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

Careers

LINE CHEF: When In-N-Out opened its first location in Idaho last week, so many people lined up to order a sloppy burger that the estimated wait time was up to eight hours. Not everyone’s excited: One Idaho resident commented on social media, “Who cares, it’s a hamburger.”

MARGARITAVILLE CAPTAIN: You could make six figures as the director of operations at the Jimmy Buffet-themed restaurant in Times Square. You just have to be alert and ready to tell patrons it’s five o’clock somewhere at any moment.

For sale

BLACK MARKET SOHO HOUSE MEMBERSHIP: The exclusive private club for people who DJ as a hobby is getting even more crowded than an airport lounge. To keep its air of exclusivity, Soho House won’t accept new members in New York, LA, or London starting next year.

THATSA BIGA MEATBALL: Ikea is giving away 30 turkey-sized meatballs (and 30 vegan versions) this holiday season. Some assembly required.

Personal

A BETTER SKIN: The Great Wall of China is defending itself against the elements surprisingly well. A study found that a “living skin,” or biocrust, is protecting the ancient structure from wind, rain, and other conditions that could damage it. The researchers concluded the only way it could further improve longevity is to apply sunscreen every day.

REMINDER TO MUTE: GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy took a leak during an X Spaces live…umm…stream and didn’t mute his audio. That’s a 2020 move.

FOUND—$820K RING: Someone who wasn’t Lisa Barlow lost an expensive ring in the Ritz hotel in Paris. The owner thought someone had stolen it, but it was ultimately found in a vacuum bag.—MM

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even keep your cat indoors.

This AI went to sommelier school. A new algorithm trained on wine can tell which vineyard a bottle of red Bordeaux came from with 100% accuracy, according to researchers in Switzerland. The group created this AI connoisseur by feeding data on the chemical components of 80 wines bottled in France between 1990 and 2007 to a machine-learning model. (The algorithm also correctly guessed the year of origin half of the time.) Other than proving that AI can impress a dinner party, the findings demonstrate how local geography, climate, microbes, and wine-making practices combine to give each wine a unique flavor.

Your mischievous cat might actually be a killer. Researchers are calling domesticated felines one of the “most problematic invasive species in the world” after the first global study quantifying their diets found that outdoor and feral kitties eat more than 2,000 types of critters—including some endangered ones. In Australia, cats kill an estimated 300 million animals every year. Of the birds, mammals, insects, and reptiles they eat, 17% are of conservation concern, prompting some towns in Germany and New Zealand to keep their house cats inside…or consider getting rid of all the feral ones.

🫄 We’re one step closer to ending morning sickness. A hormone produced by fetuses causes many pregnant people to suffer from severe nausea and vomiting. But scientists think they may have found the solution to this common ailment. At the Maternity Hospital in Cambridge, England, patients with lower preexisting levels of the hormone GDF15 had more severe pregnancy sickness, while those with higher levels didn’t experience much nausea or vomiting once pregnant, according to researchers. This discovery indicates that reducing a person’s sensitivity to GDF15 by exposing them to it before pregnancy could effectively prevent them from getting ill while carrying.—ML

The Nicaraguan government, helmed by authoritarian leader Daniel Ortega, appears to be in meltdown mode over the results of an international beauty pageant.

How it started: When Sheynnis Palacios, aka Miss Nicaragua, recently became the first woman from the country to be crowned Miss Universe, the government expressed “legitimate joy and pride.”

How it’s going: Things turned ugly when the government later claimed that Palacios’s win was part of an insidious conspiracy against Nicaragua. The government’s mood likely soured after photos surfaced of Palacios at a mass protest against President Ortega’s regime in 2018.

And worse, Karen Celebertti, the head of the Miss Nicaragua pageant (which propelled Palacios to her universal triumph), resigned this week after getting charged with treason. Celebertti is currently staying abroad after not being allowed to reenter the country, but her husband and son, who were reportedly involved in the family business, have been detained on accusations of conspiring with her to rig the beauty contest and aid a foreign-sponsored coup.

Why is Ortega so worked up over a pageant queen?

The 78-year-old former left-wing revolutionary and current president has been tightening his grip on power ever since he assumed office in 2007. But Ortega’s fears of dissent went into overdrive after the 2018 protests over social security reforms he initiated. Those rallies were brutally suppressed, leaving over 320 people dead.

There’s no question that the then-teenaged Palacios was in a crowd of citizens fed up with Ortega’s rule. Since-deleted protest photos posted on her Facebook profile made the rounds on social media last month after she became Nicaragua’s first Miss Universe.

Many Nicaraguans living in the country and in exile took her newly gained global beauty queen status as validation of the anti-Ortega resistance cause. In a region where beauty contests are often a public obsession, it’s customary for pageant fans to celebrate a Miss Universe crowning with fanfare in the streets. But in Nicaragua, the festivities were infused with political defiance.

• Carousing crowds displayed the forbidden blue-and-white national flag that typically serves as a protest of Ortega’s party banner.
• Some pageant observers believed that Palacios made an allusion to that flag when she donned a white dress with a blue cape at the Miss Universe ceremony held in El Salvador.

Nicaragua’s First Lady Rosario Murillo called the social media buzz about Palacios’s victory being an anti-government victory “destructive coup-mongering” by “evil, terrorist commentators.”

This is not an isolated incident in Ortega’s Nicaragua

The government has been rooting out perceived threats for years. Nicaraguan sociologist Elvira Cuadra, who now lives in exile, told the Guardian that her home country has turned into a “police state.” There’s been a harsh crackdown on the Catholic Church in retaliation for some Catholic leaders providing refuge to protesters, and half of the nation’s universities have been shut down after being branded cradles of dissent.

Dozens of dissidents have been jailed and thousands more have fled the country, while many prominent critics were stripped of their citizenship and sent abroad. Whether Palacios herself will be allowed to return to Nicaragua is unclear, as she’s been traveling internationally in recent weeks. In her absence, authorities temporarily seized some of her pageant garments and accouterments taken from Karen Celebertti’s home.

But it isn’t just Palacios or her pageant circuit colleagues who have dealt with the wrath of the Ortega regime. In a reflection of the country’s curbs on freedom of expression, a popular TikToker who defended the new Miss Universe has been detained. And two artists who were in the middle of creating a mural dedicated to her were ordered by the police to paint over it.

It’s happened before…Nicaraguan journalist Arturo McFields points out that this is not the first instance of an authoritarian regime feeling threatened by the popular appeal of a renegade beauty queen: The 2015 Miss Canada, Anastasia Lin, was banned from competing in that year’s Miss World pageant in China due to her political views. It’s not even a first for Nicaragua. McFields explained how, in 1979, Nicaraguan Miss Universe contestant Patricia Pineda was forced to return home without competing after her family received death threats from the government.—SK

Cook: Baked mac and cheese for a holiday crowd-pleaser.

Read: Looking for a short but heartwarming read? Check out The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry from the author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

Listen: Orville Peck’s music evokes the sounds of country legends Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson.

Art rec: The funniest little New Yorker-style animal cartoons.

Watch: In honor of the great Andre Baugher, who died on Dec. 11, watch (or rewatch) his comedic genius in Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Gift guide: In case you missed it, here’s our list of 50 gift ideas in every price range.

Gift doctor-approved pleasure: This year, give her the doctor-recommended Crescendo 2 vibrator. It’s clinically proven to improve arousal and alleviate dryness, and you can save 30% today.*

^{*A message from our sponsor.}

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.

There’s only one destination on the minds of savvy tourists right now—the North Pole. If you’re traveling to Santa’s hometown, learning the cultural norms and practices is essential so you don’t upset the locals. Here’s some advice to help you enjoy the winter wonderland.

If you arrive on Dec. 24, the bad news is Santa will already be out delivering toys. But the good news is that NORAD tracks his sleigh as it flies around the globe, which means you can be assured he’s very far away while you rummage through his house uninvited.

Hang out behind the workshop. You know how donut places will throw away excess inventory? The same applies to Santa’s workshop. Wait to see if the elves dump any garbage bags full of electronics and toys that don’t have a destination because of last-second naughty list updates.

If you get there before Santa leaves for his one day of work per year, bother him for autographs all you want. He’s not that busy. It doesn’t take much energy to loom over the factory floor like he’s Elon Musk II.

Elves are people. If you encounter Santa’s unpaid laborers at a bar unwinding with a hot cocoa after a long day, don’t be the millionth person to ask about Buddy. Buddy is not real. He is fictional. The elves are real…real sick of that question. You wouldn’t walk into a boxing gym and ask about Rocky Balboa. Respect the elves.

Please do not bother Superman. Yeah, he lives there, too. But it’s the Fortress of Solitude, not the Fortress of Asking For Selfies. You don’t want to be bothered when you’re out of the office during the holidays, and the same applies to Kal-El.—DL

Last week, we asked: What’s the strangest thing you’ve experienced at a work holiday party?

Here are our favorite responses:

• “Around eight employees at the Bakersfield, CA, office got hammered at the holiday party and spontaneously decided to drive out to Vegas for the weekend. Nothing too crazy happened in Vegas beyond gambling and drinking, but they all arrived back in the office the following Monday having driven straight back from Vegas, still wearing the same (very rumpled) clothes from the holiday party.”—Anonymous
• “At a small startup, our offices were in a rented space and we were expanding, which meant that there was going to be a wall torn down between our current office and the space we were expanding into. Our COO/HR/founder got drunk and used everything in sight, including his body and head, to break down the wall in true masculine fashion. I’m glad I don’t work there anymore.”—Jess from Prague, Czech Republic
• “We hosted a holiday party and had a psychic who told every other person that the tarot cards said they should quit their jobs.”—Danielle from Blythe, CA
• “My wife (my +1) left early, not feeling well. I didn’t think much of it. She called five minutes later saying she was having the taxi take her to the ER. I left in a panic. My CEO happened to be taking the same elevator down to leave…and he ended up joining me at the emergency room for my wife’s kidney stone for a few hours. Called for some good next-day stories at the office.”—Scott from Chicago, IL

This week’s prompt

Set a realistic New Year’s resolution for someone other than yourself.

Matty’s response to get the juices flowing: “My sister’s resolution should be to actually read the stories in the Morning Brew newsletter, not just scroll down to the games like she normally does.”

Share your response here.