Numlock News: February 26, 2025 • Diamonds, Huckleberries, Tequila

Feb 26, 2025

Huckleberries

Huckleberries in the Mountain West have resisted cultivation and can’t be grown commercially on farms. As a result, they are gathered commercially every summer, with Gifford Pinchot National Forest in southern Washington the only such forest with a large-scale commercial huckleberry program. Some want that to end, as the huckleberries had been protected by treaties with tribes but are now valuable commercial products. Good secluded berry patches are getting harder and harder to find as commercial pickers sweep through areas that locals once harvested from. The buyers pay $27.50 per gallon, and Gifford Pinchot sells seasonal permits to commercial pickers for $105 with a 70-gallon limit. Another permit costs $60 for a two-week limit. Last year Gifford Pinchot sold 928 permits for $83,445.

Josephine Woolington, High Country News

Ne Zha 2

Ne Zha 2 has become the highest-grossing animated film of all time, making $1.9 billion from a breathtaking 80,000 screens in just four weeks. Most movies with that success can only do so by succeeding everywhere, going worldwide and earning fortunes in territory after territory. In contrast, Ne Zha 2 has essentially made all its money in China alone — it made just $15 million in the largest market in the world, North America — and, it turns out that’s more than enough. Domestically, the movie’s got some patriotic momentum behind it since it was bound to be in record books. If the movie ends up at the $2.09 billion that it is currently projected at, it would be the fifth-biggest box office of all time.

Rebecca Rubin and Naman Ramachandran, Variety

Critics

The New York Drama Critics Circle is a local theater critics group that has been giving out awards since 1935, ever since the founders got mad at the Pulitzer snubs. The prize in the early years was a nickel-bronze plaque, a relief of a 1790 performance of the first American comedy performed by professionals, which took place at the John Street Theater. The practice changed in the 1940s when they switched to plaster. At some point, they lost the matrix for the plaster and the NYDCC has given out certificates ever since. Still, they’ve been on the hunt for a lead that could help them recreate their once iconic prize. Good news came in 2023, when an auction at Bonhams from the John Steinbeck escape included, in a stroke of luck, the 1938 plaque he won for Of Mice and Men, which the group’s president obtained for $3,000. Ten molds were made of the plaque at a foundry in Greenpoint, and this spring, a playwright will win a metal plaque for the first time in 80 years.

Michael Schulman, The New Yorker

Tequila

The Mexican state that produces most tequila, Jalisco, has been enjoying a tourism bump as the spirit rises in popularity. From 2019 to 2023, tourism grew 19 percent, reaching 1.2 million visitors, despite the pandemic emerging smack in the middle of that period. Tourism to the region is rising in general, and the tequila distillers are stepping up, with Jose Cuervo expanding its tourism offerings to visiting Americans. Most foreign tourism to the town of Tequila came by way of Guadalajara, often aboard the Tequila Express train, which was relaunched in 2024 after six years of sitting idle.

Zach Geballe, Vine Pair

WNBA

Diana Taurasi has announced her retirement, capping off the current greatest-of-all-time career in the WNBA. Taurasi is the leading scorer in WNBA history and has won six Olympic gold medals, playing every one of her 20 seasons for the Phoenix Mercury. Her 10,646 points in the regular season is almost 3,000 higher than the second-highest scorer, she’s the all-time leader in three-pointers, she has three WNBA championships, was the 2009 MVP and a two-time WNBA Finals MVP.

Sean Gregory, Time

Huns

A new DNA analysis published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at the graves of hundreds of Huns buried from 400 to 500 CE in Hungary, in an attempt to discern where precisely the nomadic warriors under Attila were from. Historians believe “Hun” comes from “Xiongnu,” who were steppe nomads recorded as threatening China from 200 BC to 100 CE. The DNA analysis showed that, yep, some of the Huns were descendants of Xiongnu elites. But also, this was an army that was keen on recruiting a multi-ethnic tour de force that racked up recruits en route to Rome. The larger coalition also included lots of people from tribes closer to Rome and their diverse burial rites back up that idea. Rather than a mass migration of a steppe society into Europe, the DNA analysis suggests the Xiongnu elite scattered. Some moved west, adapting to local cultures and marrying into other tribes, and eventually, Attila brought their descendants together to plunder Italy.

Andrew Curry, Science

Diamonds

The government of Botswana has inked a major deal with De Beers — the largest producer of diamonds in the world — that will define the next several decades of their dealings. Botswana’s share of the diamonds produced by joint venture Debswana will rise from 25 percent to 50 percent, and Botswana will get 10 billion pula (US$712 million) in development funding. The mining licenses for Debswana, which were set to expire in 2029, have been extended through 2054. The fates of Botswana and De Beers are heavily intertwined: Debswana diamond production accounts for 80 percent of the Botswana economy, and Botswana supplies 70 percent of De Beer’s rough diamonds.

Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.com

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