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

Careers

EXPERIENCED CAT TRAINER: A study found that four out of 10 cats can play fetch, a much higher share than originally thought. Unfortunately, zero out of 10 cats can play fetch when your friend comes over and wants to see it.

SECURE SCOOPER: A third cat has received a security clearance at Downing Street. The prime minister and his family adopted a Siberian kitten who joins their other cat, Jojo, and the official Downing Street Chief Mouser, Larry.

ISO SHIP GUARD: Your parents were right—you can lose your job over what you post online. A Navy commander was relieved of his duties after a photo surfaced of him using a rifle with the scope mounted backward.

Personal

PUNCTUATED SPACE: Photos from the James Webb Telescope show three galaxies forming what resembles a question mark in outer space. Do NOT show this to a poet. It will inspire too much.

GOING ROGUE: Uber is butting heads with Kenya’s gig workers union. Drivers have been charging their own rates for rides to protest Uber’s low payouts.

For sale

PUFFCOINS: The startup Puffpaw raised $6 million to sell special vapes that award crypto tokens to vapers who reduce their nicotine use. Finally, something other than respect from your peers for ripping mad cotton.

TRASHY SHADES: A zero-waste workshop in Taiwan allows customers to rework their bottle caps and other single-use plastics into new items like sunglasses and hangers. The group was not, however, open to the idea of trying it with old pizza crusts.

REDISCOVERED STATUE: Once thought to be lost forever, the bronze statue Diana of Versailles was located amid the Titanic wreckage. The crew only snapped some photos of it because it was covered in algae and honestly kinda icky.—MM

Photo of the week

Baseball is known for its brushback pitches, but thanks to Ludacris, we now have the Get Back Pitch. The rapper threw out the ceremonial first pitch on Ludacris Night in his hometown of Atlanta on Wednesday while wearing the giant prosthetic arms from his 2004 video for “Get Back,” along with some giant sneakers to complete the ensemble. Despite the added difficulty, Luda tossed a pretty decent pitch that would make him a solid closer option for the Yankees right now.—DL

Dept. of Progress

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

Meet the mushroom robot. The Blob just got a 21st-century upgrade: Cornell University scientists have successfully created two machines that are part synthetic, part organic, and controlled by a king oyster mushroom. They achieved this by growing the fungi’s mycelium, which is like a fungal root system, into robotic hardware. The bots—one on wheels and one with starfish-like legs—are powered only by the mushroom’s electrical signals and change direction/speed when exposed to ultraviolet light (since shrooms don’t like the sun). Biohybrid robotics is still a budding field, but scientists hope to one day build exploratory robotic jellyfish, sperm-carried fertility treatments, and cyborg search-and-rescue cockroaches.

New data disproves concerns that phones cause cancer. Call your nearest and dearest conspiracy theorist: There is no link between cell phone usage and cancer, according to an analysis by Australia’s radiation protection agency of dozens of studies published between 1994 and 2022. The lead author of the review said early reports that raised alarm bells over the low-level radiation from wireless tech were usually biased cases: When asked to recall how much they used their cell phones, brain tumor patients tended to overreport compared to people without tumors.

🪑 Do you have dead butt syndrome? Is your rear aching? Do you feel some lower back pain when you go running or hiking? If so, there could be something medically wrong with your butt. Gluteal amnesia, aka “dead butt syndrome,” is a medical condition different from pins-and-needles in which the muscles outside and behind your hips get so weak from sitting at your desk job every day that they actually forget how to work. It forces the rest of your body to work harder when you’re exerting yourself, but it’s easy to combat: Just stand up every 30 to 50 minutes and…poke your butt. Marching in place, squatting, and doing hip circles will also help to remind your brain of your butt’s existence.—ML

Is the penny obsolete?

The penny is like an ashtray in an airplane bathroom—a holdover that no one has the energy to nix.

That’s the thesis of Caity Weaver’s 7,000-word manifesto published in New York Times Magazine last weekend, in which she argues that the US needs to consign the measly tokens to the dustbin of numismatic history. She decided to offer her two cents on the matter after learning that producing a single penny costs the US Treasury more than three pennies.

• The government lost over $94 million last year minting billions of the pesky discs, which are used mostly as change for cash purchases ending with .99 and…not much else.
• The vast majority are destined to vanish into couch crevices and other places of coin oblivion, abandoned by Americans who have no reason to carry currency with a face value that amounts to a rounding error after centuries of inflation.

Weaver is far from the first commentator to find the status quo absurd: She joins a chorus of penny abolitionists that includes prominent economists, US Mint officials, lawmakers, and at least one POTUS (Obama). But despite years of grumbling about the superfluousness of the near-worthless coins and several congressional bills to ditch them, nothing has yet killed the penny once and for all.

Who’s grasping at pennies?

“A penny saved is a penny earned” rings true for the Tennessee metal manufacturer Artazn, the government’s sole supplier of the zinc blanks used to make the 1-cent coins (a penny is made up of 98% zinc coated with copper). The company, which was bought by private equity in 2019, has raked in $1 billion in revenue since 2008 from selling zinc discs to the US Mint.

Artazn’s lobbying on Capitol Hill is the main reason for the penny’s endurance, according to retired US Mint Spokesperson Tom Jurkowsky and other sources Weaver spoke to. Though the company spent a relatively paltry $3 million on coin lobbying efforts, Artazn is the loudest voice promoting pro-penny talking points, sponsoring the advocacy group Americans For Common Cents, which argues:

• The abolition of the penny would negatively impact low-income people and the unbanked, who make up a disproportionate amount of cash users, by causing stores to round up prices.
• Charities like the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society rely on penny donations for fundraising.
• Polls show that the majority of Americans want to keep the penny.

But many penny opponents claim that these arguments don’t add up to much, just like a bucket of pennies.

Down with the penny

Penny abolitionists point out that cash usage is declining and highlight studies showing that even cash-loving consumers would not be harmed if prices were rounded to the nearest nickel. Just like some after-tax totals would be rounded up by one or two cents, others would be rounded down (one study did predict a minuscule price increase in aggregate).

Plus, the US wouldn’t be the first country to ditch the penny:

• Canadian merchants say that consumers there have gotten used to the rounding system the country implemented when it stopped minting its one-cent coin in 2013.
• The US itself previously parted ways with the half-cent coin at a time when it was worth more than today’s penny.

Concerns for charities might also be misplaced. When Weaver reached out to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, she was told that the organization no longer relies on coin drives and has been more successfully using credit card payment roundups to fundraise.

As for the penny’s supposed popularity, the majority of Americans across party lines are on board with ceasing penny production once they’re told how much it costs to make them, according to a 2022 poll by progressive think tank Data for Progress.

There are some Abe Lincoln stans who worry that the demise of the penny would diminish the legacy of the 16th president, whose profile graces its obverse. Financial Times reporter Sam Learner proposes erecting a copper-plated Lincoln monument made out of melted pennies to appease them.

So, why are shiny new pennies still a thing? Weaver blames government inertia. The Fed reflexively orders them from the Treasury, the Treasury fulfills the order from the Mint, and Congress lacks the political urgency to officially nix them. But she claims there’s one person with the power to pull the penny kill switch: According to an obscure law Weaver discovered during her research, the Treasury Secretary can simply not order any coins she deems unnecessary.—SK

Place to be (for extreme risk-takers): Fyre Fest II

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.

The sequel can’t be worse than the original, right?

The disastrous Fyre Festival of 2017 that left attendees stranded in the Bahamas with sweaty cheese sandwiches and drew comparisons to Lord of the Flies is allegedly returning for a Part II. In a Wall Street Journal article published this week, original creator and convicted fraudster Billy McFarland said Fyre Fest II is definitely happening (“Fyre II has to work”), but this time without Ja Rule.

Proving that everyone loves a comeback story (or a sucker is born every minute), at least several tickets have already been sold, with prices ranging from $499 to $7,999.

Here are the details for Fyre Fest II:

• When: No date has been scheduled.
• Where: No location has been chosen.
• Who: No musical acts have been announced.

A production company that McFarland is keeping secret has bought a 51% share of Fyre Media, the festival’s parent company, and will be responsible for the event’s finances and operations. McFarland is taking a hands-off approach with logistics this time and letting a talent management company and festival operator handle things.

McFarland said locations under consideration for Fyre II include Honduras, Belize, Turks and Caicos, Jamaica, and Panama. As for entertainment, McFarland told the WSJ: “Karate combat on the beach, I think that would be amazing. Having some extreme sports, having some comedy and some fashion.”

Will Fyre II ever really go down? Andy King, an event planner involved with Fyre Fest who gained unwanted notoriety for how seriously he believed in the idea that the show must go on, said he partnered with McFarland again on Fyre Fest II. But King told the WSJ he hasn’t heard from McFarland since November 2023 and, “I’m not sure I can believe anything that he says at this point.”—DL

Crowd work

Last time we asked: “How did you make friends when you moved to a new city?” Here are our favorite responses.

• “My husband and I moved to Santa Fe, NM, in our mid-60s. We hike, cycle, snow ski, and eat for entertainment. We strike up conversations with people who participate in these activities. I had a business card printed with my name, phone number, and email on one side and a humorous list of my hobbies on the other side. If we met someone we thought would be fun to have drinks with, we would give them a card. We’ve met some great people this way.”—Susan from Santa Fe, NM
• “I joined a gay kickball league, which helped me make friends and eventually led me to my girlfriend!”—Olivia from Washington, DC
• “I applied to live in a 26-bedroom house that I found on Craigslist, got the spot, and moved in with 25 complete strangers. Many are still my close friends.”—Christy from San Francisco, CA
• “My first night in Berlin, I went bouldering. I got chatting with a couple Irish lads and an Aussie. We climbed for hours then headed out for pints at a cool, smokey dive bar. I had no job and nowhere to live after a month but after that night I knew everything would be okay. We’ve continued the tradition every week for the past 10 months, now with about 12 people. Putting yourself out can be a pretty special thing.”—Georgia from London, UK

This week’s question

What’s your most controversial food opinion?

Cassandra’s response to get the juices flowing: “Soup is overrated.”

Share your response here.