The “Spanish Stonehenge” emerges from its watery grave

Europe is once again in the midst of a historically severe drought. Now an ancient site known as the "Spanish Stonehenge"—submerged underwater by a reservoir for decades—has been fully exposed for the second time since 2019 due to low water levels. The site is also known as the Dolmen of Guadalperal, a circular grouping of 150 large vertical granite stones (called orthostats) dating back to between 2000 and 3000 BCE. German archaeologist Hugo Obermaier discovered it in 1926.

Suspects in bizarre Alabama shooting posted about New Age conspiracy theories

“2 Goddess and a starseed are stranded in Colorado,” Yasmine Hider wrote in a frantic Instagram post on May 23. “Went to go camping out in the mountains and got snowed in.” She posted a photo of a snowy mountain scene, and then a second image of herself alongside a woman named Krystal Pinkins and Pinkins’ five-year-old son. All three beam into the camera, the women grinning, the boy’s arms outstretched. Four months later, Hider and Pinkins are in custody in county jail in Ashland, Alabama, charged with murder, kidnapping, and robbery after a violent alleged attack on two college students in the woods of Alabama.

Guessing C every time gets you a passing grade on the New York State algebra exam

It might seem hard to believe, but Ed Knight has done the math, and he shows his work in this Medium post. If you were to pick C for every answer on the New York State algebra exam, you would wind up passing (which, due to grading on a curve, apparently requires a mark of just 26 out of 86). "Because the Regents exams are important, NYSED is very careful to produce high quality tests that challenge the students and accurately measure and report student progress," he writes. "Ha, just kidding. That car is driving you right off a cliff."

Brazil receives the embalmed heart of a Portuguese monarch

The embalmed heart of the Portuguese monarch who declared the independence of Brazil from Portugal 200 years ago was received with the military honors of a head of state in Brasilia on Tuesday at the start of bicentenary celebrations. The heart, kept in formaldehyde in a glass jar inside a gold urn, arrived at the presidential palace in an open Rolls Royce flanked by a mounted color guard and was received by President Jair Bolsonaro with a gun salute. Air Force planes flew past.

Maybe the TV show ALF looked like fun, but it sure sounds like hell

In case you don't remember it, ALF was a popular prime-time comedy in the late 1980s, and the central character was an alien (his name stood for Alien Life Form) with a sarcastic sense of humour. Anyway, filming the show was apparently incredibly time-consuming and complicated, to the point where a half-hour show took more than 24 hours to film. And co-star Max Wright apparently got so frustrated and enraged that he physically attacked the puppet and had to be restrained. When the last show filmed he got in his car and left without a word.

Why is this interesting – the matchbook edition

From a great recent version of the great "Why is this interesting?" newsletter comes the story of the humble matchbook, one of the most successful marketing inventions in history — patented in 1892 by Joshua Pusey, a Philadelphia patent lawyer, and inventor. A cigar smoker, he found regular matches cumbersome, so he developed lighter matches bound in a paper book. Three years later, he sold the patent to Diamond Match Company for $5,000 (they moved the striker to the outside, so the matches wouldn't self-ignite while they were in your pocket). At one point 35 billion matchbooks were being manufactured every year.

Latvia demolishes a monument to the Russian army that was erected in its capital city