Good week/bad week
Good week for:
Speeding, after a vehicle dubbed the “world’s fastest car” hit 628 mph in a test run in a South African desert. The British makers of the jet engine–powered car, named Bloodhound LSR, hope it will break the land speed record of 763 mph and reach 1,000 mph.
Staying married, after Bill Gates regained his crown as the world’s richest man. The Microsoft founder, 64, has a net worth of $110 billion—a billion more than Jeff Bezos, 55, who recently paid $35 billion to ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos in a divorce settlement.
High-tech chastity belts, with the news that evangelical Christians are licensing software programs to detect pornography being loaded onto their digital devices. The programs then alert “accountability partners” such as pastors or friends to intervene.
Bad week for:
Life imitating art, after two Arkansas college chemistry teachers were charged with making methamphetamine. One of the teachers, Bradley Allen Rowland, once praised Breaking Bad—a TV show about a chemistry teacher who becomes a meth maker—for being “spot on and accurate when it came to the science.”
Life imitating nonfiction, after University of Miami professor Bruce Bagley, who wrote a book about illegal drug trafficking and organized crime in the Americas, was charged with helping corrupt Venezuelan officials launder about $2.5 million in the U.S.
Humility, after a Kentucky man won a three-year court battle to personalize his license plate with the phrase “IM GOD.” A federal judge ruled that Ben Hart, an atheist, had a First Amendment right to say what he wanted on his vanity plate.
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