Top political stories of 2018 that are must-read

New Delhi : So, we are ready to bid good bye to the year 2018. We had a look back on the year, that too in politics and came across the notable stories which are most voted by readers. Here are top most selected stories which are must-read.

Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh testified before Congress. On September this year a reluctant witness accuses a man nominated for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court of sexual assault while they were in high school decades ago, and the nominee then lashes out with a defiant defense and partisan testimony. From there, senators and onlookers retreated into political corners. The story dragged on for more than a week, as a retiring Republican senator defected from party ranks, calling for a further FBI investigation. It was one cultural injury in the Trump era that has highlighted massive fissures in the American populace.

Democrats take over the House in midterm wave. Democrats will have control of the U.S. House once again in January 2019 because of an uprising in the suburbs and among women and independents. They helped Democrats net 40 seats, the most in any election for Democrats in a generation, since just after Watergate.

In February, tragedy struck again at the hands of a mass shooter, at yet another school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Seventeen people were killed. But instead of fading into the background as other shootings have, the event led many of the students who survived to take center stage and become politically involved. There were mass walkouts at schools and marches across the country. Under political pressure, many states, including Florida, passed gun control measures. There has been little movement at the federal level, though the Trump Justice Department did ban bump stocks.

In the 2018 election, 10 percent of voters said guns were the most important issue facing the country, according to exit polls, and 70 percent of those voters voted for Democrats. By 59 percent to 37 percent, voters said they support stricter gun control measures, and the new House may well take up the issue. 

Trump took his hard-line immigration views to another level of controversy with this policy. It has been an issue of moral outrage for many Americans, as overwhelming numbers of Democrats and a majority of independents were against it, making for a very unpopular policy.

Thousands of migrant children remain detained in the U.S., mostly those who arrived unaccompanied, not those separated from parents, with doctors warning of short- and long-term repercussions for the children emotionally.

A record number of women ran, were nominated for the House and won in 2018. More women than ever, 127, will serve in Congress this January 2019. But this was not a bipartisan phenomenon, 106 of the women are Democrats, and Republicans will have fewer women in Congress next year.

A record number of women will serve in state legislatures, too, up to 29 percent from 25 percent of all state-level seats across the country.

At least 34 top people left the White House, the administration or Trump's close orbit in 2018, according to a CNN count and adding in Mattis, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and White House chief of staff John Kelly. There has been scandal within the administration, like at the Environmental Protection Agency with its former head Scott Pruitt, as well as with Zinke. Mattis' resignation was a stinging rebuke to the president.