Matcha has been getting more popular for a good few years now but this summer it really took off - with sales doubling in UK cafes vs 2024. 4% of drinks sales are now matcha-based, according to Square payments data🍵

Scrolling through a big csv of Farage tweets is quite the experience

Which country has the highest number of patent applications per million people worldwide? Do you think you can solve it? Have a try at chartle.cc

Simon Harris and his family have faced credible death threats in recent days. This morning Elon Musk piles in by falsely claiming Harris is stopping McGregor from running for president.

#dataviz Haven't seen such a breathtakingly garish 3D chart in a very long time

🇺🇸 Staggering partisan divide 🇺🇸 76% of Republicans say they’re satisfied with the direction of the US; less than 1% of Democrats feel the same Gallup calls it the widest gap ever recorded on this question. Astonishing polarisation 👇

😵‍💫 www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...

This is an incredible story from @stevedineen.bsky.social www.cityam.com/mass-halluci...

Small chart, big problem

NEW: Saudi is holding internal discussions about having China or South Korea hold the 2029 Asian Winter Games as it struggles to deliver its desert defying ski resort in Neom. on.ft.com/45qlxtK

New 📈💨: a record number of renewable power projects were granted planning permission in Q2. Battery storage projects drove a lot of the increase. But developers warn grid connections are still the real bottleneck..

Retail sales are the latest UK data series to suffer from "ONSistis". So we've launched an interactive game — Is It Borked? — for you to guess which data series the ONS has been forced to suspend. (NB: The answers all come from the ONS so may not be right.) www.ft.com/content/e9bb...

After seeing this excellent chart from the folks at @data.ft.com, we had to see how things look across the water. Irish solar in 2025 has already overtaken 2024 as of the second half of July, and it looks likely to exceed 1TWh later this year for the first time ☀️

New: Solar power generation in Britain so far this year has overtaken the total for 2024🌞 It's one third higher than at this time last year and the total for 2025 was enough to power 5.2mn homes for a year or the Tube for more than a decade.

Please dm me if you can help.

New 🍻: Republicans are abstaining from alcohol at record levels - with a third fewer saying they drink this year compared with 2024. The nationwide drinking rate of Americans has also plummeted to a nearly 90-year low, according to a v long running Gallup survey 👀

had fun taking a break from numbers to chat to some comedians and Oasis haters yesterday! with @jonathanvincent.bsky.social & @simeonkerr.bsky.social on.ft.com/45Gky8L

Tourists are embracing 'shoulder season' to avoid European heatwaves and wildfires 🥵 - chart for @marinovik.bsky.social story www.ft.com/content/d865...

Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of more than one child per hour during Israel's war in Gaza. “A whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years,” UNICEF’s executive director said. Here are some of their stories: wapo.st/3UCiAjn

It's ONS baby name day... and Olivia and Amelia are in the top 2 girl's name spots for the 13th year running. 40,000 Olivias in a decade

Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and journalist who helped make the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, has been killed during an attack by Israeli settlers in the south Hebron hills. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

In "Legitimate Concerns" news. 41% of the 899 arrested for taking part in Farage Riots last year had been reported for crimes associated with intimate partner violence. For those arrested by one police force, this figure was 68%. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

The UK introduced “robust” age checks for porn and other online content today Also related: VPN interest massively up in the UK, according to Google Trends Story with @lhn.bsky.social: www.wired.com/story/the-ag...

Reminds me of the time a slop factory rewrote an FT piece of my own but replaced words with synonyms throughout. "told the Financial Times" became "told Monetary Happenings"

An AI slop factory apparently tried to rewrite our article about AI not replacing workers en masse, but hit the paywall... so just summarised the paywall. If this is the robot that takes my job I'll be v embarrassed

‘FT analysis of US official data showed there was no clear correlation between an occupation’s potential exposure to generative AI and whether it lost young workers between 2022 and 2024.‘ www.ft.com/content/99b6...

We are entering the Tiny Dancer era on.ft.com/3IKZm8y

New 📈✍️- we're hearing a lot about AI decimating graduate jobs. But the data paints a more complicated picture on what's behind the fall in entry-level roles With Delphine Strauss, @jburnmurdoch.ft.com & Sarah Lim on.ft.com/4f1wWmK

Russia’s “swarm” tactics against Ukraine are increasingly cutting through Ukraine’s defences, with drones striking targets at three times the typical rate in recent months www.ft.com/content/1a19...

5pm dinner bookings are up 11% in London this year as part of a post pandemic trend for eating out early that's forcing restaurateurs to adapt 🍽️ New story with @joshgd100.bsky.social & exclusive OpenTable data on.ft.com/46PbL5h

Pottery progress. Finally getting the hang of glazing!

We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers. The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.

Solar became the top power source in the EU for the first time ever in June 2025 ☀️ At least 13 EU countries beat their previous record share of solar in the electricity mix 👏 helping power systems grapple with high demand from ongoing heatwaves. @ember-energy.org ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

Great story/charts from @lydiadepillis.bsky.social @christinezhang.bsky.social on how health care ate the American economy. This pair of maps is especially striking. #EconSky www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

How harmful is GenAI around elections? Will it trigger a misinformation apocalypse and upend elections? I am happy to finally be able to share @sachaltay.bsky.social & my answers to these and other questions on which we have been working for a year and which is now out via @knightcolumbia.org

We went to 50 vape shops to find out how well the disposables ban is working 🚬 Some told us we can just throw out the new reusable versions after 1 use. Many said it's impossible to find stock of refill pods... and others offered to sell us the now-illegal single-use versions 👀 on.ft.com/44M6Bpo

We have just had the warmest June for England, although it was still warm but less extreme elsewhere. It was very sunny and dry in the East and wetter and cloudier in the West. Here is a summary of the past 12 months weather/climate for the UK. #dataviz

Being under the helicopter flight path from Glastonbury this morning is like living next to Heathrow

Europe could be in for record-breaking numbers of tourists this summer as Americans flock to the continent and the number of 'safe' destinations falls New charts for brilliant @marinovik.bsky.social story (currently most read on the site!) 🌞✈️ www.ft.com/content/d447...

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...

GPS has become critical infrastructure with both military and civil applications. What happens when it's a casualty of war? @claradoodle.bsky.social, Aditi Bhandari and I took a visual look at the rising anxieties for the shipping industry in the Straight of Hormuz:

New analysis of the outbreak of GPS warfare in the Strait of Hormuz & whether it could have played a role in the collision between two oil tankers on Monday - with @peter.andringa.me and Aditi Bhandari 🛰️⛴️ on.ft.com/3SWmsLl

Selling 2 very cheap tickets for London Grammar at Lido today - £25 each, send me a DM if interested

NEW RESEARCH: new car bonnets are trending higher every year and drivers of high fronted cars unable to see children as old as nine 😱🚙🚸❗ #Carspreading is out of control. What’s the latest? 🧵1/8 @transenv.bsky.social @cleancitiescampaign.org

You wait years for a headline like this on.ft.com/3Tmw16o

NEW: Illegal fuel in Mexico has evolved from pipeline tapping to a more sophisticated cross-border smuggling operation that is funding Mexico's powerful cartels. By @digitalcampbell.ft.com @peter.andringa.me Christine Murray @samjoiner.bsky.social and me. ig.ft.com/mexico-fuel-...

Scoop: Internal documents show Meta is replacing human reviewers with automation for assessing potential real-world risks in 90% of its products with @shannonbond.bsky.social www.npr.org/2025/05/31/n...