Good week, Bad week

Good week for:

Wendi Deng Murdoch, Rupert’s 42-year-old third wife, who demonstrated both her loyalty and her combat skills when she punched a protestor who’d assaulted her 80-year-old husband with a shaving-cream pie. “I got him,” Wendi said after landing a left cross.

Big egos, after a billionaire sheik in Abu Dhabi had workmen carve his name—HAMAD—in 3,200-foot-long letters in the sand. The letters are visible from space.

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

New Jersey, after a poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University found that watching MTV’s Jersey Shore didn’t have a negative effect on Americans’ views of the Garden State. Of those who’d watched the show, 43 percent had a favorable view of New Jersey—slightly higher than among those who’d never seen Snooki, Pauly D, et al.

Bad week for:

Sharing a cell, after the Polk County, Fla., sheriff began charging inmates at the county jail for underwear—$2.54 for a pair of briefs and $4.48 for boxer shorts. If the inmates won’t pay for undies, said Sheriff Grady Judd, “they’re going to wear nothing.”

The Olde Ways, after police in New York state charged an Amish youth, 17, with driving a horse and buggy while holding an open can of beer. He was also charged with resisting arrest.

Vigorous workouts, after 17 people performing a Tae Bo workout on an upper floor of a South Korean skyscraper caused the building to shake for 10 minutes as if an earthquake had struck, forcing 3,000 people to evacuate. Scientists said the shaking produced by Tae Bo collided with the building’s “vertical vibration cycle.”