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

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CHERUB PAINTER 4 HIRE: The restoration of a historic church in Soria, Spain, was completely botched, drawing anger from the professional restoration community. The church’s mostly white and gold interior now includes a lot of pink paint and cherubs that look shocked to see you. Still, it’s no Cristiano Ronaldo statue.

ISO DYLAN EXPERTS: Your uncelebrated expertise about The Basement Tapes can finally be put to use. A trailer for the new Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet was released, and people seem pleasantly surprised.

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THE WOMAN IN MOVIE THEATERS: Britney Spears’s memoir will be turned into a movie directed by Jon M. Chu. While Chu’s IMDb page contains movies like Crazy Rich Asians and the upcoming Wicked film, he also directed three different Justin Bieber movies.

FROM WAX TO WASHINGTON: The House of Representatives announced that a statue of country legend Johnny Cash will be added to the US Capitol in September. Officials say the singer could liven up the building at night when all the statues and busts come alive.

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SHOOTING GLASSES: The coolest piece of gear at this year’s Olympics has been decided—the steampunk-looking eyewear worn by some Olympic sharpshooters.

OLYMPIC FLASK: The only place to get a dang drink at the Olympics is the VIP lounge because the Paris Olympic venues aren’t serving any alcohol. Fans in the gymnastics arena couldn’t even spill their cabernet after Pommel Horse Guy’s heroics.—MM

Photo of the week—maybe the century?

Agence France-Presse photographer Jerome Brouillet’s snapshot of Gabriel Medina celebrating a record score in the men’s Olympic surfing competition has been seen by millions around the world. Some believed the photo was so good that it had to be AI, which didn’t make a lot of sense, because have you seen what AI photos look like?

Brouillet explained how he got the shot in an Instagram post: “Gabriel was in the water at the right place, at the right time, and so was I.” He went into more detail with CBS News: “I was aiming somewhere on the wave, because you can miss the jump. And, when I saw him, I pressed the button and I shot about six, seven shots. I was shooting 10 shots a second.”—DL

Dept. of Progress

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even guess people’s names.

A historic treatment for infant peanut allergies. Australia is adopting the world’s first nationwide program to provide immunotherapy to babies with peanut allergies, who account for 3% of the country’s one-year-old or younger population. Participating pediatric hospitals Down Under will help build allergy immunity among infants under 12 months by supervising a daily regimen of small peanut powder doses that will slowly increase over two or more years. Based on the severity of a child’s allergy, the therapy could help them one day eat peanuts regularly without ill effects—or at least desensitize them enough that accidental exposures would only trigger mild reactions.

You grow into your name as you age. You ever meet a dude named Ralph and think, “Woah, this guy is such a Ralph”? That might be because our faces change as we age to better align with the vibe of what everyone calls us, according to a new study. In a multiple-choice format, a group of children and a group of adults could accurately match name to face “significantly above the chance level” when looking at pictures of adults—but not when looking at children’s faces. Similarly, a “machine-learning framework” found facial similarities between same-named adults but not between same-named children, further suggesting that our names are a bit of a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” per the study.

Sugar could become healthier by…turning into fiber. Science really is like magic sometimes: A group of biological engineers who previously worked with Kraft Heinz have developed an edible enzyme product that can reduce the amount of sugar your body absorbs from food by transforming it into a gut-healthy fiber once you’ve chewed and swallowed. A director at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, which developed the biotech, says the enzyme could cut the sugar intake from a meal by more than 30%. The team aims to make their product commercially available to food manufacturers in the next two years, but they’ll have to bring costs down to make it widely available. The enzyme is currently 100x more expensive than raw sugar.—ML

How the Army’s deal with The Rock went south

In the shadowy depths of the Pentagon, a pensive, bushy-browed general decides it’s finally time to bring out the big guns: “Call The Rock,” he orders. That’s how we imagine the US military decided to enlist Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to boost US Army recruitment at a time when most young people aren’t interested in serving, but the outcome was less cinematic.

• An $11 million deal inked earlier this year with the newly formed United Football League (UFL), involving Instagram endorsements from the widely adored man of great muscle and charisma, was supposed to give a renewed sheen to the uniform.
• But, instead of making military recruitment offices more crowded than the DMV, the partnership led to a loss of 38 new enlistments by absorbing resources that could’ve been used more effectively elsewhere, Military.com reported this week, citing internal Pentagon estimates.

The military is now trying to renegotiate the deal that insiders consider a dud, according to Military.com. However, Army Spokesperson Laura DeFrancisco told the publication that some of the information it reviewed was out of context.

So, let’s take a closer look at the decision to pencil The Rock into the US defense budget as part of a larger battle for the hearts of America’s youth—and what went wrong.

Operation The Rock

In a Hail Mary to reach young people increasingly unwilling to consider a career in the armed forces (male enlistments dropped 35% between 2013 and 2023), the Army turned to the UFL, which Johnson co-owns.

Some staff were reportedly skeptical about the pricey partnership with the minor-league version of the NFL that few people watch. But the Army’s chief of staff, General Randy George, is said to have muscled it through. On top of an agreement that the Army logo would be featured prominently at UFL games:

• Johnson was contracted to produce five Instagram posts promoting the Army to his 396 million followers, which the military valued at $1 million each.
• But the Moana star only made two Army posts: Photos in which he’s mingling with generals at a UFL game and a video of him touring the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

This has left military marketers frustrated with The Rock’s output and lamenting the UFL’s relatively low viewership, while laying blame on league staff for bad communication, according to internal documents. The Army is reportedly trying to reclaim $6 million from the contract, though a spokesperson for General George told Military.com there may still be hope that the Army’s alliance with Johnson will continue.

PR problem

It’s not the first time a uniformed service has run a PR campaign hoping for a Top Gun-style recruitment boom that ended in disappointment. The National Guard’s $88 million Nascar deal in the early 2010s yielded zero new servicemembers. But the UFL flop comes just as the military is eager to recruit new soldiers amid increasing geopolitical instability and a growing threat of military confrontations. The Pentagon says it recruited 41,000 fewer people than it sought to in fiscal year 2023.

Experts say a decline in the military’s prestige and wider socioeconomic factors are to blame for the headcount shortages:

• The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and political polarization have led many young people to sour on the military, Duke University political science professor Peter Feaver told Military.com. And the Pentagon says low trust in government institutions among Gen Zers has made recruiting harder.
• Plus, a relatively strong civilian labor market makes military service a less attractive career path.

Fewer 20-somethings have servicemember parents than a generation ago, and families might be less inclined to push kids to enlist. Only 51% of Americans said they’d encourage a family member who is considering military service to go through with it, a recent survey by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute found.

Meanwhile, military recruiters have been slow to adapt to social media marketing, continuing to focus their outreach efforts on TV ads, phone calls, and tabling. And it doesn’t help that the Pentagon is barred from using TikTok, the natural habitat of many people under 30.

It’s not just a marketing problem. Even among those who might’ve been inspired by The Rock’s patriotic pitch, not everyone could join the armed forces. Only 23% of Americans age 17 to 24 would qualify for the military, with the rest ineligible due to obesity, substance abuse disorder, or other health conditions, per Defense Department estimates.—SK

Place to be: Paris’s spectacular Olympic venues

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.

Most of the attention at the 2024 Paris Olympics has been on the cool athletes with guns, wheels of cheese, and a stiff arm so fierce that it sent an opponent all the way to Los Angeles in 2028. But it’s the jaw-dropping settings that have lent an unrivaled flair compared to past host cities, with venues placed next to iconic buildings and structures that have been repurposed to offer more gravitas to the competition.

Here are three of the most dazzling locations hosting events around Paris.

Venue: Grand Palais (in photo above)

Sports: Fencing, Taekwondo

The magnificent building was originally constructed in 1900 to host artistic events and other types of expositions dedicated to modernity, such as automobile and aviation shows. It underwent restoration for the Olympics so it could be ready to display the art of hand-to-hand combat and sword fights.

Venue: La Concorde

Sports: Breaking, Skateboarding, BMX Freestyle, 3-on-3 Basketball

This setting lacks the spectacle of some other venues (no historical landmarks or Bass Pro Shops just over the horizon), but of the 2,498 people guillotined during the French Revolution, 1,119 were executed on these grounds. And now people are competitively breakdancing there.

Venue: Eiffel Tower Stadium

Sports: Beach Volleyball

Sure, Las Vegas also has an Eiffel Tower, but let’s give credit to the original, which is only slightly taller than the next-most-recognizable French tower, Victor Wembanyama. Because it boasts stunning views of the famous building, the beach volleyball stadium has become one of the hottest tickets in town.—DL

Crowd work

Last time we asked: When was the last time you were pleasantly surprised? Here are our favorite responses:

• “Driving to LAX at 2pm (not that the time makes any difference) and there was no traffic.”—Rachel from Los Angeles, CA
• “This morning I opened the egg carton and saw two eggs left when I thought there was only one.”—Ren from Austin, TX
• “My date canceled on a double-date dinner. I still went (third-wheeling) and had some of the most fun I’ve had in a while.”—Ashley from Oak Park, IL
• “A certain retirement fund holder tracked down my wife after 35 years to let her know an account existed (thought it was a scam), but it was real and a check for $7,300 was sent.”—Jeffrey from Hillsboro, OR
• “IN DECEMBER I HAD ATTENDED A SURPRISE 85th BIRTHDAY PARTY GIVEN BY MY FAMILY. AS IF THAT WASN’T ENOUGH, WHEN I CAME HOME, THERE WAS A SUPER GIANT BLOW UP HORSE IN MY FRONT YARD! (Have a Horse Farm for 67 years). NOTHING COULD EVER SURPASS ‘CLYDE’ THE GIANT BALLOON HORSE WITH ALL THE CHRISTMAS TRIMMINGS TO BOOT!!”—Carol from Crown Point, IN

This week’s question

You can only cook or use an egg in one way for the rest of your life. What are you choosing?

Matty’s response to get the juices flowing: “Eggs are vital to box cupcake mixes and I’m not willing to ever give that up.”

Share your response here.