The ethnic violence in Kosovo that prompted NATO's bombing
 of Yugoslavia and a subsequent peacekeeping mission was
 voted the top news story of 1999 in a poll of Associated Press
 world subscribers.

 President Clinton's impeachment trial, which ended with his
 acquittal, was a distant second, followed by deadly earthquakes
 in Turkey, violence in East Timor and Russia's military action
 against Chechnya.

 Ballots were submitted by 74 news media subscribers in 36
 countries worldwide, with editors listing their top 10 story
 choices. Ten points were awarded for each first-place vote,
 nine points for second, down to one point for 10th.

 The poll was completed in mid-December, missing the final
 weeks before the turn of the millennium. But anticipation of the
 Year 2000 and any attending computer problems still made the
 list at No. 6.

 ``Y2K sets this year apart. There's been nothing like it,'' the
 Canadian Press news agency said on its ballot.

 Most publications or broadcast outlets picked among the
 nominations, which were presented in mostly chronological
 order. Write-ins were allowed, and the Eleftheros Typos daily
 in Greece noted its wording of the Kosovo entry as ``NATO
 bombing Yugoslavia without authorization from U.N.'s Security
 Council.''

 However phrased, the 78-day bombing campaign that began
 March 24 and the year-round violence in Kosovo received 36
 first-place votes and 627 points.

 A total of 17 subscribers said Clinton's impeachment trial in the
 Senate earlier in the year was the top story. It finished second
 with 493 points. The buildup to the presidential trial had been
 voted the top story of 1998.

 The massive earthquake in Turkey in August and several
 follow-up tremors that killed an estimated 18,000 people
 received two first-place votes and 327 points.

 The violence that surrounded East Timor's vote for
 independence was fourth with 295 points and three top ballots.
 Russia's military offensive against Chechnya, which has
 escalated since the voting, received 209 points for fifth.

 Y2K was sixth, followed by the border clash between India and
 Pakistan, Taiwan's deadly earthquake, the U.S. growth
 powering the world economy, and Turkey's capture and death
 sentence of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

 A U.S. judge's declaration of Microsoft as a monopoly was
 No. 11, and seemingly random shootings, from an Atlanta office
 to a Denver school, that spurred gun-control debate was 16th.