Weekly Review

Nigerian security forces have killed at least 56 peaceful protesters who were demanding the end of police brutality and the dissolution of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad; the victims included a group of 12 people who were singing the Nigerian national anthem.^{1 2 3 4} One witness to the incident said that before opening fire the soldiers “were making comments that the flag is not bulletproof.” Anger over the murders spawned a series of riots and looting.⁵ Muhammadu Buhari, who ruled Nigeria from 1984 to 1985 after a military coup and was democratically elected to the presidency in 2015, did not mention the shootings in a national address but stated that his government “will not fold its arms and allow miscreants and criminals [to] continue to perpetrate acts of hooliganism.”⁶ “We believe in law and order. They believe in feelings. So if they feel uncomfortable with a rifle, they’re going to cry about it,” said an organizer of a series of counterprotests to Black Lives Matter gatherings in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, that have attracted armed Trump supporters.⁷ The organizer added, “I’m no Nazi. I’m not going out there to do a mass shooting in the square.” In New York City, the group Jews for Trump caravanned through Times Square, blasted the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,” and verbally and physically sparred with counterprotesters; 11 people were arrested.⁸ NYPD officers were filmed confiscating PPE offered by community activists outside an early-voting site in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, and another officer in the borough was suspended without pay after he was filmed arguing with a passerby and using his police loudspeaker to shout “Trump 2020.”⁹ The landlord of a trailer park in Fort Morgan, Colorado, sent a note to his tenants claiming that rent will be doubled if Joe Biden wins the election but will remain the same for two years if Donald Trump is reelected.¹⁰ “We are not telling you how to vote,” the letter read. “We are just informing our tenants what WE will do according to the election results.” In Rochester, New York, Susan B. Anthony’s gravestone was outfitted with a plastic shield in order to prevent damage from “I Voted” stickers.¹¹

A second coronavirus outbreak hit the White House and led Trump’s chief of staff to declare, “We’re not going to control the pandemic.”¹² Vice President Michael Pence, whose aides were at the center of the flare-up, did not attend the Senate vote that confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, but he has not altered his campaign travel plans.^{13 14} The United States joined Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, and Uganda in signing the Geneva Consensus, a document that refutes the right to abortion and defines families as “the natural and fundamental group unit of society,” and Japan announced that it would not sign a UN treaty banning nuclear weapons.^{15 16} “Under President Trump’s leadership, the United States has defended the dignity of human life everywhere and always,” said the U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.¹⁷ “He has done it like no other president in history.” Court documents revealed that the Trump Administration has not been able to reunite 545 migrant children with their parents.¹⁸ In many cases, the computer systems used by border agents had not been updated to process family separation, and identification numbers were inadvertently deleted. It was reported that Europe’s border security agency had illegally returned refugees and migrants to countries where they faced persecution; in Paraguay, seven dead migrants were found inside a shipping container that originated in Serbia; and Danish aid workers alleged widespread brutality by Croatian police officers against migrants.^{19 20 21} “If Biden makes it, I believe there will continue to be great pressure to stop the migrant caravans,” said Ana Vanessa Cárdenas Zanatta, a political science professor in Mexico City.²² “But I think the nuance, the tone in which it’s done will be different.”

After appearing in public with Band-Aids and black-and-purple bruises covering his swollen hands, the 78-year-old Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, told reporters that he had no health issues.²³ The North Dakota Department of Health encouraged those who have tested positive for COVID-19 to do their own contact tracing because the department lacks the resources to do so, and the U.K.’s test-and-trace system directed people in Sevenoaks, England, to a nonexistent mobile testing site^{.24 25} Fires were set in the toilet-paper aisles of three Walmart stores near Waterloo, Ontario, and Austria’s postal service printed a coronavirus-themed novelty stamp on three-ply toilet paper.^{26 27} The European Parliament rejected a proposed ban on labeling plant-based foods as burgers.²⁸ An investigation began into the identity of the yearbook staffer responsible for listing a member of an Indiana high school basketball team as “BLACK GUY.”²⁹ Scientists discovered tissue in the human skull that could be either salivary glands or an entirely new organ, in the area where the throat and the nasal cavity meet; its function is yet unknown.³⁰