Good week, Bad week

Good week for:

Taking a vacation in Anchorage, after another polar air mass sent temperatures plunging throughout much of the U.S., with ice and snow paralyzing Atlanta and much of the South. Alaskans, meanwhile, were enjoying a bizarre warm spell in the mid-40s.

Looking before you sit down, after the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled 360,000 “Flushmate” toilet-flushing systems, warning that the product can cause toilets to explode, “posing impact and laceration hazards to consumers.”

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

Getting punched by Kanye West, afterTMZ.com reported that an 18-year-old Los Angeles man whom West beat up when he yelled racial slurs at West’s fiancée, Kim Kardashian, has accepted $250,000 not to press charges.

Bad week for:

Bill Gates, after the newly crowned Norwegian world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, 23, took just nine moves and 80 seconds to checkmate the Microsoft founder. “Well, that was fast,” Gates said at the end of the speed game.

Order in the court, after a British jury burst into laughter when they were told that a man accused of having sex with a sheep only did so after being turned down by a cow. “If you can try to get over your laughter over lunch,” said the annoyed judge, “that would be great.”

Giving peace a chance, after Pope Francis released two white doves in Vatican City in an appeal for peace in Ukraine. The birds were immediately attacked by a seagull and a large black crow.