FiveThirtyEight’s top stories last week

A [FiveThirtyEight] email [Popular This Week] Sunday, January 29, 2017 [1. Trump Finds The Weak Spot In Obama’s Protections For Scientists] UPDATE (Jan. 26, 3:44 p.m.): Bill Hall, deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, emailed us a statement on Thursday disputing reports that HHS was directed to stop communicating with the public. “Contrary to erroneous media reports,” Hall said, “HHS and its agencies continue to communicate fully about its work through all of its regular communication channels with the public, the media and other relevant audiences. There is no directive to do otherwise.” [Read more] [2. Three Days Into Trump’s Presidency, 45 Percent Of Americans Disapprove Of His Performance] President Trump has been in office for three days, and on Monday he got his first job approval rating. Forty-five percent of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance; 45 percent disapprove, according to Gallup. That’s an improvement on his low favorability ratings, but it’s not good. Indeed, it’s the lowest job approval rating for any new president since at least Harry Truman in 1945 (as far back as we have polling), and it suggests Trump failed to take full advantage of the transition period to build support. [Read more] [3. The Long March Ahead For Democrats] Saturday’s Women’s Marches, which rebuked President Trump on the day after his inauguration, probably drew more than 3 million participants between hundreds of locations across the United States, making them among the largest mass protests in American history. The marches recalled the tea party protests of April 15, 2009, an event that helped to mark the beginnings of a backlash to former President Obama — but overall attendance at the Women’s Marches was about 10 times higher than at the tea party rallies, according to our estimates. [Read more] [4. Trump Could Really Mess Up Mexico’s Economy] Rigoberto Valderrama Padilla has been living in San Diego for 30 years. Originally from Acapulco, Mexico, he now works for a construction company and regularly sends remittances for food and other necessities to his family back home. “This income is crucial for them. I want to help however I can,” Valderrama says. He is not the only one. [Read more] [5. The Electoral College Blind Spot] [Read more] [6. TrumpBeat: There Is No Pivot] Welcome to TrumpBeat, FiveThirtyEight’s new weekly feature looking at how developments in Washington affect people in the real world. We’re still experimenting with the format, so tell us what you think. Email us or drop a note in the comments. [Read more] [7. The Patriots Won With Less Talent Than Usual] The New England Patriots team that takes the field for Super Bowl LI will have far less star power than that of the Patriots team that won Super Bowl XLIX two years ago. But star power can be deceiving: This season’s AFC champions are very much in the same league as the last six Super Pats squads. Despite this season’s injuries, suspensions and trades that prioritized the future at the cost of the present, the Patriots finished No. 1 in wins, No. 1 in scoring defense, No. 3 in scoring offense and No. 1 in Football Outsiders’ DVOA. Head coach Bill Belichick had already built a resume worthy of the Hall of Fame, but the Patriots’ emphatic 36-17 win over the Steelers on Sunday might make this season his most impressive achievement yet. [Read more] [8. It Wasn’t Clinton’s Election To Lose] [Read more] [9. Trump’s Executive Order On Obamacare Means Everything And Does Nothing] As promised, on his first day in office, President Donald Trump took steps to undo the Affordable Care Act, former President Obama’s signature health care law. In one of his first executive orders, Trump pushed the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other federal agencies to begin weakening the law. The meaning of the executive order is both subtle and bold; on the one hand, it does very little because it doesn’t grant the administration any powers that it didn’t already have. On the other hand, it signals to the public that change is coming and lets employees at HHS know that they’d better be part of that change. [Read more] [10. Chat: How’s Our Democracy Doing?] In this week’s politics chat, we check in on the health of our democracy. The transcript below has been lightly edited. [Read more] --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play] [Wait, Are The 76ers Good Now?] Lastly, The Riddler Edited by Oliver Roeder From Bart Wright, a classic arcade problem: In the video game [Tetris], you can, in certain circumstances, completely clear the board after the first five pieces are placed. Knowing that, how many arrangements of Tetris pieces (or [tetrominoes]) are there that form a solid block that’s two squares high by 10 squares wide? [Solve it!] [FiveThirtyEight] [ESPN] [Unsubscribe] Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 147 Columbus Avenue, New York, NY 10023.