Monday 17 August

Days run midnight to midnight, UTC — the Overnight always covers the last complete UTC day. Counts are de-duplicated press articles from the Compass corpus: one story counts once, translated or syndicated copies of the same story are folded into it, and every count sits beside the topic's own baseline. A surge is at least three times a topic's usual pace; "also busier than usual" rows cleared a lower bar and are labeled as such. Records & firsts read the trailing week, each item stamped with its own day. The month board admits only topics at least 25% ahead of their own best month at the same day-of-month, ranked by that margin — and only when the prior best is itself substantial, so a thin baseline can never manufacture a giant multiple. Record comparisons use months measured on the current collection setup (from Jul 2026 on) so a change in how Compass collects can never masquerade as a record. Dated events appear once extracted, typically within a day.