For news headlines, 2013 didn’t disappoint. From ongoing violence in the Middle East to the rollout of landmark health care reform here at home, the ascension of a new pope and the passing of an international human rights icon, the year’s tumult was splashed across news Websites and front pages worldwide. But for U.S.-based ethnic media, there were other stories that – while less reported – hit closer to home. 

No progress was made to end a budget impasse that resulted in a government shutdown since 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday. News of the shutdown, which includes the closure of all national parks and a work furlough for 800,000 federal employees, generated a big response in the ethnic press. Key areas of concern included the shutdown’s effect on federal workers, loss of funding for social services, ramifications for immigration reform, and environmental impacts. 

In the wake of a severe storm that paralyzed many of our eastern states in the blink of an eye, President Barack Obama is on the case with all the federal resources that he can muster and at the same damn time, he’s working hand-in-hand with governors of the affected states. While we can’t help but to recall the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and the ineptness that President George W. Bush displayed – costing lives and affecting the displacement of a myriad of Gulf Coast residents (many of whom are still disenfranchised) – on the other hand, we believe this president is cut from an entirely different cloth.

In the wake of the end of the Iraq war, U.S. ethnic media are taking a sober look at the last nine years of American military intervention in Iraq, and the meaning of the war in each of their communities. The Iraq war will be remembered as "an incomprehensible war whose repercussions will continue for a long time," according an editorial in Los Angeles-based Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion, looking back at the eight-and-a-half years of U.S. military intervention in Iraq that ended last week.