By Walt Hickey
Hand Of God, Hammer Of Man
The specific ball involved in the controversial 1986 World Cup quarterfinal “Hand of God” goal made by Argentina’s Diego Maradona against England has sold at auction for $3.3 million. The auction was held in what is universally believed to be the global capital of soccer, the United States, and was a significantly lower sale price than originally expected, as it had been expected to go for $10 million. The ball was initially in the possession of Ali Bin Nasser, the Tunisian referee of the match in 1986, who collected the item at full time and kept it for three decades before selling it for $2.37 million in 2022. The new owner had previously attempted to sell it in 2023, but it didn’t meet the minimum value set.
Fires
As of August 24, the United States has had nearly 51,000 wildfires, blazes that have burned over 7.8 million acres. Compared to the 10-year average, the number of fires is 129 percent of normal, and the acres burned is 168 percent of typical. Last year over the same period, there were just 45,331 fires and 4,065,073 acres burned.
Adam Kovac, Scientific American
Rhine
The Rhine River has made a slight recovery following some much-needed rain. According to Germany’s inland navigation agency, the navigable water gauge at Kaub — a crucial chokepoint — is back to 60 cm as of Monday after getting as low as five cm last week. The navigable gauge ordinarily required to pass Kaub is 1.5 meters, but as it stands, small loads of 700 to 800 metric tons are possible.
Peanuts
The peanut is a very important agricultural product of Senegal, grown on 40 percent of the country’s farmland and a staple ingredient of nearly every dish in the national cuisine. The crop is beset by a devastating fungus, however, that has had disastrous health impacts: The fungus produces aflatoxin, which is a carcinogen that causes liver cancer, and is responsible for 4,000 cases of liver cancer annually, according to the African Union. There’s a possible solution, though; closely related fungi in the same family have been discovered to outcompete the poison-producing fungus, and this year, the government will test the product — Alfasafe — on 50,000 acres of the two million acres of peanut farms.
Speeding
A new study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that speeding has become generally culturally acceptable, with nearly half of respondents believing that keeping up with traffic is safer than obeying posted speed limits. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speeding was a factor in 30 percent of traffic fatalities in 2024. Enforcement — or at least a perceived threat of enforcement — was the single top reason expressed for people slowing down, with 79 percent saying they slowed down to avoid getting a ticket. Interestingly, seven in 10 respondents backed automatic speed cameras in areas with a history or potential for speed-related crashes.
Krill
Antarctic krill is a crucial food source for penguins, seals, whales and more. They tend to congregate in dense groups in certain locations, where predators can feast on them. The manager of the Antarctic krill fishery is the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, and since 1991, there has been a threshold of 620,000 tons of krill across what’s referred to as Area 48. To specifically stave off fishing boats simply sweeping into the densest areas and catching every last krill in a region, there were also regional caps in place in 2009. Those regional caps expired in 2024, and the impact has been immediate: After decades of never hitting that 620,000-ton trigger level, that level has been hit with months left to go in the season for the past two seasons. Fleets target easy areas and empty them of krill while essentially ignoring other areas.
Kim S. Bernard, The Conversation
Boondoggle
The Cleveland Browns have made an enormous number of terrible decisions in the history of the NFL franchise, so it is an enormous feat to single out any one of them as the worst decision in the history of the Cleveland Browns. Still, it’s pretty easy: Deshaun Watson, a quarterback who has been a $230 million unproductive fiasco for the Browns, and that’s just his on-field performance. From 2022 to 2025, Watson was responsible for $92,395,992 in salary cap hit, the 10th highest among NFL quarterbacks. Those other nine quarterbacks produced at least 250.0 expected points added over replacement and averaged 550.9 EPA over replacement. Watson produced -6.5 EPA above replacement, the sixth-worst of any QB with at least 500 pass attempts.
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I ended up subscribed to all sorts of Browns content….probably because I had a sick curiously about how Watson would do there. (And because I had an inappropriate Fantasy team that referenced it….)
Yes, that might be one of the most disastrous trades. Ever.
But watching them can be entertaining when it gets around to snowing.