Within hours of each other, two students died in Ithaca's infamous gorges on Saturday. One student was visiting; the other was a Cornell junior. Both deaths are thought to be accidental.

A freak bolt of lightning hit a school in northwest Uganda, killing a teacher and 22 students and injuring 51 more, all between the ages of 7 and 16. The building had no lightning rod to ground strikes.

A 13-year-old Australian boy instantly became the coolest kid at school after he survived an accidental whale attack over the weekend. Drew Hall was fishing with his parents on Sunday morning when a humpback whale swept its tail across their boat "from bow to stern," smacking Drew head-on and "sending him flying," according to his mother, who watched in terror.

One of two Nebraska nuclear power stations located near the Missouri River is submerged in flood waters, Reuters reports. A hole tore in a 2000-foot, inflatable barrier placed around the facility, allowing over two feet of water to pour into containment buildings and electrical transformers.

Firefighters rushed to Courtney Love's $27,000-a-month West Village town house early Thursday morning, after an emergency call was placed to 911 saying a fire had broken out, the Times reports.

Here's a news broadcast from Denver that tells the harrowing tale of a family whose glass-top patio table from the Martha Stewart Living collection spontaneously exploded, showering them with glass. Horrifying! And not the first time this has happened.

So Roger Ebert went and posted that stupid tweet this morning about Ryan Dunn's death, "Friends don't let jackasses drink and drive," which he is still standing behind, but really, just shut up Roger Ebert? Nothing was conclusive at the time of the tweet, friends and fans were still in mortal shock over the awful news, and if I wanted lectures about the perils of drunk driving, which I do not, I wouldn't seek them out from a movie critic? That tweet just summed up everything that's annoying about Twitter to me. People wanting to be heard, me not wanting to hear them. (And stop contributing New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest entries, already! You got your framed trophy and bragging rights. How much validation of one's pithiness can one man possibly need?)

Something not good has gone down at Cooper Nuclear Station, an electrical power plant near the Missouri River in southeast Nebraska. The region has been flooding steadily for weeks, and with river levels rising, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released water from two dams on Saturday in anticipation of more heavy rains this week.

The parents of Kaavya Viswanathan — the former Harvard undergrad whose literary career was cut short after her first novel was discovered to be partially plagiarized — died early this morning when their small plane crashed at Rickenbacker International Airport in central Ohio.

Three out-of-town spectators at an old-timey cowboy bang-bang demonstration in Hill City, S.D. were hospitalized on Friday night after being shot with either for-real bullets or maybe-blanks. Police aren't sure yet! They're still investigating. Please be patient.

Big Bear High School in California has recalled all of its students' yearbooks after it was discovered that photos of child porn were published in the yearbook by mistake. If students don't return the book, they'll be in danger of being arrested for possessing kiddie porn. Zoinks!

A flaming "rum-and-banana concoction" went wild at a Florida restaurant yesterday, maiming four people with first- and second-degree burns. Coincidentally, one of the chefs was recently certified as a firefighter, so he saved everyone.

Preparing to wire swimming pool in suburban Minnesota, an electrician passed the time playing with his cellphone. He was videotaping a construction crane placing the pool into the homeowner's backyard when the crane tipped over, crushing the house and causing the most impassioned swearing spree I have ever heard on YouTube. (Fast forward to 1:50 for abridged version.)

Four people who at one time fell in love with Bananas Foster might have already fallen out of love with the flaming dessert, after suffering burns during a Foster-related "explosion." If only they'd have worn their full-body, fire-retardant dining-out suits!

Every time Sen. Rick Santorum mentions his presidential run, something ominous happens. This morning, a balloon spontaneously exploded while Santorum was yammering about his plan for Medicare. Then, while announcing his candidacy this afternoon, an onlooker collapsed a couple feet away from Santorum's podium. Next, Rick Santorum will summon plagues of locust and lice to announce how he will deal with the debt ceiling. [ABC News]

America's favorite fried pickle princess has had a car accident! She is okay. But at least two police officers had to go to the hospital, and our Snooki—who was not drinking or drugging, sources say—might be facing some Italian-style law charges.

Like a citified version of the story that inspired last year's James Franco rock-climbing movie, the tale of urban survivalist and litigant Jonathan Lynn involves a necessary act of arm-related self-harm. Luckily, no amputation was necessary.

A model and a dancer fell from a hotel window in Atlanta while "play-fighting," leaving one dead and one in critical condition at the hospital. LaShawna Threatt (pictured), a 30-year-old model and party promotor, and Ciara Williams, a dancer, were wrestling with each other in a room at the W hotel in midtown Atlanta following Threatt's birthday party when they apparently broke through a window and fell. Threatt landed on the roof of a structure below, dying immediately, while Williams fell another 20 feet, and remains in the hospital in critical condition. Police believe it was an accident. [AJC]

Two crew members on the set of Peter Jackson's much-delayed production of The Hobbit were treated at the hospital yesterday after an explosion inside a New Zealand workshop. Apparently the two were "drilling a statue" when the accident occurred. It's good to hear that they're both doing well, but the last thing this movie needs is something else that will keep it from getting to theaters. [Image via AP]

The body of a Swedish woman suspected of trying to save her dog was found by neighbors in a "manure basin." The dog's corpse was found in the same dung pool.