Good week, Bad week

Good week for:

Maturity, after 2,250 Americans were asked in a poll to pick an age at which they could live in good health forever. The average person’s favorite age was 50.

Solomonic decisions, after a judge in Spain ordered a divorcing couple to split their 2,700-square-foot apartment down the middle to create two new homes. Because of the country’s economic crisis, neither spouse could afford to buy a new property, so the judge called the division “the lesser of two evils.”

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

Small print, after a Hawaiian woman persuaded authorities to redesign the state’s official ID cards, so her 35-letter surname could fit. Authorities had previously suggested Janice Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele use her birth name: Worth.

Bad week for:

Interventionism, after a Brazilian soccer team was booted from the playoffs because its masseur ran onto the field when the other team got a breakaway and blocked two potential goals. “I did it because of my love for the club,” said the masseur.

Selfies, after the Hong Kong Marathon announced it might ban cellphones from the event, because runners were causing bloody pileups when they stopped to take pictures of themselves.

Kohei Jinno of Tokyo, whose home and business were demolished to make way for the 1964 Olympics, and who has now been told he must move again, because his new home is on the site of the 2020 Summer Games. “Deep inside, I have a kind of grudge against the Olympics,” said Jinno, 79.