How to use the atlas

The atlas is a map of 43 world events and the 69 connections between them, and the map is the front page: there is no lead story and no fixed order. Start from whatever you care about and follow the lines. Replay the introduction.

Reading the map

Dots
Glowing gold: a severe event (4 or 5 of 5). Bigger means more severe.Pale: developing.A gold ring: coming up, with a date (a vote, a summit, a central-bank decision).A pulsing ring marks one of today's ripples: its news is moving most right now.
The coloured ring
What is fueling the event, split by the part of the economy it comes through: Money markets, rates and budgets; Goods energy, trade and food; People jobs, living costs, politics, security and people on the move.
Lines
With nothing selected, thin gold lines show every connection, with an arrow for the direction. Select an event and its own lines light up: events feeding into it arrive in the colour of what they carry, with its icon halfway along; gold lines show where it ripples next; dotted lines join events pushed by the same driver, where neither caused the other.
How two connect
Point at any line for its one-line story; click or tap it (or a row in an event's panel) to open how the two connect: what moves between them, and the first step of the chain. The whole chain, step by step, with what to watch next, is in the report's “How it connects” section. Where lines cross, the map asks which one you meant.
Layers
Ripples, Fuel and Pulse at the top of the map switch the lines, the coloured rings and the pulsing rings on and off.

Moving around

On a computer
Drag to move. Scroll to zoom in or out on the spot under the pointer; double-click zooms in there too. The + and − buttons zoom on the selected event, or on the middle of the map you can see. ⟲ shows the whole world.
On a phone
Drag with one finger to move; pinch, or double-tap, to zoom in on that spot. ⟲ (top right) shows the whole world. The panel is a sheet at the bottom: tap its handle to raise it a step at a time, or drag it to the height you want.
Search
The search box finds an event by name, place or kind; Enter flies to the first match.
Names
Event names appear as you zoom in, and so does each event's ring of small fuel dots.

The key

The key never leaves the screen (bottom left on a computer, a strip above the sheet on a phone). Point at Money, Goods or People to light that colour up on the map; click it to keep only that colour, and click again to bring the rest back. While you are learning, the names sit on the map beside each coloured dot, and three small marks on each key row fill up as you see that colour. Once all three are full, the key asks one quick question; answer it and the names step back and the key shrinks to a strip. “Learn again” brings them back.

Opening an event

Pick one
Click or tap a dot, a name in the panel, or a search result. The map flies to it and the panel shows its story. Esc, or a tap on empty map, lets it go.
What changed
A two-line AI summary of the newest headlines, with the outlets it drew on.
What's fueling it
The small local developments feeding it, each with its colour, what it moves in and its place. Click one, or its dot on the map, for its share of the local news.
Feeding in, rippling out
The events that drive it, in the colour of what they carry, and the events it reaches next. fly ↗ follows the line to the next event.
Follow and Ask
Follow adds it to your tracker and digest; Ask answers a question from its report, connections and headlines.

Reports

Reports need a free account. Each one is written by AI for the event, so reading a report and building one are kept for signed-in readers. The map, the events, what is fueling them and how they connect stay open to everyone.

Build report, in an event's panel, shows the parts of the economy the report will be built around (what is fueling the event, and what the events feeding it carry), and three sizes. Every size keeps the same layers: the 30-second card, the brief, the deep dive and the evidence.

  • Snapshot, about 3 minutes: the card and a short brief, the deep dive kept to essentials.
  • Standard, about 10 minutes: the card, the full brief and a focused deep dive.
  • Deep dive, about 25 minutes: every layer at full depth.

Each account can build three reports a day. A report you build becomes the event's shared report only when there is none yet or yours is at least as full as the one there; otherwise it is yours alone, shown where you built it. Reports a person has checked are never replaced.

Night and Ivory

The switch in the header picks Night (navy and gold, like the logo), Ivory (the lighter version) or Auto (follow the device). The choice is remembered in this browser.

Reading an event

  1. Summary and impact. Two or three sentences with the numbers that matter and a 1-to-5 impact meter.
  2. Where it sits. The map focused on the event, with only its connections lit.
  3. How it ripples outward. Rings of effect around the event. Hover or tab to a dot to read the effect in full.
  4. How it connects to the rest of the world. Every linked event with the one sentence that justifies the link. If a link looks wrong, that sentence is what to argue with. Each is a link to the next event.
  5. On the wire. Recent headlines matched to the event.
  6. Sources. Where the summary comes from.
  7. Full report, where one exists: a 30-second card, a 5-minute brief, deep-dive modules and the evidence layer. Read as far as you need. Reports need a free account, and so does building a fresh one (see Reports).

How events ripple

Every line on the map is a claim about how one event reaches another, and every line says three things: what kind of connection it is, the channel the ripple travels through, and the sentence that justifies it.

Solid lines are the ripple itself. One event acts on the other, and the arrow shows which way: one arrow when one event drives the other, two when each drives the other. Example: the Gulf energy shock feeds into France's unrest, via fuel prices; the unrest affects French bonds, via the risk premium investors demand after each violent weekend. Follow solid lines to trace consequences: if one worsens, expect the next to move.

Dotted lines are relatives. Neither event caused the other; a third force, the driver, pushes both. Portugal's housing marches did not cause France's protests; rents rising faster than wages drive both. A quick test: remove one event and the other still happens, but ease the driver and both fade. Follow a dotted line to spot a pattern, then watch the driver rather than each event.

Small coloured dots are the fuel. Open a big event and the smaller local events feeding it fan out around it, coloured by what they move in (money, goods or people): a strike in one city, a court ruling, a price jump. Claude maps them from the event's latest local news, each tied to the headlines that report it, for every event on the map.

What a line tells you

“feeds into”
One is part of the reason the other is happening.
“affects”
One changes the other's course or odds, without having started it.
“is a response to”
One is happening because of the other.
“amplifies”
The other was already happening; this one makes it bigger or spreads it.
“shares a driver with”
Neither caused the other: the same underlying force is pushing both.
“competes with”
Both pull on the same limited thing, so a gain for one is a loss for the other.

Solid lines carry an arrow for direction: one way when one event drives the other, both ways when each drives the other. Dotted lines have none, because a shared driver pushes both.

Every line also names how the ripple travels, the channel: fuel prices, bond spreads, voters' mood. A dotted line names the driver behind both events. See all drivers.

How reports are made

Events and connections are chosen by a person. Each event cites the reporting it rests on, and each connection carries the sentence that justifies it.

Reports are drafted by an AI model (Claude, by Anthropic) from that event's cited sources, its connections and the headlines matched to it, and nothing else. Every number in a report links to the source it came from. Until a person has checked a report, it carries an amber “Auto-drafted” notice at the top saying so, with the date and the number of sources used.

Scenario odds and predictions are judgement, not data. They are labelled that way, kept on the record, and graded as events resolve.

Corrections are public. Every event page has a “Report an error” link. Fixes are listed in the report's change log, in its evidence section. Flag something now.

Privacy

An account stores your name, email, country, what brings you here (if you say), when you joined and last visited, and where you first arrived from (for example a link shared on LinkedIn). It is kept in Google Firebase, used only to understand who the atlas serves, and never sold or shared.

Analytics (Google Analytics) count visits only if you accept in the banner. Your choice: not made yet. .

Deleting your account removes the account and its profile: sign in, then use “Delete my account”.

Keeping it current

The published site rebuilds itself every hour and pulls fresh headlines first. The event graph itself is a file you edit: src/content/events.ts, one entry per event with its coordinates, keywords, links and sources. Two scripts help:

Back to the map