Oklahoma has banned fortune tellers from charging since 1915. Gifts and donations are banned too. The law passed, and none of them saw it coming.

A young man ordered twenty roses for his sweetheart’s birthday, one for each year of her age. The florist liked the young man and wanted to be generous.

— from Toaster’s Handbook, 1914. Got one worse than that? Hit reply.

They agreed on one story before you walked in.

Seen something funnier? Reply with a picture you took — a dog in a hat, a sign gone wrong, whatever made you laugh this week.

October 22, 1964: The Swedish Academy voted to give its Nobel Prize in Literature to Jean-Paul Sartre, a French writer. Eight days earlier, Sartre had written to say he would not take it. The Academy chose him anyway. It said his refusal did not change the award, but there would be no ceremony.

Also today: Same date, 1975: the Soviet probe Venera 9 landed on Venus and sent back the first picture from the surface of another planet. One of its two lens caps did not come off, so the view covered half the circle planned. The lander worked for 53 minutes.

From 1964 to 1985, Mr. Whipple begged shoppers not to squeeze the Charmin. How many commercials did he star in?

A) 126
B) 48
C) 504
D) 250

Answer’s at the very bottom. Try it first. 👀

Nepal is a Himalayan country between India and China, a bit bigger than Arkansas. This year its wildlife department counted 429 wild tigers. In 2009 the count was 121. That is more than three times as many.

The count ran from December 31 to April 23. Teams set up about 1,100 cameras at 1,900 spots in the southern forests. The cameras take a picture when an animal walks past. Each tiger has its own stripes, like a fingerprint, so the pictures show which tiger is which.

Most parks gained. Parsa went from 41 tigers in 2022 to 71, and Banke went from 25 to 51. Bardiya fell from 125 to 112. Nepal has counted more tigers in every survey since 2009, with 198 in 2013, 235 in 2018 and 355 in 2022. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation released the 429 on July 29, Global Tiger Day.

Keep smiling,
The Distraction Desk

C — 504 commercials. The actor, Dick Wilson, worked only 16 days a year on them, and Charmin mailed him toilet paper every month.

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