The loudest astronomical headlines of the year came from both very near (planets orbiting stars in the solar neighborhood) and very far (galaxies and parts of galaxies at redshifts of 1 to 3 and more). We explore these and other happenings in our Solar System (Galileo at Jupiter, Comet Hyakutake), Milky Way (the bursting pulsar, spotted stars), Local Group (masers, MACHOs, and more), and Universe (gravitational lensing, an assortment of extrema).