Data Vis Dispatch, April 30

A great #30DayChartChallenge is coming to an end. Here’s what we liked from the fourth week of the challenge:

Thousands of students have participated in pro-Palestinian protests at several U.S. colleges, leading to controversial arrests this week:

The cause of the protests — the war in Gaza — continues to be mapped. This week, the New York Times discussed a temporary pier being built to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid:

On the other side of the world, tensions are rising in the South China Sea:

As you probably know, it’s election year… everywhere. Many newsrooms have already published U.S. election poll trackers and forecasts (The Economist, The Hill, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others). Reuters warns us that there’s often little to read into them:

And continuing with elections, here’s India (now the world’s most populous country!), Mexico, and some concerning polls from Germany:

As for politicians already in power, people could be happier with them. In Argentina, 430,000 people took to the streets of Buenos Aires alone to protest in defense of public universities:

In our environment section you’ll find visualizations on urban heat, wildfire risk, and the impact of drilling and mining:

The solution to some of these problems? Clean(er) energy and electric cars.

Charts are often interesting because they show clear upward or downward trends. Here are two examples that are intriguing because they don’t trend in any direction (plus one example where we fortunately see a strong downward trend):

Let’s move on to immigration. People keep moving to Germany, even though their families might be better off in the U.K.:

Relatedly, this week we saw a focus on borders in Eastern Europe:

What do people do in their free time? They sleep, watch movies and sports, go to festivals, celebrate holidays — and visit Japan:

And, as the last chart this week shows, we may all soon have more free time after being replaced by an AI: