By Walt Hickey
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Oz
The wraparound, immersive The Wizard of Oz adaptation at Sphere in Las Vegas has already generated $65 million in ticket sales, moving 500,000 tickets since launching on August 28. About 280,000 of those tickets were bought after the premiere, a sign that word of mouth has been pretty good, or at least Vegas has found yet another flashy spectacle for the tourists. The success of Sphere, a $2.3 billion venue, has so far ridden on concerts by Dead & Company and the Eagles. However, hosting replayable stuff that doesn’t require the desiccated husks of a rock band to grace a stage each night is a crucial next step, even as The Wizard of Oz cost up to $100 million to produce.
Skimming
Controversy has roiled the world stone skimming competition on the Scottish island of Easdale, which hosted 2,200 people from 27 countries this year. Per the rules, the stones that competitors skip on the water must come from naturally occurring island slate. But this year, some suspiciously perfect stones were used by entrants. Each competitor is allowed three skims, and the stones must bounce at least twice. The entrants with illegally modified stones did eventually step forward and bowed out, and it was an altogether successful event with the winner kimming his stones a cumulative 177 meters. Had the cheaters not stepped forward, based on my admittedly BritBox-influenced understanding of the criminal justice system of the United Kingdom, an elderly woman would be dispatched to the island by the local council and would relentlessly investigate this mystery using her unexpected charms, guile and insight into the human condition. If it were a serious case, she may even have to be assisted by a local vicar.
Grading
According to the preliminary 2025 report, the number of New York City restaurants that have an A grade is in decline. It found that only 87.1 percent of restaurants evaluated in the first four months of fiscal 2025 earned an A, down from 90 percent in fiscal 2022. One reason for this is a decrease in the number of Department of Health inspectors, which means long lag times between receiving a lower grade and updating the restaurant’s cleanliness based on improvements. That waiting period can run as long as 11 to 13 months now. Since the pandemic, there is now just one inspector for every 414 restaurants in the city.
Offensive
Offensive linemen are enjoying a moment of prominence in the NFL. The average salary for the top 10 tackles has grown 75 percent since 2019, keeping pace with the salary growth of quarterbacks (78 percent over the same period) and nearly double that of the running backs. Just for those out of the know, such as my fellow New York Giants fans, an “offensive line” is the group of large gentlemen employed by a football team to protect the quarterback from the onslaught of the defense. This is the interesting part: they even go so far as to create opportunities for running backs to advance in the process. The number of offensive linemen picked in the first three rounds of the draft is up to 20.4 from 2021 to 2025, up by a third compared to the period from 2007 to 2011.
MMR
A new nationwide analysis of county-level vaccination data found that since 2019, 77 percent of counties have reported notable declines in childhood vaccination rates. That’s not all, 53 percent of counties saw exemption rates more than double, and among states that collect data for measles-mumps-rubella vaccines, 68 percent of counties now have immunization rates below the crucial herd immunity threshold of 95 percent. St. Louis saw its MMR vaccination rates among kindergartners decline from about 90 percent in 2010 to just 74 percent last year, below the rate seen in the measles outbreak epicenter of Gaines County, Texas.
Erika Edwards, Jason Kane, Stephanie Gosk, Mustafa Fattah and Joe Murphy, NBC News
Records
Starting in the 1950s, cereal boxes would also include a thin plastic film on which a cheap record was stamped. It was a gimmick, starting with novelty acts and then eventually including even popular performers like the Monkees and the Jackson 5. These cereal box records — pioneered originally by Rainbo Records and General Mills — have become the objects of obsession for a small community of collectors, selling 30 million boxes of Wheaties in the process. One collector has over 10,000 cereal box records.
Christian Kriticos, The New York Times
Baltic
There are 1.6 million tons of old ammunition at the bottom of the Baltic Sea that date back to the Second World War, and their casings are getting rusty and emitting toxic TNT compounds from within. Most of it was dumped after the war at the insistence of the Allies. However, a new 100 million euro program from the German government is sending divers down to assess how best to rid the seas of the deadly detritus.
Kirsten Grieshaber, The Associated Press
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The big OLs are related to the rule changes. The Eagles’ “tush push” is part of the same thing. It’s also why you’re seeing fullbacks again.
The Baltic ammo is interesting. I wonder how it was packaged. Lusitania is in a lot shallower water than Titanic, but there’s hardly any photos. That’s not because of the broken ammo boxes sitting on the seabed. Those weren’t there. My high school teachers insisted that the Germans aggressively attacked an innocent passenger ship.