Elian, George and Al remind us Florida is more than just a beach
By John Helton
CNN.com U.S. News Editor
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Emotions ran high outside the Florida Supreme Court as the country remained bitterly divided over which candidate should assume the presidency.
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(CNN) -- The year began and ended with Americans focused on events unfolding in Florida.
At the beginning of the year, the country was focused on a 6-year-old Cuban immigrant and split on whether he should stay with relatives in Miami or be sent home to his father in Cuba.
As the year ended, the American public was divided almost equally on who should be president. And attention focused again on Florida -- this time for its 25 electoral votes that would decide the race for the presidency more than a month after Americans cast their ballots.
Elian Gonzalez was found floating on an inner tube on November 25, 1999, after his mother and 10 other Cubans drowned as they fled Cuba for the United States. After recovering from his ordeal, Elian was taken in by relatives in Miami. The boy's father, divorced from his mother, wanted Elian returned to Cuba. Miami's mayor threatened to have the city's police keep the federal government from taking the boy.
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GALLERIES |
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ELIAN GONZALEZ |
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IN-DEPTH |
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A federal court ordered Elian returned to his father, and in April federal agents snatched Elian from the home in which he had been living to send him back to Cuba.
In the end, it was a story about a man who wanted his son to come home and relatives who did not want to send him back to the country they had fled. But it was exploited by those who saw the opportunity to make a point. And it provoked strong opinions around the country's water coolers. It might have had something to do with a slight shift in the U.S.'s 40-year-old sanctions against Cuba.
Florida was not the only hot spot in 2000. Over the year, there were more than 90,000 hot spots as the country endured its worst wildfire seasons in five decades and one of the worst in history. The 90,674 fires recorded for the year were fewer than the 10-year average of 106,393 fires, but the 7.3 million acres burned were almost twice as many as the 10-year average of 3.8 million acres and about the same area as Maryland.
As the wildfire season began, all the elements were in place to make it one of the worst on record: drought in the Southwest; a century-long effort to prevent forest fires that resulted in an unnatural buildup of flammable brush and shrubs; low humidity; and a series of dry thunderstorms rolling in from the Northwest.
Fire suppression costs were put at $1.6 billion. In all, more than 30,000 people, including six Army and Marine battalions, were involved in the fight. By mid-summer, nine of the 11 geographic regions into which firefighters divide the country had large fires burning in them. It is considered a serious season if three or four of the regions have fires burning at one time, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, the agency that coordinates wildfire-fighting efforts.
On the worst day of the year, August 29, there were 84 large fires -- more than 100 acres each -- burning on 1,642,579 acres in 16 states, or an area about the size of Delaware.
Two of the nation's largest police forces saw the gap widen between them and the people they protect and serve.
In Los Angeles, the city signed a consent decree to have the U.S. Department of Justice monitor its police department and oversee reforms.
In the first trial stemming from a corruption investigation into the city's Rampart division, three LAPD officers were found guilty of conspiring to frame reputed gang members. In all, 70 officers have been investigated and more than 100 convictions have been overturned. Dozens of officers have quit or been fired or suspended because of the scandal.
In New York City, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights blasted police for engaging in illegal racial profiling, using "aggressive" strategies to reduce crime, and ignoring the community it serves.
In October, Americans were again reminded that their nation is both one of the most revered and one of the most reviled when two men in a rubber boat blew a hole in the side of the USS Cole, a state-of-the-art warship, killing 17 sailors and wounding 39, almost sending the ship to the bottom of the harbor in Aden, Yemen.
Investigators were tracing links between the bombing and Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. Critics of American policy are looking for someone to blame. And policymakers are again looking for a way to prevent violence against American interests overseas.
Having secured their parties' nominations early in the primaries, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore had been running against each other for months when Election Day dawned on November 7. When November 8 dawned, they were still running against each other.
Gore won the popular vote. Bush prevailed in the Electoral College -- if you conceded Florida's 25 votes to him, which Gore was not willing to do.
A confusing ballot in one county caused votes intended for Gore to be cast for another candidate, Democrats said. Absentee ballots for Bush were being thrown out unfairly, Republicans said.
Democrats sued to have the ballots counted. Republicans sued to keep them from being counted. The Florida Supreme Court ordered the count to proceed. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered it halted. Finally, the clock ran out on Election 2000.
Bush will take office in January over a constituency of which half wanted someone else to lead it. The new president has pledged to a spirit of bi-partisanship in the coming administration. He probably has no choice: The Senate is split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans and the House is nearly even. Moderates from both parties are already discussing how they are going to get things done in 2001.
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