Due to catastrophic flooding, one third of Pakistan was underwater.

A volunteer with severe liver disease will have donor liver cells injected into his lymph nodes. If all goes according to plan, this person will be the first to grow their own new liver.

Cryptocurrency trading platform Crypto.com accidentally transferred $10.5m to an Australian woman while processing her $100 refund. The company failed to notice decimal point error for several months and now want their money back. One hitch is that the woman has since purchased a $1.35M house.

Someone hacked into a popular Russian taxi app and called every available cab to the same address in Moscow causing a massive traffic jam.

The USDA is dropping millions of biscuits soaked in the rabies vaccine from airplanes flying across 13 states as part of a campaign to rid wild animals of the disease.

A truck full of tomato sauce crashed in California spilling the contents across the highway. The next day, on the other coast, a different truck spilled Alfredo sauce across a Memphis interstate. Bon Appétit has the story.

The Japanese government, caught off guard with the shutdown of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, decided to take more aggressive steps to reduce their dependence on old technology, such as the floppy disk. Apparently fax machines are next.

A recently adopted Texas law requires public schools to display a poster bearing the motto, “In God We Trust” and that schools not pay for them. When Sravan Krishna heard that, he offered to donate a couple of colorful signs to his local North Texas school that said the same thing, in Arabic. The school board was not amused.

CNN dug into transcripts of Trump’s past interviews and speeches and found that the former President, currently under suspicion of withholding classified documents, was quite adamant that anyone caught with classified material should be punished and thrown in jail for a long time.

Apparently, one of the missing empty folders marked “Classified” may have ended up in a display case at the bar in the lobby of the New York Trump Tower.

Scientists have figured out how to unlock an extra dimension of time. Researchers at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Quantum Physics determined that firing lasers in a rhythmic pattern inspired by the Fibonacci sequence will jiggle a strand of ytterbium ions inside a quantum computer in just the right way to create a completely new, strange phase of matter that behaves as if it has two dimensions of time. This week’s newsletter comes at you from that second dimension.

In 2020, scammers used deepfake voice technology to trick bankers into making fraudulent transfers. In 2022, it’s AI holograms on Zoom.

A Tesla owner paid a professional piercer $400 to implant his car key into his right hand. His other hand has a chip with a key to his house, portfolio information, contact and medical information. “It’s kind of like a fun party trick. When you scan one of my chips with your phone, it glows green underneath your skin.”

A Mickey Mantle baseball card sold for a record $12.6 million. The auction netted a handsome profit for Anthony Giordano, a New Jersey “waste management entrepreneur” who bought the card for $50,000 in 1991.

Global warming has dried up rivers and lakes around the world, uncovering the past. In Germany, a sunken World War II warship emerged from the Danube. In China, 600 year-old buddhist statues were found in the shallows of the Yangtze. In Spain, they uncovered a pre-historic dwelling from 5,000 years ago. Outside of Las Vegas, at the bottom of Lake Mead, they just found their sixth body.

A Minecraft player completed the inconceivable. Twitch streamer Mystical Midget, watched by hundreds of his friends, spent 2,500 hours marching to the edge of the Minecraft self-generated world, and fell off.

Remember that story last month about Amazon showing off Alexa speaking in the voice of your grandmother? This past week another company is using AI so that you can not only be “present” at your own funeral but actively answer questions.

All is well with the world as the Air Guitar World Championships are back on, in-person, in Oulu, Finland after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

A Nevada woman filed paperwork to purchase one home and ended up the owner of 84 homes because of a copy/paste error at the local title company.

Adolescents across America rejoiced as NASA officially announced they are sending a probe to Uranus.

Conspiracy theories aside, a Microsoft researcher finally revealed why Janet Jackson’s ‘Rhythm Nation’ can crash your laptop.

The sport of professional Cornhole was up in arms (more than usual) due to “BagGate.”

Authorities in Tasmania are trying to locate a man who was last seen stealing coins from the moat surrounding the monkey enclosure at the zoo. Turns out he may have been exposed to a “potentially fatal” herpes virus.

A parentless Florida teenager who filed for an exception to the rule that requires written parental permission to have an abortion was denied because she was not “sufficiently mature.” But mature enough to be a parent?

A Saudi woman, home visiting from studying for her PhD at Leeds University in England, was hauled in for questions about her activity on Twitter and sentenced to 34-years behind bars for following anti-government activists and retweeting their tweets.

Investigators continue to uncover US federal Covid-relief fraud on a grand scale. Some highlights, 29 states paid unemployment benefits to the same person, a Postal Service employee got an $82,900 loan for a business called U.S. Postal Services, someone got 10 loans for 10 nonexistent bathroom-renovation businesses, using the email address of a burrito shop.

Jared Kushner published a book about his time in the White House but I think people had more fun reading the review.

Contrary to what your Journalism textbook says, Man does occasionally Bite Dog.

Capitol Records signed its first virtual talent, an AI-powered rapper named FN MEKA.

Both pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines passenger plane fell asleep on approach to an airport in Ethiopia, causing them to overfly the runway before an alarm from the autopilot woke them up.

Japan, facing tax revenue shortfalls due to record low alcohol sales, is asking its youth to come up with promotional ideas to encourage drinking. Sounds like a job for Bluto.

Twitter, pushing back on Elon Musk’s way of calculating bots on the platform, demonstrated that his method would have identified his own Twitter account as a bot.

Salt Lake City police estimate a man did over $40k in damages after stealing an excavator, driving it a mile down the road, and digging up a parking lot.

An Australian man was fined almost $2,000 for an “undeclared biosecurity risk” when he was caught with a forgotten Egg & Sausage McMuffin and ham croissant from Thailand in the bottom of his backpack.

The pro-Trump clothing company, Lions Not Sheep, was accused by the Federal Trade Commission of replacing the “Made in China” tags in their clothing with “Made in USA” labels.

The satirists at The Onion predicted the future with this prescient nugget from 2017, Mar-A-Lago Assistant Manager Wondering If Anyone Coming To Collect Nuclear Briefcase From Lost And Found

Scientists determined the earth spun on its axis 1.59 milliseconds short of the 24-hour day last June. They are not certain what caused this but think it may be due to “glacial isostatic adjustment, or the movement of land due to melting glaciers.”

A beluga whale got lost and swam up the Seine River in France. Tragically the whale had to be euthanized after experiencing health complications during the rescue operation.

Ferrari announced that it is recalling almost every car made since 2005 for potentially faulty brakes.

Three people were struck dead by lightning near the White House. Speaking of long odds, the winner of that $1.3B Mega-Millions lottery has still not come forward.

Applebee’s has created four different lip gloss “flavors” including Get Me Hot Buffalo, Sweet Chile Kiss, Be My Honey Pepper, and Honey BBQ-T to help “spice up your date night.”

Georgia’s Department of Revenue announced that its residents can claim embryos as dependents on their state taxes. 

Authorities allege that a Utah man who tried to kill a spider with a lighter started a wildfire that scorched more than 60 acres of U.S. Forest Service land. No word on the fate of the spider.

A Hong Kong-based tech company’s stock price skyrocketed more than 32,000 percent from $7.80 to a high of $2,555 per share. Nobody, not even the company itself, knows why.

Google has an app called Meet and it also it also had an app called Duo. They decided to change the name of Duo to Meet. So now it has two products called Meet. Says the company who mission is to “organize the world’s information.”

A world-renowned scientist has been forced to apologize after he shared what he claimed was a stunning picture of a star, which turned out to be a slice of chorizo. 

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann complained of abdominal discomfort after drinking a glass of water from a river on the 22nd anniversary of its cleaning. He was there to announce the launch of a campaign to clean rivers in the state.

GOP Congressman Glenn Thompson attended the wedding of his gay son three days after voting against a bill that would codify same-sex marriage with federal protections.

Four women rowed in two-hour shifts and averaged 90 minutes of sleep each day covering more than 2,400 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean to reach Hawaii from San Francisco in record time.

Ko Yamaguchi made such waves with his crazy switch hitting at the Japan High School baseball tournament that the Major League Baseball blog wrote about him. “This savant from Japan is taking switch-hitting to a new extreme.” I later learned about a player in the 1950s named Eddie Gaedel and something called the Eephus pitch.

On Monday, fans of the beloved Choco Taco ice cream treat mourned its announced discontinuation. Good Morning America did a piece on how to make your own Choco Tacos. A silicon valley executive offered to buy the rights and revive the dessert. Eater did a piece on where to find “even better” versions of the treat. By Friday, The Wall Street Journal hinted (hopefully) that maybe it was all a stunt and the Choco Taco might come back?

Researchers at Rice University figured out how to animate dead spiders and turn them into robot gripping claws.

Monkey attacks on people in the Japanese town of Yamaguchi have gotten so frequent and brazen that city hall has hired a special unit to hunt the animals with tranquilizer guns. On Wednesday, they got one member of the gang. They are still looking for Caesar.

The K-Pop girl band Fromis_9 will now become an eight member troupe after one member decided not to renew her contract. No word on if the band will change its name.

Dubai unveiled the world’s largest indoor vertical farm that will produce 2 million pounds of leafy greens each year. This is huge for the desert city which currently imports 90% of its produce.

Two Japanese companies came up with a solution for Japan’s overwork problem, Nap Boxes. They look like upright pods (coffins actually), but I’m afraid a box to stow exhausted workers doesn’t really address the root of the problem.

A Colorado man successfully pushed a peanut all the way to the summit of Pikes Peak, using only his nose. He did it in record time, seven days.

A tourist visiting Mount Vesuvius fell in while taking a selfie.

A man holding spots on the street in Brooklyn for an on location filming of, “Law & Order: Organized Crime” was shot while sitting in a parked car.

Over 50% of Americans believe there will be a civil war in the next few years.

China is putting its DNA tracking to use. A man who broke into an apartment was bit by a mosquito, then swatted the engorged bug against the wall. Police retrieved a DNA sample from a blood-smudge. The man’s crime? He reportedly lit mosquito coils (which obviously didn’t work), cooked eggs and noodles and slept overnight using a blanket from the owner’s bedroom.

The source of a mysterious pink glow in sky over an Australian town has been found, grow lights from a medicinal cannabis facility.

A chess-playing robot, apparently unsettled by the quick responses of a seven-year-old boy, unceremoniously pinned down and broke his finger during a match at the Moscow Open.

Freya the walrus is causing mayhem in Norway.

Only one week in use and already, a rock has hit the Webb space telescope.

Chevrolet got into the NFT game and put a limited edition token up for auction to drum up excitement for their latest model Corvette. Only problem? Zero bids.

Curators at the Cincinnati Art Museum discovered that an unassuming bronze disc in the museum’s storage is actually an exceedingly rare Chinese “magic” mirror.

The WNBA held its All-Star Game and the MVP trophy was mocked for it’s diminutive size.

The Stanley Cup tradition of sending the trophy to each player on the winning team was disrupted temporarily when it was delivered to the wrong house across town. More stories from the Cup’s previous escapades.

Indian police busted up a gang that had set up a fake cricket league to lure in Russian online betting. The games were “played” on a remote farm by hired day laborers complete with piped in crowd noises and halogen lamps to stage night games on the streamed broadcast.

Nuke Bizzle, a rapper who made a music video bragging about ripping off the government, agreed to plead guilty to federal fraud.

A Rwandan cyclist climbed l’Alpe d’Huez on a 40-pound single-speed bike to raise money for charity. That is not him in the photo above, that’s Tom Pidcock, the youngest winner of an Alpe d’Huez TDF stage after a hair-raising 100kmh descent earlier in the stage.

Rowdy, a family’s beloved pet cat that’s been dodging airport personnel, airline employees, construction workers and animal experts since escaping from a pet carrier at Boston’s Logan Airport about three weeks ago, was reunited with her family.

A volunteer in New Zealand has become the first person to undergo DNA editing in to lower their blood cholesterol.

BBC wins the headline of the week award.

Photo by Gruber Images

Boris is moving out of 10 Downing but the cat will stay.

Shinzo Abe, ex-prime minister of Japan, was assassinated by a homemade shotgun. This was a shock to the nation because guns are very difficult to procure in Japan.

Rhode Island State Senator Tiara Mack kicked off her election campaign by posting a video of herself twerking upside down at the beach.

Storms over the American Midwest turned the skies green.

Over 75 people in Nigeria were rescued from a church basement where their pastor instructed them to wait in preparation for the rapture. He said it would take place in April but when it didn’t, he said the rapture had been postponed to September. Some had been down in the basement since last year.

A Silicon Valley-based company began testing a smart display that can be embedded into a contact lens. The first beta-tester is the CEO of the company.

Finnish researchers have figured out how to store energy for months at a time in gigantic sand batteries.

Kanye West announced that he is working on a car made of foam. He hired a sneaker designer to head Donda Industrial Design, his company that will lead the project.

Amazon announced that it has evolved Alexa’s speech synthesis to the point where it can mimic anyone, including your dead grandmother.

The New York Yankees blew out the Pittsburgh Pirates, 16-0. This was the Yankee’s largest shutout win since 1960. Even the Pirates announcer threw in the towel after his team, trying to staunch the bleeding, put their second baseman on the mound. “This is ridiculous,” he said as the 15th run was hit in via yet another homer.

The Sierra Leone Football Association is investigating two second-tier matches that ended at 95-0 and 91-1 respectively. The general manager of Lumbebu United, the team that lost by 95 points, said he was “not aware of any match manipulation.”

The Las Vegas Raiders football team made history as the first professional American football team to have an African American woman as president.

Due to inflation, the Hakone Aquarium in Japan has been forced to switch the penguins from Aji to cheaper Saba and they are not having it.