Since the election, Alicia Parlapiano + I have been scouring for evidence that urban ills — rising rents, long school closures, homelessness, pandemic disruptions — help explain why cities shifted toward Trump as they did. And we just couldn't find much.

If any GMs watching, I already look just like the Bills HC and I use late-game timeouts properly. DMs open

An annual tradition: detailed tables of how every team can end up in the NFL playoffs — and where they might land, seed by seed. The Steelers can make it at any seed, 1-7 nytimes.com/interactive/20…

In today's Upshot, a series of striking charts showing drug deaths in a way I hadn't seen before. Part of a partnership with the Baltimore Banner and NYT Local Investigations teams — nytimes.com/2024/12/20/ups…

These and other surprises, often in glorious Base R, in our year end roundup, out today nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Extensive + helpful reporting today from a team of reporters in Upshot nytimes.com/interactive/20…

And the 2024 precinct map just dropped! nytimes.com/interactive/20…

A team effort by the Upshot staff — a very, very long list, of 2600+ federal programs under scrutiny nytimes.com/interactive/20…

More than 8,000 web pages across more than a dozen government websites have been taken down since Friday nytimes.com/2025/02/02/ups…

The new DOGE "wall of receipts" said the government had saved $8 billion by cancelling one contract. It was $8 million.

RT if you've been radicalized about nickels nytimes.com/2025/02/19/ups…

Lots of important decisions in Washington get hidden behind wonky-sounding words. That's why we asked dozens of budget veterans to share their favorite metaphor for the "current policy baseline."

The government knows an enormous amount about you in the data systems DOGE has sought to access. Just for starters:

The use of these taxes to help boost the federal share of Medicaid dollars started in the late '80s, but has since become widespread. Every state but Alaska has one. Now Republicans are thinking about rolling them back. nytimes.com/2025/05/06/ups… Sarah Kliff Alicia Parlapiano

Go outside

Big tax cut bills typically don't leave the poor worse off. Bills cutting the safety net don't normally include benefits for the rich. The GOP reconciliation bill is something we haven't really seen before, and as a result it's uniquely regressive.

"But once two pandas are in a room, it's no longer a joke to suggest they might breed." nytimes.com/2025/06/14/ups…

Maybe the best 1200x675 pixels the Upshot has published in a while nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Since some drama about the "current policy baseline" is clearly headed our way this week, may I recommend this piece decoding that boring but consequential language using metaphors and illustrations? nytimes.com/interactive/20… Alicia Parlapiano

“It seems ‘determined to repel viewers as some sort of litmus test,’ The Seattle Times wrote in a rare review of Season 1, adding that the show contains ‘a fair amount’ of ‘puking.’” nytimes.com/2025/07/07/mag…