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

Careers

ISO NEWT WHISPERER: Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire CEO of private equity firm Blackstone, is reportedly facing roadblocks to renovating his ~$100 million estate in England because it could potentially disrupt the habitat of the great crested newt. He’s even raised his frustrations with the UK finance minister, who has tried to remain newtral on the issue.

SEASONED PR AGENT: Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attempted to explain why he scooped up a dead bear carcass and ditched it in Central Park a decade ago by telling reporters he has been “picking up roadkill my whole life. I have a freezer full of it.”

Personal

MOVIE NIGHT: The company behind the Las Vegas Sphere may spend $80 million adapting The Wizard of Oz so it can be screened at the futuristic venue. Seems like a good place to wile away the hours.

FALL DATE SPOT: In honor of Peanuts’s 75th birthday, over 80 farms across 35 states and provinces will create corn mazes based on the comic strip. It’s wholesome and charming until you’re too dehydrated to navigate your way out of Pig-Pen’s foot because you’ve been pounding cider.

For sale

BOTTLED PUPPY SMELL: Dolce & Gabbana is giving dogs a reason to sniff other parts of their canine friends. The luxury brand is selling a $100 dog perfume that blends ylang-lang, musk, and sandalwood.

POLITICAL CAMO: Customers have already snapped up about $1 million worth of Harris–Walz camo baseball hats. These hats, which made their way from hunting lodges to Bushwick and Chappell Roan concerts, have arrived at the final stop of the trend path: a Democrat’s merch shop.—MM

Photo of the week

This photo of Team USA’s Stephen Curry shooting over France’s 7-foot-4 star Victor Wembanyama was deemed Louvre-worthy by thousands of social media users, who attached the caption “Hang it in the Louvre” when sharing it.

But it’s not exactly a moment France will want to memorialize in its most famous museum. Thanks to Curry’s eight three-pointers, USA beat France for its fifth straight Olympic gold medal. Hang it in the Met?

Dept. of Progress

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even navigate the ocean by sea lion.

Smallest human species even shorter than we thought. Scientists don’t understand how Homo floresiensis—early humans they have nicknamed “hobbits”—evolved to grow no taller than most kindergarteners, but a team of researchers just discovered that their ancestors were even shorter. On the remote Indonesian island where 60,000- to 100,000-year-old floresiensis fossils were first found two decades ago, scientists excavated 700,000-year-old fragments of teeth and an arm bone that indicate these ancient ancestors were 2.4 inches shorter than the hobbits, who were ~3.5 feet tall.

Teen girls are reporting less sadness. High-school-aged girls have had an especially rough few years in terms of mental health, but this might be turning around. While mental health struggles remain widespread among teen girls, the CDC found improvements in its latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey: From 2021 to 2023, persistent sadness or hopelessness among teen girls declined from 57% to 53%, while suicidal ideation fell from 30% to 27%. But at the same time, the number of respondents who felt like they were being bullied at school rose from 15% to 19%, and 9% of the surveyed group reported feeling threatened at school, up from 7%.

🦭 Sea lions with frickin’ cameras are mapping the sea. In the marine biologist version of asking your tall friend to take concert videos for you, scientists have created detailed maps of the seafloor off of Australia’s coast by attaching cameras to sea lions’ backs and letting them swim around. “We’re essentially exploring new parts of the ocean that haven’t been mapped,” one researcher said, noting that you can’t survey from a boat the types of deep, offshore habitats that the cam’d-up sea lions can access. Only 26% of the global seabed has been mapped in high-res, partly because it’s expensive and difficult to build remote machinery that can handle the depths. Low-tech approaches like this could change that.—ML

Should you get reimbursed for Zelle scams?

The US government wants to help you recoup your money after someone posing as your boss stranded abroad in an emergency texts you to “send $1000 for a ticket home .”

Scams via Zelle, the payment service you turn to when you run out of wedding gift ideas, are the subject of an ongoing inquiry by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Wall Street Journal reported this week.

Zelle was founded in 2017 by seven of the biggest US banks to compete with peer-to-peer payment apps like Venmo and Cash App. It outgrew its rivals but became a magnet for scams, which customers typically don’t get reimbursed for.

Now:

• The CFPB is looking into how the banks that own Zelle—including Bank of America, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo, which accounted for 73% of the app’s transactions last year—handle disputed payments.
• The regulator also wants to know how the banks vet accounts and whether they do enough to target those who prey on users.

The probe comes after a recent Senate committee investigation concluded with lawmakers calling on banks to do more to reimburse defrauded Zelle users. Meanwhile, the banks have pushed back, saying they have no legal obligation to reverse authorized transactions—even if they involve trickery.

Join us on a complete audit of the dispute over who should be on the hook when a scheming bad actor is on the other side of your Zelle payment.

No take-backsies

Experts say that unlike in standalone payment apps like Venmo, Zelle transfers are often made through banking apps, giving some users the impression that they are subject to the same fraud protections as debit and credit card payments. But clawing back a scam Zelle payment is nearly impossible, according to a recent Senate subcommittee report. It found:

• JPMorgan reimbursed just three scam disputes out of the 41,390 scams reported in 2020, while Wells Fargo reimbursed zero out of 25,061 scam complaints.
• Bank of America, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo collectively rejected $560 million worth of scam disputes between 2021 and 2023.
• The share of unauthorized Zelle transaction disputes resolved in customers’ favor at the three banks has dropped to 38% in 2023 from 62% in 2019. The subcommittee said fraud dispute decisions are made at employees’ discretion and the evaluation criteria are not transparent.

What lawmakers propose: Noting that Zelle is increasingly used for commercial transactions, the senators’ report recommended that those transactions be protected like regular card swipes. The lawmakers also said the CFPB should modify one of its existing regulations to standardize how scam investigations are conducted. Senator Richard Blumenthal recently introduced a bill that would amend an existing law, requiring banks to reimburse customers for Zelle scams even if the victim presses send.

Washing their hands of Zelle

Banks say they’re not responsible for transfers made by customers who were fooled. Banks are legally required to reimburse customers only for unauthorized transactions (like someone hacking into your Zelle account), but not for the cash users transfer in a scam.

Zelle recently started making exceptions for scams involving the impersonation of someone from a customer’s bank or a government official, but all other voluntary transfers are typically irreversible. So, if a slip of the finger has you sending a stranger off FB Marketplace $1,000 instead of $100, your best bet is to DM them begging for a partial refund.

JPMorgan said it already goes “above and beyond what the law requires” and threatened to challenge the CFPB in court if it overreaches in its inquiry.

Early Warning Services, the company that operates Zelle, advised customers to treat transactions through the service like cash payments. Chief Fraud Risk Management Officer Ben Chance suggested that customers make sure they’re sending money to the right person.

Looking ahead…if tighter scam reimbursement rules are imposed, some of the apps we rely on for the convenience of not carrying wads of cash around might start charging fees, says Bloomberg columnist Marc Rubenstein, who spoke with banking executives. In the meantime, you can avoid being scammed in the first place by staying vigilant and educating yourself about all the sophisticated tricks out there.—SK

Place to be: The Chicago River

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.

If you’re not from Chicago, you may not know about the major anniversary the Windy City celebrated this week: It’s been 20 years since a Dave Matthews Band tour bus dumped 800 pounds of human waste onto passengers in a sightseeing boat cruising the Chicago River below.

This is a thing that actually happened, and it’s been worn as a badge of honor for Chicago residents ever since. On August 8, 2004, a DMB tour bus was crossing the Kinzie Street Bridge when the driver made the fateful decision to empty the vehicle’s bowels. The waste poured through the bridge’s grates and crashed into more than 100 unsuspecting people on a river cruise run by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.

What happened next? A “Monty Python skit-like” vomit-palooza as passengers slowly realized the kind of substances they were covered in, one victim told Book Club Chicago. The 24-year-old captain ignored the no-wake rule to get the boat back to the dock as fast as possible. Then she ordered a bartender to “open the bar and give people anything they wanted.”

The driver, Stefan Wohl, was required to perform 150 hours of community service and incurred other penalties. In order to get lawsuits dropped, Dave Matthews Band donated $200,000 to state environmental programs and $100,000 to Chicago organizations.

As long as DMB isn’t in town, visitors should certainly check out the Chicago River, which offers spectacular views of the city’s architecture and is busy with tour boats and kayakers.

And don’t miss the Kinzie Street Bridge, where there’s a plaque commemorating the DMB incident. It reads: “No one died that day. But many wish they had.”—NF

Crowd work

Last time we asked: “You can only cook or use an egg in one way for the rest of your life. What are you choosing?” Here are our favorite responses:

• “I am making the best fried rice for breakfast every day, and no one is going to tell me otherwise.”—Michael from Texas
• “Gotta be deviled eggs. Life would be meaningless without them.”—Suzanne from Port Charlotte, FL
• “Sadly no more eating for me as I have to egg my older sister multiple times a month. That beats any style, no matter how it’s cooked.”—Akhil from Cary, NC
• “I can give up scrambled eggs for life as long as my husband can continue to use egg whites in the fabulous lavender pear cocktails he makes for me.”—Laura from Raleigh, NC
• “I will continue to eat a hard boiled egg every other day, which I have been doing for years.”—Jack from Wisconsin
• “Poached because my beautiful wife loves them on a nice fresh French or Italian bread from a bakery. On our first date we went to brunch and she ordered Eggs Benedict. I loved her order because she did and still love enjoying them together!”—Mike from Tegucigalpa, Honduras

This week’s question

What is the worst corporate team-building event you’ve ever attended?

Matty’s response to get the juices flowing: “This is humiliating, but I love any and all team-building. Ropes course? I’m game. Improvise a scene? Yes, definitely. Karaoke? Honey, I’ve got a Notes app of potential songs and it’s already open.”

Share your response here.