New York and Texas are separated by just a single time zone, which is good for the Knicks, as teams on the East Coast tend to perform worse when they head out west to play basketball since the athletes need to process jet lag. The win percentage of Eastern teams playing a road game that tips off at the equivalent of 4:...

According to Yelp's 2026 Trends forecast, there was a 252 percent increase in searches for "all you can eat buffet," and a number of buffet brands have been enjoying success, such as Korean buffet KPOT rising from three locations in 2020 to 150 by the end of the year. Gabriel Baumgaertner and Kate Krader, Blo...

#smoking Preliminary findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the fraction of Americans who are smokers at 9.1 percent, a new all-time low. That's down from close to 42 percent of U.S. adults smoking in the mid-1960s, and continues the gradual shift away from tobacco use. The use of electronic c...

....The Bible... The publishing industry is coming to quite a different conclusion than the film industry, given that the data shows some of the biggest and most reliable I.P. in books these days is just straight up the Bible. In 2019, Circana began tracking Bibles, devotionals, and bible study guides as a single categ...

The owner of Splenda is buying the owner of arch-rival non-sugar sweetener Equal, uniting the sugar alternatives under a single company. Heartland Food Products (which owns Splenda) has agreed to buy Whole Earth Brands for an undisclosed sum, which will also bring the Swerve and Chuker sugar alternatives into the Splen...

The market for men's fragrances has grown considerably in the United States in just the past few years, and in 2025 stood at $3.29 billion, up from $2.49 billion in 2021. The number of influencers hawking smells has also increased sharply, according to social media data, which found that while there has been an eight-f...

The average listing price of a used car is $25,630 as of this year, up 33 percent from 2019. The used car business is somewhat infamous for the wide array of dealerships in the game, many of which have made a killing selling cars (and more importantly, the accompanying financing) to subprime buyers who lack other optio...

Americans are consuming more honey per capita than ever before, as of 2024, consuming 1.6 pounds of it per year, up from 1.3 pounds a decade before that and 0.9 pounds per capita as of two decades ago. Honey is pretty much an ideal substance for consumer brands, as it's a high-calorie sweetener that is somehow perceive...

A new forecast puts Chinese companies controlling 39 percent of global lithium production by 2030, up from about a third of production as of 2020. Australia, now the largest producer, would see its share of extraction fall from 43 percent in 2020 to 25 percent in 2030, particularly as African supplies of lithium rise f...

The story is legendary but has North Dakota lost track of the impact Peggy Lee had? Sure there's Lawrence Welk, and Angie Dickinson. But let's never forget Peggy Peggy Lee - 1920 Jazz singer, Peggy Lee, shared her Fever for music and got her big break when she began to sing for Benny Goodman. Nominated for 12 Grammys, ...

...Uncle Ted...? Ted Turner's Land Legacy When media titan Ted Turner died earlier this month, he was one of the largest individual landowners in North America, with holdings that included more than a dozen big ranches in six Western states. He brought bison back to many of his ranches, and reintroduced Mexican wolves ...

5 years after the pandemic now more than ever the best college graduation advice I can give remains,"Wear Sunscreen" As funny as you think this is. The point is made throughout the lyrics with some life advice we all can learn from no matter if we're a 22 year old college graduate or a 62 year old looking to...

A leisurely paced group paddle with local experts sharing their Red River knowledge. All skill levels welcome! SCHEDULE Backup dates will be the following week. Social on the Red River, May 27, led by Midwest Outdoors History of the Red River, June 17, led by Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County Animals and H...

It's not really a data newsletter unless there's something about popular baby names (I don't make the rules). The 2025 findings, though, are a bit lackluster: America's most-used names haven't changed in seven years. New data from the Social Security Administration show that Olivia and Liam were again the top baby name...

Last Chance to Register There is still time to register to create your very own custom rain barrel! We must reach our class minimum by Monday otherwise the class will be cancelled. All skills levels are welcome! You can paint your barrel a simple solid color of your choosing or you can get creative. Dates: May 20 AND 2...

Don't anger Canadians, we really commit to a grudge. Cell phone data from the University of Toronto suggest the Canuck travel boycott of the US is far greater than official figures show - the real number is closer to 42 percent year-over-year, compared to the roughly 25 percent drop recorded by Statistics Canada. Of 26...

On the popularity scale, nuclear power sits pretty near the bottom. So this is pretty embarrassing for AI data centres: 71 percent of Americans oppose having one built in their area, while only 53 percent would reject a local nuclear plant. Those numbers are according to a new Gallup poll, which lists environmental con...

Are newly released songs losing their cultural foothold? By some measures, yes. Tracks released over 10 years ago now account for around 20 percent of the Spotify Top 100. As of this writing, the following songs have made the Spotify Top 100 every day for the last three months: "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers...

Polls say Americans' ideal movie length is 92 minutes, but Hollywood is no longer in that business. In the 1980s, 13 percent of wide theatrical releases ran under 90 minutes; in the 2020s, it's seven percent and most of those are animated kids' films. Meanwhile, the share of wide releases running over two hours has mor...

Beast Industries is hosting a ritzy breakfast in New York City to court brand and ad executives, hosted by none other than the Beast himself (Jimmy Donaldson) and Jeffrey Housenbold, the CEO of Beast Industries. Notably, this is TV upfronts week, where TV companies and streamers pitch advertisers on spending commitment...