California ‘speed-cuber’ solves 3x3x3 Rubik’s cube in 3.13 seconds

A 21-year-old speedcubing champion broke a world record in the highly competitive sport by solving a 3x3x3 Rubik’s cube in 3.13 seconds.

Guinness World Records announced Max Park took on the record at Long Beach, Calif., and shaved 0.34 seconds off the record set by Chinese speedcuber Yusheng Du in 2018. Park formerly held the No. 2 spot in the sport with a fastest time of 3.63 seconds.

The champion puzzle cube solver already held the Guinness World Records titles for single solve and average solve for the 4x4x4 cube, 5x5x5 cube, 6x6x6 cube and 7x7x7 cube.

According to his parents, Schwan and Miki Park, Max was diagnosed with autism as a child and found speedcubing to be “a good therapy”.

“There was a time when Max couldn’t even open water bottles, but he showed interest in solving Rubik’s cubes,” they said.

Park was featured alongside friend and fellow speedcubing champion Feliks Zemdegs in the 2020 Netflix documentary The Speed Cubers.

Vending machines sell gold bars in South Korea

The popularity of gold bars is surging at convenience stores around South Korea as the value appreciates amid strong inflationary pressure across the globe.

Sales of gold bars at GS Retail’s convenience stores totalled $19 million in the past nine months ending in May. The gold bars, dispensed through vending machines, were introduced last September, offering five sizes, weighing 0.13 ounces to 1.3 ounces.

Prices fluctuate daily in keeping with the international valuation for gold. The popularity of gold bars at the stores has prompted GS Retail to increase the number of outlets carrying them to 29, with plans to hit 50 by year end.

Man finds one million pennies in home

A family cleaning out their home in Los Angeles stumbled upon several bags containing one million pennies.

John Reyes was cleaning out his father-in-law’s home when he made the discovery. The bags of pennies were in unopened, sealed bank bags.

“I’ve actually been contacted by a few coin collectors or people who specialise in this space and just based off some of the questions they asked me, I’ve had quite a few collectors tell me that this is something that shouldn’t be sold until we know what’s going on,” Reyes told.

According to the New York Post, the family determined that the coins are copper and not zinc, which the United States switched to in the 1980s.

Bear climbs into truck, eats worker’s lunch

Workers for a glass company captured video when a bear wandered up to their New Hampshire work site, climbed into a truck and feasted on a worker’s lunch.

A video posted by American Plate Glass shows the bear sitting in the passenger seat of a company truck in Sunapee and eating a worker’s lunch.

“I see something move out the corner of my eye and I turn, and it was a bear nonchalantly just having lunch in the front seat of the truck,” team member Curtis Fidler told.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 29th, 2023