Oddball News That Has Nothing to Do With Coronavirus

By Dan McCormick

Let’s face it, as much as we want to stay informed about what’s going on around us in the coronavirus world, we could all use a little break from the infectious disease news. No fear, we’ve put together two random stories to take your mind off it all.

Alex Jones Gets Busted

Our ‘favorite’ provocative conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, 46, is in some legal trouble today. And no, it has nothing to do with gay frogs. According to several news outlets, crazy pants caught a DWI charge in Travis County, Texas Tuesday. Deputies were called out on a family disturbance report that sounds like and his wife had gotten into it, and the caller believed he drove away after doing some drinking.

Lo and behold, they found Jones, who admitted to drinking a bottle of sake while out to dinner earlier, was arrested and booked into the Travis County Jail with bail set at $3,000.

Alex Jones mugshot, courtesy of Travis County Sheriff’s Office.

In true “Infowars” fashion, Jones claims that because he blew below the .08 legal limit that his booking was part of a “countywide dragnet” to pick up slack for lagging DWI arrest numbers. The deputy’s affidavit agrees that his BAC was below the legal limit —he hit somewhere between 0.076 and 0.079 — but that they reserve the right to haul someone in if they’re found them to be otherwise impaired.

According to the statement, Jones failed parts of the stand-on-one-leg and walk-and-turn tests. Poor Alex.

New Kid On the Block, New Planet

This story made some rounds a couple months ago, but it’s cool enough to revisit. A 17-year-old boy just expanded our universe. Seriously.

The teen picked up a two-month internship at NASA after the school year, where he’d just finished up the 11th grade at his Scarsdale, New York high school.

The boy, Wolf Cukier, was pretty much expected to spend his first few days making coffee and listening to pep talks about a career with the agency, but Cukier is one of those extra kind of kids. He was peeping a solar system light years away and noticed something nobody else had, something blocking light from two stars.

New planet TOI 1338 b discovered by 17-year-old NASA intern. Photo courtesy of NASA.

He took the discovery to his mentor and they pulled in some additional eyes — turns out NASA just confirmed the spot in January as a new circumbinary planet they’ve since named TOI 1338 b.

Cukier said his brother really wanted to call it Wolftopia, but he wasn’t given naming rights.

Still looks pretty darn cool on a teenage resume.

Thanks, Wolf!