John D. Harden

Your morning read.

How billionaires took over American politics: The concentration of wealth among the richest Americans is unlike anything in history — and so is billionaires’ influence in politics.

wapo.st/48nkqMN

A lookup tool with a line chart that allows users to pick a city and show the homicide rate over the past decade. The chart highlights DC's rate vs. the US rate

The homicide rate in the US has been dropping in the past three years and is trending toward its lowest level in decades. Reporters visited five cities with major decreases to figure out why. Data analysis by @jdharden.bsky.social:
www.washingtonpost.com/nation/inter...

The deadliest roads in America The number of pedestrians killed by vehicles has increased in the U.S., with road infrastructure and inadequate safety measures among key contributing factors.

The deadliest roads in America: The number of pedestrians killed by vehicles in the United States has surged amid neglect and lack of investment by transportation authorities. www.washingtonpost.com/business/int...

U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols The military service, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has drafted a new policy that classifies such items “potentially divisive.”

Exclusive: The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika, nooses and the Confederate flag as hate symbols.

The military service drafted a new policy that classifies them as “potentially divisive.”

Atomic veterans: The legacy of watching nuclear blasts Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers watched nuclear bomb tests during World War II and the Cold War. Some “atomic veterans” now suffer from health problems they blame on radiation exposure.

A reminder of our past nuclear testing: revealnews.org/article/us-v...

The mysterious rise of cancer among young adults in the Corn Belt Communities across the Corn Belt are confronting a rise in cancers among young adults — and few clear explanations.

The mysterious rise of cancer among young adults in the Corn Belt wapo.st/3Le1yXo

The U.S. women's gymnastics program won just two medals at world championships this week — their fewest since 2001. What happened?

Analysis of the state of the U.S. program: wapo.st/3JuJl7s

"Across the country, eating beef is the bigger contributor to harmful pollutants. But it’s not as simple as that. Its origins matter. Eating a steak or a burger in Milwaukee, where the meat comes from nearby dairy cows, generates fewer emissions than in Oklahoma City."

Column | Your diet’s impact on the planet depends on where you live. Look up your city. What you eat, and where you eat it, can have a big impact on how much you’re contributing to climate change, according to a study published Monday.

Your diet’s impact on the planet depends on where you live. Look up your city. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

How the Louvre Jewelry Heist Unfolded (Gift Article) Thieves used a truck-mounted ladder to break into the Louvre and steal items of “incalculable” value.

How the Louvre Jewelry Heist Unfolded

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Climate change is coming for D.C.’s trees, and the city won’t look the same The Post examined data that shows how the decisions being made now about what trees to plant in place of dying ones will change the city’s treescape.

Climate change is coming for D.C.’s trees, and the city won’t look the same wapo.st/43ijIxq

I used a headless browser using rselenium to cycle through each species in the city’s plan to download the corresponding distribution list, creating a database of tree ranges.

Our story: wapo.st/43ijIxq

Maps and illustrations by Dylan Moriarty and Tucker Harris.

We used the USDA’s PLANTS database, which has distribution data built into it.

So, @marissajae.bsky.social and I knew D.C. was changing up its canopy, but we wanted to explore what which regions of the country would be most represented in the city’s planting strategy.

The data pointed to the midwest and gulf coast.

www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/int...

Black Unemployment Is Surging Again. This Time Is Different.

Black Unemployment Is Surging Again. This Time Is Different. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/b...

The pain from the government shutdown is about to hit the public Federal officials are bracing for the worst effects of the ongoing government shutdown to collide with the U.S. economy this week as missed paychecks and the absence billions of dollars of government ...

The pain from the government shutdown is about to hit the public wapo.st/3KNYyRq

An age-old fear grows more common: ‘I’m going to die alone’ As families fracture, people are living longer and are more likely to find themselves without close relatives or friends at the end of their lives.

More than 15 million people 55 or older don’t have a spouse or biological children; nearly 2 million have no family members at all.

Who will be there for these solo agers as their lives draw to a close? How many of them will die alone?

Here’s how TikTok ‘power users’ end up scrolling 4 hours a day or more Washington Post reporters analyzed data from over 800 TikTok users to learn how the app turns people into power users, some of whom spend hours per day scrolling.

🤳EXCLUSIVE: We analyzed real data from over 800 U.S. TikTok users to reveal how the app transforms casual users into power users.

Extremely proud of this one, over a year in the making w/ @richardsima.bsky.social Leslie Shapiro @asteckelberg.bsky.social @ence.bsky.social

wapo.st/4obueib

Americans can’t stop betting parlays. Sportbooks are cashing in. As betting booms, parlays are accounting for an increasing share of the money wagered on sports, according to a Washington Post analysis of state data.

How America’s favorite sports bet is fueling sportsbook profits

Parlays are becoming more popular, accounting for an increasing share of the money wagered on sports, according to a Post analysis of betting data. Bettors lose billions a year on these bets.

www.washingtonpost.com/sports/inter...

Americans can’t stop betting parlays. Sportbooks are cashing in. As betting booms, parlays are accounting for an increasing share of the money wagered on sports, according to a Washington Post analysis of state data.

Read your favorite story today: Americans can’t stop betting parlays. Sportbooks are cashing in.

via the incredible @emilygiam.bsky.social 🔥, @katiperry.bsky.social and @asteckelberg.bsky.social

Explore the math and and try your own bets.

wapo.st/4o3YxXK

15 teens. 300 miles. One mighty ancestral river, running free. wapo.st/4m81PJf

‪By Reis Thebault, Alice Li and Melina Mara

How D.C.'s failure to curb truancy fueled a surge in youth crime District leaders linked school attendance to crime, but failure to reduce absenteeism in middle schools yielded the biggest youth crime surge in a generation.

Empty desks: How the District’s failure to curb truancy in middle schools yielded the biggest youth crime surge in a generation.

Do kids feel safe in D.C.? We asked them. Youth crime in the District surged in 2023. The Post spoke to nearly two dozen middle school students about violence and safety.

Do kids feel safe in D.C.? We asked them.

D.C. teens in need of rehabilitation wait months in a detention center The Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services struggles to provide adequate services to many teens, leaving them to languish in a violent detention center.

D.C. teens needed rehabilitation to keep the city safe. They languished in a violent detention center instead.

D.C. juvenile court’s reliance on ankle monitors had deadly outcomes D.C. juvenile courts lost track of teens wearing GPS ankle monitors at critical moments, as they have committed or fallen victim to crime.

D.C. court officials repeatedly lost track of teens wearing ankle monitors. The timing was deadly.

From 2020 - 2023, youth crime in DC spiked, and we investigated why. We found a series of failures to address the very problem leaders promised to solve, finding the systems put in place to help DC's youth often fell short with dire consequences.

Gift links to our series are threaded.

Journalists Attest to Experiences of Sexual Misconduct with Wesley Lowery Lowery rose to prominence as a reporter and media thinker. Women in the industry say he engaged in sexual harassment and assault.

Some of y’all noticed I’ve been uncharacteristically offline. This is why, and I remain on leave for a few weeks to handle a PTSD relapse. CJR was dogged in its pursuit of my story. Because of what I do and who I am, I felt that I had to answer their questions honestly.

www.cjr.org/feature-2/we...

patrick star and spongebob are dancing together in the water ALT: patrick star and spongebob are dancing together in the water

but also us:

#NICAR25

a cartoon tomato is sitting on a table with a sad face . ALT: a cartoon tomato is sitting on a table with a sad face .

Panelist: people who scrape in R are psychopaths.

Me and @ence.bsky.social:

#NICAR25

The house color that tells you when a neighborhood is gentrifying A Washington Post color analysis of D.C. found shades of gray permeate neighborhoods where markers of gentrification have spiked.

A Washington Post color analysis of D.C. found shades of gray permeate neighborhoods where the White population has increased and the Black population has decreased, by @jdharden.bsky.social and @marissajae.bsky.social:

www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/int...