I get a lot of emails from people who want more news that can distract them from all the nonstop political craziness. This one ought to do the trick: Spiders could theoretically eat every human on Earth in one year: “Spiders are quite literally all around us. A recent entomological survey of North Carolina homes turned up spiders in 100 percent of them, including 68 percent of bathrooms and more than three-quarters of bedrooms. There’s a good chance at least one spider is staring at you right now, sizing you up from a darkened corner of the room, eight eyes glistening in the shadows.”

+ Not your thing? Try this variation on the theme: “In South Florida, cane toads are so numerous that they seem to be dropping from the sky. They’re overtaking parking lots and backyards, can weigh almost six pounds, and pack enough poison to kill pets. Why the surge?” Frogpocalypse Now. (If neither of these stories is enough to shift your attention, I’ll try to find something about locusts.)