VIDEO: The CBC Community Weekly Webcast, August 31

Too busy to catch all of the stories on CBC's Community blog this week?

Kick back and spend a few minutes watching our weekly webcast and you'll be well-primed to chat about the most notable happenings in news right now.

Our top stories this week include Clint Eastwood's GOP convention speech, Hurricane Isaac, a 15-year-old science prodigy and some viral photos of actor Tom Hanks.

Play the Qwiki: CBC Community Weekly Wrap: August 31, 2012

1. U.S. election season begins

Presidential candidates kicked off the 2012 election season with a bang this week.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney made what's being called "the biggest speech of his life" at the Republican National Convention yesterday, and earlier this week President Barack Obama took questions from Internet users on the popular website Reddit .


2. "Eastwooding" meme sweeps the web

It was actor Clint Eastwood who stole the political spotlight today with a bizarre endorsement of Mitt Romney at the GOP convention.

The actor spoke to an audience of millions for about 12 minutes. At one point, he berated an imaginary Barack Obama by yelling at an empty chair in front him.

The web went wild almost immediately. An invisible oObama Twitter account created after the speech already has more than 50,000 followers.

You can see our roundup of "Eastwooding" memes here, and take our poll asking if convention speeches are getting you into the U.S. election.


3. Hurricane Isaac

Residents of the southern U.S. gulf coast are dealing with flooding and wind damage from Hurricane Isaac this week.

The storm hit New Orleans nearly seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina rocked the city in 2005.

Local residents shared photos of the damage online. Elsewhere around the coast, destruction was less severe but still made for plenty of shocking images.
 
As it turns out, one of the most popular Isaac photos shared online this week was a fake.

One picture was retweeted thousands of times, and posted on the daily mail with a caption that read "Ominous: Tropical storm Isaac gathers pace as it barrels towards the Gulf coast"

Buzzfeed.com revealed that the picture was actually taken by an amateur in Brunei last year. It is not a storm at all, but a type of weather structure called a shelf cloud.

4. Teen Googles his way to new cancer testing method

A 15-year-old science prodigy got the CBC Community talking this week.

Maryland high school student Jack Andraka is being hailed for his development of a new, advanced cancer-testing method.

His invention was found to be 168 times faster, 26,000 times cheaper and 400 times more sensitive than the current gold-medal standard for pancreatic cancer testing.

Andraka created the test for a science fair project. He credits Google and free online articles for helping him conduct the research.

In an interview with BBC News he said "I definitely could not have done this research and project without the use of the internet."

5. Tom Hanks

And finally, our most-viewed story on the CBC Community blog this week was about one very lucky and creative Tom Hanks fan.

A set of viral videos posted online this week show the actor posing with a young man who appears to be  drunk.

A description posted with the photo gallery reads "My friend met Tom Hanks, stole his glasses and pretended to be wasted."

The original images have now been seen more than 8 million times.

Upon seeing them, thousands of fans came out of the woodwork to share their own Tom Hanks stories. Rumour has it, he's one of the coolest, kindest, and most accommodating celebrities you'll ever meet.