Monthly Spotlight: 2024 Rewind

• 66th Grammy Awards: Taylor Swift wins record 4th Best Album with "Midnights", Best Record Miley Cyrus' "Flowers", Best Song Billie Eilish “What I Was Made For”, Killer Mike led away in Handcuffs
• Megan Thee Stallion achieves her first solo #1 with diss single "Hiss" amid a feud with fellow rapper Nicki Minaj
• Jennifer Crumbley is the first American parent of a school shooter to be found guilty of manslaughter, held responsible for her teenager killing four at Oxford High School (2021)
• King Charles III was diagnosed with cancer according to Buckingham Place, Queen Camilla took on his public duties while he received treatment
• Super Bowl LVIII is the most-watched TV program in US history, averaging 123.4 million viewers across television and streaming platforms
  • Super Bowl LVIII, Allegiant Stadium, LV: Kansas City Chiefs win back-to-back titles and 3rd in 5 years with an overtime 25-22 win over the SF 49ers; MVP: Patrick Mahomes, KC, QB
• Caitlin Clark becomes the NCAA Division I women's career scoring leader in a game for Iowa against Michigan, scoring a career-high 49 points
• Germany becomes the world's third-largest economy after Japan slips into recession
• Donald Trump and the Trump Organization ordered to pay $354 million in fines in NY civil fraud case - one of the largest corporate sanctions in NY history 
• 77th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) "Oppenheimer" Best Film, Christopher Nolan Best Director, Emma Stone, Cillian Murphy acting awards
• Beyoncé’ is the first Black female artist to top Billboard's Hot Country Songs Chart, with her country single “Texas Hold ’Em”
• Former Youtuber Ruby Franke and her business partner sentenced to up to 60 years in prison for physically and emotionally abusing her children
• Odysseus is the first private spacecraft to land on the moon though on its side, 1st US moon landing since 1972
• The first confirmed sighting of a sexual encounter between humpback whales, and the first homosexual coupling, published in "Marine Mammal Science"
• Ghana passes new legislation making it illegal to identify as LGBTQ+
• Mitch McConnell announces he is stepping down as Senate Republican leader in November, as the longest-serving Senate leader in US history 
• Oprah Winfrey says she is stepping down from the board of WeightWatchers and selling her shares, months after she confirmed taking prescription weight-loss drugs
• Wisconsin records 60-degree temperature swing in 24 hours, with Madison registering 70 degrees (21.11 C) Tuesday, plunging to 11 degrees (-11.67 C) Wednesday morning

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• LeBron James becomes the first player in NBA history to score 40,000 regular-season points as his LA Lakers slip to a 124-114 defeat to the Denver Nuggets in Los Angeles
• Iowa's Caitlin Clark becomes the NCAA Division I all-time career scoring leader, surpassing Pete Maravich's career total of 3,667; her 35 points in a win over visiting Ohio State brings her total to 3,685 and counting
• France is the first country in the world to enshrine access to abortion in its constitution, voting in an amendment
• US Supreme Court rules states can't bar federal candidates, including Donald Trump, from a ballot under the 14th Amendment clause prohibiting those who “engaged in insurrection” 
• A shirt worn by (a very wet) Colin Firth in the 1995 BBC-TV adaption of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" sells for £20,000 ($32,000) at a charity auction in London 
• Nikki Haley ends her US presidential campaign after Super Tuesday, ceding the GOP nomination to Donald Trump
• US President Joe Biden gives a fiery State of the Union speech to Congress, addressing the question of his age head-on
• A report by the Pentagon into UFOs since 1945 finds no evidence of aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence
• 44th Razzie Awards: “Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey” worst picture, Jon Voight worst actor, Megan Fox worst actress
• 96th Academy Awards: Best Film "Oppenheimer"; Best Director Christopher Nolan, acting Cillian Murphy, Emma Stone, Robert Downey Jr, Da'vine Joy Randolph; Ryan Gosling sings "I'm Just Ken"
• First pig liver transplanted into a clinically dead human for 10 days, in milestone test for animal organ transplants into people, at Xijing Hospital, Xi’an, China
• Catherine, Princess of Wales, apologizes for the "confusion" caused by releasing an edited family photo after news agencies issued a "kill" notice over digital manipulation
• Fertilizer spill in Red Oak, Iowa, kills an estimated 789,000 fish along a 60-mile stretch of river after valve was left open at NEW Cooperative
• Romanian police detain Andrew Tate and his brother following the prosecutor of the Bucharest Court of Appeal's order for a one-day detention
  • A Romanian court rules that Andrew Tate and his brother can be extradited to the UK only after the Romanian trial for human trafficking
• US House of Representatives votes to force TikTok owner China-based ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face a ban in the US
• "Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV" documentary detailing the toxic nature of some Nickelodeon shows, especially under Dan Schneider during the 1990s, and early 2000s, premieres
• After suppressing and murdering opponents, President Vladimir Putin claims a post-Soviet record election victory, with 87.8% of the vote. The six-year term will make him Russia's longest-serving leader in over 200 years.
• Finland is ranked the happiest country in the world by the UN for the seventh year in a row
• A new rule limiting tailpipe pollution, aimed at greatly expanding electric vehicles in the US is announced by President Joe Biden
• Social media company Reddit makes its debut on the New York Stock Exchange, its shares rising 48%
• Catherine, Princess of Wales, says she has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy in a video statement, after an "incredibly tough couple of months" 
• The door from "Titanic" that saved Kate Winslet's character (and killed Leo DiCaprio's character) sells for US$718,750 at Planet Hollywood auction, beating Indiana Jones‘ bullwhip and ax from "The Shining"
• The first widespread outbreak of bird flu in cows was reported at farms in six US states, including one person at a Texas dairy farm
• Homes belonging to Sean "Diddy" Combs were searched by federal authorities amid allegations of sex trafficking, and sexual assault, against the rap singer and producer
• Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed after being struck by a cargo ship, that had lost power, leaving six people missing
• Harvard University says it will remove a 19th-century bookbinding of human skin, originally taken without consent from a deceased French mental patient
• New analysis confirms climate change is slowing the rotation of Earth due to melting ice caps and will probably delay the next leap second by three years

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• Florida's population reaches 23 million, making it the third most populous state in the US
• There are 141 more billionaires in the world in 2024, 2,781 in total according to Forbes, including Taylor Swift for the first time
• New York region was hit by a 4.8 magnitude earthquake, with multiple aftershocks. One of the largest earthquakes of a century in the area.
• A New Vatican document rejects the concept of changing a person's biological sex despite Pope Francis' recent overtures to the Trans community
• Total solar eclipse stretches from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Newfoundland, plunging 44 million people into darkness
• A group of older Swiss women won a landmark climate change case at the European Court of Human Rights, ruling that women's rights had been violated by not fully addressing climate change
• Arizona Supreme Court upholds an 1864 law banning all abortions except to save a woman's life
• James and Jennifer Crumbley, the first parents held criminally responsible for a US mass school shooting committed by their child, are sentenced to 10-15 years for manslaughter in Michigan
• AI systems are now so advanced they nearly match or exceed humans in reading comprehension, image classification, and competition-level mathematics, according to a major new report
• Donald Trump becomes the first former US President to stand trial on criminal charges as his hush-money case begins in New York
• Fossil evidence of the largest known snake 11-15 meters long named Vasuki indicus, 66 million years old, was published from a mine in Panandhro, western India
• Taylor Swift released her 11th studio album "The Tortured Poets Department" setting a Spotify record for over 300 million streams in one day
• Australian PM Anthony Albanese hits back at Elon Musk saying it will "do what's necessary to take on this arrogant billionaire who thinks he's above the law" as a court orders X to take down terrorist attack footage
• Details of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato's last night and burial place were revealed by deciphering a carbonized scroll from Herculaneum, using new technologies including AI
• Popular song lyrics have become simpler and more repetitive, according to a new study that analyzed songs from 1970-2020
• 106 tornadoes tear through Nebraska, Iowa, Texas, Kansas, and Missouri destroying hundreds of homes

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• Largest concert of Madonna's career as she ends her "Celebration" world tour with a free concert in front of 1.6 million at Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Brandon Som wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for "Tripas: Poems"
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction won by Jayne Anne Phillips for "Night Watch" set after the Civil War
• Stormy Daniels testifies in court to a 2006 sexual encounter with Donald Trump as part of a hush money trial against Trump
• Vladimir Putin was sworn in for his fifth term as Russian President at the Grand Kremlin Palace, in Moscow, in a ceremony boycotted by many world leaders
• A rare strong solar storm reaches Earth prompting the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue a geomagnetic storm warning
• Google unveils new generative AI features at its annual conference, including AI overviews for its search engine
• Scientists announce the discovery of a long-lost branch of the Nile, now dried up, that once ran near many of Egypt's pyramids, name it Ahramat (Pyramid)
• 706 people called Kyle gathered in Kyle, Texas, attempting to break the record for a gathering of people with the same name (the record is 2,325 Ivans 2017)
• Sean "Diddy" Combs issues an apology after a video is released by CNN of him assaulting his ex-girlfriend in 2016, after previously denying it happened
• Actress Scarlett Johansson says OpenAI tried to hire her voice and when she refused created a synthetic voice, known as Sky, for an update to ChatGPT very similar to hers
• French Post Office La Poste issues a scratch-and-sniff stamp that smells of bread, to celebrate the baguette
• Jenny Erpenbeck is the first German writer to win the International Booker Prize for her novel "Kairos", translated into English by Michael Hofmann
• Apple Music names Lauryn Hill's "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" the best album ever made
• The Pope apologizes for using a homophobic term in a private assembly of Italian bishops, where he reconfirmed the church's ban on gay priests
• A jury in New York City found former US President Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide payments made to prevent damaging personal information from being released before the 2016 election
• Vermont becomes the first US state to pass a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay for damages caused by climate change

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• Gymnast Simone Biles (27) wins her record 9th US Championship in Fort Worth, Texas
• Mexico elects former Mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, as its first woman president
• US President Joe Biden introduces immediate restrictions on the southern border, limiting illegal migrant crossings to 2,500 a day
• 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings commemorated in Normandy, France attended by Allied leaders and likely the last major gathering of WWII veterans
• At 98, actor and comedian Dick Van Dyke becomes the oldest winner of a Daytime Emmy, for a guest performance in "Days of Our Lives" 
• Pat Sajak’s final appearance on "Wheel of Fortune" after 43 years - the longest continuous stint by a game show host
• Apple announces it will be using generative A.I. on its devices and in its update for Siri, in a partnership with OpenAI
• Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, is convicted in Wilmington on three felony charges related to buying a gun in 2018
• Governor Ron DeSantis declares a state of emergency in southern Florida after torrential rains cause flash floods
• Elon Musk secures Tesla shareholders' approval for a $46 billion pay deal - the largest in American corporate history
• 105-year-old Virginia Hislop graduates with a master's diploma in education from Stanford University, 83 years after she had to leave early
• 77th Tony Awards: "The Outsiders" best new musical, "Stereophonic" best new play, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Paulson, Daniel Radcliffe, Kara Young acting awards
• Russian President Vladimir Putin is greeted by Kim Jong-un on his arrival in North Korea, his first visit in 24 years
• US President Joe Biden announces an executive action to enable 500,000 spouses and children of US citizens to apply for citizenship without leaving the country
• A law requiring classrooms to display the Ten Commandments was signed into law by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry - the first state to do so
• Russia's Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong-un sign a pact to "provide mutual assistance in case of aggression" in Pyongyang, bringing the countries the closest since the Cold War
• The oldest deep-sea shipwreck ever discovered at 3,300 years old from the late Bronze Age, revealed off the northern coast of Israel carrying Canaanite amphorae
• Ronaldo, a 6-foot Brazilian rainbow boa constrictor, gives birth to 14 babies in Portsmouth, England, despite no contact with another snake, by parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction)
• Flooding across the US's Midwest affects 3 million people in Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska, including completely cutting off Spencer, Iowa
• Wikileaks founder Julian Assange reaches deal with the US; pleading guilty to criminal charges but allowed to go free, after five years in a UK prison
• European Space Agency creates Lego 'space bricks' by 3D printing Lego out of meteorite dust, part of a project to learn how to build a base on the Moon
• Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez sentenced in a US court to 45 years in prison and fined $8 million for drug trafficking
• The first debate between presumptive US presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump, hosted by CNN, raises fears about Biden as he appears to stumble with his words
• "Inside Out 2" becomes the first film since "Barbie" in 2023 to earn $1 billion globally

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• Aboriginal ritual uncovered in a cave in Cloggs Cave, Victoria, Australia, may be humankind's oldest continuous cultural ritual spanning 500 generations and 12,000 years
• US Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity from prosecution for all official acts, substantially altering the 2020 election interference case against Donald Trump
• Sierra Leone bans child marriage, aiming to protect girls under 18 years old, in a country where a third of all girls are married before adulthood 
• The earliest example of narrative cave art is dated to 51,200 years ago, from the Indonesian caves of Maros-Pangkep, South Sulawesi, depicting people hunting a pig
• Researchers learn Hippos can fly - or at least become airborne in a UK study of their footfall patterns showed them trotting at such speed their feet all left the ground
• US President Joe Biden gives an interview to quell fears about his stamina and cognitive abilities with ABC's George Stephanopoulos
• Black woman Sonya Massey was shot and killed in her home in Springfield, Illinois, by Sheriff Deputy Sean Grayson, who was later charged with first-degree murder
• 19th-century explorer Matthew Flinders, who 1st circumnavigated Australia and named it, is reburied in Donington, Lincolnshire, the village of his birth
• Former US President Donald Trump survives an assassination attempt at an outdoor campaign rally in rural Butler, Pennsylvania; gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks fires 6 to 8 shots killing one spectator, critically wounding two, and hits Trump in the ear with a bullet before being killed by a Secret Service sniper
• Donald Trump picks Ohio Senator JD Vance as his Republican vice-presidential running mate
• Cavan Sullivan of the Philadelphia Union becomes the youngest player in a Major League Soccer match, and the youngest to debut in any major North American professional sports league, at 14 years 293 days old, in a 5-1 win over New England Revolution at Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania
• The Mirage Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip closes after 34 years
• Missouri woman Sandra Hemme released from prison after her 43-year conviction for murder was overturned - longest known wrongful conviction of a woman in US history
• Thirteen sharpnose sharks are the first to test positive for cocaine off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Widespread technology outage grounds flights and shuts down bank and media companies around the world, caused by an update error by cyber security firm CrowdStrike
• Donald Trump accepts the Republican nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee with a 90-minute speech, the longest acceptance speech in history
• US President Joe Biden abandons his campaign for re-election and endorses Vice President Kamala Harris
• US Postal Service issues commemorative postage stamp honoring Alex Trebek, long-time host of the TV quiz show "Jeopardy!", in Culver City, California
• "Inside Out 2" surpasses "Frozen II" to become the highest-grossing animated film in history, making $1.46 billion worldwide
• Park fire begins in Butte County, California, started by an arsonist, later grows to become 7th largest in state history
• Marvel film "Deadpool and Wolverine" starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman opens with the highest earnings of the year, $233.3m in the US and $438m globally
• The Opening Ceremony for the XXXIII Olympiad in Paris was held outside for the first time along the river Seine, with 85 boats carrying the athletes, and performances by Lady Gaga and Celine Dion 
• XXXIII Summer Olympic Games officially open along the River Seine and at Jardins du Trocadéro, in front of the Eiffel Tower, Paris on July 26th
• America’s gross national debt tops $35 trillion for the first time, according to the US Treasury Department
• Fast food chain McDonalds reports a fall in sales worldwide for the first time since 2020 as higher prices affect demand
• 5,000-year-old large-scale farming settlement discovered at Oued Beht in Morocco, confirming North Africa's significance during the Palaeolithic Era

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• The US and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap since the Cold War, involving seven countries and 24 people including journalist Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan
• American rock band Aerosmith cancels their "Peace Out: The Farewell Tour" and retires from touring due to the vocal chord injury of singer Steven Tyler (76)
• American gymnast Simone Biles wins the vault final for her 3rd gold medal of the Paris Olympics and career 7th gold over 3 Games
• British graffiti artist Banksy begins a series of animal artworks around London with a goat near Kew Bridge
• Hurricane Debby makes landfall as a Category 1 storm at Horseshoe Beach, Florida
• Independent US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, admits he put a dead bear cub in New York's Central Park 10 years ago
• Kamala Harris picks Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her vice-presidential running mate for the US presidential elections
• Three Taylor Swift "Eras Tour concerts in Vienna, Austria, are canceled after a planned terrorist attack is uncovered and three people arrested
• The closing ceremony for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics at the Stade de France, featuring Tom Cruise stunt jumping from the roof
• Thousands of people evacuated near the Greek capital of Athens as large wildfires threatened the city after the hottest June and July on record
• XXXIII Summer Olympic Games officially close at the Stade de France, Paris on August 11th
• Death toll in Gaza from the Israel-Gaza War reaches at least 40,000 on August 15th
• US President Joe Biden designates the site of the 1908 two-day race riot in Springfield, Illinois. as a national monument, intended to be a solemn reminder of the events that sparked the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
• The largest diamond in more than a century, at 2,492 carats, found in a mine in Botswana, is displayed by the country's President Mokgweetsi Masisi 
• Vice President Kamala Harris accepts the Democratic nomination for US President on the last day of the party's national conference in Chicago
• US Independence presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspends his campaign and endorses Donald Trump
• British band Oasis announce a reunion tour of Britain and Ireland, 16 years after their acrimonious split
• Jason Kelce and his brother Travis Kelce sign a deal for their “New Heights” podcast with Amazon's Wondery, for more than $100 million
• Brazil blocks Elon Musk's social network X after it misses a court-imposed deadline

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• Ugandan Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei is set on fire by her boyfriend in Endebess, Kenya, and later dies
• New world record set for eating 83 hotdogs by Joey Chestnut in Netflix's "Unfinished Beef" Labor Day showdown
• American pop singer Sabrina Carpenter’s sixth studio album “Short n’ Sweet" becomes her first to top the Billboard album chart
• Billboard's Song of the Summer is Post Malone's "I Had Some Help" featuring Morgan Wallen
• The City of Phoenix, Arizona reaches a high temperature of at least 100°F (37.8°C) for the 100th consecutive day
• China confirms it is ending foreign adoptions, after suspending the process in 2020
• First NFL football game in the southern hemisphere: Philadelphia Eagles win 34-29 over Green Bay Packers at Corinthians Arena in São Paulo, Brazil
• Venice Film Festival: "The Room Next Door" directed by Pedro Almodóvar wins the Golden Lion with Nicole Kidman and Vincent Lindon winning acting awards
• Catherine, Princess of Wales, reveals she has completed her preventive chemotherapy treatment in a video message
• World's first whole-eye and face transplant is declared successful for a 47-year-old Arkansas man more than a year after the operation
• The second US presidential debate between new candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump was hosted by ABC in Philadelphia, with most commentators giving Harris the win
• The crew of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission took the first commercial spacewalk, during a five-day journey through Earth's orbit, the farthest in space of any human since NASA’s Apollo program
• 76th Emmy Awards: "Shōgun" 1st non-English winner for Best Drama, "Hacks" Best Comedy, "Baby Reindeer" Best Limited Series
• Man arrested and charged with the attempted assassination of US Donald Trump, spotted while the presidential candidate was playing golf
• American music mogul Sean Combs is arrested and charged the next day with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution
• Norway becomes the first country where electric cars outnumber petrol vehicles, aided by tax rebates
• The highest peak of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, America's most visited national park, reverts to its Cherokee name of Kuwohi (previous Clingmans Dome)
• Former US retail giant Kmart confirms it is closing its last full-scale store in mainland US, in Bridgehampton, NY
• The Statue of Johnny Cash is unveiled in the US Capitol's Statuary Hall, representing his native Arkansas; it is the first statue of the musician there
• Thailand is the first Southeast Asian country to recognize same-sex marriage, with the king signing the marriage equality bill into law
• Hurricane Helene makes landfall in Florida's Big Bend as a category 4 storm with winds of 140mph, causing devastation across 10 US states, killing at least 250 people
• World’s longest-serving death row prisoner Iwao Hakamata, aged 88, has his name cleared by a Japanese court after 56 years
• Earth acquires a temporary "mini-moon", tiny asteroid 2024 PT5, 37 meters wide - expected to leave Earth's orbit on 24 November
• New Zealand breaks the world record for the largest haka with 6531 people performing "Ka Mate" at Eden Park, Auckland
• Montana man sentenced to six months in prison for illegally using large Marco Polo sheep tissue and testicles to clone giant hybrid sheep for trophy hunting
• The UK is the first major economy to give up coal, stopping operations at its last coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar

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• Claudia Sheinbaum is sworn in as Mexico's first female president in over 200 years
• Jimmy Carter marks his 100th birthday at home in Plains, Georgia - the first former US president to reach the milestone
• US vice presidential debate between Democrat Tim Walz and Republican J.D. Vance held in New York
• Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is spotted over Hawaii - last visited Earth 80,000 years ago
• Death toll from Hurricane Helene passes 175, making it the deadliest US hurricane since Hurricane Katrina, as President Biden authorizes 1,000 troops to aid disaster relief
• A New Justice Department indictment against Donald Trump alleges he tried to subvert the 2020 transfer of power, taking into account the Supreme Court's immunity ruling for presidents
• The Nintendo Museum opens in Uji, Japan, focusing on the company's 135-year history
• World's longest treasure hunt comes to an end in France after 31 years, with the discovery of a golden owl statuette. Hunt is based on 11 puzzles set out originally set by Max Valentin.
• Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun "for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation" 
• Noble Prize for Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton "for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks"
• Hurricane Milton makes landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, as a category 3 storm causing at least 23 deaths amid one of the state's largest-ever evacuations
• The Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to David Baker for building new kinds of proteins, and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for developing an AI model to predict proteins’ complex structures
• The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to South Korean author Han Kang
• Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to South Korean author Han Kang
• Archaeologists announce the discovery of one of the oldest churches in the world from the 4th century BC, during excavations in Artaxata, Armenia
• Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Japanese anti-nuclear organization Nihon Hidankyo "for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again"
• Possible remains of mountaineer Andrew "Sandy" Irvine, with a foot, shoe, and labeled sock announced discovered on Mt. Everest. Disappeared 100 years ago with George Mallory.
• Spanish researchers, after studying genetic material, reveal Christopher Columbus was probably Spanish and Jewish and born in Valencia, not an Italian from Genoa as he claimed
• Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences is awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson "for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity"
• Italian fashion house Prada and aerospace company Axiom Space unveil the new spacesuit for NASA's Artemis III mission to the moon in Milan
• Teen smoking in the US has fallen to its lowest level in 25 years, decreasing 20% in a year from 2.8 million to 2.25 million, including e-cigarettes
• Britain's King Charles III makes his first visit to Australia as king, landing in Sydney with Queen Camilla
• British singer Elton John makes surprise guest appearance at rare Joni Mitchell concert for duet of his song "I'm Still Standing" at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California
• Australian independent, Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe shouts at King Charles "You are not our king" "This is not your land" during the king's visit to the Australian parliament in Canberra
• The "grate cheese robbery': scam reported to police the theft of rare English Cheddar worth about 300,000 pounds from Neal’s Yard Dairy in London
• LeBron and Bronny James become the first father-son duo in NBA history to appear in a game together as LA Lakers beat Minnesota Timberwolves, 110-103 at Crypto.com Arena
• French woman Gisèle Pelicot speaks in court in Avignon against her husband, accused of drugging and arranging other men to rape her, saying "It's not for us to have shame - it's for them"
• American rapper Lil Durk was arrested on federal charges of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire as he attempted to flee the US
• The long-lost waltz by Frédéric Chopin was reported rediscovered after 200 years at the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan
• E. coli cases in the US linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders now affect 90 people, with one fatality and 27 hospitalizations, likely due to slivered onion according to the CDC

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• Collins Dictionary names "brat" as its word of the year for 2024
• Kemi Badenoch becomes the first black woman to lead a major British political party when elected leader of the Conservative Party
• Former Republican President Donald Trump is re-elected, defeating sitting Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris to become only the second president elected to non-consecutive terms after Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892, and the oldest elected
• The world's first wooden satellite, named LignoSat, that will burn up on re-entry, developed by Kyoto University to address space junk, launched from the Kennedy Space Center
• Bluey’s World officially opens in Brisbane, Australia, an immersive experience based on the animated children's TV show "Bluey"
• Beyoncé becomes the most nominated artist in Grammy history, 99 in total, after receiving 11 nominations for 2025, including record, song, and country song of the year
• At least 35 people were killed by a car attack in an athletics stadium in Zhuhai, southern China - one of the country's worst acts of violence in decades
• "Orbital" by British writer Samantha Harvey, set on the International Space Station, wins the 2024 Booker Prize for fiction
• Actor and director John Krasinski is named People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" for 2024
• US Republicans regain control of the House of Representatives, they now control all three parts of the US federal government, the House, Senate, and the Presidency
• The world's largest coral, larger than a blue whale and 300 years old, was found off the Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean
• Maori MPs perform a haka, "Ka Mate", in New Zealand's parliament, suspending voting on a bill affecting the country's founding document, The Treaty of Waitangi / Te Tiriti o Waitangi
• Woman suspected to be Thailand's worst-ever serial killer convicted and sentenced to death for poisoning a friend with cyanide, the first of 14 trials
•  The world's tallest woman Rumeysa Gelgi, at 7ft 0.71 from Turkey, meets the world's shortest Jyoti Amge, at 2ft 0.7in from India, at the Savoy Hotel, London, to celebrate Guinness World Records Day
• Controversial artwork of a banana duct-taped to a wall by Maurizio Cattelan sells for $6.2 million at auction in New York. The new owner Justin Sun says he will eat it.
• Evidence presented of the earliest known alphabet, on clay cylinders, 4,400 years old, 500 years older than previous writing, discovered in tombs in Umm el-Marra, Syria
• US Justice Department requests and is granted dismissal of pending criminal charges against Donald Trump, based on their policy that indicting or trying a sitting president would violate the Constitution and interfere with the working of the executive branch
• Australia is the first country to pass legislation banning children under 16 years old from social media
• A truce agreed between Israel and Hezbollah was brokered by the US and France with Lebanon saying 3,768 people have been killed in 13 months

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