Class of 2026

Jericho High School in Nassau County, Long Island, had not one, not two, but 21 valedictorians to represent the 300 seniors who graduated in June, UPI reported on May 18th. The school determines valedictorians based on unweighted letter grades. “It shows a lot of success,” co-principal Brian Cummings said. “Historically, this is the way we’ve done it with letter grades. The difference between a 99.8 and a 99.83 is insignificant, so letter grades really capture what we represent.” With such a large number of valedictorians, not all of them would be able to give a commencement speech, so school officials had to get creative. “We’re going to put them at the front of the procession,” Cummings said. “We’re [also] creating a video that we’re going to share with the community about their accomplishments.” [UPI, 5/18/26]

Wrong Order

A man who purchased a bag of greens from a Woolworths in Western Australia found more green than expected inside, reported 102.5 ABC Perth on May 17th. The Australian man, unnamed in the report, opened the lettuce and discovered a small frog among the leaves. “He’s the most casual Australian ever, and he’s like, ‘Bro, I’ve got a lettuce, like a frog in my lettuce,’” his roommate Laura Jones, a native New Zealander, said. Jones shared a video on TikTok, where millions of viewers caught a glimpse of the amphibious stowaway. “It’s quite a decent-sized frog for a big adventure,” Billie Le Pine, another roommate, said. “The bag of lettuce does have holes in it to keep the produce fresh, so he had a snack and some air on his way over.” The trio named the frog Greg and released him at a nearby dam. Woolworths said the incident is under investigation and called it “an isolated event with no other reported cases.” “I’m just glad Greg is back in his natural habitat,” Le Pine said. [ABC, 5/17/26]

Owl Be Seeing You

An owl in Utah is soaring to new heights after undergoing surgery to repair its concrete-damaged feathers, UPI reported on May 19th. The owl was found inside a concrete mixer in St. George, Utah, back in November, and taken to a rehabilitation center at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab. Workers gave the owl a series of 20-minute baths to remove the concrete, which covered 25 percent of its body. Despite the team’s care, the owl’s feathers were damaged in a way that would have kept it from flying silently, a survival necessity for great horned owls. “That led the Wild Friends team to take a training course about a procedure they had never done before: Imping, which requires using donor feathers and adhesive to replace the raptor feathers,” the sanctuary said in a news release. “A wildlife rescue in Northern Utah gave Wild Friends feathers from a great horned owl of similar size who had passed away.” Four staff members worked for 90 minutes to reconstruct the feathers, replacing 10 primary feathers and one secondary feather on the bird’s right wing. “The first few feathers were extremely nerve-wracking, but as we got into the groove, the imping became more comfortable, and everything went smoothly,” supervisor Bart Richwalski said. After the owl came out of anesthesia, Richwalski used a decibel reader to measure the sound of the owl’s flight. With all looking good, staff released the owl and it flew away on its own. “I didn’t know that my heart was beating until I saw him leave. I was beside myself, knowing that after all this time, he was healthy and back in the wild,” Richwalski said. “It was such a good feeling.” [UPI, 5/19/26]

Round and Round They Go

An Atlanta neighborhood has an unusual kind of pest: Empty Waymo vehicles — autonomous, driverless cars owned by Alphabet Inc. — circling cul-de-sacs, ABC News reported on May 15th. “I think yesterday morning, we had 50 cars that came through between 6 and 7,” one resident said. “It’s almost every little cul-de-sac in our area, so I think it’s a problem,” said another. The glut of robotaxis worries residents. “We’re families, we have small animals and pets, got kids getting on the bus in the morning and it just doesn’t feel safe to have that traffic,” a resident said. One neighbor even tried putting up their own sign to deter the vehicles, but it caused a traffic jam of Waymos turning around to get out. Residents have attempted to reach out to local and state officials, as well as to Waymo. In a statement, Waymo said it is “committed to being good neighbors” and “we take community feedback seriously and have already worked with our fleet partner to address this routing behavior.” [ABC News, 5/15/26]

NEWS OF THE WEIRD
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