The Weekly Sift

A lot is going on in the world right now, but none of it jumped out as something to write a featured post about. So this week’s Sift is an extra-long weekly summary, which should come out around 11 EDT.

Many of this week’s most important events happened outside the US: Putin annexed four Ukrainian regions that his forces don’t even fully control, and saber-rattled about using nuclear weapons to defend them against Ukraine’s still-advancing army. Brazil held the first round of a presidential election, setting up a run-off that will probably either unseat President Jair Bolsonairo or see him hang onto power by violence. (He’s called “the Trump of the Tropics” for a reason.) Italy has installed a political heir of Mussolini as its new prime minister. (Make Rome Great Again.)

Domestically, Hurricane Ian’s devastation of Florida’s gulf coast (and its lesser assault on South Carolina) dominated the news. The mainstream media covers such things pretty extensively, so I’ll mainly focus on second-level responses (like Biden refusing to play politics with disaster relief, how quickly everyone forgot about Puerto Rico, and the silence of the preachers who claimed Katrina’s destruction of New Orleans was God’s punishment of a “wicked city”).

The Supreme Court started a new term, leaving the nation to wonder what surprises its ruling junta has in store for us this time around.

And finally, I’ll close with something I know you’ve all been yearning for: some expert advice on how to take over the world.