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If you watch Law and Order or many other TV shows, you already know something about Miranda warnings and taking the Fifth. The police have to Mirandize you, and even in court, you can say, I refuse to answer on the grounds that I may incriminate myself. There are limits of course, but most people think these rights are fundamental, acrossevery alleged crime. But does it work with taxes and the IRS?Not usually.

Many people find that a shock. Remember theIRS official Lois Lerner, who ran the IRS unit accused of targeting conservatives some years back? She didnt want to answer questions about alleged IRS targeting.As a result, she took the Fifth. Congress held her in contempt, but the governmentdeclined to prosecute her. It was all a controversial episode. Private taxpayers arent usually so lucky when it comes to their own tax returns and investigations.

In fact, merely invoking the Fifth in a tax case can invite penalties or get the IRS looking more harshly at you. Lets start with tax returns themselves. You have to file them and you have to report your income.Way back in 1927, the Supreme Court considered a man whorefused to file a tax return, claiming that to do so would incriminate him. InU.S. v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court said that itwas too bad if disclosing illegal income opened him up to prosecution.

Even a criminal must file tax returns and pay taxes. After all, that is how they got Al Capone. You have to file a tax return, and you have to do it accurately.What if the IRS asks you questions you are afraid to answer? Answering IRS questions in an audit or investigation can be nerve-wracking.Do not speakup without your lawyer present, and ask your lawyer whatis fair to discuss. ButclaimingFifth Amendment protection in tax cases can be a mistake.

One of the biggest issues involves books and records. You have to keep them in order to fulfill your tax filing obligations. You even have to keep bank account records for accounts outside the U.S. Undisclosed offshore bank accounts can qualify as money laundering. So, if the IRS asks you if you have any foreign bank accounts, can you take the Fifth?

You can, but it probably wont help. Even if you claim the Fifth, the IRS can hand you an information document request to produce your records.You can refuse, but the IRS will issue a summons. If you refuse to answer that, the IRS will take you to court, whichwill probably order you to comply.But, doesnt your constitutional right to take the Fifth trump the IRS?

Not always. Ironically, you can refuse totalk, but youcannotrefuse to produce the documents. Your own private papers are personal records, and if they might incriminate you, they are protected by the Fifth Amendment.But the Required Records doctrinesays youmusthand over documents no matter how incriminating.The government requires you to keep certain records, and the government has a right to inspect them.

TheIRS and prosecutors have exploited this rule.It can mean thatpleading the Fifth in response to a subpoena for foreign account records can cause even more trouble than claiming it on your tax returns.Required records are those where the reporting has a regulatory purpose, where a person must customarily keep the records the record-keeping scheme requires him to keep, and the records have public aspects.

In the case of foreign bank records particularly, the courts uniformly deny Fifth Amendment protection.Numerous courts haveallgiven the IRS a free pass, rulingthat no Fifth Amendment protection applies.Despite repeated requests, the U.S. Supreme Court has been unwilling to hear this issue.

So, is it likely that the Fifth Amendment will be much help on your taxes? Not really. In most cases, a tax audit is civil and there is little risk that it will become criminal. However, just think about this: a majority of criminal tax cases come directly out of civil tax cases. The IRS civil auditors refer a case to the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. The IRS civil auditor will not tell you this is occurring, so the first time you hear about it, your case may have gone from bad to worse. That means having a lawyer and being careful can be wise.

Robert W. Wood is a tax lawyer and managing partner at Wood LLP. He can be reached at Wood@WoodLLP.com.

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Tax Laws: Can You Take The Fifth With The IRS? - International Business Times

Vuk Vujasinovic of VB Attorneys, who is part of the court-appointed lead team that took the case to trial and won, stated: "People living in the flood pools behind these dams sacrificed their homes to save the heart of Houston, and we are extremely pleased the judge agreed with us that they are entitled to compensation under the 5th Amendment to our constitution."Click here to learn more HurricaneHarveyLawsuitHelp.com.

The homeowners alleged the two dams stopped water that would otherwise have flowed from the project's location 17 miles west of downtown Houston, eastward into West Houston neighborhoods, Houston's central business district, and the industrial ship channel. The homeowners alleged the water backed up until it flooded over the thirteen test properties and over 10,000 homes and businesses located behind the dams.

The homeowners claimed the government's construction and operation of the Addicks and Barker project constituted a "taking" under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, entitling them to compensation.

The government alleged Hurricane Harvey was a very large storm that it could not foresee when it built the dams in the 1940s, and denied owing compensation to any homeowners.

Judge Lettow held a 2-week trial in Houston, Texas, which concluded on May 17, 2019. Over 30 witnesses were called to testify, including property owners, experts in hydrology, meteorology, and real estate valuation, representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers, as well as officials with Harris County and Fort Bend County. The trial included an excursion with the Judge to personally view the entire Addicks and Barker project.

Mr. Vujasinovic notes the following major points were established at trial:

In his ruling, Judge Lettow held that the federal government's construction and operation of the Addicks and Barker project was a "taking" under the 5th Amendment, entitling the homeowners to compensation. "The court finds that the government's actions relating to the Addicks and Barker Dams and the attendant flooding of plaintiffs' properties constituted a taking of a flowage easement under the Fifth Amendment. Thus, the court finds defendant liable."

Mr. Vujasinovic anticipates a second phase of litigation for the thirteen test properties to determine the amount of compensation owed to each. Collective damages for the over 10,000 flooded properties are estimated to exceed $1 Billion.

According to Mr. Vujasinovic, "this trial victory will be instrumental in our efforts to obtain fair compensation for all our clients whose property was damaged or destroyed due to the Addicks and Barker project. We look forward to finishing this fight to enforce our clients' constitutional property rights."

About Vuk Vujasinovic Vuk Vujasinovic is part of the court-appointed lead team that won the test case trial. His firm represents homeowners in all impacted communities behind the dams, including Bear Creek, Twin Lakes, Lakes on Eldridge, Concord Bridge, Concord Colony, Canyon Gate Cinco Ranch, Charlestown Colony, Cinco at Willow Fork, Cinco Ranch Equestrian Village, Cinco Ranch Greenway Village, Cinco Ranch Meadow Place, Cinco Ranch Southpark, Concord Fairways at Kelliwood, Grand Lakes, Grand Lakes Phase Three, Grand Mission, Green Trails Oaks, Greens at Willow Fork, Jamestown Colony, Kelliwood Greens, Kingsland Estates, Lakes of Buckingham Kelliwood, Mayde Creek Farms, Park Harbor Estates, Parklake Village, Pine Forest, Savannah Estates, Stone Gate at Canyon Gate, and Windsor Park Estates.

About VB Attorneys Based in Houston, Texas, VB Attorneys handles cases throughout the country. To learn more about the firm, visit HurricaneHarveyLawsuitHelp.com and VBAttorneys.com, or call 888.695.6993.

Contact: Carlos Villarreal Phone: (888) 695-6993 Website:VBAattorneys.comEmail: Carlos@VBAttorneys.com

SOURCE VB Attorneys

http://www.vbattorneys.com

Excerpt from:
Homeowners Behind Addicks and Barker Dams in Houston, Texas Entitled to Compensation, Federal Judge Rules - PRNewswire

Key point: Questions have risen once again about what happened to one of America's most famous union bosses.

On July 30, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa, the former president of the Teamsters Union, disappeared.

Hed gone to a restaurant in suburban Detroit apparently expecting to meet a couple of mafia figures whom he had known for decades. Hed hoped to win their support for his bid to return to the unions presidency. A few customers remembered seeing him in the restaurant parking lot before 3 p.m.

Sometime after that he vanished without a trace.

The FBI has long assumed that Hoffa was the victim of a mob hit. But despite a decades-long investigation, no one has ever been charged with his murder. His body has never been found.

Yet even though his physical remains are missing, Hoffa lives on in our collective cultural consciousness.

Martin Scorseses The Irishman is only the latest film to offer a fictionalized version of Hoffas story. Before that there was Sylvester Stallones F.I.S.T. (1978), Danny DeVitos Hoffa (1992) and the made-for-TV movie Blood Feud (1983).

Hes been the subject of countless true crime books, most famously Charles Brandts I Heard You Paint Houses. He inspired an episode of The Simpsons. And he crops up in tabloids such as the Weekly World News, which claimed to have found him living in Argentina, hiding from the vengeful Kennedys.

Ever since I started researching and writing on the history of the Teamsters, people have asked me where I think Hoffas body is located. His story, Ive learned, is the one aspect of labor history with which nearly every American is familiar.

Hoffas disappearance transformed him from a controversial union leader into a mythic figure. Over time, Ive come to realize that Hoffas resonance in our culture has important political implications for the labor movement today.

The rise and fall of the Teamsters Teamster

Hoffa became a household name in the late 1950s, when Robert F. Kennedy, then serving as chief counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee, publicly grilled him about his mob ties.

While other witnesses avoided answering questions by invoking their Fifth Amendment rights, Hoffa, the newly elected leader of the nations largest and most powerful union, adopted a defiant stance. He never denied having connections with organized crime figures; instead, he claimed these were the kinds of people he sometimes had to work with as he strengthened and grew his union in the face of employer opposition. He angrily dismissed any allegations of corruption and touted the gains his union had won for its membership.

The verbal sparring between Kennedy and Hoffa became the most memorable part of the hearings.

To the benefit of big business, it turned Hoffa into a menacing symbol of labor racketeering.

But to his union members, it only enhanced his standing. They were already thrilled by the contracts Hoffa had negotiated that included better pay and working conditions. Now his members hailed him as their embattled champion and wore buttons proclaiming, Hoffa, the Teamsters Teamster.

His membership stayed loyal even as Hoffa became the target of a series of prosecution efforts.

After becoming attorney general in 1961, Kennedy created a unit within the Department of Justice whose attorneys referred to themselves as the Get Hoffa Squad. Their directive was to target Hoffa and his closest associates. The squads efforts culminated in convictions against Hoffa in 1964 for jury tampering and defrauding the unions pension fund. Despite that setback, Hoffas hold on the Teamsters presidency remained firm even after he entered federal prison in 1967.

When he finally did leave office, Hoffa did so voluntarily. He resigned in 1971 as part of a deal to win executive clemency from the Nixon administration. There was one condition written into the presidents grant of clemency: He couldnt run for a position in the union until 1980.

Once free, Hoffa claimed that his ban from union office was illegitimate and began planning to run for the Teamsters presidency. However, he faced resistance not from the government but from organized crime figures, who had found it easier to work with Hoffas successor, Frank Fitzsimmons.

Hoffas meeting at the restaurant on July 30, 1975, was part of his efforts to allay that opposition.

Clearly, things didnt go as planned.

Some theorize that the mafia had him killed in order to ensure that he would not run against Fitzsimmons in the Teamsters upcoming 1976 union election.

But after no arrests and multiple fruitless excavations to try to locate his body, Hoffas case remains, to this day, unresolved.

From man to myth

In Andrew Lawlers history of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, he writes, To die is tragic, but to go missing is to become a legend, a mystery.

Stories are supposed to have a beginning, a middle and an end. But when people go missing and are never found, Lawler explains, theyll endure as subjects of endless fascination. It allows their legacies to be re-written, over and over.

These new interpretations, Lawler observes, can reveal something fresh about who we were, who we are, and who we want to be.

The myth of Hoffa lives on, even though almost five decades have passed since that afternoon in July 1975.

What shapes has it taken?

To some, he stands for an idealized image of the working class a man whod known hard, manual labor and worked tirelessly to achieve his success. But even after rising to his leadership post, Hoffa lived simply and eschewed pretense.

As a Washington Post article from 1992 put it, He wore white socks, and liked his beef cooked medium well He snored at the opera.

Meanwhile, his feud with the Kennedys pitted a populist tough guy off the loading docks against the professional class, the governing class, the educated experts. The Washington Post piece ties Hoffas story to that of another working-class icon. Watching Hoffa go up against Bobby Kennedy was like watching John Henry go up against a steam hammer it was only a matter of time before he lost.

But Hoffas myth can also serve as a morality tale. The New Republic, for instance, described how Danny DeVitos 1992 film reworks Hoffas life into the story of an embattled champion of the working class who makes a Faustian pact with the underworld.

In the movie, Hoffas Teamsters are caught in hopeless picket line battles with mob goons who the anti-union employers have hired. In order to get those goons to switch sides, Hoffa makes a bargain with mafia leaders. But the mafia ultimately has Hoffa killed when he tries to defy their control, becoming the victim of his own unbridled ambition.

Finally, the underworlds mysterious role in Hoffas death keeps his story compelling for Americans who have a fascination with conspiracy theories. It supports the idea of an invisible cabal that secretly runs everything, and which can make even a famous labor leader disappear without a trace.

Hoffas story is often intertwined with theories about the Kennedy assassination that attribute the presidents murder to an organized crime conspiracy. Both Hoffa and Kennedys murders, in these accounts, highlight the underworlds apparently unlimited power to protect its interests, with tentacles that extend into the government and law enforcement.

Did Hoffa taint the labor movement?

Over two decades after he went missing, a 1997 article in The Los Angeles Times noted that No union in America conjures up more negative images than the Teamsters.

This matters, because for most Americans who lack first-hand knowledge about organized labor, Hoffa is the only labor leaders name they recognize. And as communications scholar William Puette has noted, the Teamsters notoriety is such that for many people in this country the Teamsters Union is the labor movement.

A union widely perceived as mobbed up with a labor leader notorious for his Mafia ties has come, in the minds of some Americans, to represent the entire labor movement. That perception, in turn, bolsters arguments against legislative reforms that would facilitate union organizing efforts.

The other themes in Hoffas myth have similar negative implications for labor. He represents a nostalgic, white, male identity that once existed in a seemingly lost world of manual work. That myth also implies that the unions that emerged in those olden times are no longer necessary.

This depiction doesnt match reality. Todays working class is diverse and employed in a broad spectrum of hard manual labor. Whether youre working as a home health aide or in the gig economy, the need for union protection remains quite real.

But for those working-class Americans who see their society controlled by a hidden cabal of powerful, corrupt forces like the puppet masters who supposedly had JFK and Hoffa killed labor activism can appear quixotic.

For these reasons, the ghost of Jimmy Hoffa continues to haunt the labor movement today.

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Does Netflix's The Irishman Reveal What Really Happened To Jimmy Hoffa? - The National Interest Online

The last decade was a time defined by burgeoning activist movements across the globe. Among the most impactful and inspiring is the latest iteration of the centuries-old Black liberation movement, in which Toronto became a significant confluence for organizing and whose influence spread far beyond the city limits.

The 2010s was a time of courageous, fierce and unapologetic activism from communities of Black people tired of waiting for what had been promised for decades. And while I was involved in what was among the most visible movements as a co-founder of Black Lives MatterToronto activists and advocates were working in spaces seen and unseen across the city.

We organized against police brutality and carding until the city of Toronto and the province of Ontario could no longer ignore us. We intervened in anti-Black racism experienced in schools from primary school to post-secondary education. We supported the arts in our communities. We built educational opportunities for children and adults that would teach us what had been taken away from us in the formal education system. We brought attention to the detention of Black asylum seekers and supported families reeling from the violence of anti-Black racism.

The Black liberation movement of the 2010s was visibly organized and led through the brilliance and scholarship of Black queer and trans people to whom countless organizers in movements everywhere owe the deepest debt.

When Pride named Black Lives MatterToronto as the honoured group in 2016, we refused to be used by an organization that simply wanted to benefit from proximity to our cause. We demanded that which would genuinely honour us: a commitment to structural change within Pride that focused on stripping away the anti-Blackness our communities had experienced from Pride for years. That action, built by Black activist and queer and trans groups beyond just BLM-TO, sparked a shift in how Pride organizations engaged with Black and marginalized communities across the globe.

Most importantly, we changed the way mass culture discusses and engages with Blackness. At the beginning of the 2010s, anti-Black racism was an idea most people in power refused to acknowledge. Now, the world cannot claim ignorance in any discussion of anti-Black racism.

We reinvigorated what was possible not only for us as Black people, but for anyone who was willing to listen and learn from our work.

As we look toward the 2020s, we need to build a city (and a country) that refuses to take anti-Black racism lightly, and that refuses to acceptpoliticians who don Blackface and disappear the Black community along Eglinton West in favour of a gentrified condominium corridor.

We want to live in a place that builds permanent Black spaces; a place where Black people who contributed greatly to Toronto and so much of its culture and its sounds are not pushed to the margins. This is the work that we all have ahead of us if we believe in justiceforBlack people.

@nowtoronto

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Decade in review: Black Lives Matter changes the face of Black liberation - NOW Magazine

NEW YORK (WABC) -- As the decade comes to a close, we are taking a look back at the stories that shaped the 2010s in New York City.

There was no shortage of tragedy and conflict over the past 10 years, but there were plenty of stories of triumph.

This was a decade of activism as our communities took to the streets to fight for what they believed in: Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the Women's March, protesting the travel ban and demanding equal rights of all.

These are the stories that defined the last decade in New York City.

View stories of the decade through photos:

2010:

We kicked off the decade with a war against salt. In January, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Health Department unveiled a plan to make New Yorkers healthier and urged restaurants to reduce salt levels in their food by 25 percent. The effort was part of a constellation of initiatives to promote public health, but some derided the push as indicative of a nanny state.

The narrative of the year soon segued from health fears to terror fears. On May 1, a car bomb failed to detonate in Times Square in an attempted terror attack.

Faisal Shahzad was eventually arrested and sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to commit an act of terrorism.

While fears of terrorism lingered almost a decade after 9/11, a controversy brewed in lower Manhattan over the proposal to build a mosque near Ground Zero, called Park51.

The majority of the public was opposed to the idea, and some relatives of the victims of 9/11 said they found the proposal offensive, but others expressed support and were in favor of promoting interfaith peace and freedom of religion.

The controversy over the "Ground Zero Mosque" became a campaign issue in the 2010 midterm elections and also sparked a national debate over religious tolerance and sensitivity to 9/11 victims.

A story that fascinated the nation later that summer was the dramatic stunt pulled by disgruntled JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater on Aug. 9.

Slater apparently became fed up with passengers after their flight landed at Kennedy Airport and deployed the emergency slide from the aircraft and took off -- allegedly with a beer in hand.

Despite being arrested and facing serious charges, Slater's getaway stunt garnered him national support and made a viral star in these early days of social media.

Weather stories would prove to be defining moments of the decade.

A notable story involved tornadoes that spun through Brooklyn and Queens on the evening of Sept. 16 -- leaving a trail of damage in their wake. At least one person was killed in the storms.

And it was certainly a white day AFTER Christmas that year when a blizzard dumped between 18-24 inches of snow in NYC.

This was also the year that Humans of New York first launched -- giving the rest of the world a personal look into the lives of everyday New Yorkers.

2011:

The death of Leiby Kletzky in Brooklyn shocked the city in July. The 8-year-old boy was kidnapped after he asked for directions during his walk home and his dismembered body was later found after an extensive search across the city.

The medical examiner said he was given a lethal cocktail of drugs before he was smothered to death. Levi Aron is serving 40 years to life for kidnapping and killing Kletzky.

Sept. 11 of that year marked the somber 10-year anniversary since terrorists attacked the Twin Towers.

The 9/11 Memorial was officially dedicated on the anniversary and opened to the public the next day.

Less than a week after the memorial opened, protesters descended onto Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan for what would become Occupy Wall Street -- a weeks-long movement in the Financial District to push the government to address a range of issues like unemployment, the funding of wars and the foreclosure crisis.

It didn't take long for the movement to spread beyond the streets of NYC and onto main streets across America.

Do you remember that it snowed this year on Halloween? A nor'easter that some remember as "Snowtober" brought an early blast of snow to the tri-state area.

The year came to an end as the mystery of the Gilgo Beach serial killer was only getting started. On November 29, police announced that they believed the previous deaths of multiple people were likely connected, leading to fears that a serial killer was lurking on Long Island just miles away from NYC.

The still unidentified serial killer is believed to be responsible for at least 10 deaths over the course of 20 years -- and the victims were mainly women associated with prostitution.

2012:

2012 was a year that started with excitement over sports, but will be remembered for the tragedy that struck by the end of the year.

The New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI on Feb. 5. Not long after the excitement of that win, a personality from another sport stirred up a global frenzy.

In what will be remembered as "Linsanity," Jeremy Lin rose to fame after he unexpectedly led a winning turnaround for the New York Knicks.

The Knicks started selling his No. 17 jerseys and T-shirts and merchandise at stands throughout Madison Square Garden. Restaurants around the city started selling special food and drink items in Lin's honor, Ben & Jerry's created a special ice cream and he was even the subject of a documentary film that premiered at Sundance.

In baseball news, Gary Carter, a member of the 1986 world champion Mets, died on Feb. 16 at the age of 57 after a battle with brain cancer. The Mets added a memorial patch to their uniforms in Carter's honor for the entire 2012 season.

It was in April of that same year that the New Jersey Nets moved to the Barclays Center to become the Brooklyn Nets.

Although sports dominated the headlines for the first part of the year, the narrative shifted when Superstorm Sandy devastated the area at the end of October.

The storm slammed NYC with a surge of water that killed 44 people and plunged parts of the city into darkness. Flooding damaged tens of thousands of homes, drowned subways and forced hospitals and nursing homes to evacuate.

In a controversial decision, the NYC Marathon was canceled that year because of the storm's aftermath.

Communities are still recovering to this day after the damage and destruction left behind by the storm.

Hearts broke across New York City when a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14 in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-six people, including 20 children, were murdered in a crime that shocked the world.

2013:

After a long life in the public eye, the former mayor of New York City, Ed Koch, died on Feb. 1. Koch made his mark on the city during his tenure as mayor from 1978 to 1989.

That same year marked the beginning of another mayoral administration: Bill de Blasio was first elected to the position on Nov. 5.

The election year wasn't free of scandalous headlines -- this is the year that the infamous Anthony Weiner sexting scandal cost him the election.

Weiner had attempted to make a return to politics after his previous scandal in 2011, but ultimately lost the mayoral primary after admitting to sexting multiple women following his resignation from Congress.

2013 wasn't all about politics -- transportation also rolled into the headlines. Citi Bike officially launched on May 27 of that year and no one can forget about BridgeGate.

The first traffic closures that evolved into the infamous BridgeGate scandal happened on Sept. 9. Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly were later convicted of creating the traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge for politically motivated reasons.

The year ended on a sad note with the Metro-North crash at Spuyten Duyvil on Dec. 1. Four passengers were killed and dozens were injured when the train derailed in the Bronx.

2014:

This year brought New York City into the national spotlight for multiple stories.

On the morning of March 12, a gas explosion in East Harlem leveled two apartment buildings and killed eight people. At least 70 other people were injured in the tragic incident.

The police chokehold death of Eric Garner on July 17 sparked protests around NYC and the country as it fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Dec. 20 murders of two NYPD police detectives sitting in their patrol car in Brooklyn shocked the city. The gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, apparently cited Garner's death as a motive.

Garner's daughter publicly spoke out and showed her support for fallen officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.

All eyes were on New York City earlier that year as the Ebola crisis arrived in America.

Dr. Craig Spencer was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct. 23.

After returning from working with Doctors Without Borders in Africa, city officials rushed to find other people he may have come into contact with in NYC. Before he showed symptoms, he rode the subway, walked the High Line and even went bowling in Brooklyn.

After he recovered from the disease, Mayor de Blasio declared that NYC was Ebola-free.

Finally, the eyes of America and around the world fell on New York City on Nov. 3 when One World Trade Center officially opened -- marking a chapter of rebirth and renewal after the terror attacks.

2015:

The first quarter of 2015 was marked with disaster:

-A Metro-North train struck a passenger car in Valhalla on Feb. 3, killing six people and injuring more than a dozen others.

-Seven children were trapped and killed on March 21 when a fire broke out in their Midwood, Brooklyn, apartment.

-Two people were killed and 13 others were injured in a deadly gas explosion in the East Village on March 26. The owner of the building, an unlicensed plumber and a general contractor. would all later be found guilty in 2019.

The year also provided moments that will go down in pop culture history:

-On June 16, Donald Trump rode down an escalator in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to officially launch his presidential campaign.

-Lin-Manuel Miranda did not throw away his shot and opened his mega-successful "Hamilton" on Broadway on Aug. 6 -- arguably changing Broadway forever.

-Two words: Pizza Rat. Who would have thought a video of a hungry rat enjoying a New York slice would be a part of NYC history? Pizza Rat remains a viral sensation to this day.

The Pope's visit to NYC was a highlight of the latter part of the year. Pope Francis visited New York City from Sept. 24 to Sept. 26 as part of his visit to North America.

In his short visit to the city, he addressed the United Nations, visited the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, visited children at a school in East Harlem, made his way through Central Park and even held a Mass at Madison Square Garden.

New Yorkers felt a sense of pride and hope as the Holy Father forever left his touch on our city.

2016:

2016 got off to a cold and snowy start when the biggest blizzard in our city's history hit NYC in January -- leaving behind more than 26 inches of snow.

In a still-unsolved mystery, a tourist from Virginia lost his foot when he stepped on an explosive in Central Park on July 3. It is still unclear if the explosion had something to do with celebratory firecrackers ahead of the 4th of July or if it was intentionally placed there to do harm.

Later that summer, the murder and sexual assault of 30-year-old jogger Karina Vetrano on Aug. 2. shocked the city.

Vetrano left for a run through the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens but she never returned home. Her murder went unsolved for six months until Chanel Lewis was arrested and charged in 2017. He was found guilty and sentenced to life without parole in April 2019.

September of that year was plagued with crime: Chelsea bomber Ahmad Rahimi set off pressure cooker bombs in New Jersey and Chelsea on Sept. 17. He was captured days later after a shootout with police.

Fortunately no one was killed or seriously injured in the explosions, but dozens of people were wounded.

It was the end of an era when the iconic Carnegie Deli closed its doors for good at the end of the year. New Yorkers said goodbye to giant pastrami sandwiches and huge slices of strawberry cheesecake.

2017:

After decades of talk, the Second Avenue subway finally opened on Jan. 1 and East Siders rejoiced.

On March 16, FDNY EMT Yadira Arroyo was mowed down by her own ambulance while she was on the job. The mother of five's death struck a chord with New Yorkers.

On May 18, 23 pedestrians were mowed down in Times Square. Police said the driver was high on drugs -- - possibly synthetic marijuana. An 18-year-old tourist from Michigan, Alyssa Elsman, did not survive.

New Yorkers came together to support their brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria made landfall there on Sept. 20.

In October of that year, reports by the New York Times and The New Yorker would eventually lead to the downfall of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. This reports not only led to his fall from grace, they spurred the #MeToo movement.

Because of the empowerment movement, women around the world broke their silence to speak out against the sexual assault and harassment they had suffered.

On Oct. 31, a day that should have been happy and full of fun turned horrific when Sayfullo Saipov drove a pickup truck onto a bike path full of runners and cyclists along the West Side Highway in a Halloween terror attack. Eight people were killed -- six of whom were tourists.

That wasn't the last act of terror that year -- on Dec. 11, suspect Akayed Ullah injured four people when he partially detonated a pipe bomb in a tunnel at Port Authority.

No one was killed, but several people were injured.

Just days after Christmas that year, 13 people were killed in an apartment fire in the Belmont section of the Bronx on Dec. 28 -- marking New York's deadliest fire in 25 years.

Officials said it appeared a young child playing with a stove caused the fire. The child's mother escaped the apartment with her kids but left the front door open, which acted like a chimney and allowed the fire to quickly travel up the stairs.

2018:

The death of innocent 15-year-old Lesandro "Junior" Guzman-Feliz on June 20 outraged people in his Bronx community and far beyond.

#JusticeForJunior soon went viral and became a cry for justice for the teen who was chased into a bodega by gang members and killed in what is believed to be a case of mistaken identity.

Fourteen suspects were arrested in the murder and the first five to stand trial were all found guilty and later sentenced to life in prison in 2019.

2018 will also be remembered as the year that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC, rose to the national spotlight. The Bronx native was officially elected on Nov. 6 to serve as the U.S. representative for New York's 14th Congressional district.

That year she became the youngest woman to serve in U.S. Congress. And whether people loved her or hated her, there was no denying she made a splash in the world of politics.

The city was on edge for days in October when suspicious packages that supposedly contained pipe bombs were mailed to critics of President Trump, including CNN, causing the Time Warner Center in NYC to be evacuated.

None of the devices exploded, but the fear that they could prompted responses from bomb squads out of precaution. Eventually Cesar Sayoc was arrested in Florida on Oct. 26.

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The 2010s: These are the stories that defined the decade in NYC - WABC-TV