Good week, Bad week

Good week for:

Closing the sale, after Katie Francis of Oklahoma City broke an all-time record by selling 18,107 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in a seven-week sales period, working up to 13 hours a day. “She’s a real go-getter,” said her mom.

Classroom discipline, after a French math teacher began writing “spoilers” from Game of Thrones on the blackboard every time the students became too noisy. The tactic produces what one student described as “a religious silence.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Waldo, a 1,800-pound steer, after he kicked down a gate and escaped a North Dakota slaughterhouse, and was then adopted by a Michigan animal sanctuary. “He doesn’t know how lucky he is yet,” said the farmer who sold him. “But he’ll figure it out soon.”

Bad week for:

Calling 911, after a sick Washington, D.C., woman summoned an ambulance, but had to take a subway to the hospital when the two paramedics got into such a heated argument they ignored her.

Loving your cellphone, after a man jumped onto New York City subway tracks to retrieve his, and had to press himself in a gap as a train passed over him. After the train screeched to a halt, the man climbed out from under it and ran away.

Going to the circus, after three angry elephants escaped handlers at the Moolah Shrine Circus in Missouri, and went on a rampage in the parking lot, smashing cars and RVs. “Things started shaking,” said a witness. “I looked up and saw three elephants coming toward us. You could tell they were upset.”