed she lied about her racial identity.
WEST VIRGINIA: Hire your own ‘Wikipedian-in-residence.’ West Virginia University wants to help correct Wikipedia’s gender gap with a one-year Wikipedian-in-residence position designed to increase the number of Wikipedia articles about West Virginia women and gender studies by 25%.
WISCONSIN: Four-mile stretch of sunflowers. Don Jaquish lost his wife, Babbette, to cancer last year. In her memory, Don planted a 41⁄ mile ribbon of sunflowers along both sides of Wisconsin State Road 85. Millions of people saw Babbette’s flowers — in person and online.
WYOMING: Memorable LGBT law passes. In 1998, 21-year-old University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime in Laramie. Seventeen years later, the town where he died adopted a non-discrimination ordinance.