Etc.

Leading news organizations rank top stories of the year

Last April 16, Seung-hui Cho, a Virginia Tech student with a history of mental illness, killed two people in a dormitory and then 30 others in a classroom building before taking his own life. The worst shooting rampage in modern US history has been voted the No. 1 story of 2007 by editors and news directors whose outlets subscribe to the services of the Associated Press and who voted before Thursday's assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Notably, despite the success of the surge by US forces in Iraq, the voters ranked that story only third. Just missing the Top 10: the wildfires in southern California, the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, and the Mitchell report on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. The most important news stories of 2007, according to the 271 ballots collected by AP: