⏪ 2024 in Review: What Made the News in America

What We’re Showing:

This chart lists the top nine U.S. news stories according to Google Search trends, along with the search popularity of one developing news story.

ℹ️ Google looks at news searches between December 31st, 2023–December 8th, 2024 to form their list.

Popularity peaks are not normalized across news stories.

Key Takeaways

Unsurprisingly in an election year, many of the top news stories for Americans centered around politics.

This includes the presidential election results and Project 2025 (a Conservative blueprint for the incoming Republican administration).

Sports also played a big role for Americans watching their athletes at the Olympics, Paralympics, and at Copa America.

But perhaps the biggest news story of all hit in the last week of Google’s Year in Search, when a gunman shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.