FiveThirtyEight’s top stories this week

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Popular This Week] Sunday, July 17, 2022 [1. Biden Is Very Unpopular. It May Not Tell Us Much About The Midterms.]( [2022-ELECTIONUPDATE-0715-4×3]( This week, a Siena College/New York Times poll showed President Biden with just a 33 percent approval rating, a result so poor that it touched off speculation — including from yours truly — about whether he would even run again in 2024. The Siena/New York Times number is on the low end of the polling consensus, but Biden’s approval rating in our polling average — about 39 percent — is nonetheless a historically low number. [Read more]( [2. How Americans Feel About Space]( [0414_POLLA-4×3]( Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. [Read more]( [3. Sandy Alcántara Is Breaking Baseball’s New Pitching Mold By Returning To An Old One]( [Washington Nationals v Miami Marlins]( The reshaping of baseball this century has pushed more than a few charming and once-common archetypes to the periphery: the slap-hitting infielder, the tinkering top-step manager and, most lamented of all, the workhorse ace. Time was, you could watch Bob Gibson, Roger Clemens or Clayton Kershaw go their eight-plus innings every five days, ignoring pitch counts and putting the full and total kibosh on opposing offenses all on their own. Now, due to a combination of that caliber of pitcher being extremely rare and contemporary doctrine favoring a run of late-inning relief fireballers, even the best starters usually pack it in after six frames. The approach works. It’s also kind of a bummer. [Read more]( [4. What’s Behind Biden’s Record-Low Approval Rating?]( [President Biden Delivers Remarks On The American Rescue Plan]( In games such as golf, you win by scoring lower than any of your opponents. But in the realm of presidential job approval, such an approach is a recipe for political upheaval, as President Biden has found over the past few months. Polls continue to show his approval rating in poor shape, and even Democrats are asking questions about his political future amid broad dissatisfaction with the current state of the country. [Read more]( [5. The Yankees’ Newest Bullpen Star Is Grounding Opposing Hitters Into Dust]( [Los Angeles Angels v New York Yankees – Game Two]( The apex predator for the U.S. worm population bides his time in the New York Yankees’ bullpen. He begins to stir in the later innings, and he enters in the eighth or ninth. Then his assault on the nation’s underground invertebrates begins. For All-Star relief pitcher Clay Holmes, the weapon of choice is a devastating sinker — and it has led to a record-chasing rate of balls pounded into the dirt, menacing whatever creatures have the misfortune of hiding below major-league infields. [Read more]( [6. The Datasets We’re Looking At This Week]( [the words data is plural written over a red background]( You’re reading Data Is Plural, a weekly newsletter of useful/curious datasets. Below you’ll find the July 13, 2022, edition, reprinted with permission at FiveThirtyEight. [Read more]( [7. Jan. 6’s Salacious Details Are Beside The Point]( [House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Presents Findings in Hearing]( During an hours-long meeting at the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson fired off a text: “The west wing is UNHINGED” — emphasis hers. [Read more]( [8. There Are Three Right Answers For The WNBA’s Rookie Of The Year]( [2022-WNBA-ROOKIES-4×3]( Sitting on the bench at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in late June, Atlanta Dream head coach Tanisha Wright did not think much of my question when I asked her who the 2022 WNBA Rookie of the Year should be. [Read more]( [9. How Limiting Access To Abortion Limits Access To Birth Control]( [Planned Parenthood birth control sign, Alexandria, Minnesota]( Planned Parenthood has been controversial since its 1916 founding, but the latest wave of political battles against it began in earnest in 2007, when then-Rep. Mike Pence introduced an amendment to a House of Representatives’ appropriations bill to block federal funds from going to the organization’s nationwide network of reproductive health clinics. [Read more]( [10. Shohei Ohtani Found A New Way To Shine As A Two-Way All Star]( [White Sox vs. Angels]( As of this week, there are now two instances in MLB history of a player making the All-Star Game as both a pitcher and a batter — and both belong to Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [Politics Podcast: How Democrats Flipped Georgia in 2020]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.