A matter of taste

A romantic gambit to win back the affections of a former girlfriend fell flat in Zhengzhou, China, on June 19. Chinese media reported that a student from a local university arranged 99 watermelons and a cake on a campus sports field to surprise his ex-girlfriend, whom he thought would walk past the field. When the girl did not show up as predicted, a gathering crowd began pilfering the fruit and campus security had to disperse the gathering.

Skin in the game

Chicago Blackhawks right winger Marian Hossa may be retiring from his long NHL career, and he has his uniform to blame. The 38-year-old announced June 21 that he will miss the entire 2017-18 season due to a rare allergy to his hockey equipment. That career pause may become permanent if his doctors cannot solve Hossa’s skin disorder.

Fears gone by

In a move to reduce paperwork at federal agencies, the Trump administration on June 15 finally ended the federal government’s preparation for the Year 2000 bug. During the late 1990s, the government tasked employees with solving a potential computer glitch that would disable computers when the year changed from 1999 to 2000. “We’re looking for stuff everyone agrees is a complete waste of time,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said. And eliminating work on a 17-year-old threat seemed like a good candidate to the director.

The house always wins

Katrina Bookman thought she had won nearly $43 million at the Resorts World Casino in Queens, N.Y. Instead the casino offered her a steak dinner. A lawyer for Bookman filed a lawsuit on June 14 following an August 2016 incident in which a casino slot machine’s “bells, noises and lights” all indicated she had won a big prize. She even took a selfie next to the machine’s screen. The casino, however, says the machine had malfunctioned and offered the dinner as a consolation.

Too hot to handle

It’s not unusual for weather to cause flight cancellations, but it is when the flights are from Phoenix. American Airlines on June 20 announced that it would cancel dozens of flights from Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix due to a predicted 120-degree temperature. The airline said the predicted high was above the safety parameters for some of its aircraft. Although the official temperature reached only 119, it was still above the operating threshold of some of the airline’s fleet. In June 1990, Phoenix experienced 122 degrees, the all-time high for the city.

Breaking and entering

Inmates at the Montana State Prison have a new group of cellmates. According to the Montana Department of Corrections, a number of gophers have chewed their way through window screens at the facility’s low-security unit and entered cells. According to officials, some inmates have taken precautions like using cardboard to seal up their rooms, while others have made friends with the animals by feeding them.

Friendly reminder

More than a decade after botching a home repair, Jerry Lynn of Ross Township, Pa., is still living with the consequences. In 2004, Ross had the seemingly genius idea of lowering an alarm clock on a string inside a wall in order to let him know where to drill a hole. “As I was laying it down, all of a sudden I heard it go ‘thunk!’ as it came loose,” Lynn told KDKA. With its alarm set, the clock began ringing at 7:50 p.m. each night, but Lynn said he expected the battery to last a few months at the most. Now, 13 years later, Lynn says the batteries have kept the alarm clock going strong and his evenings noisy.

Toys by the ton

In what will be a relief to German middle-school teachers, customs officials in the European nation announced on June 16 that it had confiscated 39 tons of fidget spinners and planned on sending the gyrating plastic-and-metal toys to the crusher. Officials had taken the spinners from shipments landing at the Frankfurt airport from Chinese factories trying to capitalize on the mania surrounding the toys. German health and safety officials have labeled the gizmos as choking hazards.

Hidden signal

A pair of thieves probably thought they had gotten away with it after they broke into a Santa Clara, Calif., company and carried off a box of goods on May 30. But their choice of loot, which may have looked like chargers to the thieves, gave police a distinct advantage. That’s because the hand-sized yellow devices in the box were actually GPS trackers typically used by freight manufacturers to track the location of shipments. After discovering the theft, the founder of the Silicon Valley startup, Roambee, began using a company computer to track his stolen devices and alerted authorities. Police made an arrest within 48 hours and recovered $30,000 worth of the devices.