In Review: Top News Stories of 2015

Judy Gerstel | January 1st, 2016

As we welcome in a New Year, one last look at some highlights and lowlights of 2015.

January

Target announces it’s shutting down every Canadian location after after less than two years and more than $2 billion in losses.

Terror attack in Paris targets the office of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket.

February

The legal ban on physician assisted death is struck down with a unanimous Supreme Court decision on Feb. 6, 2015.

Star Trek’s original Spock, Leonard Nimoy, 83, passes away due to end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Julianne Moore, 55, wins Best Actress Oscar for her performance in “Still Alice,” about a linguistics professor struggling with early onset Alzheimer’s.

March

On a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locks the lead pilot out of the cockpit during a break and deliberately crashes the plane into the French Alps, killing all 150 passengers and crew on board.

April

U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro meet at the Summit of the Americas in Panama, the first time the countries’ leaders have a face-to-face meeting in more than 50 years. Resumption of relations and tourism between the two countries is on the agenda and Canadians resigned themselves to the loss of their cheap Cuban vacations.

Apple launches the Apple Watch.

May

Blues legend B.B. King passes away at the age of 89

Longtime 60 Minutes reporter Bob Simon, 73, killed in a car accident in New York.

Rachel Notley, 51, sworn in as first ever NDP premier of Alberta.

Birth of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, second grandchild of heir to the throne, Prince Charles, 66.

Dave Goldberg, husband of Facebook exec Sheryl Sandberg and CEO of SurveyMonkey, dies, age 47, after falling from a treadmill while exercising in a gym.

David Letterman, 68, retires after 33 years, the longest-serving late night talk show host in American television history.

June

Donald Trump, 69, launches his campaign for the Republican nomination for President of the United States and confounds pundits who think it’s a joke by immediately topping national polls.

Ben Affleck, 42, and Jennifer Garner, 43, announce their divorce on the day after their tenth wedding anniversary.

July

Actor Omar Sharif (Lawrence of Arabia) dies at the age of 83 after a heart attack. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease earlier in the year.

More than 13,000 people are forced from their homes because of wildfires in Saskatchewan, the largest evacuation effort in the province’s history.

Flora MacDonald, external affairs minister in Joe Clark’s government, passes away at the age of 89. She was the first woman to launch a high-profile campaign to lead the Progressive Conservative party, but lost to Clark.

Former Stratford director Robin Phillips, 75,  dies after a prolonged illness.

A Black Lives Matter protest against the Greater Toronto shooting deaths of two black men by police shuts down Allen Road in Toronto.

August

Olympian Bruce Jenner, 65, emerges as Vanity Fair cover girl Caitlin Marie after undergoing gender reassignment treatments.

Horror director Wes Crave (Nightmare on Elm Street) dies at 76 from brain cancer.

September

Queen Elizabeth, 89, surpasses Queen Victoria as Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, after more than 63 years, seven months and two days.

Best-selling author Jackie Collins, 77, dies of breast cancer. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer six-and-a-half years earlier, but told no one except her three daughters.

Baseball legend Yogi Berra passes away at the age of 90. Most obituaries refer to him as the inspiration for cartoon character Yogi Bear.

The body of three-year old Aylan Kurdi, clad in a red shirt, washes up on a shore in Turkey and makes the migrant crisis a human crisis that impacts the Canadian election.

October

After nearly a decade as Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, 56, is succeeded by Justin Trudeau whose Liberal Party wins a stunning majority.

Actress Maureen O’Hara dies at the age of 95.

Former Ambassador Ken Taylor, who hid Americans in the Canadian embassy during the Iran hostage crisis, dies of colon cancer at the age of 81.

Toronto Blue Jays win American League Division Series.

November

A series of coordinated terrorist attacks in the heart of Paris leaves 130 people dead and several hundred severely wounded. It’s the deadliest attack on French soil since the Second World War.

December

A terrorist attack by a husband and wife inspired by Islamic State kills 14 people in San Bernadino, California

After eight days of testimony, the trial of Senator Mike Duffy is adjourned until February when it will resume with closing arguments.

Bill Cosby, 78, faces his first criminal charge for a sexual assault in which he allegedly drugged a Canadian woman, Andrea Costand, in 2004 when she worked at Temple University and then sexually assaulted her at his home in suburban Philadelphia. Costing, 44, is now a massage therapist in Toronto.