The most important news from the United States during 2021

The assault on the US Capitol, Joe Biden's arrival at the White House, Simone Biles' decision to put her health above a medal and the cyber-attack that caused a petrol shortage are some of the news stories that marked the American news in 2021.

Of the hundreds of headlines that dominated the front pages, here are the ten stories that changed the country this year:

MOB STORMS THE U.S. CAPITOL.

6 January 2021 will forever be a day that will be etched in the memory of Americans. Live on television they watched as a mob of Donald Trump supporters smashed the doors and windows of the US Congress, forcing its members to scramble for cover.

The assault followed an incendiary rally by Trump in which he waved his lies about voter fraud. In the wee hours of the morning, Congress accomplished its mission of certifying Biden's victory in the 2020 election and the defeat of Trump, who subsequently became the only president in US history to survive a second impeachment, this time for inciting insurrection.

BIDEN'S ARRIVAL AND A DREAM OF UNITY

On 20 January, in a ceremony in front of the Capitol, Joe Biden was sworn in as US president with a speech that echoed the words "hope", "decency" and "unity" and from which Trump decided to absent himself, becoming the first president in 152 years not to attend the inauguration of his successor.

On his first day in the White House, Biden returned the US to the Paris Agreement, prevented it from leaving the World Health Organisation (WHO) and signed ten executive orders to fight the pandemic, in a sign of the spirit he would imprint on his administration.

JUSTICE FOR GEORGE FLOYD

Away from Washington, one of the most eagerly awaited events was the trial of white police officer Derek Chauvin for the May 2020 death of African-American George Floyd, who inspired a wave of protests unseen in the US since the assassination of Martin Luther King in the late 1960s.

Chauvin was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison. The black community in the US has celebrated the sentence with some bitterness as police killings of African-Americans have been repeated throughout the year and the long-awaited police reform promised by Biden has stalled in Congress.

SIMONE BILES, NAOMI OSAKA AND MENTAL HEALTH

Meanwhile, in the world of sport, American Simone Biles and Japan's Naomi Osaka opened the debate on mental health with a revolutionary decision to put their wellbeing above the competitions they had been preparing for, the French Open and Tokyo Olympics respectively.

In addition, Biles this year spoke openly about how Larry Nassar used his position as national gymnastics team doctor to sexually abuse her and hundreds of other young athletes. All of them reached a settlement with the federation and the US Olympic committee in December for $380 million in compensation.

U.S. WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN

In the foreign policy arena, the news of the year was the US withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war, the last days of which were marked by the attack on Kabul airport, claimed by the terrorist group Islamic State (IS), in which some 170 Afghan civilians and 13 US soldiers were killed.

The chaotic withdrawal meant a drop in Biden's approval ratings, as he was unable to get all the Afghans who had fought on Washington's side out of Afghanistan and had to watch the Taliban seize billions of dollars worth of US military hardware.

CYBER-ATTACK CAUSES FUEL SHORTAGES

On the economic front, one of the biggest news stories was the cyber-attack that caused fuel shortages in several southeastern US states and led to the closure of 71% of gas stations in Charlotte on 11 May and 87% in Washington D.C. on 14 May.

Specifically, the attack targeted Colonial, the largest pipeline network in the US, and was perpetrated by the criminal group DarkSide, allegedly based in Eastern Europe, according to Joe Biden's administration.

FACEBOOK'S SECRETS EXPOSED
    
A consortium of 17 US media outlets in October uncovered Facebook's secrets, including the extent to which the company put profits before online safety, the lack of control over misinformation and how it ignored the harmful effects of its products on teenagers.

Among other things, the "Facebook papers" showed that the company had done internal research showing that its proprietary Instagram was harmful to teenagers, especially girls, because it worsens problems they may have with their self-image. After those revelations, the company that owns Facebook changed its name to Meta.

BUILDING COLLAPSES IN MIAMI IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

In the summer, the collapse of a residential tower in Surfside, Miami-Dade County, Florida, shook the United States. Part of the 12-storey building collapsed in the middle of the night on 24 June while most of its occupants were asleep.

The question of whether the tragedy, which claimed the lives of 98 people, could have been avoided continues to plague local residents and investigations into the cause of the collapse remain open.

HIGHEST INFLATION IN ALMOST 40 YEARS

In everyday life, apart from the pandemic, what worried Americans most this year was inflation, which in November - the latest available data - climbed to 6.8 %, the highest rate since June 1982, at the end of the great inflationary period of the 1970s.

Rising prices have increased pressure on the Federal Reserve, which this month decided to accelerate the tapering of its bond-buying programme and, while leaving interest rates unchanged in the range of 0 to 0.25 %, opened the door to three hikes in the coming year.

THE RETURN TO THE STADIUMS

Finally, 2021 has been the year of the return to stadiums and a certain normality in the professional basketball, football, hockey and baseball leagues, especially after a year in which games were played in "bubbles" or were cancelled outright for fear of the virus.

Americans were once again able to enjoy the Super Bowl and watch the legendary quarterback Tom Brady, this time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, win his seventh championship ring.