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What do the most-Googled searches of 2023 tell us about the year? Here’s what Americans wanted to know, and what we found out.

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The news we followed, the people who fascinated us, the culture and trends that grabbed our attention — Google’s “Year in Search” data for 2023 sheds light on the top trending topics Americans wanted to know about this year.

From celebrities and athletes to TV shows and box-office hits, people across the country turned to the search engine for answers to pressing questions like “How often do you think about the Roman Empire?” and recipes for McDonald’s hit beverage of the year, the Grimace Shake.

While we may not have gotten all the answers, here’s what some of the top searches in the U.S. have to tell us about the past year:

The stories we followed

This year, the world was shocked by the war in Israel and Gaza, which was Google’s most-searched news story of the year. Following the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas, Israel vowed to destroy the group and launched airstrikes and a ground operation into the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas.

A missile explodes in Gaza City during an Israeli air strike
A missile explodes in Gaza City during an Israeli airstrike on Oct. 8, 2023.

MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images


The second most searched story of the year, according to Google, was the frantic search in June for the OceanGate Titan submersible, which vanished on a dive to the Titanic shipwreck site with five people aboard. Tragically, everyone on the tourist vessel was killed when it imploded under the pressures of the deep sea.

Americans also did a lot of searching for updates on hurricanes, with Hurricane Hilary, Hurricane Idalia, and Hurricane Lee rounding out the list of top 5 most-searched news stories. 

The people we were curious about

NFL player Damar Hamlin became the No. 1 most-Googled person on the list after the Buffalo Bills defensive back collapsed on the field in cardiac arrest during a Jan. 3 game. Hamlin has since made a full recovery and returned to play this season. Hamlin was also Google’s most-searched athlete of 2023.

Damar Hamlin
Damar Hamlin #3 of the Buffalo Bills after a game on Sept. 19, 2022.

Timothy T Ludwig / Getty Images


Actor Jeremy Renner was the No. 2 most-Googled person in the U.S. in 2023 following a New Year’s Day snowplow accident that left him hospitalized with over 30 broken bones. Renner was run over by the vehicle while trying to protect his nephew. He has since made a remarkable recovery. Renner was also the No. 1 most-Googled actor of the year.

Also high on Google’s list is the NFL’s Travis Kelce, the tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs who helped bring home a Super Bowl victory in Feburary. Kelce, who was the No. 3 most-Googled person and No. 2 most-Googled athlete in the U.S. this year, has also been publicly dating pop superstar Taylor Swift since July. 

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have dinner at Waverly Inn on Oct. 15, 2023, in New York City. 

Gotham/GC Images via Getty Images


Ranking 4th and 5th on the most-Googled people list were former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlsonwho was ousted from the network in April, and internet personality Lil Tay, whose death was falsely reported in August.

The nation also searched for information on a number of beloved celebrities we lost in 2023, with “Friends” actor Matthew Perry‘s death being the most-Googled of the year. Perry was found dead at his home in Los Angeles at age 54 following a ketamine overdose in October.

Matthew Perry shooting
Matthew Perry shooting “Friends” in 1998.

Mathieu Polak/Sygma via Getty Images


Iconic singer-songwriter Tina Turner, TV host Jerry Springer, “Margaritaville” singer Jimmy Buffet, and singer and activist Sinéad O’Connor filled out the top 5 on the list of most-Googled celebrity passings of 2023.

What kept us entertained

Barbenheimer” dominated the U.S. box office, with the Greta Gerwig-directed “Barbie” and biopic “Oppenheimer” smashing records in their July joint-opening weekend. The two films were Google’s No. 1 and No. 2 most-searched movies of 2023 in the U.S.

Barbenheimer

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images


Alejandro Gómez Monteverde’s “Sound of Freedom,” the 2022 Oscar-winner “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” and the third installment of popular Marvel franchise “Guardians of the Galaxy,” occupied the third through fifth spots on the most-Googled films list.

“The Last of Us,” starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey and based on the popular video game of the same name, was the most-Googled television show in the U.S. in 2023. Pascal was also the fifth most Googled actor.

Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal attend an event for HBO’s “The Last Of Us” on April 28, 2023 in Los Angeles.

FilmMagic/FilmMagic for HBO via Getty Images


When it comes to music, the controversial country hit “Try That in a Small Town” was the most-Googled song of the year, and the musician behind it, Jason Aldean, the most-Googled singer of the year in the U.S. in 2023. The track amassed widespread attention in July following the release of its music video, which depicted protesters confronting police officers.

2023 Country Thunder Wisconsin - Day 3
Jason Aldean performs onstage at Country Thunder Wisconsin

Joshua Applegate / Getty Images


Recipes, memes and more

In one of the more surprising results, McDonald’s Grimace Shake was the No. 1 most-Googled recipe in the U.S. in 2023. The purple milkshake inspired a viral TikTok trend this summer, with users trying Grimace’s berry-flavored beverage and then pretending to die.

The top Google search that began with the phrase “How often…” was in response to another viral Internet trend that encouraged users to ask men, “How often do you think about the Roman Empire?” The question took the No. 1 spot on Google’s most-searched trend list in the U.S. as well. 

The most-searched “Explained” query on Google was “The Menu explained,” referring to the 2022 film starring Ralph Fiennes as a celebrity chef, and Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult as a couple who dine in his restaurant.

And finally, the most-Googled meme in the U.S. of 2023 was Kevin James, referring to an image of the actor with his hands in his pockets and smirking at the camera. 

Kevin James On 'The King Of Queens'
Promotional portrait of actor and comedian Kevin James, in character for his role on the TV sitcom “The King of Queens,” late 1990s.

TONY ESPARZA / Getty Images


Google’s top search lists

See more of Google’s top-searched lists below, and read the U.S. data in full here:

News:

  1. War in Israel and Gaza
  2. Titanic submarine
  3. Hurricane Hilary
  4. Hurricane Idalia
  5. Hurricane Lee

People:

  1. Damar Hamlin
  2. Jeremy Renner
  3. Travis Kelce
  4. Tucker Carlson
  5. Lil Tay

Passings:

  1. Matthew Perry
  2. Tina Turner
  3. Jerry Springer
  4. Jimmy Buffet
  5. Sinéad O’Connor

Actors:

  1. Jeremy Renner
  2. Jamie Foxx
  3. Danny Masterson
  4. Matt Rife
  5. Pedro Pascal

Athletes:

  1. Damar Hamlin
  2. Travis Kelce
  3. Brock Purdy
  4. Lamar Jackson
  5. Jalen Hurts

Musicians:

  1. Jason Aledean
  2. Ice Spice
  3. Oliver Anthony
  4. Peso Pluma
  5. Joe Jonas

Songs:

  1. Try That in a Small Town – Jason Aldean
  2. Rich Men North of Richmond – Oliver Anthony
  3. Unholy – Kim Petras and Sam Smith

Movies:

  1. Barbie
  2. Oppenheimer
  3. Sound of Freedom
  4. Everything Everywhere All At Once
  5. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

TV Shows:

  1. The Last of Us
  2. Ginny & Georgia
  3. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story
  4. Daisy Jones & The Six
  5. Wednesday

Recipe:

  1. Grimace Shake
  2. Lasagna soup
  3. Chicken cobbler
  4. Black cake
  5. Pumptini

Meme:

  1. Kevin James
  2. Ohio
  3. Police girl
  4. Folding chair
  5. Smurf cat

Trends:

  1. Roman empire trend
  2. Moon phase trend
  3. AI yearbook trend
  4. Instagram notes number trend
  5. Fruit Roll-Ups trend

Explained:

  1. The Menu explained
  2. No One Will Save You explained
  3. Silo explained
  4. Reptile explained
  5. Israel Palestine conflict explained



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2 killed in U.S. Civil Air Patrol plane crash near Palisade Mountain in Northern Colorado

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Two people were killed and a third was injured when a U.S. Civil Air Patrol plane crashed in Colorado’s Front Range Saturday morning.

The small passenger plane with three people aboard crashed near Storm Mountain and Palisade Mountain west of Loveland around 11:15 a.m., according to the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office. The plane belonged to the Civil Air Patrol, the civilian auxiliary wing of the U.S. Air Force, and was on a routine aerial photography training mission when it went down, officials said.

Pilot Susan Wolber and aerial photographer Jay Rhoten were identified by CAP as those killed and co-pilot Randall Settergren was identified as the person injured. Settergren was airlifted to an area hospital by a National Guard helicopter, where he is undergoing medical care.

copter-frame-52760.png
A crashed plane is seen in the mountains west of Loveland, Colorado on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. The plane crashed that morning in the area of Storm Mountain and Palisade Mountain.

CBS


“The volunteers of Civil Air Patrol are a valuable part of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, and the lifesaving work they do on a daily basis directly contributes to the public safety of Coloradans throughout the state,” Maj. Gen. Laura Clellan, adjutant general of the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said in a statement Saturday.

“We are devastated to hear of the loss of Susan Wolber and Jay Rhoten, and the injury of Randall Settergren, during a training mission in Larimer County. Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the families of those involved in the crash,” Clellan continued. “I would also like to thank all of the first responders who assisted with rescue efforts.”

Palisade Mountain is in Larimer County, about 20 miles west of Loveland and about 65 miles northwest of Denver. The area is part of the burn scar of the Alexander Mountain Fire, which burned almost 10,000 acres in over two weeks this past summer.

The crash happened about 200 feet below the summit of Palisade Mountain in an area that includes tall trees and steep hills as part of the mountain range. Rescue crews were heard on radio traffic working to find a landing zone for rescue helicopters. No structures were impacted by the crash.

The plane crashed in “very rugged” and “extensive and rocky terrain,” Ali Adams, a Larimer County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, said at a news conference. First responders had to hike out to the site and the sole survivor was “severely injured” when responders finally got to them.

Rescue efforts were ongoing at 3:15 p.m., according to Adams, and recovery efforts for the two deceased people’s bodies could take several days.

Several agencies responded, including the Loveland Fire Rescue Authority, Thompson Valley EMS and the National Guard.

The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office is the lead agency investigating the crash and the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board will assist, according to Adams. The NTSB said it too was investigating the crash and identified the plane as a Cessna 182.

“This is one of those incidents that is really low frequency; it doesn’t happen really often, but unfortunately, our first responders have had more than their fair share of responses,” Adams said. 

George Solheim lives in the area of the crash. He described conditions as “extremely windy” on Saturday and heard the plane just prior to the crash. He says he could hear “loud ‘throttle up/down’ immediately prior to sudden silence at (the) time of (the) crash. Couldn’t hear sounds of impact from here.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis extended his sympathy to the families of the victims in a statement Saturday evening:

“I’m saddened to hear of the loss of two dedicated Civil Air Patrol members, Pilot Susan Wolber and aerial photographer Jay Rhoten, who lost their lives in today’s crash and my thoughts are with their families, friends and colleagues. These individuals, along with survivor co-pilot Randall Settergren, who was injured, served the Civil Air Patrol as volunteers who wanted to help make Colorado a better, safer place for all. The State of Colorado is grateful for their commitment to service and it will not be forgotten. I also want to thank the first responders who assisted with the rescue and recovery efforts.”



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Fred Harris, former Democratic U.S. senator and presidential candidate, dies at 94

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Fred Harris, a former U.S. senator from Oklahoma, presidential hopeful and populist who championed Democratic Party reforms in the turbulent 1960s, died Saturday. He was 94.

Harris’ wife, Margaret Elliston, confirmed his death to The Associated Press. He had lived in New Mexico since 1976.

“Fred Harris passed peacefully early this morning of natural causes. He was 94. He was a wonderful and beloved man. His memory is a blessing,” Elliston said in a text message.

Fred Harris
Sen. Fred Harris of Oklahoma announces his intention to seek the 1972 Democratic nomination for president, in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 24, 1971. 

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images


Harris served eight years in the Senate, first winning in 1964 to fill a vacancy, and made unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1976.

“I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of my longtime friend Fred Harris today,” Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham wrote in a post to social media. “Harris was a towering presence in politics and in academia, and his work over many decades improved New Mexico and the nation.  He will be greatly missed.”

Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said in a statement that “New Mexico and our nation have lost a giant,” describing him as a “tireless champion of civil rights, tribal sovereignty and working families.”

It fell to Harris, as chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1969 and 1970, to help heal the party’s wounds from the tumultuous national convention in 1968 when protesters and police clashed in Chicago.

He ushered in rule changes that led to more women and minorities as convention delegates and in leadership positions.

“I think it’s worked wonderfully,” Harris recalled in 2004, when he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Boston. “It’s made the selection much more legitimate and democratic.”

“The Democratic Party was not democratic, and many of the delegations were pretty much boss-controlled or -dominated. And in the South, there was terrible discrimination against African Americans,” he said.

Harris ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, quitting after poor showings in early contests, including a fourth-place win in New Hampshire. The more moderate Jimmy Carter went on to win the presidency.

Harris moved to New Mexico that year and became a political science professor at the University of New Mexico. He wrote and edited more than a dozen books, mostly on politics and Congress. In 1999 he broadened his writings with a mystery set in Depression-era Oklahoma.

Throughout his political career, Harris was a leading liberal voice for civil rights and anti-poverty programs to help minorities and the disadvantaged. Along with his first wife, LaDonna, a Comanche, he also was active in Native American issues.

“I’ve always called myself a populist or progressive,” Harris said in a 1998 interview. “I’m against concentrated power. I don’t like the power of money in politics. I think we ought to have programs for the middle class and working class.”

“Today ‘populism’ is often a dirty word because of how certain leaders wield power,” Heinrich said in his statement Saturday. “But Fred represented a different brand of populism — one that was never mean or exclusionary. Instead, Fred focused his work and attention on regular people who are often overlooked by the political class.”

Harris was a member of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, the so-called Kerner Commission, appointed by then-President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the urban riots of the late 1960s.

The commission’s groundbreaking report in 1968 declared, “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.”

Thirty years later, Harris co-wrote a report that concluded the commission’s “prophecy has come to pass.”

“The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and minorities are suffering disproportionately,” said the report by Harris and Lynn A. Curtis, president of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation, which continued the work of the commission.

Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute said Harris rose to prominence in Congress as a “fiery populist.”

“That resonates with people…the notion of the average person against the elite,” Ornstein said. “Fred Harris had a real ability to articulate those concerns, particularly of the downtrodden.”

In 1968, Harris served as co-chairman of the presidential campaign of then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey. He and others pressed Humphrey to use the convention to break with Johnson on the Vietnam War. But Humphrey waited to do so until late in the campaign, and narrowly lost to Republican Richard Nixon.

“That was the worst year of my life, ’68. We had Dr. Martin Luther King killed. We had my Senate seatmate Robert Kennedy killed and then we had this terrible convention,” Harris said in 1996.

“I left the convention — because of the terrible disorders and the way they had been handled and the failure to adopt a new peace platform — really downhearted.”

After assuming the Democratic Party leadership post, Harris appointed commissions that recommended reforms in the procedures for selecting delegates and presidential nominees. While lauding the greater openness and diversity, he said there had been a side effect: “It’s much to the good. But the one result of it is that conventions today are ratifying conventions. So it’s hard to make them interesting.”

“My own thought is they ought to be shortened to a couple of days. But they are still worth having, I think, as a way to adopt a platform, as a kind of pep rally, as a way to get people together in a kind of coalition-building,” he said.

Harris was born Nov. 13, 1930, in a two-room farmhouse near Walters, in southwestern Oklahoma, about 15 miles from the Texas line. The home had no electricity, indoor toilet or running water.

At age 5 he was working on the farm and received 10 cents a day to drive a horse in circles to supply power for a hay bailer.

He worked part-time as a janitor and printer’s assistant to help for his education at University of Oklahoma. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1952, majoring in political science and history. He received a law degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1954, and then moved to Lawton to practice.

In 1956, he won election to the Oklahoma state Senate and served for eight years. In 1964, he launched his career in national politics in the race to replace Sen. Robert S. Kerr, who died in January 1963.

Harris won the Democratic nomination in a runoff election against J. Howard Edmondson, who left the governorship to fill Kerr’s vacancy until the next election. In the general election, Harris defeated an Oklahoma sports legend — Charles “Bud” Wilkinson, who had coached OU football for 17 years.

Harris won a six-year term in 1966 but left the Senate in 1972 when there were doubts that he, as a left-leaning Democrat, could win reelection.

Harris married his high school sweetheart, LaDonna Vita Crawford, in 1949, and had three children, Kathryn, Byron and Laura. After the couple divorced, Harris married Margaret Elliston in 1983. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available Saturday.





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Compromise deal reached at COP29 climate talks for $300 billion a year to poor nations

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Countries agreed on a deal to inject at least $300 billion annually in humanity’s fight against climate change, aimed at helping poor nations cope with the ravages of global warming at tense United Nations climate talks in the city where industry first tapped oil.

The $300 billion will go to developing countries who need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, adapt to future warming and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times the $100 billion a year deal from 2009 that is expiring. Delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.

“Everybody is committed to having an agreement,” Fiji delegation chief Biman Prasad said as the deal was being finalized. “They are not necessarily happy about everything, but the bottom line is everybody wants a good agreement.”

It’s also a critical step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. It’s part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the U.N. talks in Paris in 2015.

The Paris agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius and carbon emissions keep rising.

Countries also anticipate that this deal will send signals that help drive funding from other sources, like multilateral development banks and private sources. That was always part of the discussion at these talks — rich countries didn’t think it was realistic to only rely on public funding sources — but poor countries worried that if the money came in loans instead of grants, it would send them sliding further backward into debt that they already struggle with.

“The $300 billion goal is not enough, but is an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future,” said World Resources Institute President Ani Dasgupta. “This deal gets us off the starting block. Now the race is on to raise much more climate finance from a range of public and private sources, putting the whole financial system to work behind developing countries’ transitions.”

It’s more than the $250 billion that was on the table in the first draft of the text, which outraged many countries and led to a period of frustration and stalling over the final hours of the summit. After an initial proposal of $250 billion a year was soundly rejected, the Azerbaijan presidency brewed up a new rough draft of $300 billion, that was never formally presented, but also dismissed roundly by African nations and small island states, according to messages relayed from inside.

The several different texts adopted early Sunday morning included a vague but not specific reference to last year’s Global Stocktake approved in Dubai. Last year there was a battle about first-of-its-kind language on getting rid of the oil, coal and natural gas, but instead it called for a transition away from fossil fuels. The latest talks only referred to the Dubai deal, but did not explicitly repeat the call for a transition away from fossil fuels.

Countries also agreed on the adoption of Article 6, creating markets to trade carbon pollution rights, an idea that was set up as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement to help nations work together to reduce climate-causing pollution. Part of that was a system of carbon credits, allowing nations to put planet-warming gasses in the air if they offset emissions elsewhere. Supporters said a U.N.-backed market could generate up to an additional $250 billion a year in climate financial aid.

Despite its approval, carbon markets remain a contentious plan because many experts say the new rules adopted don’t prevent misuse, don’t work and give big polluters an excuse to continue spewing emissions.

“What they’ve done essentially is undermine the mandate to try to reach 1.5,” said Tamara Gilbertson, climate justice program coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Greenpeace’s An Lambrechts, called it a “climate scam” with many loopholes.

With this deal wrapped up as crews dismantle the temporary venue, many have eyes on next year’s climate talks in Belem, Brazil.



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