MONDAY, MAY 11 This week of speeding locomotives, self-possessed newscasters, and a heartening protest against a Northwest threat kicked off with a largely unremarkable day, unless you count news of the death of that human centipede of popular entertainment American Idol (which will cease broadcasting after its next season) or news of the birth of Olive Garden's new breadstick sandwiches. (When God closes a door, She opens a window.)

TUESDAY, MAY 12 In worse news, the week continued in Philadelphia, where an Amtrak train carrying 238 passengers and five crew members sped into a left turn at more than twice the recommended speed and flew off the rails, injuring more than 200 and killing eight. Among the dead: Associated Press employee Jim Gaines, US Naval Academy midshipman Justin Zemser, and dean of student affairs for City University of New York's Medgar Evers College, Derrick Griffith. But the central figure in today's crash is the train's engineer, identified as 32-year-old Brandon Bostian from New York. "According to Bostian's LinkedIn profile, he has been an engineer for Amtrak since 2010, and was a conductor for four years before that," reported CNN. "Prior to Amtrak, Bostian worked as a cashier at Target." More importantly, while working for Amtrak, Bostian doubled as an online critic of Amtrak, "ranting online for years about the perils of fatigued train operators," as the New York Post reported, offering a sample of Bostian's online critiques. "Everyone wants an extension to hours of service to avoid inconvenience, but what will you say when the crew that's been on duty for longer than 12 hours accidentally falls asleep and passes a stop signal and rear-ends a loaded hazmat train, killing dozens or hundreds of people?" ("Amtrak officials would not say what Bostian's work shift was on Tuesday," reports the Post.)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13 In lighter news, the week continued in Toronto, with a story that commenced this past Sunday, when CityNews reporter Shauna Hunt was filming an interview after the Toronto FC soccer game and was interrupted by a group of drunk men continuing the bro-approved "media prank" of screaming "Fuck her right in the pussy!" in front of TV cameras. Hunt promptly confronted the interrupting yellers and questioned the men about their motives, and was rewarded with belittling mockery and bullshit explanations like "It's not about you." "It's a disgusting thing to say," said the unflappable Hunt. "It's degrading to women... I get this every single day, 10 times a day, by rude guys like you... it is disrespectful and degrading to me." "I don't care. It's fucking hilarious," replied one of the drunken men, who was today identified by the Hamilton Spectator as Shawn Simoes, an assistant network-management engineer at Hydro One—Ontario's electric company—who made a reported $100,000 a year until his poor decisions went viral and caused him to become a former assistant network-management engineer, with Hydro One firing him for violating their employee code of conduct. Live and learn.

THURSDAY, MAY 14 Speaking of Ontario, the week continued in Ontario, with the urban-legend-worthy story of the teenagers who got so high, they called the cops after getting lost in a city park. Details come from the National Post, which reported the saga began when "two panicked teenagers... took drugs, got lost, and called 911 for help." When the police dispatcher asked about nearby landmarks, one of the young men said that he saw trees. When the dispatcher asked the men to shout "Help!" to alert searchers, the young man softly said, "Yeah." Luckily for all, the two young men—whom authorities determined "were on something"—had gotten themselves lost in Lackies Bush, a 50-acre city park (for comparison, Seattle's Volunteer Park is 48 acres) with heavy foot traffic and situated next to a noisy road, making it "near impossible to get lost in," as Ontario police officer Adam Morris told the Post. "The search team—three officers and a dog—made quick work of finding the pair," reported the Post. "They were 'silently staring off into the sky,' police said. The two refused to tell police which drugs they were using... No charges will be laid."

FRIDAY, MAY 15 In sadder news, the week continued with Bill Cosby, the former entertainment professional who racked up monumental accomplishments in the worlds of comedy and television before descending into his 21st-century role as babbling old fool trailed by nearly three dozen individual allegations by women who claim to have been sexually assaulted—often in tandem with incapacitating drugs—by the once-beloved comedy legend. Today the 77-year-old cautionary tale appeared on Good Morning America, where he opened with some cryptic statements on his state of being. "I have been in this business over 52 years and I have never seen anything like this. Reality is the situation, and I can't speak."

But speak Cosby did, telling GMA that the ever-growing allegations about the terrible things he did with his junk shouldn't affect how the world responds to the things he says with his mouth. "My point is, okay, listen to me carefully, I'm telling you where the road is out. I'm telling you where as you're driving, you're going to go into water, and it looks like it may only be three inches but you and your car are going to go here. Now, you want to go here, or you want to be concerned about who's giving you the message?" RIP, Bill Cosby.

•• Speaking of figurative premature death, today a federal jury sentenced 21-year-old Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection. "The verdict marked the first time in the post-9/11 era that federal prosecutors have won the death penalty in a terrorism case," reported CNN. "Bill and Denise Richard, parents of the bombing's littlest victim, 8-year-old Martin, looked on stoically from the second row. They were against the death penalty." No sentencing date has been set.

SATURDAY, MAY 16 In better news, the week continued in Seattle with an impressive day of protests against the Shell oil-drilling rig that's taken up residence in Elliott Bay. For more on the #ShellNo protests, check out Sydney Brownstone's story here.

SUNDAY, MAY 17 The week ended on television, where today US senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders appeared on CNN's State of the Union and distinguished himself by behaving like a decent human being. Setting Sanders up for relative glory: CNN's Brianna Keilar, who crassly prodded Sanders to throw some "sharp elbows" at his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination. "I like Hillary Clinton. I respect Hillary Clinton," said Sanders. "Will the media, among others, allow us to have a civil debate on civil issues? Or is the only way you're going to get media attention by ripping apart somebody else? I certainly hope that's not the case." Thank you, Senator Sanders. You've got our vote (unless Hillary needs it).

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