Numlock News: April 20, 2026 • Fake Bears, Light Shoes, Tanking

Apr 20, 2026

By Walt Hickey

Welcome back!

Bears

Three residents of Los Angeles have been convicted for their part in an insurance fraud scheme that entailed filing claims on luxury vehicles that had been attacked by a bear. The attacking bear, however, was one of the conspirators who was in fact dressed in an improvised and somewhat comical bear suit. The California Department of Insurance kicked off an investigation after a claim filed on January 28, 2025 of a 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost getting “destroyed” by “a bear” that got inside. Investigators discovered two further claims submitted to separate insurers — a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350 — and based on the final tally, the insurers were defrauded of $141,839. At one point, the Department of Insurance had to actually call in a favor from a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and ask, “Is this a bear or just a guy in a bear suit?”

Insurance Journal

Sneaker

The average weight of a running shoe is 8.8 ounces for a men’s size nine, but footwear companies are in an arms race (a legs race?) to get that weight as light as possible. A recent study found that an elite runner who is able to shed 3.5 ounces off their shoe might run a marathon about 57 seconds faster. This has led brands to trim as much from the shoe as possible — thinner shoelaces, nitrogen-injected into the soles — all just to shave weight. The newest entrant, the incomprehensibly named Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3, weights 3.4 ounces in a men’s size nine and will see action in the London Marathon on April 26. Nike’s got a prototype at a comparatively hefty 6.2 ounces, one that propelled Jacob Kiplimo to a world record half marathon in Lisbon last month.

Rachel Bachman, The Wall Street Journal

Kuwait

As of April 15, the government of Kuwait, led by Emir Meshal al-Ahmad who took office at the end of 2023, has stripped citizenship from 71,059 people, a figure that represents about 4.6 percent of the country’s official population of 1.545 million. The government is attempting to redefine citizenship back to pre-1994 status, which excluded citizenship from the Bidoon residents of the northern tribes and only gave citizenship to those who were of the “founding nationality.” The concern is that Kuwait will extend the revocation beyond the already denaturalized individuals to include their wives, children and more, and that the eventual number of those stripped of citizenship might reach 250,000 to 300,000.

Fatimah Muhammed and Sultan Alamer, New Lines Magazine

Big Two

DC Comics has seen its market share in the comic book direct market rise to 34.7 percent as of Q1 of 2026, up from 32.9 percent in the same quarter of last year. Marvel remained relatively steady, seeings its share move from 29.6 percent in the first quarter of 2025 to 29.4 percent this year. They were followed by Image Comics (11.8 percent), IDW (4.2 percent) and Dark Horse (2.9 percent).

Brigid Alverson, ICV2

Tanks For Nothing

In April, 34 percent of all NBA games were decided by at least 20 points, the highest rate of any month in the history of the NBA. The second-highest month for such blowouts was March 2026, when 28 percent of games were decided by 20 points or more, and February saw the fifth-highest month on record. The end of the regular season has seen many squads throw in the towel, with some teams playing a bunch of G-Leaguers. For most of NBA history, the blowout rate didn’t climb up as the end of the season neared, but now it decisively has, as the tactical advantage of better draft picks overwhelms whatever honor stayed the hand of doomed squads in the past.

Lev Akabas, Sportico

Battery

Power grids that once relied on gas and coal to make up for a drop in the production of solar or wind are increasingly using power banked over the course of the day, stored in batteries. The average cost of grid-installed battery has dropped 75 percent from 2018 to 2025 and is projected to drop another 25 percent through 2035. In 2025, the cost per megawatt-hour was $78, and in real 2025 dollars, that’s expected to drop to $58 per megawatt-hour in 2035. It’s produced a rarely-seen phenomenon in the construction business: a second, identical battery build-out approved just a few months later might come in at a fraction of the budget of the first. To say the least, it isn’t all that common in the energy industry.

Kiera Wright, Mark Chediak, and Petra Sorge, Bloomberg

Waste

During the height of the pandemic, food waste declined substantially across the supply chain, dropping from a record high of 74.6 million tons in 2019 to 56.4 million tons in 2020. Gradually, however, that number began to tick back up again, reaching 71.6 million tons as of 2023. Based on the data, though, the postpandemic increase has leveled off, with the 2024 food waste figure coming in at 70 million tons. However, that is still 29 percent of the total U.S. food supply.

Jacob Wallace, Food Dive

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