Wildfire: Seventeen people are confirmed dead and hundreds are reported missing in California wildfires that have consumed entire neighborhoods and burned as much as 100,000 acres of land.

Rep. Mike Thompson, a Napa Democrat, said, “It’s devastating. I fully expect this will be the worst fire disaster in California history.”

An elderly couple was found dead in a Napa condominium. At least 57 people initially reported missing have been located. In the chaos of fire and evacuations, high numbers of missing persons reports can be expected.

About 2,000 homes, buildings and businesses have burned. Hardest hit appears to be Santa Rosa and the surrounding wine country north of San Francisco. Entire suburban neighborhoods have been reduced to foundations and chimneys.

Friends of Harvey: The New Yorker has published an article by Ronan Farrow that kills movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. The NY Times broke the story, but Farrow digs deeper into the seedy details of Weinstein’s reputation as a serial sexual predator.

Weinstein’s people deny that most of the incidents happened, but at the same time say he has sought treatment for his problem. Weinstein has been a big supporter of Democratic politicians and they are running away from him in horror. Weinstein’s wife of 10 years, Georgina Chapman, has left him.

Three women told Farrow that Weinstein outright raped them. The story also includes a transcript of a police wire recording in which Weinstein pressures a young model to come into his hotel bathroom. She backs away, but it’s really creepy.

Farrow writes that 16 current and former Weinstein Co. executives

“and others describe a pattern of professional meetings that were little more than thin pretexts for sexual advances on young actresses and models.”

Farrow reports that “an executive who worked for Weinstein for many years told me, ‘This was ongoing predatory behavior towards women—whether they consented or not.’”

One actress told Farrow that Weinstein brought her to a hotel room under a professional pretext, changed into a bathrobe, and “forced himself on me sexually.” The article has even worse horror stories, if you can imagine.

French actress Emma de Caunes described successfully deflecting Weinstein and retreating from his hotel room. Farrow writes, “‘We haven’t done anything!’ she remembered him saying. ‘It’s like being in a Walt Disney movie!’”

He goes on, “De Caunes told me, ‘I looked at him and I said—it took all my courage—but I said, ‘I’ve always hated Walt Disney movies.’”

Puerto Rico: The temporary waiver of the Jones Act, a 1920 law that requires all shipping between US ports to be on American ships, expired on Sunday night, effectively re-imposing higher shipping costs on storm-crippled Puerto Rico. Foreign ships transport goods at a lower cost.

The Trump administration has given no indication it will extend the suspension.

Arizona Sen. John McCain has introduced a law to permanently exempt Puerto Rico from the Jones Act. “Until we provide Puerto Rico with long-term relief, the Jones Act will continue to hinder much-needed efforts to help the people of Puerto Rico recover and rebuild from Hurricane Maria,” McCain said.

Recovery in Puerto Rico is slow and some people may be without electrical power for a year. The numbers today:

-84 percent of the island without power

-47 percent without telephone service

-67 percent of cellphone towers disabled

-44 percent of bank branches closed

Black Lives. A black man who was viciously beaten by six white supremacists during the Charlottesville rally on Aug. 12 has been charged with a felony in the same incident. DeAndre Harris, 20, was beaten with a metal pipe and pieces of wood. The incident in a parking garage was captured on video.

One of Harris’s assailants filed a complaint against him, accusing him of instigating the incident, and a local magistrate filed charges.

Taxing Situation: President Trump repeated the fiction yesterday that the US is the highest taxed country in the world, prompting a back and forth between Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Trey Yingst, White House correspondent for One America News, a conservative cable news channel.

“Why does the president keep saying it? It’s not true overall,” Yingst asked.

SHS: “We are the highest-taxed — corporate tax — in the developed economy. That’s a fact,” Sanders responded.

TY: “That’s not what the president said,” he said.

SHS: “That’s what he’s talking about. We’re the highest corporate-taxed country in the developed economies across the globe.”

They had several go-rounds until Sanders said, “The highest-taxed corporate nation. That seems pretty consistent to me. Sorry, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.”

The Genius Bar: President Trump told Forbes Magazine that he’s smarter than his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. Answering a question about whether Tillerson called his boss a “moron,” Trump said, “I think it’s fake news, but if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests.” Trump said. “And I can tell you who is going to win.”

The high IQ society Mensa offered to test both men. For the president’s benefit, an IQ test is a test of how intelligent you are.

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