The social media app TikTok has been downloaded more than 175 million times in the U.S. alone since its global launch in 2018. But now it’s going viral for reasons other than teens dancing or cooking in pajamas.

After a stifling hot July in Baltimore that saw 25 days of 90-degree-plus weather — breaking a record that stood for nearly a century and a half — August swept into Maryland with tornadoes and torrential rain from Tropical Storm Isaias. While severe weather is not a new phenomenon, experts warn that this pattern of stronger, wetter hurricanes and tropical storms, and longer stretches of high temperatures in the summer, is likely a product of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Here’s a fact that is little known inside the confines of the United States: Along the border with Mexico, approximately 60,000 people have been put in limbo through the Migrant Protection Protocols. These are people seeking asylum or generally trying to enter the United States, but they face bureaucratic hurdles that are preventing their cases from being considered on the merits. In the era of COVID-19, this is a problem that risks unleashing a catastrophe and therefore needs to be addressed.

At a time when Americans are reassessing so many painful aspects of our nation’s past, it is an opportune moment to have an honest national conversation about our use of nuclear weapons on Japanese cities in August 1945. The fateful decision to inaugurate the nuclear age fundamentally changed the course of modern history, and it continues to threaten our survival. As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock warns us, the world is now closer to nuclear annihilation than at any time since 1947.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is taking some heat for postponing the announcement of his choice of a running mate, a decision he once suggested would be made at the beginning of this month but now could be more than a week away.

The death of U.S. Rep. John Lewis inspired Americans to look back to the monumental achievements of the civil-rights era. But as street protests nationwide this spring and summer continue to show, hard work remains to create true racial equity in America.