More books were called to be banned in 2023 across US schools and libraries than any other year on record, according to a new report from the American Library Association (ALA). Building on a surge that started in 2021, some 4,240 unique book titles were challenged last year — a 65% increase from 2022, and the highest figure documented in over 20 years of tracking.
Although the number of affected titles has grown dramatically, as groups increasingly target multiple books at once, overall censorship demands dropped slightly, down 2% to 1,247. Literature concerning race and gender was particularly contested, with autobiographical graphic novel Gender Queer named the most challenged library book of the year.
Public libraries are now the primary battleground for proposed bans: the number of titles targeted for censorship at libraries rose by 92%, compared with 11% at schools. Moreover, librarians now face harsh penalties, including potential fines and imprisonment in several states, for distributing books that are deemed inappropriate.
By the book: Penguin Random House, America’s largest publisher, is involved in ongoing federal litigation seeking to block book bans on First Amendment grounds.
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Singer d4vd has been named the top trending person on Google in 2025
If you were asked to name the person who saw the biggest spike in Google searches across 2025, you might plump for a pope, perhaps, or a major political figure. Unless you were one particular Polymarket user, you maybe wouldn’t have put too much money on d4vd, a popular 20-year-old singer who reportedly remains an active suspect in the death of a teen girl.
However, when Google revealed its Year in Search 2025 today — a feature that, importantly, seems to reflect the figures and topics that have seen searches spike from last year, rather than overall search volume — d4vd, whose hits like “Romantic Homicide” and “Here With Me” have racked up billions of Spotify streams, sat atop the “People” section, beating Kendrick Lamar for the top spot.
As people in the business of making charts all day, you could say that we’re pretty au fait with Google Trends data. Even so, we can admit that Polymarket user 0xafEe appears to be a true savant when it comes to understanding what people are using the search engine for.
Thanks to a series of what are now proving to be very prescient positions on Polymarket’s “#1 Searched Person on Google This Year” market, 0xafEe has made a medium fortune in the last 24 hours. There was a ~$10,600 “yes” position on d4vd himself — now worth more than $200,000 — as well as “no” positions across other candidates for the title, such as Donald Trump, Pope Leo, and Bianca Censori, all of which have profited substantially. All told, 0xafEe made just shy of $1.2 million on the market.
“Zootopia 2” is a rare smash hit for Hollywood at the Chinese box office
The Disney sequel just had the second-biggest foreign film debut ever in China, even as the country’s box office leans heavily toward domestic movies.