News Sidequest

NPR reports that the US murder rate in 2025 was almost certainly the lowest ever recorded since the FBI started keeping national data in the 1950s — and 2026 is tracking to go lower still. This is the second "Great Crime Decline" in American history and almost nobody is talking about it. Also: a new study from the University of Silesia finds that people who gossip and spread rumors are more likely to be in romantic relationships and have more children — and the evolutionary logic behind it is more interesting than the headline. And a Chinese platform launched in March called Wangbu lets dog owners in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen rent out their pets by the hour to strangers for walks, and animal welfare experts are not pleased. Plus a Harvard UFO professor running the White House alien council, human remains in a Queens school chimney, two-month-olds on screens, and a woman who denied owning the cocaine.

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Slate reports that kindergarten, first grade, fifth grade, and pre-K graduations have exploded into ticketed events with caps, gowns, diplomas, and professional photographers — and parents can't figure out who asked for this. Also: with the 250th anniversary tomorrow, life expectancy in America has doubled since 1776 — from roughly 35-40 years to 79 — and the story of how that happened is worth knowing. And a 60-year-old man in Spain came to the hospital with two weeks of worsening headaches, was put on the oncology track when his CT scan showed what looked like metastatic brain cancer, and was eventually diagnosed with something considerably more unsettling. Plus a bear who needed a lift, a water slide world record at a vow renewal, the Michigan lemonade stand freedom bill, and the Mexican Batman.

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Epic Research analyzed electronic health records from nearly 200 million American adults and found gambling disorder diagnoses jumped more than 60% since 2018 in states that legalized sports betting — with the rate among men 18 to 29 more than doubling. In the 11 states that never legalized it, diagnoses fell 30% over the same period. Also: a small Japanese trial found that a daily cup of probiotic yogurt, regular walks, and basic diet coaching shifted a DNA-based aging marker in overweight men within just 12 weeks — though the study was funded entirely by the yogurt company that makes the product. And a new Penn State experiment with real money on the line confirms that fear of losing and the dread of regret both shape our decisions simultaneously, with loss aversion the stronger of the two forces. Plus the world's loudest man, a self-driving toilet, the rhinestone menswear trend nobody asked for, and an instant-karma story for the ages.

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A new Realtor.com analysis finds a record 25.2 million Americans under 35 — roughly one in three — were living with a parent in 2025, and 70% of them have jobs. This isn't a story about unemployed young adults playing video games in the basement. It's a story about a 4-million-unit housing supply gap and a median home price up 34% since 2019. Also: a 30-year study tracking three generations of college students from 1982 to 2022 finds Millennials entered adulthood with significantly more fear of growing up than Gen X or Baby Boomers before them — but that fear fades with age across every generation, suggesting nobody stays scared of adulthood forever. And a new study of 180 British university students finds a year abroad makes you measurably more agreeable and curious, with lower anxiety — but it doesn't overhaul your personality the way the brochures promise. Plus a teleporting FEMA official, smoke grenades in checked luggage, a Carnival cruise brawl, and a snake and a spider sharing a bedroom in Australia.

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A new PNAS study of more than 2,400 people finds women achieve the exact same economic outcomes as men in negotiations — but their partners trust them more, like them more, and want to negotiate with them again, even in fully anonymous text-chat negotiations where gender was unknown. The compounding effect projects to a roughly $55,000 earnings advantage over time. Also: Texas A&M researchers have regenerated bone, joints, and ligaments in mice using a two-step treatment that redirects the body's healing response away from scarring — suggesting the capacity for regeneration may never have left us, just gotten switched off. And researchers say the old phones sitting in drawers around the world contain an estimated $67 billion in recoverable critical minerals, and recycling currently meets just 1% of global rare earth demand. Plus a giant street-legal banana, a retired Robocop with a perfect arrest record of zero, an influencer who learned a hard lesson about showing off online, and a man who fell into a vault toilet rescuing his sunglasses.

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A new Talker Research survey finds 86% of Americans distrust AI-generated results — but the study was commissioned by a content management company with a clear stake in the answer, and the actual complaint underneath the number is more specific and more interesting than blanket distrust. Also: a 6-year-old girl in Tokyo spent months preparing with her parents before completing a solo trip through the city to the grocery store and back — and the show that inspired an entire genre of "free-range kid" content is now a real parenting movement. And Columbia University exercise physiologists confirm that five minutes of walking every 30 minutes of sitting is enough to meaningfully offset the health harms of a sedentary day. Plus tentacled rabbits, a 13-year-old who climbed out of a Disneyland ride mid-drop, a missing giraffe with a $5,000 reward, and a DIY exorcism gone wrong.

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A decade-long study of more than 1,400 young people found that 83% of the life events they call most meaningful are positive — graduations, friendships, travel, sports. But teens and young adults with anxiety or depression were far more likely to name a struggle or a loss as their defining moment instead, raising a real question about which came first: the hard life or the hard lens. Also: a Wall Street Journal writer spent five days in total silence at a Buddhist retreat in Massachusetts, and it nearly broke her. And a McGill-led study of more than 200,000 people across 22 countries finds that feeling poorer than your peers wrecks your wellbeing — even when your actual income is identical to theirs. Plus the Titanic artifacts dispute, tentacled rabbits, a pickleball felony, and Russian soldiers catfished by Ukrainian fighters posing as lonely women online.

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The New York Times reports that older couples who once stayed in "empty-shell" marriages are increasingly unwilling to spend their remaining healthy years that way — longer life expectancy is changing the math on what's worth enduring. Also: a Nature Human Behaviour study of 105,000 headlines viewed six million times confirms that negative words drive clicks — and a developmental psychologist explains why a brain built to track local, immediate threats is now being asked to process a war, a financial shock, and a climate disaster before lunch. And Zillow's new analysis finds a record 242 American cities now have "starter homes" priced at $1 million or more — triple the number from before the pandemic. Plus an 87-year-old's smart lottery decision, a vanished magician, the Red Lobster shrimp justification for invading Greenland, and 5,000 beers in Dallas.

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A USC study of 5,642 American adults finds that 26% of people with a completely normal BMI already meet the clinical criteria for obesity — because BMI can't tell the difference between muscle and dangerous belly fat. Also: a new Fox News poll finds only 25% of registered voters say they generally trust the federal government — the lowest reading in more than two decades of this poll, dating back to 2002 when more than half of Americans said they trusted it. And a University of Tokyo brain imaging study finds that reading on paper requires measurably less mental effort to piece a story together than reading the same content on a tablet — same comprehension, lower cost. Plus a quiz on dating red flags, the three pillars of a perfect dad joke, an 85-year-old street racer, and a nurse who sold 3,000 fake diplomas.

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A new Gallup-Milken Center survey of more than 6,300 Americans finds belief that everyone has a real shot at the American Dream has fallen to 46% — but 69% still believe they personally will achieve it, and striving for it remains important to 78%. The gap between those two numbers might say more than either one alone. Also: Johnson & Johnson's CEO told a London leadership summit this week that curing certain cancers within the next decade is a realistic goal — not aspirational marketing, but a real projection backed by current treatment trajectories. And NPR reports that bumblebees just solved a classic problem-solving test originally designed for chimpanzees — using a ball as a stepstool to reach an out-of-reach reward, with no training required. Plus a 194-year-old tortoise, a robot toilet, a TSA ranch dressing warning, and a 12-year-old's elaborate fake kidnapping.

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