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

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ISO PITCHING COACH: It turns out TikTok dances eat up a lot of time and are a bit of a distraction. The Savannah Bananas may look fun online, but in person, they are just boring.

O’HARE VALET: A delivery driver managed to drive through a number of restricted areas at the Chicago airport, even making it onto the runways. Unfortunately, they forgot the drink, so we had to eat our chicken sandwich during the flight dry, like an animal.

SENIOR AGENT: Mission: Impossible might be wrapping up, but Tom Cruise vowed to keep making action movies into his 100s. You know what they say: When God closes one door, he makes you smash through a 12th-story window.

MAX BUNSTAPPEN: Top-franked drivers raced all six Oscar Mayer Winermobiles from around the country to determine which regional hot dog is the ultimate meal* (*after dinner treat, if you’re not a narc.) You can’t spell NASCAR without slightly tweaking OSCAR and squinting.

Personal

ELECTION 2.0: Alexander Payne and Reese Witherspoon will return to make one of the most iconic Nebraska-based sequels since Children of the Corn: 2, 3, 4, or 5 (Fields of Terror).

FOUND – HEAD: After 37 years of absence, a spooky bust modeled after the late Jim Morrison with eyes that definitely don’t follow you was found. “Oh…awesome,” said the cemetery groundskeepers in hushed tones.

For sale

HOVERBIKE: A startup in Poland posted a video of its new Star Wars-esque “Airbike.” It definitely feels more dangerous than an electric scooter, but less terrifying than strapping yourself to the front of a speedboat with a single bungee cord.

PAPER PLANNER: Microsoft says 9–5 workers are interrupted every 2 minutes with a notification for a meeting, email, or alert that they need to update their Microsoft password.

TICKETS 2 THE BONES: The Field Museum in Chicago will host the first US exhibit with “Pokémon fossils,” which will let visitors compare Charmander bones with real dinosaur bones. Let’s crack Cloyster open and figure out what he’s hiding.—MM

The clothing budget for employees at the San Diego Humane Society has nothing to do with suits, ties, or business casual attire—they are donning a bear mask and furs in an effort to raise an abandoned bear cub and prepare him to be returned to the wild in about a year. Staffers also wear leather gloves and rub black-bear-scented hay on themselves so the cub doesn’t bond with the humans and lose the instincts that will help him survive outside the sanctuary.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because staffers at the Richmond Wildlife Center did something similar with an abandoned fox last year. Should employees at auto body shops dress up as Transformers when they are working with abandoned cars? The answer is obviously yes.—DL

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even gaze at the clouds.

Penguin poop can help limit global warming. These are the bowel movements heard ’round the world. Penguins in Antarctica are “major emitters” of ammonia—a compound that stimulates cloud formation, which helps block heat from the sun. Meaning, penguins may be combating ice melt just by going No. 2, scientists reported this week. The downwind from a colony of 60,000 penguins contained about 1,000 times more ammonia than atmospheric baselines, according to the new research. Typically, ammonia from vegetation helps create cloud coverage, so, in lieu of greenery at the South Pole, penguin poop could be critical, especially as climate change quickly melts the sea ice that keeps Earth cool.

FDA clears first blood test for detecting Alzheimer’s. Doctors are expected to catch more cases of Alzheimer’s—faster and earlier—now that federal officials have greenlit a blood test for people showing symptoms of the disease. About 7.2 million Americans are estimated to be living with Alzheimer’s, but primary care physicians only diagnose it correctly ~60% of the time, and specialty neurologists catch it 70%–80% of the time, according to Dr. Howard Fillit, chief science officer at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. “With the blood test, we can get it up to over 90%,” he said.

Unknown bacteria found on Chinese Space Station. Astronauts discovered a microbe on China’s Tiangong space station that’s never been seen on Earth before—and appears uniquely suited for space. Niallia tiangongensis can break down protein in nutrient-deficient environments and even self-repair radiation damage, which is perfect for surviving in space stations. But scientists aren’t sure yet if the bacterium evolved up there or hitched a ride from Earth, where there are estimated to be billions of undiscovered microbes. Though scientists said earlier this year that space stations are too sterile and astronauts could benefit from more bacteria, they might not want this one. The new microbe’s closest terrestrial relative can cause sepsis.—ML

There are two types of crypto thieves: 1) geeks who should be working for NASA writing niche code to hack crypto wallets and 2) blunt-object-wielding thugs kidnapping crypto-rich people and threatening them with physical violence to get access to their holdings. And criminals are increasingly using the kludgy second tactic to snatch crypto, which lacks the anti-theft safeguards of fiat currency in traditional bank accounts.

Things are getting particularly treacherous in France, where there’s been a spate of kidnappings targeting crypto high rollers and their families since the beginning of the year:

• This month, suspects tried to kidnap the pregnant daughter of the CEO of French crypto exchange Paymium, Pierre Noizat, along with her son. Luckily, the attempt was averted after her husband wrangled with the would-be kidnappers, who were eventually scared off by an intervening neighbor brandishing a fire extinguisher.
• In January, David Balland, a co-founder of the crypto company Ledger, was kidnapped with his wife. They were both rescued by police, but not before one of the co-founder’s fingers was cut off.
• Last month, the father of a crypto millionaire was kidnapped in Paris and tortured. Police eventually liberated him and arrested five suspects.

Why are the crypto-rich particularly vulnerable?

Crypto is more attractive to the hammer-wielding thief than other assets since it’s designed to be sent instantly, with transactions notoriously difficult to trace and reverse, unlike bank transfers.

Finding targets to shake for money can also be easier among the crypto-rich:

• Tech-savvy criminals can dox crypto big shots by tracking publicly available blockchain transactions or infiltrating crypto exchange databases. For instance, a recent Coinbase hack that involved bribing its contractors exposed the home addresses of some wallet owners.
• The crypto nouveau-riche are also often inclined to boast about their bougie lifestyles on social media, making it easier for thieves to identify them as lucrative targets.

Experts also say that, due to increasingly sophisticated anti-hack protections on crypto platforms, extorting bitcoin millionaires in person is becoming more common.

Why is France such a crypto kidnapping hotbed?

French crypto entrepreneurs have been warning that the spate of kidnappings is giving the country a bad rep as a place to do business. Ledger co-founder Eric Larchevêque—who alerted police of Balland’s predicament—lamented that 14 of 50 attacks against crypto entrepreneurs in the past year happened in the country. He argues that this is partly due to requirements that entrepreneurs register their names and addresses in a government database.

Meanwhile, Paymium is calling for the revocation of the European “travel rule,” bolstering transparency around the source and destination of crypto transfers, which it claims exposes the identities of people with fat crypto wallets.

The recent kidnapping spree might also reflect an organized crime problem in the country, as police believe the cases could be connected.

But it’s not just a French problem: Last year, three Florida teens kidnapped the host of a Las Vegas crypto conference and left him stranded in the Mojave desert, stealing $4 million from his crypto wallet. And a Florida man was sentenced to 47 years in prison for leading a crypto extortion ring that was involved in stealing $150,000 worth of crypto from a North Carolina-based victim, while pointing a pink revolver at his head.

What can be done?

In France, law enforcement is addressing safety concerns by making home visits to crypto moneybags, briefing them on safety, and creating an emergency hotline for crypto extortion cases.

Meanwhile, the crypto affluent in France and beyond have been taking matters into their own hands and shelling out for bodyguards to protect them from anyone out for their blockchain belongings. Coinbase spent over $6 million on personal security for CEO Bill Armstrong in 2024, which Bloomberg calculated is more than JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Nvidia spent protecting their chief execs, combined.

If you have a thick crypto wallet to guard…safety experts recommend setting up decoy wallets and not using your real name for crypto transactions.—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.

Indianapolis, the city responsible for the Gatling gun and Breathalyzer, is in the sports spotlight today with a double-header that might blow you away.

For just the fourth time ever, the storied Indianapolis 500 is taking place on the same day the Indiana Pacers host a home game in the NBA playoffs. Weather permitting, the gentlemen will start their engines on the racetrack at 12:45pm ET with the winner pounding a celebratory bottle of milk before the Pacers and Knicks tip off in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference Finals series at 8pm.

The good people of Indianapolis can expect a mixed bag:

• The good news: The Brickyard has a sold-out grandstand for the first time since 2016, which means a local blackout will be lifted and fans in Indianapolis can watch the race live for the first time in nine years. Around 350,000 people are expected to attend the Indy 500.
• The bad news: In the three previous instances (1999, 2004, 2013), the Pacers lost. One of the defeats was in the 1999 Eastern Conference Finals to the Knicks, who went on to win the series in six games.

And that’s not at all. The WNBA’s Caitlin Clark and the Fever hosted the Liberty yesterday in a New York–Indiana basketball appetizer (the Fever lost by 2 points), further cementing the city’s status as the only place to watch sports during Memorial Day weekend.—DL