How we rank the news

Headlines that say the same thing (similar wording, with rare words such as names counting most) are grouped into one story. The top story is the group covered by the most different outlets in the last 8 hours. Several headlines from one outlet count once.

Readers with an account can choose which section their top story comes from. Editors can also choose the top story by hand, which overrides the count.

Each story goes in one section (Politics, Business, Sports…). The section comes from the outlet's own feed, the words in the headline. Within a section, stories are ranked by how many outlets cover them, then by how much readers have been opening them in the last 6 hours, then newest first. One outlet can have at most 2 visible stories in a section, so no single outlet dominates.

Headlines covered by 3 or more outlets are shown in bold. Stories older than 36 hours drop off the page.

The strip at the top shows the 4 newest hard-news stories (politics, U.S., world, business) that at least two outlets are already carrying. When there aren't enough, it's topped up with the newest stories from general news outlets only.

Things that aren't news: price predictions and “stocks to buy” calls, betting picks and promo codes, deals and gift guides, daily game answers, horoscopes and lottery numbers, recognised by their headlines. Real news about the same subjects stays. Editors can bring back anything caught by mistake.

Editors can also hide individual stories or block words and links.

• It never writes or rewrites headlines, never decides which outlets we follow and never rates outlets' political lean.
• It writes the short AI Insight under the top story, only from the outlets' own headlines and summaries, with the outlets it drew on listed. It's always labeled.
• It answers questions in Chat with the news, only from today's collected headlines, with numbered links to the reports it used.

On story pages and in Blindspot you can see whether the outlets covering a story lean left or right. Lean is our editors' rating of each general news outlet (Left, Lean left, Center, Lean right or Right), based on its widely reported editorial positions. It describes an outlet's overall slant, not any one article, and it never affects ranking. Science, tech, sports and crypto outlets aren't rated. Each outlet's rating is shown on its page.

You can hide sections, mute outlets, follow topics and add your places for local news. These only change what you see, and they're stored on your device (or in your account, if you have one). Settings

Ads are always labeled “Advertisement”, sit in fixed spaces between sections and never change which stories are shown or where.