USA Times Data Desk
The USA Times Data Desk is the newsroom’s data and investigations unit. It collects prices, fees and public records directly from the source, verifies them item by item, and builds the charts and tables behind USA Times investigations. Every figure it publishes is traceable to a named, dated source.
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Congressional Candidates Raised $1.5 Billion Before the 2026 Midterms Even Started Voting. That’s a Record for an Off-Year.
Congressional candidates raised $1.49 billion in 2025 alone — a record for any pre-election year in FEC history. We broke down where the money came from: candidates, national parties, and $4.6 billion in PAC activity.
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Colorado’s Right-to-Repair Law Took Effect This Year. It Bans a Practice Only One Other State Has Outlawed.
Colorado became the fifth state with a consumer-electronics right-to-repair law on January 1, 2026, and only the second to ban ‘parts pairing.’ We compared all five state laws — what they cover, what they exclude, and how differently they were written.
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NYC Housing Permit Filings Doubled in Three Months. Manhattan’s Nearly Quadrupled.
NYC developers filed permits for 28,773 residential units in Q1 2026 — double the 2025 quarterly average. Manhattan’s filings nearly quadrupled. We traced the surge to the City of Yes zoning reform and read the full borough-by-borough DOB data.
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Restaurant Coffee Prices Are Rising Three Times Faster Than Everything Else on the Menu. Profits Still Aren’t Following.
Restaurant coffee prices rose 7.1% in a year — more than 3x the rate of burgers or beer. Yet 42% of restaurant operators say they weren’t profitable last year. We read Toast’s menu pricing data alongside the National Restaurant Association’s 2026 report.
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MLB Just Recorded Its Highest Walk Rate Since the 1940s. The Cause Isn’t the Hitters — It’s the Robot Umpires.
MLB’s new robot-umpire challenge system was supposed to fix missed calls. Instead, it pushed the league’s walk rate to its highest level since the 1940s. We traced the mechanism through shrinking strike zones and shifting pitch mixes.
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One Bronx Neighborhood’s Noise Complaints Rose 2,044% Since 2019. Citywide, the Same Complaint Type Rose 63%.
Citywide, NYC311 noise complaints rose 63% since 2019. In one Bronx neighborhood, they rose 2,044%. We read the NY State Comptroller’s full neighborhood-level analysis of 17 million 311 complaints.
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Home Prices Just Hit an All-Time High While Sales Fell. The Reason: 53% of Homeowners Won’t Give Up Their Mortgage Rate.
The median U.S. home price just hit an all-time high while sales fell. NAR and Redfin’s own data point to the same cause: 53% of mortgaged homeowners are locked into a sub-4% rate and won’t sell. We read both reports in full.
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Spain Just Set the Longest Unbeaten Streak in Soccer History. It Also Conceded One Goal in the Entire World Cup.
Spain’s World Cup final win extended its unbeaten streak to 38 matches, the longest in international soccer history — while conceding just one goal in the entire tournament. We read the full match-by-match record and the all-time streak list.
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Wikipedia Quietly Rewrote Its Own Traffic Numbers This Year. A Bot Surge From Brazil Is Why.
A bot traffic spike from Brazil forced Wikipedia to rewrite its own 2025 traffic numbers. The correction revealed human pageviews down 8% year over year — even as bots and crawlers logged 88 billion views. We read Wikimedia’s own account of what happened.
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NYC’s Rideshare Driver Pay Floor Has Risen Every Year Since 2020. Riders Are Paying for a Second, Separate Increase Too.
NYC’s mandatory rideshare driver pay floor has risen every year since 2020 — six straight increases, about 26% cumulative. Since 2025, riders pay a separate $1.50 congestion surcharge on top. We read the TLC notices and MTA’s own data on both.