Numlock News: June 18, 2025 • Stars, Heist, Chuck E. Cheese
By Walt Hickey
Heist
Seven California men have been charged with stealing $100 million worth of gold, gems and luxury watches from a Brinks truck, a heist which had been a mystery for the past three years. The men tracked a truck containing 73 bags of jewels and stole 24 bags at a rest stop. The thieves didn’t use any weapons during the robbery.
Perelman
Ron Perelman, the eccentric former owner of Marvel, has been locked in litigation over several paintings that may or may not have been damaged in a fire. The suit (against big hitters such as Lloyd’s of London, Chubb and American International Group) has devolved to the point that Perelman is arguing that the affected paintings are not as vibrant as they used to be. The insurers simply doubt that the art was damaged at all in the fire. They observed that $100 million was paid out to Perelman for 30 affected works, and that five of the works in question were insured for many times their market value. One painting at the center of the dispute — Campbell’s Soup Can by some guy named Andy Warhol — was insured for $100 million despite an appraisal of only $12.5 million in 2018.
Chris Dolmetsch and Anika Arora Seth
Cup
The Stanley Cup has gotten banged up by the Florida Panthers, with the bowl of the trophy now cracked and the bottom dented. I must be clear here; the Stanley Cup has been defiled in myriad ways, and the Floridian depredations are, at least so far, par for the course. The Panthers have won the Cup for the second year in a row, causing significant psychic damage to the parts of Canada that lie east of Quesnel and west of Dauphin. The 131-year-old silver chalice has seen some stuff and has even been dropped during a boat parade this decade.
Charles Entertainment Cheese
Chuck E. Cheese will soon release a Christmas Special. It will be a venture that decides whether the thing missing from one of the biggest and most emotional holidays of the year is the perspective of a rat selling mediocre pizza and operating a children’s casino. As it stands, Chuck E. Cheese has over 30 licensed partners in retail and over 600 “fun centers” around the world.
Japan
The nation of Japan saw visitor numbers go up by 21.5 percent, hitting a new record of 2.639 million for May. This is thanks to increased flights from South Korea, China and Hong Kong. China alone was responsible for 44.8 percent of visitors. In April, tourism from Hong Kong was up 42.9 percent. At this rate, over 40 million visitors per year would easily be a new record for Japan.
Apocrypha
Biblical fiction is the hot new genre in the publishing industry; stories that take marginal characters from the Bible and turn them into bona fide stars have become the appealing new commodity. Publishing company Bethany House found that upping their output of books to 10 percent Biblical fiction has been effective at reaching audiences. Upcoming entries include a three-book series about biblical matriarchs and more books in their line about Queen Esther. The Biblical Fiction Finder database claims nearly 500 biblical and early church novels.
Stars
About 70,000 years ago, Scholz’s Star passed through the Oort Cloud, potentially shaking up a number of comets and other solar detritus in the process. This was the most well-known instance of a stellar flyby, which is when another star gets close to our own Sun. A new study analyzed 1,800 such stellar flybys and found that these transits had no effects on Earth’s climate over the past 56 million years. This is a relief since Orange Dwarf Giese 710 will come within 0.1663 light-years of Earth in about 1.29 million years.
If you subscribe, you get a Sunday edition! It’s fun, and supporters keep this thing ad-free. This is the best way to support a thing you like to read:
Thanks to the paid subscribers to Numlock News who make this possible. Subscribers guarantee this stays ad-free, and get a special Sunday edition. Consider becoming a full subscriber today.
Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news.
Check out the Numlock Book Club and Numlock award season supplement.
Previous Sunday subscriber editions: Dark Roofs · Geothermal · Stitch · Year of the Ring · Person Do Thing · Fun Factor · Low Culture · Romeo vs. Juliet · Traffic Cam Photobooth · Money in Politics ·
Sax Solo · Terra Nova · Didion · Me, But Better · Flow · Four Nations · Tabletop · Fortnite · Sleep · Climate Insurance ·
Work/Life Balance · Self-Driving · Geoglyphs · Nvidia · McDonald’s · No Such Thing · Nationalized Sports ·
Sunday Edition Archives: 2024 · 2023 · 2022 · 2021 · 2020 · 2019 · 2018
I think the last time I was at a Chuck E Cheese, I was on a date with a single mom, and her kid would now be in his thirties. I feel old.
This is bad Canadian geography. The "significant psychic damage" is in no way limited to BC.