Weekly Review

Fire tornadoes—tornadoes caused by fires—were seen in northern California, and reverse waterfalls—water flowing backward up a cliff due to extreme winds—were seen in Australia.^{1 2} More than 158,000 Iowans were left without power and 14 million acres of farmland were damaged following a derecho, a 60- to 70-mile-wide windstorm that causes hurricane-strength gusts.³ Konrad Steffen, a renowned climatologist who spent his life studying Greenland’s rapidly melting ice, died there after falling through the ice.⁴ Donald Trump, who was tweeting complaints about Fox News’s weekend-afternoon programming less than 24 hours after the death of his brother Robert, and who complained that the Department of Energy’s law to lower shower pressure, which has been on the books since 1992, would compromise his hair washing, amplified a conspiracy theory about Kamala Harris’s eligibility to be vice president, saying that he had “heard” she “doesn’t meet the requirements.”^{5 6 7 8} Herman Cain’s personal Twitter account posted several anti–Joe Biden messages two weeks after Cain’s death, and Sarah Palin advised Harris to “trust no one new” and “have fun!”^{9 10} The United States Postal Service, which under Louis DeJoy has been removing collection boxes and deactivating mail-sorting machines without explanation, informed 46 states that it could not guarantee that all mail-in ballots for the November election would be counted.^{11 12 13} “These ballots are all going to be lost. They’re going to be gone,” said President Trump, who requested a mail-in ballot for himself. “Absentee voting is great.”^{14 15} Republican senator Susan Collins urged DeJoy to address the mail delays, and Nancy Pelosi called lawmakers back from their recess to vote on legislation blocking new changes to the USPS.^{16 17}  “We’re going to kick that bitch out of Congress,” said Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump-backed QAnon-conspiracy supporter who won Georgia’s Republican congressional primary, referring to Pelosi.^{18 19}  Another Republican congressional primary winner, North Carolina’s Madison Cawthorn, posted a picture of himself at Adolf Hitler’s holiday retreat, smiling. “The vacation house of the Führer. Seeing the Eagles Nest has been on my bucket list for awhile, it did not disappoint,” he wrote.²⁰

Kanye West’s campaign argued that he should appear on Wisconsin’s presidential ballot despite turning in his nomination signatures 14 seconds after the deadline; signatories included Bernie Sanders and Mickey Mouse.^{21 22} West’s lawyer has challenged the Democratic Party to prove that Mickey Mouse did not sign.²³ “I certainly did not sign that petition,” said Sanders. The Government Accountability Office found that two top Department of Homeland Security deputies are not legally eligible to serve in their roles.²⁴ The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers put out a call to privately owned contractors about the “Buoy Barrier System,” a floating wall that would run along the waterways of the U.S.-Mexico border.²⁵ The Justice Department accused ISIS of operating a scam PPE website named FaceMaskCenter.com, and Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro called thousands of Amazon rainforest fires, which were documented by his own government, a “lie.”^{26 27} Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had approved a COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, and that his daughter had received it.²⁸ A teacher in California was suspended after he appeared shirtless in a Zoom class, a Wisconsin state agency mandated masks in virtual meetings, a Florida sheriff banned officers from wearing masks on the job, and a 17-year-old Sesame Place employee was punched after reminding a patron to wear a mask at Captain Cookie’s High C’s Adventure.^{29 30 31 32}

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe drew criticism for his speech at a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, which, according to a plagiarism-detection app, overlapped 93 percent with his speech at Hiroshima several days earlier.³³ The Trump Administration accused Yale University of discriminating against white and Asian-American applicants, University of Massachusetts’s head football coach said that the postponement of football season was harder for him than the deaths of his parents, and Boston University announced a policy to award posthumous degrees to students in good academic standing who die before completing their requirements.^{34 35 36} The founder and CEO of MyPillow has been lobbying the president and the secretary of Housing and Urban Development to promote oleandrin, a botanical extract from oleander, as a supplement and COVID-19 cure.³⁷ “It is not the government’s responsibility to keep people safe,” said Representative Jim Cox, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania.³⁸ “It’s not the government’s responsibility to pass mandates, to pass orders, to try to keep us safe.” “Bottom line is, I’m not pleased with how things are going,” said Anthony Fauci.³⁹—Clara Olshansky