NEW: The End of the Line: the centrepiece of Saudi Arabia’s Neom gigaproject - a 500m tall, 170km long wall-like building intended ultimately to house 9 million people - can’t get out of the ground, say more than 20 former Neom architects, engineers and senior executives. ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...

Blood on the streets of El Fasher: satellite images and videos capture new atrocities in Sudan as RSF forces take the city, marking a new chapter in the country’s ruinous civil war. W/ William Wallis, @janatausch.bsky.social, @digitalcampbell.ft.com www.ft.com/content/f39c...

Great to work with @aendra.com @amyborrett.ft.com @jonathanvincent.bsky.social on this important new dataset of deprivation in England

A big development: HMEL, the Mittal joint venture that owns the refinery has responded to our story - and disclosed that it is pulling out of buying Russian crude.

Unhedged chart of the week: Gooooold Sign up for COTW here: www.ft.com/newsletter-s... @hakyungkim.bsky.social

Whirlwind politics: an illustration. www.ft.com/content/f08a...

This looks like a great new data-driven venture from @ashendruk.com …

Donald Trump is pressing other alliance members to pay more for their own defence, arguing the US is 'paying for close to 100% of Nato'.⁠ While America’s military budget dwarfs others in Nato, Trump’s assertion is not true. on.ft.com/4orYeWZ

There is no need for a moral panic about the UK's welfare system. Far from perfect but recent discourse is nuts Spending is controlled, not spiralling Worklessness is near record lows My column www.ft.com/content/ee67...

Incredibly useful new story by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com on the 'crisis' for young college grads. Most analyses compare mid-20s workers with/without a degree. But as John points out, the relevant comparison group is actually *new entrants* with/without a degree - most non-degree workers enter at 18-19.

🇳🇴 Nobel Institute probes leak of peace prize winner’s name The Nobel committee is supposedly super secret, a bastion of confidentiality and yet... 🤔 FT www.ft.com/content/afc7...

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what's the most unfair tax of them all? An #FTEdit 🧵on the madness of council tax 👇

Council tax valuation bands in England are increasingly disconnected from house prices - new with Sam Fleming and Jonathan Vincent. You can even tap in your own details to see how unfair your council tax bill is on.ft.com/46JBbB9

A key question this year is just how much of US economic growth has come from tech investment, aka the AI boom. The net contribution of the tech to real GDP growth is a bit more than a third YTD. But consumer spending, a bigger part of GDP, has weakened, in effect making tech's contribution larger.

@olihawkins.com getting deep into blockchain nerdery with maths students at @ucl.ac.uk

The Russian spy ship stalking Europe’s subsea cables on.ft.com/4nOeeCn

BIG NEWS! We've updated the website of the Open Visualization Academy, where you can see all its contributors: openvisualizationacademy.org This is the announcement in our newsletter: openvisualizationacademy.beehiiv.com/p/we-re-back... #dataViz #infographics #dataJournalism #dataVis 📊 1/x

Look what we have here then.

Trump promised that tariffs would lead to a big increase in US production at the expense of imports, and at the same time generate enormous tax revenues. Critics replied that it had to be one or the other. So far, revenues are the clear winner. w/ @theboysmithy.ft.com @robarmstrong.bsky.social

I have spent *many* hours making AI-generated Stephen Fry pogo at a 70s punk club, get angry with a kid for throwing spaghetti on the floor, and see his life flash before his eyes. It's been a journey. You should watch our short film: youtu.be/9ztAyAyv5Uk

Sure: it can be useful (as here!) to show two temporally aligned phenomena. You need to ensure that playing with the Y axis doesn’t make the graph start lying, though.

Unhedged chart of the week; Pity the poor Fed via @hakyungkim.bsky.social Sign up for COTW here: ep.ft.com/newsletters/...

Credit to @mayfaircynic.bsky.social for seeing this gem. "Please note the previous owner is buried ..." www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/1...

Wide ranging piece from @theboysmithy.ft.com who used to work at the ONS on how to restore our statistical system. He makes the point we need to think of data as a form of infrastructure on.ft.com/45MlLdJ

🎓New data shows top unis are enrolling more UK undergraduates due to “uncertainty” over international recruitment and mounting financial pressures, outperforming lower-ranking institutions which are typically more reliant on the domestic market on.ft.com/46REXsB

As the nationwide drinking rate of Americans plummets to a nearly 90-year low, it seems like Republicans are leading the decline. While it's unclear what is behind the sharp downturn for Republicans in particular, many prominent party members have been open about their sobriety. on.ft.com/4oB94uO

We wanted to know if the money that the EU has put into rearmament is turning into production capacity — and the answer is: yes. Industry is rearming.

A second seismic event of the week that has failed to create the impact most feared... According to Yale Budget Lab, the US effective tariff rate as at August 1 is now 17.3% (after consumption shifts). This is the highest since 1935, but still a shade down on estimates earlier this week...

New: The American guns turning Haiti’s gangs into an army. Caches of weapons — including sniper and military-style rifles — are being smuggled from Florida, enabling Haitian militias to challenge the country’s fragile government. The UN says gangs now outgun the police. ig.ft.com/haiti-gangs/

NEW: Heavily armed gangs control 95% of Haiti's capital and are expanding their campaign of murder, rape and extortion across the country. Better armed than the Haitian police, it is weapons smuggled from the US than have enabled their dominance. We tracked how Haitian gangs get their guns.

What a graph

US tariffs are now at the highest level since the 1930s. Great presentation of the data 👇 on.ft.com/3UyQ9Tv

the graphic here does a great job of illustrating why prices have not risen exactly as much as tariffs have, but are stepping up over time

New: Donald Trump's tariff blitz brings US levies to highest level since 1930s on.ft.com/3IRgx8M

NEW: "Money Machine" in Japanese FT and Nikkei have released the Japanese version of the Apple Vision Pro app Money Machine, with Nikkei engineers leading the localization. Check it out! @data.ft.com @theboysmithy.ft.com www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZ...

The UK government is set to raise tens of billions of pounds in debt to fund the Sizewell C nuclear power station - the costliest nuclear power plant in the world on.ft.com/40s9GZh

NEW: Inside Gaza’s ‘death traps’ via @FT GHF’s plan forces hungry Palestinians to trek miles to aid sites, often through the IDF’s active military areas. Hundreds have been killed and thousands injured. This is how… www.ft.com/content/6c74...

Great to do Hikarigaoka parkrun this morning - but once you see Donald Trump’s hair in the GPS track, you can’t unsee it…

Tony Blair Institute staff worked alongside BCG on a project for postwar Gaza that ended up proposing a 'Trump Riviera', 'MBS ring' road and 'Elon Musk smart manufacturing zone'. Latest scoop from @stephenfoley and @PickardJE www.ft.com/content/0b1b...

Astonishing story. Huge questions over the company culture that allowed this. www.ft.com/content/c0e6...

The Chair of the UN Statistical Commission, Georges-Simon Ulrich, writes in the @financialtimes.com on why the world needs a global Trusted Data Observatory on.ft.com/3TWDERk

Chart in that FT explainer on how the US tax cuts will affect different income groups www.ft.com/content/7eca...

This is fun - a draw your own chart game on how oil prices reacted in past crises from @raydouglas.bsky.social @theboysmithy.ft.com www.ft.com/content/c618...

There's been a lot of talk of oil prices as the 'dog that didn't bark' over the past couple of weeks — but what happened to prices during and after previous crises in the Middle East? Our latest draw your own chart game with @raydouglas.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/c618...

Disappearing people: the hidden global crisis of deteriorating census data Population undercounting threatens to harm policies from school building to disease outbreak response, scientists have warned. Register here to read some FT articles free: www.ft.com/register www.ft.com/content/4542...

NEW: Why Wall Street fears a 33-year-old political outsider on.ft.com/4ncZcGJ

According to World Weather Attribution, "climate change has made a 32C day in the UK 100 times more likely than in the pre-industrial era. A June heatwave of three consecutive days above 28C was 10 times more likely to occur now." www.ft.com/content/650c...

Visual analysis: GPS interference raises risk of accidents in Strait of Hormuz https://on.ft.com/4kKAsnB

Experts say there is no evidence Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. Its recent advances mean though that it has become a 'threshold state' — a nation with technical expertise and capacity to weaponise its nuclear programme if it chooses. https://on.ft.com/4ni8W2K