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CNN’s top 100 digital stories of 2019

What a news year 2019 was. The team at CNN Digital looked back on the stories that resonated most in this frenetic news year. We always want to know what you, our audience, is most interested in. We find this list both reflective and informative about the work we do and the people we do it for.

The list not only speaks to a nonstop news cycle, but to the diverse interests and intellectual curiosity of millions of people who came to CNN’s digital platforms this year.

When news breaks, people turn to CNN. Natural disasters. Horrific mass shootings. People we lost. Riveting US political news and analysis. Those kinds of stories are definitely on this list.

But so are stories about business strategies, inspiring people, wild medical tales, unique travel pieces and “zeitgeist” stories about the culture and time we live in.

As we enter an election year, we will keep up the critical work of covering the campaigns and the political climate in the US, and continue to report on an array of important and interesting stories around the world.

CNN Digital saw its biggest audiences so far in 2019, with a monthly average of more than 162 million people coming to read and watch our brand of essential and engaging journalism. We thank each and every one of you, and we promise to keep going.

–Meredith Artley, Editor in Chief, CNN Digital Worldwide

1. Live Story: Fire at Notre Dame Cathedral

2. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian slams into the Bahamas

3. Live Story: Dozens killed in Christchurch mosque shooting

4. Live Story: President Trump has been impeached

5. Live Story: Deadly shooting in El Paso, Texas

6. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian threatens the US

7. It’s only $4.99. But Costco’s rotisserie chicken comes at a huge price

8. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian intensifies as it heads for US

9. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian threatens the US after devastating the Bahamas

10. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian heads for the US mainland

11. The Dayton shooter wore a mask, bulletproof vest and hearing protection as he opened fire, police chief says

12. Police sources: New evidence suggests Jussie Smollett orchestrated attack

13. Live Story: Three key witnesses testify in impeachment inquiry

14. Opinion: Mueller’s report looks bad for Obama

15. Live Story: The government is STILL shut down

16. Live Story: Mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio

17. Live Story: House launches Trump impeachment inquiry

18. Live Story: Michael Cohen testifies before Congress

19. Cameron Boyce, Disney star, dies at 20 after a seizure, family says

20. Live Story: The government shutdown is over

21. 20 people killed in El Paso shooting, Texas governor says

22. A shocking image of a drowned man and his daughter underscores the crisis at the US-Mexico border

23. A mother’s warning: If you have white teen sons, listen up …

24. At least 12 dead after disgruntled employee opens fire at Virginia Beach municipal center

25. Analysis: Nancy Pelosi just pulled a major power move on Donald Trump’s State of the Union

26. Live Story: Deadly school shooting in Santa Clarita

27. How a cheap, brutally efficient grocery chain is upending America’s supermarkets

28. She lived for 99 years with organs in all the wrong places and never knew it

29. Live Story: Robert Mueller testifies

2019: The year in pictures

30. Which drink is best for hydration? Hint: It isn’t water

31. Live Story: The Mueller report is out

32. Jennifer Hart drove her six children to their deaths as her wife looked up how much they would suffer, a jury says

33. Marcia Cross says her anal cancer is linked to HPV and husband’s throat cancer

34. Commonly prescribed drugs are tied to nearly 50% higher dementia risk in older adults, study says

35. Live Story: Sri Lanka attack death toll rises to 290

36. This college dropout was bedridden for 11 years. Then he invented a surgery and cured himself

37. Live Story: This is the longest shutdown in US history

38. A new video shows a different side of the encounter between a Native American elder and teens in MAGA hats

39. Live Story: Trump declares national emergency to fund the wall

40. Read Trump’s phone conversation with Volodymyr Zelensky

41. Exclusive: White House preparing draft national emergency order, has identified $7 billion for wall

42. Exclusive: Giuliani associate willing to tell Congress Nunes met with ex-Ukrainian official to get dirt on Biden

43. Analysis: The greatest trick Donald Trump ever pulled

44. Keanu Reeves not touching women is a thing

45. Trump’s offer of temporary protection for immigrants to end shutdown is a ‘non-starter,’ say Democrats

46. Live Story: The 2019 Oscars

47. Explosive revelations in Russia saga add up to a bad day for Trump

48. Dollar stores are everywhere. That’s a problem for poor Americans

49. Nine-year-old child genius to graduate university

50. Earthquakes put Ridgecrest residents on edge: ‘Nobody in this town has slept for days’

51. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian nears Puerto Rico

52. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responds to dance video critics with more dancing

53. Prince Harry accepts ‘substantial’ damages after helicopter photos forced royal couple from their home

54. Emily Hartridge, popular YouTube personality, dies at 35

55. Analysis: Why Shep Smith finally walked out of Fox News for good

56. Four flight attendants were arrested in Miami’s airport after bringing in thousands in cash, police say

57. Live Story: Whistleblower alleges White House coverup

58. Teenage boy goes blind after existing on Pringles, white bread and french fries

59. Grocery store employee missing for 10 years found behind store’s cooler

60. Live Story: Impeachment inquiry hearing with former US Ambassador to Ukraine

61. Passengers stuck on United flight in frigid cold for more than 14 hours

62. Teen dies of tapeworm larvae infestation in the brain

63. Exclusive: Top US Navy SEAL tells commanders in letter: ‘We have a problem’

64. Former Trump Organization executive says she expects President Trump will resign

65. Two people just got the plague in China — yes, the Black Death plague

66. Edward Snowden searched the CIA’s networks for proof that aliens exist. Here’s what he found

67. Live Story: Bombs tear through Sri Lankan churches and hotels, killing 250 people

68. Abigail Disney visited Disneyland. She is ‘livid’ about what she saw

69. Live Story: At least 3 dead in California garlic festival shooting

70. Beth Chapman, ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ star, has died

71. YouTuber James Charles has lost nearly 3 million subscribers since his feud with Tati Westbrook

72. A huge, strange-looking fish washed up on a California beach. Scientists say it’s a first

73. 49 killed in mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand

74. Analysis: A grave charge and a momentous turn in the Trump impeachment inquiry

75. He was a Yale graduate, Wall Street banker and entrepreneur. Today he’s homeless in Los Angeles

76. He was bullied for his homemade University of Tennessee T-shirt. The school just made it an official design

77. Mueller indicts Roger Stone, says he was coordinating with Trump officials about WikiLeaks’ stolen emails

78. Alec Baldwin suggests Trump’s latest attack on ‘SNL’ could be ‘a threat to my safety’

79. Analysis: The hugely inappropriate weekend of Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

80. Her son died. And then anti-vaxers attacked her

81. New York meteorologist fired after using racial slur on air

82. Live Story: The latest on the Trump impeachment inquiry

83. Growing divide between Trump and McConnell over impeachment trial

84. Dayton shooter had an obsession with violence and mass shootings, police say

85. A nurse is accused of impregnating a woman in a vegetative state who later gave birth

86. ‘Bomb cyclone’ blasts Colorado and leaves hundreds stranded in cars

87. McConnell will move to acquit Trump if he’s impeached, not merely dismiss charges, 2 Republican senators say

88. Analysis: Donald Trump falls for Nancy Pelosi’s trap

89. US intercepts Russian bombers, fighter jets off the coast of Alaska

90. Fatima Ali, ‘Top Chef’ fan favorite, dies at 29

91. Cops say a would-be kidnapper chased a woman — into a karate studio. That was a bad move.

92. Trump on Meghan Markle: ‘I didn’t know that she was nasty’

93. A ‘no-brainer Nobel Prize’: Hungarian scientists may have found a fifth force of nature

94. Delta passenger who carried firearm through TSA screening returned from Japan to US on the same day

95. An African American security guard asked a student to not call him the n-word. That request got him fired

96. Tesla reveals Cybertruck, but breaks its ‘unbreakable’ windows during unveiling

97. Laurent Simons, 9-year-old prodigy, leaves university without graduating

98. Luke Perry, star of ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ and ‘Riverdale,’ dead at 52

99. Analysis: You’ll never believe what Donald Trump just said about 9/11

100. Woman whose sister-in-law was killed in massacre near the US-Mexico border says cartels have targeted them before

*For data and analytics fans: Every one of these stories got at least 2 million visits according to our internal data, with the top story about the Notre Dame fire getting more than 17 million visits.

Article Topic Follows: US & World

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