What are the hottest news topics of the New Year?

I turned to Google News to find out.  By adding “2017” in my computer’s search bar, I created my own (small and unscientific) database profiling some of the most reported current events topics.

One might expect – naively, to be sure – that the most pressing issues of the day would populate the brightest constellations of reportage across the firmament of internet news.  So let’s take a look at which topics got the most hits:

• Vladimir Putin: 15.6 million
• Terrorism: 24.7 million
• Climate change: 29 million
• Gay: 41.5 million
• Israel: 74.4 million

Now what can we make of all this?

To find out, click here.