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

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ACTOR W/ MASK EXPERIENCE: Jim Carrey returned to his role as the villain for the third installment of Sonic the Hedgehog because, according to him, “I bought a lot of stuff and I need the money, frankly.” After the Wicked press tour, it’s nice to hear an actor finally be relatable.

SCRABBLE TRANSLATOR: Scrabble GOAT Nigel Richards has caused a ruckus in Spain after winning the Spanish World Scrabble Championships—despite not speaking Spanish. He also became the francophone world champ in 2015 (without speaking any French) by memorizing the French Scrabble dictionary in nine weeks.

Personal

FOUND—MAGIC TICKET: You can ride a real-life Polar Express in London, sans the uncanny valley conductor. It’s a 12-mile roundtrip and, for nearly $76 per seat, it has to be better than the Willy Wonka experience.

HELLO, MY OLD FRIEND: Scientists discovered a new predatory amphipod (a type of crustacean closely related to shrimp) deep in an ocean trench and have named the creature “Darkness.” The most alarming finding is that this thing is fast.

For sale

WHITE DRESS—USED TWICE: It’s a tale as old as time: Boy meets girl. Boy marries girl. Boy and girl divorce. Boy and girl plan to get remarried 50 years later when boy is 94 and girl is 89. In lieu of an open bar, the couple will let you raid their medicine cabinet.

YOUR REPLACEMENT: With many companies gaslighting workers around AI taking their jobs, at least one tech company is validating those concerns. AI startup Artisan plastered San Francisco with billboards hawking its AI products, writing that AI workers “won’t come into work hungover” and urging managers to “stop hiring humans.”—MM

Googly eyes on pieces of art might seem funny, but officials in Bend, OR, are not humored by the ocular vandalism happening in their city. Googly eyes have been placed on at least eight sculptures by the Googly Eye Bandit to the amusement of residents and even Stephen Colbert, who mentioned the phenomenon on his late-night show last week.

To Bend leaders, it’s no laughing matter. “While the googly eyes placed on the various art pieces around town might give you a chuckle,” the city said in an Instagram post, “it costs money to remove them with care to not damage the art.”

Bend said it has spent $1,500 to remove the eyes from seven sculptures, including two deer, a sphere, and a chicken.—DL

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even throw your car keys off a bridge.

Tiger treks 120 miles to find his childhood love. Get Pixar on the phone: Two rescued Siberian tigers named Boris and Svetlaya reunited in the Russian wilderness after being released more than 100 miles apart. Boris walked more than the width of Taiwan—mostly in a straight line, scientists observed—to reach Svetlaya on her turf. Six months later, the pair was raising a litter of cubs. The forest area where they live can support hundreds more of the 485 to 750 Siberian tigers out there, mainly in Russia. Scientists say that the success story shows that rehabilitation and re-release are effective repopulation strategies for big cats and that more of them should be reintroduced to empty habitats.

Venus may never have been habitable. Astronomers have long theorized about an ancient, Earth-like Venus that supported life before an atmospheric transformation shrouded the planet in toxic clouds. Now, it’s looking more like a fantasy: Venus is actually dry inside, according to a new analysis, which indicates that it never had the oceans of water that are considered necessary for life to begin (at least, the type of life we’re familiar with). “This doesn’t completely rule out any life,” an author of the study said. “It rules out Earth-like life.” We might get more answers within the next decade, when NASA’s DaVinci mission flies by Venus and drops off a surface probe.

Driving dependence could be making us hate our lives. Kind of like how money only makes people happier up to a certain income level, researchers have discovered a threshold for life satisfaction that cars provide. People are more likely to feel less happy with their lives once they need a car for more than half of the activities they do in a given week, according to a new study of more than 2,000 US adults in cities and suburbs. The US has one of the highest rates of car ownership in the world—only 3% of commuters get to work via public transit, whereas 69% drive, the researchers noted. Half the participants in the study were in the middle percentiles of car dependence.—ML

There’s a chance the US government might stop sponsoring your ability to blurt out answers to Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me trivia in Saturday traffic.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana recently introduced the No Propaganda Act, which would defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the entity that helps keep the lights on at NPR and PBS. He claimed the alleged liberal bias of those partially publicly funded broadcasters makes them unworthy of taxpayer cash.

Though conservative lawmakers have unsuccessfully sought to nix public funding for NPR and PBS since the Nixon administration (motivated mainly by cost-cutting desires), the current effort seems like less of a longshot, according to Semafor’s Max Tani:

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who are spearheading the new budget-trimming advisory board called the Department of Government Efficiency, have also singled out the CPB—which received $535 million in federal cash last year—for the chopping block.
• The idea is cheered by President-elect Trump, who attempted to gut the CPB during his first term and whose allies are adamant about stamping out media bias.

The looming defunding risk also comes as NPR and PBS face unprecedented financial and organizational challenges that threaten their long-term ability to keep transmitting soft-spoken soundbites into your car and Ken Burns docs into your living room.

Fizzling out

NPR and its affiliate stations have had mixed success adapting to the digital era. Though its flagship podcast, Up First, is among Apple’s Top 10, and its Tiny Desk Concert series is megapopular on YouTube, it’s reportedly struggling to grow a paying subscriber base and keep up with the New York Times’s blockbuster The Daily podcast, as well as the Joe Rogans of the world.

NPR’s radio listenership took a hit during the pandemic when widespread WFH reduced the number of commuters on the roads. It has since failed to recover:

• NPR had 42 million weekly listeners this year, down from 60 million in 2020, according to the New York Times.
• And its broadcast audience increasingly looks like the 4:30pm crowd at Olive Garden. Less than a third of NPR’s listeners are younger than 45, and the 65+ cohort is the only segment that’s grown in the past five years.

Meanwhile, NPR’s TV peer, PBS, projected in 2022 that virtually no adults younger than 50 would be watching its prime-time shows by 2026. As for PBS’s reputation for excellent kids programming, it’s no longer the first to air crown jewel Sesame Street, which migrated to HBO in 2016 with “new” episodes appearing on PBS only after a nine-month delay. It’s also struggling to compete for children’s attention with a myriad of free online content, like Peppa Pig and Skibidi Toilet.

Future-proofing NPR

NPR is trying to keep itself fresh. It recently shortened the segments in its news programs, and hosts have become more conversational. It appointed a “joy czar” tasked with ensuring it spotlights enough positive stories to balance out depressing current events coverage, which can be a buzzkill for audiences.

NPR also sought to diversify its on-air talent and programming to appeal to audiences beyond its traditionally white and relatively affluent core listenership. The execution of this effort has its critics and might have had limited success at reaching new audiences.

What if federal funding goes away?

While most of NPR’s budget comes from corporate ads and various donations, government grants to its affiliate network still make up a sizable chunk of its coffers, especially as ad revenue has declined in the past two years.

NPR laid off staff and closed four podcasts to make up for a $30 million budget shortfall last year, and cuts would likely continue if the government decides to pull the plug. Defunding could also undermine rural radio and TV stations, threatening to leave some communities for which public media is the only source of news in the dark.

But…Congress defunding NPR could lead to a flurry of donations from tote bag-wearing sympathizers, which may make up for some of the budget shortfalls, according to Tani. At the same time, some conservatives argue against the cuts since an entirely privately funded NPR would remove lawmakers’ ability to scrutinize its coverage.—SK

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.

Instead of waiting for him to come to you, why don’t you visit Santa Claus instead?

No, not the very real person who lives in the North Pole—it’s mid-December and he’s extremely busy. We’re talking about the town in Indiana named Santa Claus that celebrates Christmas all year round. Santa Claus has streets named after reindeer (Prancer Drive, for example), a Santa Claus museum, and Holiday World (formerly Santa Claus Land), which is said to be the world’s oldest theme park.

How did this town of 2,500 get its jolly name?

In 1856, the town was called Santa Fee. When residents applied for a post office, they were told a name change was necessary because it was too similar to nearby Santa Fe, IN, creating a potentially confusing McDonald’s/McDowell’s situation like the one in Coming To America. After that, we are left with two theories:

• Someone wrote “Santa Clause” on the naming document and it inspired the name that exists today.
• When residents were discussing a new name on Christmas Eve, the doors of the building they were in blew open. A little girl screamed, “Santa Claus!” and the rest is history.

What goes on there? There are roller coasters, a water park, live reindeer, and a 22-foot-tall Santa statue perfect for photographing and worshipping. The Santa Claus Christmas Celebration takes place during the first three weekends of December and features light displays, chestnut roasting, and a chance to meet Santa (he takes a break from the grind on weekends, which shows he believes in a healthy work-life balance).

Reply all: Well, maybe not all, but when letters to Santa reach the aforementioned post office, volunteers help and write back. In 2023, Santa’s helpers in Santa Claus responded to nearly 24,000 letters.—DL