The wackiest headlines from the week as they would appear in a Classifieds section.

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IT HELP FOR MARYLAND: About 800,000 Maryland license plates are unwittingly advertising a Philippines-based gambling site. How? The plates have URLs that originally hosted a website about the War of 1812, but the domain changed hands, and it now redirects to a place where you can lose $100.

MIDWESTERN UBER DRIVER: A southern Illinois man was charged with stealing a backhoe and driving it 10 miles to catch his flight at the airport. Still, the fines were probably cheaper than airport parking.

Personal

PICTURESQUE HIDEOUT AT NO COST: The General Services Administration is giving out six lighthouses in the US—for free. Prospective owners must enjoy the water, isolation, and making lots of repairs to old buildings.

ISO FROSTED STRAWBERRY PIGSKIN: Finally, the worlds of college football and the breakfast item you usually eat at midnight are colliding. The bowl game formerly known as the Cheez-It Bowl will now be called the Pop-Tarts Bowl.

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POTATOES, LOOSE: A whole bunch of spuds getting dropped on roads in Denmark led to the detainment of a 57-year-old truck driver. The starchy spillage happened the same day the Danish government passed a new tax on diesel trucks, so perhaps it was a potato protest.

REVISIONIST MUSIC HISTORY: An early draft of “Bohemian Rhapsody” that’s being auctioned off reveals Queen frontman Freddie Mercury initially named the song “Mongolian Rhapsody.” Galileo, Figaro…Genghis Khan?—MM

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even find a good movie to watch.

Viral TikToks are on the decline. It’s not your imagination: There really are fewer viral videos on TikTok now. As of April, half as many new posts were getting 10+ million views as in February 2022, when the app hit a peak of 9,259 viral videos per week. It could be because the app’s user base grew from 1 billion near the end of 2021 to 1.6 billion this past March, ushering in a slate of new influencers to compete for eyeballs with dominant OGs like Charli D’Amelio. But smaller creators are getting squeezed, too. Average views on lesser-seen TikToks have also declined since December.

You’re not as good at detecting BS as you think. Sorry, but new research is calling cap on your ability to call cap. Study participants were given 20 statements and asked to determine which were said by famous figures and which were nonsensical phrases created by an algorithm. Turns out, people with the worst bull**** detectors thought they had the best nose for baloney, and the ones who underestimated their abilities were the best at sniffing out BS. Researchers say we can all get better at resisting misinformation by being more “intellectually humble,” also known as not being a smartass.

Good movie reviews might spell floppage for hyped films. If you’re excited to see a new movie even though it’s getting bashed by critics, you’re probably not alone. Prerelease reviews have been found to sometimes inversely predict a movie’s success: Positive marks actually correlated with box-office flops, and negative reviews indicated surprise financial glory, according to a new study. The trend even applied to top critics with lots of film expertise. Researchers say this challenges the standard thinking that good prerelease reviews boost box-office revenue.—ML

The ancient adage “those who don’t work, won’t eat” sounds like the inspo behind a new US law.

Older low-income people will now have to get employed in order to receive government food assistance as part of the debt ceiling agreement that President Biden signed this week.

The deal raises the age cutoff for work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from 50 to 54. Adults younger than 54 without disabilities and with no dependents must work at least 80 hours a month to get long-term SNAP benefits.

That would appear to be a win for Republicans, who pushed for more work requirements to cut government spending and incentivize people to get jobs. But, according to a surprise finding from the Congressional Budget Office, the deal will actually cause the government to spend more on food aid since the legislation also expands SNAP access for jobless unhoused people, veterans, and young adults who were in foster care.

The wrangling over the work requirements and subsequent questions about just how much the government will save reopened the decadeslong debate over whether a no-free-lunch-for-the-jobless policy actually boosts economic self-reliance. In short, do work requirements work?

The grind-to-eat mindset

The conservative think tank Foundation For Government Accountability claims that doling out help without strings attached “traps people in government dependency.” It recommends adding universal work requirements to poverty aid programs, arguing the measures would boost the economy by spurring folks into job-seeking action and alleviating labor shortages.

“Let’s help people get lifted out of poverty into jobs,” said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as he promoted work requirements for government aid last month.

But economists say the numbers don’t add up

Though quality data on the subject is hard to come by, many researchers say that having a job as a prerequisite for getting food from Uncle Sam doesn’t necessarily motivate people to start beefing up their resume. Work requirements for SNAP had no effect on employment among recipients, according to a 2021 National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper. SNAP work requirements reduced the number of people receiving food subsidies by more than 50%.

Work requirements for SNAP add cumbersome paperwork to the application process that can prevent people from accessing benefits, according to social safety net scholar Jason Cook at the University of Utah. His latest research suggests some people do end up working less for a short time after getting on SNAP, but that’s likely because they’re using that time to search for a better job.

Economist Elena Prager, who co-authored the NBER study, told Morning Brew that people aren’t jobless because they are choosing to freeload off SNAP instead. She blames challenges like “homelessness, undocumented disability, or lack of access to transit” for keeping folks out of the workforce. Prager says there’s evidence that subsidizing the income of low-wage workers could be a better way to nudge more people to work.

Zoom out: The debate over what the government owes jobless Americans goes beyond food. Work requirements for Medicaid and cash assistance for low-income families with kids were also on the table during debt ceiling negotiations.—SK

Meal prep: Buttery, pillowy, and zesty, these cinnamon rolls offer a (lemon) twist on a classic.

Book rec: Carley Fortune’s Meet Me At The Lake is for all the hopeless romantics. You should read it especially if you’ve gone to every used bookstore in NYC looking for a particular copy of Love in the Time of Cholera.

Art rec: Ever wonder what celebs would look like sitting on sandwiches? The search is over, thanks to Celebs on Sandwiches. We’ll take one Larry David on a Bagel Sandwich, please.

Smart purchase: Your pillows don’t deserve to be squished between your bed and your headboard. Up that neck support with a mattress gap filler.

New fashion: Cannes 2023 recently wrapped, so there are two weeks’ worth of red carpet fits to obsess over. Wish Joan Rivers was around to give her take on Sydney Sweeney’s look.

Sip sip: As the buzz around natural wine gets buzzier, one brand that lives up to the hype is California-based Subject to Change, whose bottles deserve a spot in MoMA.

Tech rec: If you fancy yourself an amateur cinematographer, try this app that uses generative AI to simulate professional-grade video effects. Oscar noms, here you come.

H2O game winner: The trick to acing your busy schedule? AC+ION’s premium, enhanced 9.5+pH* water. Savor serious hydration with a refreshingly pure taste—award-winning college football quarterback Caleb Williams can’t get enough of it. Get Seriously Hydrated.*

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It’s a big world out there. In this section, we’ll teleport you to an interesting location—and hopefully give you travel ideas in the process.

Tomorrow, Apple is expected to announce its biggest product launch in almost 10 years—a mixed-reality headset—at Apple Park in Cupertino, CA.

You may recognize the city of Cupertino from your iPhone’s weather app, but you’re probably not as familiar with Apple Park, the company’s global headquarters since 2017. So, let’s learn a little bit more about one of the most famous office buildings in the world.

Think of Apple Park as you would any other Apple product: sleek and extra at the same time. It was conceived of by co-founder Steve Jobs and meticulously laid out by Apple’s legendary chief designer, Jony Ive, in conjunction with the architectural firm Foster + Partners. Jobs even said the building’s circular shape “resembles the circular dial on an iPod” (but sadly without that clicking sound).

Let’s talk about the shape, because not many offices could be compared to a spaceship. Apple Park’s distinctive ring extends almost one mile in circumference, which is necessary because it’s built for over 12,000 employees to work there (more than the undergrad population of nearby Stanford). And the “walls” are walls in name only—the building is enclosed by towering curved glass pieces four stories high that can slide open when there’s good weather in Cupertino. And there’s typically good weather in Cupertino.

Unsurprisingly, Jobs’s most lasting imprint on the campus is the room that’s named after him: the Steve Jobs Theater. This 1,000-seat auditorium used for events and product launches is covered by the largest carbon-fiber roof in the world, according to its architects, and doesn’t have even one column holding it up.

Oh, and one more thing: Jk, you can move on to the next section.—NF

Last week we asked: What is the best car game to play during a long road trip? Here are our favorite responses.

• “Putting on the Now That’s What I Call Music Vol 1–50 playlist (a playlist of all the songs featured on Now CDs 1–50) on Spotify and having to guess the song and artist.”—Maria from Memphis, TN
• “In the UK, Pub Cricket. You get runs every time you see a pub based on how many legs the pub name has (e.g., ‘The Lion’ is four points). You are out when the pub has no legs (e.g., ‘The Crown’).”—Izzy from the UK
• “On our road trips, we stop at thrift stores. When in the thrift store, you must go to the CD section, close your eyes, and pick one. Then, we listen to it until our final destination.”—Christy from Auburn, CA
• “A conversation made up solely of song titles. Inane, but creatively fun.”—Cathy from CT
• “I have four kids and we’ve played the ‘Useless Superpowers’ game for years in the car. We all take turns coming up with the most unuseful superpower until we stop because everyone is laughing so hard. Our all-time favorite? ‘I can control inchworms!’”—Suzanne from IA

This week’s question

What is the most niche theme for a party you’ve been to or thrown?

Matty’s answer to get the juices flowing: “I host an annual chili cook-off, and one year, the theme was ‘sleep shirts.’ Everyone who attended had to bring an old shirt they’ve slept in, and the winner of the cook-off was awarded a garbage bag full of those sleep shirts.”

Share your response here.

Could AI lead to our extinction? MIT experts counter the doomers by envisioning a future in which humans collaborate with AI. Read more.

Money talks—and so does Katie. Watch her free event to hear about career opportunities in the finance world.

Emptied your bank account on the Eras Tour? Get your finances back on track with Money Scoop. Subscribe for free today.

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