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JOUR 72312

Archive for

http://homicide.igarape.org.br/

Igarapé is a Brazilian think tank that released a comprehensive dataset of worldwide murder statistics. It is presented in the form of a animated globe, that you can drag around and click for information on homicide in each country. It is made in Javascript.

Good things:

– The full dataset is available to download and clearly marked;

– Some countries have regional data, on states/provinces. There is an emphasis on Latin America and Caribbean;

– They provide info number of homicides, homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants, evolution across the years, weapons mostly used and prevailing age and gender of the victims;

Not so good things:

– The datasets are very diverse in sources and dates. Some countries have very long historical series, some don’t. The application does a good job of making these sources and dates very clear, but it still gives me doubt of how much they can be comparable. Ex: in African countries, if the country is going through a civil war or peaceful times will make a lot of difference in the data;

– An animation shows the top ten homicide countries in the world. It isn’t a very clear when it starts and stops, and it’s the only ranking available in the site. I can’t figure out how a particular country ranks;

– The site is available for mobile but doesn’t work very well in an iPhone;

All in all, a good dataviz tackling a very difficult subject and dataset.

 

 

 

 

By Lena Masri and Mia Garchitorena

Ted Cruz, the first Hispanic to serve as U.S. Senator from Texas, announced in March that he is running for president.

He will be participating in an election that is likely to be very expensive. Much more money can now be spent on The Presidential Election Campaign of 2016 becauseThe Supreme Court has lifted restrictions on election spending, allowing an unlimited amount of financial contributions to pour into politics.

And Cruz is in the running for most accounted contributions from private employers thus far. Just in his first week as presidential candidate, he raised $2 million, doubling his initial goal of $1 million for the time period.

Most of his largest contributions come from retirees and self-employers, according to data from The Federal Election Commission, an independent regulatory agency that discloses campaign financial information.

Other candidates like Hillary Clinton have only recently started their fundraising campaign.

http://digitalstorage.journalism.cuny.edu/mia.garchitorena/STORY3ROUGHD.html