A High Five on the 25th day of the 5th month feels like it should mean something, but it doesn’t. Much like most of the internet. What does mean something is this beautiful long weekend we’ve got ahead of us, so, without further ado: I bring you this week’s top five search trends, with data from the Google News Lab.

Wine not?

Today is National Wine Day, so watch for your dinner companions to have too many sips of “frose” and turn in early. The denizens of DC, Kansas, and New York were the most keen to know when National Wine Day was taking place. When comparing "red," "rosé" and "white" wine over the last 30 days, red wine is searched nearly twice as much as white, with average interest at 68 percent compared to peak spikes the weekend of May 12-13. Fittingly, interest in rosé is sitting pretty, right in between.

Marking Memorial Day

Red, white, and blue too: This Monday is Memorial Day, so people across the country are looking up tips and tricks for their patriotic celebrations. Top three questions this week on Memorial day were 1) “What was Memorial Day originally called?” 2) “Is today Memorial Day?” And 3) ”When did Memorial Day become a holiday?” Number 2 is my favorite.

Voted off the tie-land

The tribe has spoken … A tribe of reality TV contest candidates and also lots of people who still watch this amazingly long-running show. (Oh how it SURVIVES!) This week’s “Survivor” finale came down to a tie for the first time in the show’s 36-season history and long-standing show fanatics were deep in their feelings about it. Queries like “Who won Survivor 2018 Ghost Island?” and “Survivor fan favorite 2018” spiked over 2,500 percent (!), proving that there are whole worlds out there I know nothing about.

Drawing sides on straws

It’s 2018, so naturally people are taking sides on straws. McDonald’s is under pressure to scrap drinking straws for environmental reasons. Critics claim straws suck for the environment; they’re also super fun to use to drink things. Search interest in “McDonald’s straw” spiked by 230 percent at one point, surpassing search interest in “McDonald’s McFlurry.” While the top two most searched questions this week relating to McDonalds were about straws, the third one, comfortingly, was: “When does McDonald’s breakfast end?”

A verdict in 280 characters

A Texas police officer, a New York comedy writer and a Nashville surgeon walk into a courtroom … And the three are among a group that brought a lawsuit against President Trump for blocking them on Twitter. A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Trump’s blocking users on Twitter violates the First Amendment. Searchers turned to Google to ask: “Who are the plaintiffs in the Trump Twitter lawsuit?” and “Who has Trump blocked on Twitter?”

Ramadan starts today, and we’re helping you access the information you need to make the most of it. More than 1.7 billion Muslims around the world will observe this time of fasting, gratitude, giving back and connecting with family and friends. We’ve put together a few special experiences across Google to help, from relevant information right in Search to a new way to share Ramadan greetings, made using virtual reality technology.

Searching for... prayer times, recipes and entertainment

Given people are fasting all day, and large families gather during Iftar, preparing delicious food for the people that matter in our lives takes on a new importance. During Ramadan, searches for recipes spike 50 percent higher and watch times on YouTube for cooking videos peak at almost 30 percent higher. You can now explore top recipes and YouTube cooking videos directly through the Ramadan search experience.

Cooking videos aren’t the only content people look for on YouTube. Ramadan is the key entertainment season in the Middle East and North Africa and users go to YouTube to catch up on their favorite TV drama or comedy shows. YouTube watch time for “TV series” rises a staggering 151 percent in Ramadan compared to any other period in the year. This Ramadan, you can keep up with the latest Ramadan dramas and comedies directly through Search.

Searching for the Qibla anywhere in the world

Searching for greetings

For centuries, writers and artists have created calligraphic art—ranging from ceiling art and intricate passages to everyday items like cups. Now Qalam brings this timeless heritage of calligraphy online. We collaborated with nine artists from around the world to create more than 35 unique digital Ramadan and Eid greetings (with hundreds of customizable artwork possibilities) using Tilt Brush, a virtual reality app. You can customize and share your own 3D Ramadan card now at g.co/Qalam.

Featured artists include the internationally renowned eL Seed, whose designs incorporate calligraphy with graffiti (“calligraffiti”), Tolga Girgin from Turkey who mixes calligraphy and typography to challenge the sense of perspective with clever shading and Soraya Syed, one of the first female calligraphers in Pakistan. She’s created a classic Arabic calligraphy piece which places the traditional art form in a contemporary context. We’ve been inspired by what we’ve seen so far, and we’ll continue working with more artists to add more creations to Google Qalam over time.

This week, babies were born and lettuce was thrown out. Here’s a look at some top Search trends from the week, with data from theGoogle News Lab.

What’s in a name?

A lot, if you’re a Royal. After Prince William and Kate Middleton welcomed a son into the world this week, searches for “name of new royal baby” went up more than 3,000 percent. The newly-named Prince Louis’s siblings were also of interest—searches for “Prince George full name” went up 1,000 percent, and “Who is Princess Charlotte named after?” was also a trending question.

Trying to conjure up some tickets

Muggles and wizards alike are wondering “How much are tickets to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?” (we’re guessing it’ll be a lot of Galleons). They may be ditching Orlando for New York—the play was more popular in Search than the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but not quite as popular as “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical,” which was the most searched Broadway play this week.

More baby news

An image of a shirtless Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson holding his newborn baby girl went viral this week, and people oooh-ed and aaah-ed all over Search (interest in “the rock new baby” went up 2,750 percent). This was after he got a heartfelt invitation to prom from a superfan in Minnesota, which caused searches for “the rock prom” to go up 1,850 percent. Quite the week!

Lettuce warn you

Search questions are a mixed bag, but here’s one that stood out this week: “Is it safe to eat romaine lettuce yet?” If you’d like some side trends with your salad, there’s been a 1,000 percent increase in searches for “ecoli virus,” and the most searches for “e. coli” are coming from Alaska, Montana and Idaho.

An ending to marvel at

Every Friday, we look back at five trending topics in Search from that week, and then give ourselves a High Five for making it to the weekend. Today we’re putting our hands together for National High Five Day—so first, a few notable “high five” trends. Then on to our regularly scheduled programming.

High Fives all around
Turns out, searches for “high five” transcend all realms of culture: sports (“Why do NBA players high five after free throws?”) entertainment (“how to high five a Sim”), and pets (“How to teach a dog to high five”). As for virtual high fives, “Scrubs,” “Seinfeld” and Liz Lemon are high five famous—they’re the top trending “high five gifs.”

A First Lady, first a mother
When former First Lady Barbara Bush passed away on Tuesday at the age of 92, people remembered her role as matriarch, searching for “Barbara Bush children,” “Barbara Bush family,” and “Barbara Bush grandchildren.” She was the second woman to be the mother and wife of a president; and searches for the first woman to hold that title, Abigail Adams (wife of John and mother of John Quincy) went up by 1,150 percent this week.

What’s Swedish for robot?
Need an extra set of hands? A team of researchers built a robot to help with one of the most challenging tasks of the modern era—assembling Ikea furniture. In an ordinary week, people might search for Ikea lamp, but for now they’re more interested in “Ikea robot.” Though Swedish meatballs are always a favorite, this week’s trending Ikea furniture items were Ikea closets, plants and sofas.

Work it, Walmart
Walmart’s store aisles are turning into runways with the new employee dress code. They can now wear jeans and–brace yourselves–anysolid color top. As for bottoms, people want to know, “Are leggings included in Walmart’s new dress code?” We never (Arkan)saw this coming, but Arkansas topped the list of regions searching for “Walmart dress code” in the U.S. For people wondering about other dress code etiquette, a trending question was “what to wear to jury duty.”

Kendrick makes history
This week people asked “Why is Kendrick Lamar important?” Listen to this: he made music history by being the first non-classical or jazz musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music Composition (high five, Kendrick!). And people felt the pull to search for “Kendrick Lamar prize”—interest was 900 percent higher than “Kendrick Lamar song.”

Whether you’re on the hunt for a flower crown or a corsage, here’s what that ol’ internet has been up to this week …

People are searching for Coachella—specifically, “what is Coachella”? It’s a music festival in the middle of the desert in California where bandanas are worn, parasols are twirled and selfies are taken (other Coachella items trending on Search are dust masks and earplugs… not as cute.) If you’re looking to see “who is performing?” you’ll be pleased to learn that two of the top-searched artists at Coachella are Beyonce and Cardi B (but Cardi was searched 3,200 percent more than Bey this week).

For those who have to wait a few years to bask in the sweet sun of the Coachella Valley, the fluorescent light of a high school gym will have to suffice. That’s because it’s prom season, and the kids are wondering “is prom worth it?” and searching for creative promposals (prom + proposal) like “Fornite promposal” and “The Office promposal.” It’s not prom without a corsage and boutonniere (but who can spell that?). Amidst the prom-mania, “How to spell boutonniere” was a trending question this week.  

If you thought your prom was cheesy, it’s got nothing on the next trend. On Thursday, sandwich enthusiasts celebrated National Grilled Cheese Day, and they took to Google to learn new ways to make the delicious treat—searches for grilled cheese were up 300 percent. Trending types of grilled cheese were “Taco grilled cheese,” “Keto grilled cheese” and “garlic bread grilled cheese.”

Spring comes, snow melts, and people search for pollen. Is that the saying? Whatever. The next trend is pollen. Probably because there’s a lot of it in the air. People were more interested in “pollen allergy” than “food allergy” this week, and a top trending question was “how does pollen cause allergies?” ?

Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth welcomed her second child into the world this week, making her the first U.S. Senator to give birth while in office. The announcement of her new baby had some people searching ”How old is Tammy Duckworth?” and brought up questions about maternity leave—“how long is maternity leave?” and “when to take maternity leave?” were trending questions this week.

Springtime means new beginnings, and that seems to be the case for Ringo Starr and Cynthia Nixon who made their foray into knighthood and state politics this week. But they’re not the only ones who captured people’s attention in Search this week. Here’s a look at the top trends, thanks to data from Google News Lab.

Finding answers in Austin

The question on many people’s minds—“who was the Austin bomber?”—was answered early Wednesday morning when law enforcement identified Mark Conditt as the man behind the string of exploding  packages. San Antonio, Waco-Temple-Bryan, Victoria and San Angelo were among the top metros looking for more information on the Austin bomber.

It’s finally spring...kinda

“Is today the first day of spring?” was the top trending question across the east coast this week as residents braced for a not-so-warm welcome to the new season. Storm Toby brought a wintery mix of snow, sleet and gusty winds on Wednesday and had people in DC, Maryland, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts searching for information on flight cancellations. Spring officially sprung on Tuesday, in case you didn’t know!

Starry Knight

“Don’t pass me by”—Sir Richard “Ringo Starr” Starkey is the latest member of the Beatles to be knighted. Prince William performed the ceremony on Tuesday, 21 years after the other surviving Beatle, Paul McCartney, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. Despite search interest in “Ringo Starr” spiking 400+ percent higher than “Paul McCartney,” John Lennon was the most searched band member of the week. It’s a battle of the Beatles!

Politics in the City

Miranda Hobbes fans unite: Cynthia Nixon is running for Governor of New York. Best known for her role in the hit HBO series “Sex in the City,” Nixon is taking her talents off screen and into the ballot box. She’ll challenge current New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for the seat—and is already off to the races, with search interest in “Cynthia Nixon” spiking over 1,300 percent of “Andrew Cuomo” on Monday. Guess Carrie Bradshaw isn’t the only leading lady in town!

The boy with the phoenix tattoo

Elephants, flowers, lions and butterflies were among the most searched tattoo designs this week, but it’s Ben Affleck’s colorful ink that has everyone talking. The actor was caught showing off his back tattoo while on a beach in Hawaii. Fans and tattoo artists alike have their opinions about the massive phoenix rising from the ashes, so much so that search interest “Ben Affleck tattoo” was more than 1,200 percent higher than interest in “Ben Affleck movie.” But the top trending question remains, “is Ben Affleck’s tattoo real?” Dun, dun, dun.

People come to Google looking for information they can trust, and that information often comes from the reporting of journalists and news organizations around the world. And while the demand for quality journalism is as high as it’s ever been, the business of journalism is under pressure, as publications around the world face challenges from an industry-wide transition to digital.

That matters deeply to Google. After all, our mission to build a more informed world is inherently tied to the reporting of journalists and news organizations. Our shared mission also reflects shared business interests. Platforms like Search and YouTube depend on a healthy ecosystem of publishers producing great digital content. That’s why it’s so important to us that we help you drive sustainable revenue and businesses. Last year, we paid $12.6 billion to partners and we drove 10 billion clicks a month to publishers’ websites for free. 

It’s also why over the years, we’ve worked closely with the news industry to address key challenges. We worked with the industry to launch the open-source Accelerated Mobile Pages Project to improve the mobile web, YouTube Player for Publishers to simplify video distribution and reduce costs, Flexible Sampling to help with discovery of news content on Google, Google News Lab to provide newsrooms with trainings and editorial partnerships, and the Digital News Initiative to drive innovation in the European news industry.

We invested a lot time and energy in these collaborations. But the hard truth is—all of this might not be enough. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish what’s true (and not true) online. Business models for journalism continue to change drastically. The rapid evolution of technology is challenging all institutions, including the news industry—to keep pace. 

We need to do more. That’s why we’re launching the Google News Initiative (GNI), our effort to help journalism thrive in the digital age. The GNI signifies a major milestone in Google’s 15-year commitment to the news industry, and will bring together everything we do in collaboration with the industry—across products, partnerships, and programs—to help build a stronger future for news.

The GNI will build on these efforts and deepen our commitment to a news industry facing dramatic shifts in how journalism is created, consumed, and paid for. It’s focused on three objectives: 

• Elevate and strengthen quality journalism  
  
• Evolve business models to drive sustainable growth
  
• Empower news organizations through technological innovation
  

Elevate and strengthen quality journalism

Over the past few years, we’ve worked with publishers to elevate accurate, quality content and stem the flow of misinformation and disinformation.

On our own platforms, we’re focused on combating misinformation during breaking news situations.  Bad actors often target breaking news on Google platforms, increasing the likelihood that people are exposed to inaccurate content. So we’ve trained our systems to recognize these events and adjust our signals toward more authoritative content. There are comparable challenges on YouTube, and we’re taking a similar approach, highlighting relevant content from verified news sources in a “Top News” shelf.

But we’re also working directly with news organizations to combat misinformation. We’re launching the Disinfo Lab alongside the First Draft to combat mis- and disinformation during elections and breaking news moments. Finally, to help consumers distinguish fact from fiction online,  we’re teaming up with the Poynter Institute, Stanford University, and the Local Media Association to launch MediaWise, a U.S. project designed to improve digital information literacy for young consumers.

Evolve business models to drive sustainable growth

Over the last decade, we’ve worked closely with news organizations to grow their digital advertising revenue. In just the past few years, we’ve applied our advanced machine learning expertise to automatically surface key insights about revenue opportunities (generating recommendations worth over $300 million in additional revenue) and supported the creation of faster, better ad experiences for the mobile web through AMP and native ads.

But consumers are willing to pay for digital news content, creating an opportunity to expand beyond ad revenue. Today we’re delivering on avision outlined last year to enable publishers to diversify their revenue streams. We’re excited to launch Subscribe with Google, a way for people to easily subscribe to various news outlets, helping publishers engage readers across Google and the web. Our goal with Subscribe with Google is to ease the subscription process to get more readers consuming publishers’ journalism, as quickly as possible.   

In October, at our Partner Leadership Summit, we told publishers about how we’re experimenting with ways to grow their subscriptions using Google data, machine learning, and DoubleClick infrastructure. We’re now in the early stages of testing a “Propensity to Subscribe” signal based on machine learning models in DoubleClick to make it easier for publishers to recognize potential subscribers, and to present them the right offer at the right time.

Of course, not every publication has the resources to dedicate a team to collect, analyze and understand their user data. News Consumer Insights, our new dashboard built on top of Google Analytics, will help news organizations of all sizes understand and segment their audiences with a subscriptions strategy in mind. At the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, this project led to a 150 percent increase in pageviews to their Subscribe pages and a month-over-month tripling of new digital subscription purchases.

Empower news organizations through technological innovation

We work with news organizations around the world to develop and deploy technology that improves newsroom efficiency, creates enriching storytelling experiences, and protects journalists from cyber attacks around the world.  

For example, we’re using our natural language processing API to help Hearst Newspapers sort, label and categorize more than 3,000 articles every day. We’ve also workedwith the South China Morning Post to use Google Earth to create immersive VR experiences that show the evolution of Hong Kong throughout history. With AMP Stories, which is now in beta, publishers can combine the speed of AMP with the rich, immersive storytelling of the open web. This is just the beginning. We want to continue working closely with publishers to experiment on new ways they can reach audiences and produce impactful storytelling.

Finally, we’re also launching today Outline, an open-source tool from Jigsaw that lets news organizations provide journalists more secure access to the internet. Outline makes it easy for news organizations to set up their own VPN on a private server—no tech savvy required.

Our commitment

Over the next three years, we’re committing $300 million toward meeting these goals. We’re also deepening our commitment to building products that address the news industry’s most urgent needs. In the past, we’ve done this by working closely alongside the industry in product working groups, resulting in projects like AMP and the DNI. We’ll be expanding that model globally.

The commitments we’re making through the Google News Initiative demonstrate that news and quality journalism is a top priority for Google. We know that success can only be achieved by working together, and we look forward to collaborating with the news industry to build a stronger future for journalism.

Sifting through the week’s news can feel like sinking into a black hole. Luckily, we have some standout trends this week, gathered with data from Google News Lab. They start with a tribute to legendary physicist and black hole escape artist Stephen Hawking, who passed away Wednesday at age 76.

“Look up”
Stephen Hawking’s intelligence was a cut above the rest, in life and in Search: interest in “Stephen Hawking IQ” was 170 percent higher than “Stephen Hawking quote” over the past week. But of his many memorable quotes, here’s the most searched: “Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”

Turbulent times
“What happened on United Airlines?” was a trending question this week. The company faced scrutiny after a French bulldog—the second most searched dog breed this week—suffocated in an overhead compartment and a pet German Shepherd was accidentally shipped to Japan. For those searching for canine breeds this week, Rhodesian Ridgebacks were top dog.

A cue from teens
Search interest in “walkout” has reached an all-time high in the U.S. this month. On Wednesday, students around the country participated in a walkout to call on elected officials to take action on gun laws—the top cities searching for “walkout” were Charlottesville, VA, Fort Smith, AR, and Madison, WI.

It’s bracket season 
March Madness is in full swing, especially for North Carolina, Duke and Kentucky fans, whose teams have been the most searched in the past week. The top-searched celebrity brackets are from basketball commentator Jay Bilas, former President Barack Obama, and Warren Buffett. And the winner is anyone’s guess: Michigan State, favored by both Bilas and Obama, wasn’t among the top 10 teams being searched this week.

Go green
Saturday marks St. Patrick’s Day and, in true spirit, corned beef and cabbage is the top trending St. Patrick’s Day recipe this week, followed by … jello shots ?. If you’re feeling lucky, you might be among those searching for lucky horseshoes, lucky cats and lucky clovers (the top searched “lucky” items in the past week). And although New York has the biggest parade and Boston the biggest reputation, the top states searching for the holiday are Connecticut, Kansas, and Delaware. Illinois, where Chicagoans annually dye their river green, comes in at number four.

The world learned about new words—whether from Merriam-Webster or Frances McDormand— this week. Here are a few of the week’s top-searched trends (with data from the Google News Lab):

The words of our generation:“Dumpster fire,” once relegated to internet-speak, has made it into the official lexicon—one of 850 new words that Merriam-Webster added to the dictionary—and was up 3,200 percent in Search. Embiggen (a word invented by “The Simpsons,” that means “to get bigger”) embiggened with a 2,000 percent spike in search interest, while mansplain went up 500 percent.

First woman to…“land a triple axel” and “go to MIT.” These are the top two rising searches over the past year for women who have broken barriers, and with International Women’s Day this week, searches about women continued. Frances McDormand, Jennifer Lawrence and Tiffany Haddish were the leading ladies in Search, and across the world, top searches for “gender equality” came from Nicaragua, Mexico and Sweden.

Say that one more time:After Frances McDormand’s speech at the Oscars, “inclusion rider” became a breakout search term (meaning there was a tremendous increase in search interest, possibly reflecting a term that had few, if any, prior searches). Since the term was relatively unknown, some people heard “inclusion writer,” which also saw a search increase (only 450 percent less than the correct term, “inclusion rider”).

Sweet tooth: M&M’s are mixing it up with new flavors—Crunchy Espresso, Crunchy Raspberry, and Crunchy Mint. Despite these new additions, “Neapolitan”—another limited-edition flavor—was the top-searched M&M flavor this week, and M&M-thusiasts are searching for recipes for M&M cookie, M&M cookie with peanut butter, and M&M cake.

Putting Nikumaroro on the map:Search interest for “Pacific Island of Nikumaroro” soared 4,600 percent after new forensic analysis of bones found there belong to Amelia Earhart.