The New York Times
IT WAS A YEAR to be confounded, shocked, humbled.
Donald J. Trump won the American presidency, defying polls, mockery and fear to defeat Hillary Clinton. Britons jolted their country and the world by voting to leave the European Union. Syria’s agony played out before a largely indifferent world, its children staring into the camera with eyes wide in terror, blood flecking their clothing.
The president of the Philippines unleashed a merciless war on drugs, boasting of killing drug dealers himself when he was a mayor, and many of his citizens cheered him on. Climate change created a new class of refugees, even as climate-change skeptics were nominated to key United States cabinet posts.
And talk about shocking: The Chicago Cubs won the World Series after a drought of 108 years.