This chart lists the top nine U.S. news stories of 2024, according to Google’s Year in Search. In addition, Visual Capitalist's Pallavia Rao visualized the popularity of one developing news story.

ℹ️ Google looks at news searches between December 31st 2023–December 8th, 2024 when defining this list. Popularity peaks in this chart are not normalized across news stories.

In case this year has felt particularly long, we also did one for 2023. It’s a useful refresher of what had everyone talking exactly 12 months ago.

Unsurprisingly in an election year three of the top stories for America centered around politics.

The first of course: an assassination attempt on President Donald Trump in July. The second: the big election in November.

Another story that had Americans googling for context: Project 2025. This conservative plan released by the Heritage Foundation for the next Republican administration went largely unnoticed until Democrats began talking about it.

It broadly defined four policy aims. One in particular which raised alarm, wanted to place the federal bureaucracy under direct Presidential control. It also proposed withdrawing a popular abortion pill from the market and to enforce a law that stops the drug from crossing state borders.

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

A 25-year-old, Luigi Mangione, has been arrested in relation to the assassination.

More importantly, the assassination and the subsequent arrest has spurred conversation around America’s healthcare industry. The data behind denied claims (one-in-five) as well as large medical costs (the leading cause of bankruptcy) has added to the conversation.

Looking for other related news with the health insurance industry? Check out: America’s Largest Insurers by State for a full breakdown.