The Y2K (Millennium) bug never bit in Queens, but the Sydney Flu bug sure did. The flu wreaked havoc among Queens’ healthiest residents, taking them out by the dozen.…

The Flushing family of a Quinnipiac College student offered a $20,000 reward for information on her whereabouts. Shamiya Haqiqi disappeared on Nov. 12, 1999...A Queens cabbie was hailed for returning a $40,000 violin to its errant owner – a student at Juilliard…The Port Authority announced plans for a $9 billion rehab at JFK International Airport.…  

West Nile-bearing mosquitoes took front page in January, when city officials released a game plan for beating the bugs, circa 2000. Fifteen fire-fighters were dubbed “bad seeds” and booted from a Flushing firehouse. The Trylon Theater shut its doors for good….

Folks living near St. John’s University continued their battle to stop construction of a baseball field for a Mets minor league team on the campus. In the end, the Queens Kings did play there for one year before the field was given to the St. John’s baseball team...The dangers of illegal conversions became a major issue when dozens of people were trapped inside a maze of illegal “cubicles” at a private home where a fire broke out….

Officials at the Museum of Modern Art laid out plans for the renovation of the Swingline building in LIC...Queens resident Nick Garaufis was nominated for a position in the federal courts. He would eventually win the position….

Detectives from the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst buried a baby boy found abandoned on a local street. The infant, named Valentine Hope by the cops, was discovered in a Duane Reade shopping bag on a frigid morning...A local resident proposed a “Blimp Port” for the former Flushing Airport site….

A state grant promised a spruce-up at the Bowne House in Flushing…A group of more than 200 Queens seniors greeted President Bill Clinton in Forest Hills. Clinton spoke on prescription drug price controls and the future of social security....

Police nabbed a Nazi-garbed, rifle-toting suspect with a fistful of hate stickers in April. The suspect was charged with plastering the stickers throughout eastern Queens...Queens College president Allen Lee Sessoms announced his plans to resign, setting off a search for a new prez....

The Tribune beat the bunch again, obtaining the first one-on-one interview with Harold Levy, “the man who would be chancellor”...The Trib covered the state of pollution caused by power plants in Queens, and the feds paved the way for more air traffic over the borough.…

Two Queens public school teachers stood accused of helping their students pass standardized tests through cheating… Livery cab drivers fell prey to thieves and gunmen throughout Queens….

A ravenous blaze tore through a strip of stores on Roosevelt Avenue. One hundred and forty three firefighters worked for an hour to extinguish the fire…A mayoral proposal to dump a waste transfer station in Queens was stomped on by local civics who said the plan smelled bad....

The Tribune welcomed a new partner in the news, as the Southeast Queens PRESS made its debut – the latest addition to the family of News Communications publications …Queensites took time out to pray for and remember John Cardinal O’Connor, who passed away on May 3….

The battle to stop construction of the AirTrain over the Van Wyck Expressway and southern Queens continued…A group of Queens pols secured $5 million to fight West Nile mosquitoes….

Jean Auguste, Anita Smith, Ramon Nazario, Jeremy Mele and Ali Ibadat were shot dead, execution-style, on the floor of a basement freezer at a Wendy’s restaurant in Flushing. Two other victims – Patrick Castro and Juo Quione Johnson – were shot execution style and left to die. Police arrested suspects John Taylor and Craig Godineaux. The Tribune provided exclusive coverage of the massacre through an interview with one of its survivors and courthouse interviews with members of the victims’ families….  

President Bill Clinton flew into Queens to speak at a school in Jamaica Estates where portable classrooms filled the schoolyard…Members of the Major James A. McKenna Post in Long Island City unveiled a plaque honoring long-forgotten Korean War vets … Interim President Russell Hotzler was chosen for Queens College….

Still another victim fell to a speeding motorist on Queens Boulevard…A Trib article questioned the reasoning behind a series of swastikas that someone scrawled on the garage door of a Maspeth residence where no one was home….

A 61-year-old mural depicting life in Queens disappeared from the wall of a Long Island City building…The Tribune broke a piece of news about City Councilman Walter McCaffrey’s irregularities in handling of campaign bucks. He eventually withdrew from a race for Congress…Dozens of trees fell victim to Asian Long-Horned Beetles in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park….

A telephone worker strike put Queens on hold in August…A cow broke loose from an Astoria slaughterhouse – leading cops on a 21-block chase through the neighborhood. The cow was eventually caught, but was not returned to the slaughterhouse – it was given a new home….

The death of an 11-year-old boy led to a call for more safety at a Bayside intersection…Archbishop Molloy High School went co-ed for the first time in a century….

The Trib explosed the discovery of a pesticide in waters at Alley Pond Park…The Trib told a dog’s tale, as Associate Publisher Michael Nussbaum’s mom, Edith, was threatened with eviction by her co-op board because her son’s dog visited her home for a few moments….

A Forest Hills pastor was placed under investigation after two million dollars was discovered missing from his church’s funds.

The Mets were World Series-bound after beating the Diamondbacks to become National League champs. The Amazins faced the Yankees in the first Subway Series since 1956, but those damn Yankees prevailed, winning in five games….

Six people were indicted in a multi-million dollar scheme that cost a Queens school board more than half of its contract funds…Parents of students at an Elmhurst elementary school raged over a sexual attack on several young students at the school. The principal was transferred as a result…Defense attorneys for one of the men charged in the May 24 Wendy’s massacre claimed their client is mentally retarded and ineligible for the death penalty….

The owners of the Douglaston Manor catering facility faced charges that they concealed cash revenues from City coffers…The much-beleaguered 63rd Street MTA “Tunnel To Nowhere” was pronounced almost ready to go somewhere….

Drivers on the “Boulevard of Broken Bones” were again on the front page as Queens Boulevard claimed victims in December, including a 14-year-old girl who lost her life.