Data Vis Dispatch, August 13

First up, the sporting event that has us all most excited this week: the 10th San Sebastian Classic, a road cycling day race:

Okay, not quite! We were all in Olympic fever for another week until the games ended Sunday 11th. Here are final medal counts and a look at individual countries:

France finished the Games with a record number of medals. This begs the question: Is there such a thing as a host country bonus? Spoiler alert: yes!

One last look at the individual athletes and sports:

Although the Olympics were a great success overall, we did see some controversy:

Let’s start the next section with a quote from a 64-year-old Club France fan, Christine Frant: “Now we have to wake up from this beautiful dream“. Because France has not yet formed an absolute majority in the National Assembly after the elections at the beginning of July:

More on the elections: In the U.S., fewer and fewer voters are undecided:

Well, we’re going to stay in the U.S., specifically on the West Coast (close enough). Here you can get on the train in moderate temperatures and get off somewhere else in unbelievably hot temperatures:

Not surprisingly, the climate and climate phenomena are becoming more challenging:

This week’s environmental stories are a rollercoaster of emotions, U.S. avocado imports from Mexico lead to deforestation and overuse of water (😢), European second-hand app Vinted avoided over 600,000 tons of CO2 (😇), Drax is the UK’s biggest CO2 emitter (😢), and the grizzly population is growing (😇):

Also on a roller coaster this week: the global financial market. Buying houses, on the other hand, is a downhill ride:

The news on (gender) equality is rather bad. In Brazil, people in diplomatic positions are overwhelmingly white men, and more anti-DEI records are being filed:

And tragically, war and violence, as well as preparations for war continue:

We end with a look at Asia, where China is building cities to protect its borders and Vietnam is building islands to challenge China. Oh, and yes, Singapore is happy to be a year older: