We crunched the numbers to find the most popular Guardian stories of 2019. Here’s what captured your attention

An interview with the American wife of an Isis fighter who deeply regrets her choices. A harrowing science story about the collapse of the global insect population. A moving interview with Keanu Reaves.

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When we crunched the numbers to find the Guardian stories that were most widely read and shared in the US in 2019, we didn’t find headline-grabbing topics like impeachment, the British election or the Mueller report. Instead, we found an eclectic mix of thoughtful features, probing interviews and quirky news stories.

In fact, the US president’s name barely registered on our “most read” lists – although the data indicates you have plenty of time to read about his Twitter nemeses, Greta Thunberg and AOC, and his wife Melania Trump. Several incendiary political topics – chiefly the climate crisis and threats to abortion rights – also held your attention consistently in 2019.

Rihanna, Elizabeth Warren and Kylie Jenner were just a few of your fellow Guardian readers who shared our story on a restrictive Alabama abortion bill last May, headlined: These 25 Republicans – all white men – just voted to ban abortion in Alabama, helping to make the piece one of our most shared stories of 2019. The growing crackdown on reproductive rights was also the subject of one of our most widely read US news story this year: Ohio bill orders doctors to ‘reimplant ectopic pregnancy’ or face ‘abortion murder’ charges.

World news accounted for about 13% of your reading on the Guardian in 2019 –making it the second most read category after US news, which accounted for 22% of the stories you read. The most read story in world news was an interview that took place in Syria with the American wife of an Isis fighter entitled: Hoda Muthana ‘deeply regrets’ joining Isis and wants to return home. Other international stories you spent time on include The girl in the box: the mysterious crime that shocked Germany, and the sad tale of a French waiter shot dead for being ‘too slow with sandwich’.

Stories about climate change and biodiversity consistently drew millions of readers. Our most read environment story of 2019 was Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’, a story that found 40% of insect species are declining, and that insects could vanish within a century if current rates continue.

What were you watching most on Twitter and Facebook? These videos of AOC laying into Republicans for suggesting tackling climate change was an ‘elitist’ concern and these of Thunberg excoriating world leaders and proposing natural carbon sinks as a solution.

The climate crisis was also a hot topic on our US Instagram feed: our second most liked Instagram story of the year was A Venetian council rejected a plan to combat climate change minutes before it was flooded. (These remarkable photos were topped in popularity by this photo of Narwhal, a 10-week-old abandoned puppy who has two tails that took the No 1 spot.)

The US president’s name made a rare appearance at the top of our list of most read opinion pieces. When Lenore Taylor, the editor-in-chief of the Guardian’s Australia edition visited New York this summer and watched her first full Trump press conference, she detailed his alarming incoherence in her piece As a foreign reporter visiting the US I was stunned by Trump’s press conference.

When it comes to cultural news, you took this headline quite literally: ‘You win or you die!’ The hardest Game of Thrones quiz ever. This quiz had the longest attention time – a metric that looks at how much time readers spend on a given piece – of any piece published on the Guardian this year. But the story that drew the most readers in our culture section was this strange tale of a Christian group who accidentally petitioned Netflix about cancelling an Amazon Prime show that made ‘satanism appear normal’.

The most read interview on our site was Keanu Reeves: ‘Grief and loss, those things don’t ever go away’. But an interview with Elton John, in which famous fans including Bob Dylan, Eminem, and Kristin Scott Thomas, asked the singer everything they’ve always wanted to know about him, had an exceptional attention time.

On average, you spent longer reading this feature than any other this year: Divorce, Islam and me: ‘I will for ever be the woman who left two husbands’.

In video, you spent a combined total of 11 years, nine months and 18 days watching this film about Flat Earthers.

And perhaps your favorite photo of the year was this exquisitely timed picture of Melania Trump greeting Justin Trudeau at the G7, which delighted Guardian readers and the internet at large.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest First lady Melania Trump greets Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the G7 summit in Biarritz, France, on 25 August. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

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