In September, a box of old film reels was donated to the Library's National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. One of them was a nearly 130-year-old, long-lost film by iconic French filmmaker George Méliès. It had not been seen by anyone in likely more than a century. 🧵 blogs.loc.gov/loc/2026/02/...

1) Danish conservatives had been gaining in the polls and finally took the lead last fall. 2) Trump threatened war over Greenland. 3) The right’s polling tanked and the center-left bloc could win. 4) The center-left* prime minister calls an early election for March 24 apnews.com/article/denm...

What actually happened to horses after cars came around... web.archive.org/web/20211020...

It's time for a U.S. Geological Survey Photo Thread --- July 22, 1980 The first clearly visible eruption since May 18.

This district had the second-biggest swing to Trump between 2020 and 2024 of all the specials in the cycle so far. The biggest was in NJ SD-32, which is also heavily Latino, and where the Democrat in the special also outperformed *both* Harris and Biden.

There is no positive issue territory left for Trump, per our new Strength In Numbers/ @verasight.io poll. POTUS plans to focus on the economy in his SOTU 2nite. But shifting media focus back to a -30 issue is perhaps not the foolproof strategy he thinks it is. www.gelliottmorris.com/p/ahead-of-s...

The trove of files released by the Department of Justice, illuminates Epstein’s deep interest and entrenchment in the scientific community. But the files also underscore how he used his power and money in ways that kept women out of places where they might succeed. https://bit.ly/4qWgPLz

If you liked this experiment, I published a full piece today in the same vein: a text that gets 100 years older with every section, from a modern blog post to a medieval chronicle. It's a single story spanning 1000 years of English. See how far you get. www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...

“We have all been here before We have all been here before…”

20 years later, and once again we have an unpopular Republican president sitting at an approval rating of about 39%. But now, opinions are sharply divided based on educational attainment. The changes are not, however, geographically uniform. 1/

Which Americans Are Most Likely to Adhere to Christian Nationalist Ideology? A majority of Republicans qualify as either Christian nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers. (@prri.org) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/260218

Twitterpated.

#GraphicOfTheWeek: Advances in geothermal technology mean it is no longer limited to volcanic regions like Iceland. 43 GW of geothermal capacity is already cost-competitive with coal and gas, and up to 42% of EU coal and gas power could be replaced. ember-energy.org/lat...

"National policy is feminized."

Meaning behind the food by Taiwan Data Stories circa 2023 taiwandatastories.com/lunar-new-ye...

In honor of Lunar New Year, one of my all-time favorite maps: How dumplings spread around the world (tl;dr: It was largely, though not exclusively, the Mongol invasions!)

We're well into the 2026 election cycle, and special elections are still showing an exceptionally Democratic environment, similar 2018. 1/5

The volume & geographic distribution of protest nationwide during year 1 of Trump's second term was extraordinary.

Overall, we have tallied 4x more protests through Jan 31, 2026 than we had through Jan 31, 2018

I'm still SHOCKED by the obscene rise in billionaire election spending since Citizens United in the NYT piece, despite already knowing that election corruption w/ $ was profound. (Recall that BCRA fought dangerous campaign $ in *2002*) The article data didn't have a graph, so I made one to show it.

📣 NEW! I’ve just released the BIGGEST and perhaps most creative project I’ve ever worked on! “Searching for Birds” searchingforbirds.visualcinnamon.com 🐤 A project, an article, an exploration that dives into the data that connects humans with birds, by looking at how we search for birds.

Two more Dem overperformances in VA specials tonight, in the most Democratic VA districts to have specials in this cycle. Typically VA is a hard state for Dems to overperform in for specials... but not this year. Data: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Habeas cases filed by immigrants claiming their detention is illegal have taken off to levels we have never seen before. Just look at that chart. www.propublica.org/article/habe...

4 elections on the Big Board tonight, 3 in NY. We have 27 NY specials logged since '17. In only 12 of 27 was there a dem overperformance compared the last pres elex. In 10 of 27 the pres margin was > D+60. In *just 1* of those did we see a dem overperformance.

No matter the obstacle, whether it's winter storms or stormtroopers, Democratic voters are showing up. So far this cycle, 26 R to D flips, 0 D to R flips.

Also trying to parse all the emails that read like they were written by a concussed golden retriever I think I finally get why these guys are so enthusiastic about getting chatbots to write for them

This is a survey of ICE and CBP employees. They are miserable. Compare the 2024 and 2025 columns. Even ICE wants to abolish ICE.

In this Minnesota special election last night, the Republican's vote share (4%) was just 33% of Trump's 2024 vote share (13%). That's the lowest ratio for R/(last Pres R) we have on record going back to 2017! 1/3

As we await a Supreme Court ruling on tariff authority, a new @bloomberg.com analysis finds this admin followed through on just 27% of its tariff threats. Tariffs can be a serious policy tool—when used strategically. This approach has been anything but. www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

Holy moly this chart: Cumulative US measles cases

Nope. Son of Holocaust survivor. My father was 11 when the Nazis invaded his hometown in eastern Poland. He survived only by fleeing to a different city with a false baptismal certificate. The comparison is apt. Carry on.

India's electrification shortcut! ⚡️🇮🇳 Solar, wind, batteries, electric vehicles...India's economy has different tools available than the US and China did at the same stage in their economic development. The result? An early turn away from fossil molecules towards electrons.

As interest in the Arctic grows and questions of sovereignty intensify, the RCGS will be sharing articles and research to help our readers deepen their understanding— starting with this map by our cartographer, Chris Brackley.

This is such a cool illustration of how the Mercator map distorts the size of Greenland, which looks as big as the whole continent of Africa on that map but is actually the size of Mexico.

Pitched and landed this story for @NBCNews.com: 24 members of Congress are 80 or older. More than half are running for re-election. #dataViz www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...

Globally, no single day in 2025 was cooler than its 1991-2020 average. climate.copernicus.eu/global-clima...

While a substantial number of members of the House of Representatives are retiring, don’t expect these retirements to produce many flipped seats or shifts in the ideological makeup of either party. open.substack.com/pub/charlesa...

DHS invading Minnesota in winter

After weeks of staring at 1890s Survey maps and Victorian railway timetables, I think I've finally mapped how each set of characters moves in the Sherlock Holmes adventure 'The Red-Headed League'. 📊 #maps #booksky Fancy new blogpost: aman.bh/blog/2026/ma... Just the map: aman.bh/projects/red...

I don’t know if this acceleration is the result of larger deployments or a more violent strategy, but either way it’s harrowing

Cool map. bluebookmke.substack.com/p/where-amer...

The US is losing blue-collar jobs for the first time since the early pandemic—year-on-year job losses have hit 145k as manufacturing, transportation, & mining industries lose jobs at a rapid pace while growth in construction has nearly zeroed out

2025 is now, officially, the worst year for job creation outside of recession since 2003. @byheatherlong.bsky.social

Just in - "According to @climatecentral.org, 2025 ranks as the third-highest year (after 2023 and 2024) for billion-dollar weather and climate disasters..." + Interactive graphics/data: www.climatecentral.org/climate-serv... + Climate Matters article: www.climatecentral.org/climate-matt...

The latest from YouGov (n ~ 2.2k): No one's buying this Greenland shit. Trump loses virtually everyone on the threat of force. He barely gets *half of Republicans* on "purchasing" Greenland. today.yougov.com/topics/overv...

Deploying emergency kitten videos Sound on

New Year, New Colour Tool for you data visualizers and maybe the odd designer obumbratta.com/colour

The Trump administration has said it was improving the SSA. A year in, it looks like the mess that everyone else predicted. Not enough staff, manipulation of numbers and declining performance. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...