Weekly Review

President Donald Trump twice declined to commit to accepting the presidential election results.¹ “We’re going to have to see what happens,” he said in response to a question about whether he would peacefully relinquish power if he were to lose. It was reported that Trump, who complained in 2012 about former president Barack Obama’s federal income-tax rate of 20.5 percent, paid no federal income taxes for 10 of the past 15 years; that he paid $750 the year he took office; and that he has written off as business expenses $70,000 worth of haircuts, $95,464 for one of Ivanka’s makeup artists, and $26,000,000 in consulting fees, some of which appear to have been paid to his children.^{2 3} Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court; Barrett is an appeals-court judge who clerked under Antonin Scalia and whom one law professor called “the ultimate ‘deliverable’ for conservative voters.”^{4 5} “I looked and I studied, and you are very eminently qualified for this job,” Trump said to Barrett in a speech. “You are going to be fantastic.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the first woman ever to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol, where her personal trainer paid his respects by dropping to the floor and doing three push-ups.^{6 7 8} It was revealed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel routinely brings multiple suitcases of dirty laundry to the presidential guesthouse, in Washington, to be cleaned free of charge, and scientists determined that the logical paradoxes posed by time travel, such as the possibility of a person murdering their own grandfather in the past so as to prevent their own birth, would resolve themselves.^{9 10}

The American death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 200,000, global deaths surpassed one million, and a new study found that the coronavirus continues to mutate into more contagious, but not more deadly, forms.^{11 12} A Romanian former cruise-ship captain who died after contracting COVID-19 won reelection as mayor of Deveselu, and the transportation authority for Greater Manchester, in England, ruled that a snake wrapped around one’s face does not qualify as a COVID-19 protective mask.^{13 14} “While there is a small degree of interpretation that can be applied to [mask specifications], we do not believe it extends to the use of snakeskin—especially when still attached to the snake,” said a spokesperson for the authority. An Argentinean lawmaker resigned after being seen kissing his girlfriend’s bare breasts during a virtual debate about pension-fund investment, during which he claimed he thought he was offline.¹⁵ “I kissed her tits, and that was all,” he said. “I have a very terrible connection at home.” In Minnesota, federal health workers testing residents for COVID-19 were pulled out after receiving racist threats, and some members of the Minneapolis City Council walked back an earlier promise to disband the city’s police force.^{16 17} “It was very clear that most of us had interpreted that language differently,” said one council member of the pledge. In Louisiana, where the secretary of state shut down the online voter-registration portal for maintenance on National Voter Registration Day, a police officer who claimed to have been shot in the leg and “ambushed by an unknown person” was suspected of having accidentally shot himself.^{18 19} In Florida, neighbors mistakenly called the police on a group of hockey fans who were loudly cheering for Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman to “shoot” during Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals.²⁰ “Four deputies responded and discovered there were no domestic problems at the apartment in question,” said a spokesperson for the local sheriff’s office. “It was a roommate screaming at the TV in regards to a Lightning game.” Ron DeSantis announced plans to legislatively guarantee college students’ right to party.²¹

The Tribune Publishing Company in Chicago apologized after testing its employees’ vulnerability to phishing scams by sending them emails announcing that they had earned $10,000 bonuses, and three Metro-North Railroad employees were suspended without pay after inspectors discovered a secret man cave under Grand Central Terminal equipped with a futon, a flatscreen television, a microwave, and a refrigerator containing a half-empty Lagunitas IPA.^{22 23} “Many a New Yorker has fantasized about kicking back with a cold beer in a prime piece of Manhattan real estate,” the MTA inspector said in a statement. “But few would have the chutzpah to commandeer a secret room beneath Grand Central Terminal and make it their very own man-cave.” A nephew of Pablo Escobar found a sack of money worth $18 million hidden in a wall in one of Escobar’s former homes after being guided to the spot by “a vision,” and Sergei Torop—a former traffic cop, also known as Vissarion and nicknamed the “Jesus of Siberia,” who is a cult leader in Russia—was arrested for running an illegal religious organization and inflicting emotional abuse on its members.^{24 25} A single aging television tuned in to Piers Morgan’s show was found to be responsible for a mysterious daily internet outage in the village of Aberhosan, Wales, that persisted for 18 months.²⁶ Google agreed to comply with an Australian government request to remove Street View imagery of the summit of Uluru, which is regarded as sacred by Aboriginal peoples, and a seven-hour scenic “flight to nowhere” offered by Qantas Airways sold out in 10 minutes.^{27 28} Santa Claus announced a plan to hold a press conference in Cleveland in which he intends to reassure children that Christmas will proceed as planned.²⁹