President Biden speaks yesterday at the White House about Afghanistan.
“President Biden on Tuesday decided that the risk of terror attacks in Afghanistan is high enough that round-the-clock evacuations from Kabul must wind down before Aug. 31, a determination that set off a frantic scramble by people who fear the U.S. military and allies will leave thousands behind to suffer the fate of Taliban rule.
The president had been reluctant to extend the timeline he set, arguing this week that the pace of evacuations would increase and could accomplish U.S. goals to extract Americans as well as Afghan translators, interpreters and relatives. The Taliban rejected the idea of an extended timetable, and the Islamist militants began blocking Afghan access to the Kabul airport (The New York Times).
The president’s decision, which requires U.S. forces to be out of Afghanistan by Tuesday, means allied evacuations must wrap up this week.
“The sooner we can finish, the better,” Biden said Tuesday following a video conference with leaders of the Group of Seven (G-7) nations, which backed the United States during the 20-year war. “Each day of operations brings a risk to our troops. But the completion by Aug. 31 depends upon the Taliban continuing to cooperate and allow access to the airport,” he said (The Washington Post).
U.S. officials are reluctant to estimate how many people are still trying to flee in the days left for the withdrawal operations. They believe that thousands of Americans remain in Afghanistan, including some far outside the capital, without a safe or fast way to get to the airport. Tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government over the past 20 years and are eligible for special visas remain desperate for rescue (The New York Times).
The Associated Press: G-7 leaders could not sway Biden to delay the Afghanistan exodus. “We will go on right up until the last moment that we can,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had openly lobbied to keep the airport presence after Aug. 31.
The president accepted a Pentagon assessment that evacuations can be completed by the deadline he set. As backup, he requested contingency plans in case more time is needed, the White House said in a statement (The Hill).
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said chaos at the Kabul airport posed a danger and routes were being closed to Afghan citizens to prevent people from joining the crowds.
“The road that ends at the Kabul airport has been blocked,” Mujahid said. “Foreigners can go through it, but Afghans are not allowed to take the road.”
Members of Congress from both parties pressed the administration to extend the deadline, concerned that more time is needed and fearful that the U.S. withdrawal of troops has triggered a humanitarian crisis that will leave thousands of people trapped in Kabul without protection (The Hill).
“There has been and remains an overwhelming bipartisan consensus that this cannot be done by Aug. 31,” Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who served as a senior State Department official during the Obama administration, said following a classified briefing for House lawmakers.
Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) returned from Kabul after an unauthorized journey they kept secret until after leaving Afghanistan (The Associated Press). In a statement describing their mission as “oversight,” they predicted the U.S. military will be forced to leave people behind because of conditions on the ground, the time squeeze and Taliban rule.
“We came into this visit wanting, like most veterans, to push the president to extend the August 31st deadline,” they said on Tuesday. “After talking with commanders on the ground and seeing the situation here, it is obvious that because we started the evacuation so late, that no matter what we do, we won’t get everyone out on time, even by September 11. Sadly and frustratingly, getting our people out depends on maintaining the current, bizarre relationship with the Taliban.”
The Associated Press: At-risk Afghans fearing Taliban hunker down, wait to leave.
The Hill: White House tries to shore up its narrative about the Afghanistan withdrawal.
The administration says about 76,000 people have departed Afghanistan since the end of July (71,000 since Aug. 14) aboard U.S. military aircraft as well as commercial and chartered flights, many to intermediary countries for processing before resettlement. In the United States, hundreds of humanitarian organizations and private donors and companies are lending assistance to try to get Afghans past the Taliban blockades, through the airport mayhem and out — and to help families once they are evacuated.
NPR: How to help Afghan refugees in the Washington, D.C., area.
CBS News: Which Afghan refugees are being resettled in the United States and how are they being processed?
Bloomberg News: The administration told aid groups to be prepared to help resettle as many as 50,000 Afghan refugees.” [The Hill]
“The Biden administration must move forward with reviving the controversial Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, the Supreme Court has decided. The policy forces migrants to stay in Mexico as they await their US immigration court dates. It was suspended at the beginning of Biden's term and formally terminated months later. However, Texas and Missouri sued to challenge the Biden administration's decision. A federal district judge appointed by President Trump then ruled that the way the Biden administration ended the program violated US law. The Supreme Court sided with this lower court decision, and its rejection could set the tone for how the court views emergency requests from the Biden administration in the future.” Read more at CNN
“Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday that studies show a booster dose of its vaccine offered a ninefold increase in antibodies compared with the vaccine on its own.
The studies, released by Johnson & Johnson, come as the U.S. gears up next month to offer a third dose for those who received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
The Johnson & Johnson announcement said studies showed a booster dose of its vaccine showed ‘a rapid and robust increase in spike-binding antibodies, ninefold higher than 28 days after the primary single-dose vaccination.’ The company said it was working with federal officials, including the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on next steps to boost the effects of the vaccine and ready a possible booster shot.
The announcement came as CDC studies show vaccines are less effective against delta and a heightened need for such booster shots, though vaccines still were crucial in preventing hospitalizations.” Read more at USA Today
“A highly sensitive report on the origins of the coronavirus that was ordered by President Joe Biden 90 days ago has come up blank, according to the Washington Post. The report, which could become declassified in the coming weeks, was reportedly inconclusive about the origins of how COVID-19 started, including whether or not it jumped species or escaped from a Chinese virology lab. Biden had hoped the report would provide details ‘that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion’ about how the deadly virus, that has killed more than 4 million people around the world, began. Instead, the Post reports that the intelligence officials agree they ‘fell short of a consensus’ over just how the pandemic started.” [Daily Beast] Read more at Washington Post
“Delta Air Lines is stepping up efforts to get employees vaccinated against Covid-19, introducing measures including weekly testing requirements and a monthly health insurance surcharge for employees who don’t take the vaccines.
The airline’s moves come amid growing pressure on companies to mandate vaccines for employees, particularly now that the Food and Drug Administration this week gave full approval for use of the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE. President Biden this week called on private employers to require vaccines.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Overweight adults should be screened for Type 2 diabetes and abnormally high blood sugar levels starting at age 35, five years earlier than currently advised, an expert task force recommended on Tuesday.
The new recommendation, which does not apply to pregnant women, comes amid cresting rates of obesity and diabetes in the United States. It means that more than 40 percent of the adult population should now be screened, according to one estimate.
The guideline was issued by the Preventive Services Task Force, which makes recommendations for preventive services and screenings that insurance companies must completely cover, without out of pocket costs to the insured, under the Affordable Care Act.” Read more at Boston Globe
“The $46.5 billion rental aid program created to pay rent accrued during the pandemic continues to disburse money at a slow pace, as the White House braces for a Supreme Court order that could strike down a new national moratorium on evictions.
The Emergency Rental Assistance Program, funded in the two federal pandemic relief packages passed over the last year, sputtered along in July, with just $1.7 billion being distributed by state and local governments, according to the Treasury Department, which oversees the program.
The money meted out was a modest increase from the prior month, bringing the total aid disbursed thus far to about $5.1 billion, figures released early Wednesday showed, or roughly 11 percent of the cash allocated by Congress to avoid an eviction crisis that many housing experts now see as increasingly likely.” Read more at Washington Post
“The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection issued sweeping requests Wednesday for records from the executive branch pertaining to the attack on the Capitol and President Trump’s efforts to subvert the election.
In letters demanding materials from the National Archives and seven other agencies, Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), the committee chairman, signaled an expansive investigation, touching not only on what happened on Jan. 6 but also materials that could shed light on matters such as “the former President’s knowledge of the election results and what he communicated to the American peopleabout the election.”
Jan. 6 committee faces unprecedented choice of whether to call Republican lawmakers to testify
Thompson gave the agencies a two-week deadline to produce materials, and asked Archivist of the United States David Ferriero to use his authority under federal regulations to swiftly address the request for records from the Trump White House.” Read more at Washington Post
“WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Tuesday approved a roughly $3.5 trillion budget that could enable sweeping changes to the nation’s health care, education, and tax laws, overcoming internal divisions in a debate that could foreshadow even tougher battles still to come.
The 220-212 outcome came after days of delays as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, scrambled to stave off a revolt from her party’s moderate-leaning lawmakers. With the frenzy resolved, the chamber averted what would have been a political embarrassment to take the next step in enacting President Biden’s broader economic agenda.
The budget debacle also paved the way for the House to hold a vote on a second economic package — a roughly $1 trillion proposal to improve the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, and ports — by September 27. The new commitment cemented a deal to win over skeptical centrists, who feared the infrastructure bill otherwise would have been mired in significant setbacks.
The $3.5 trillion budget enables lawmakers to begin crafting a fuller legislative proposal, which Democratic leaders hope to adopt next month. The package is expected to expand Medicare, invest sizable sums in education and family-focused programs, and devote new funds toward combating climate change — fulfilling many of Democrats’ 2020 campaign pledges.” Read more at Boston Globe
“WASHINGTON—The House narrowly passed legislation Tuesday to give the federal government new power over states’ voting procedures, a change Democrats say is needed to protect the political power of minority voters.
The bill, which passed 219 to 212 but faces a difficult path to advance in the Senate, marks the second time this year that the Democratic-controlled House has moved to challenge states’ control over their own rules, a push that Republicans criticize as federal overreach. A measure that cleared the House in March before stalling in the Senate touched almost every aspect of the elections process, including loosening voter ID requirements and mandating that states allow people to vote by mail or on an absentee basis for any reason.
Democrats are pushing the new bill in order to give the federal government power to oversee state voting procedures after a pair of Supreme Court rulings weakened the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a multipronged law that gave Washington control over changes to voting rules in states with a history of racial discrimination. The bill is named for John Lewis, the late Georgia congressman and civil-rights leader whose beating by Alabama troopers helped spur passage of the original Voting Rights Act.
An earlier version of the John Lewis bill drew the support of just one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, making its passage unlikely. The separate bill that stalled in the Senate, the For the People Act, drew no Republican support. Both would need at least 10 Republican votes to advance in the 50-50 Senate.
The John Lewis bill would require all states to win federal approval before making certain changes to voting procedures, such as imposing stricter voter ID requirements, or reducing the number of polling locations in a diverse jurisdiction in terms of racial or language groups. States have two ways to get changes approved, including by submitting the proposed voting change to the Justice Department’s civil-rights division.
In addition, it would also subject some states to federal supervision for any voting-procedure changes, even beyond those already covered like voter ID, by creating a new formula to identify jurisdictions with a history of voter discrimination. The bill would target states with 15 or more voting-rights violations in the previous 25 years, or 10 or more violations if at least one of them was statewide during that period. Even if the entire state weren’t covered, a jurisdiction with three or more violations in the prior 25 years would need federal government approval for any changes to voting procedures.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Extreme weather warnings. Extreme rainfall—like the record-breaking flooding that killed more than 200 people in Germany and Belgium last month—will only become more frequent in Western Europe as climate change worsens, leading international climate scientists found in a new study. According to the World Weather Attribution initiative, climate change has made rainfall on that scale between 1.2 and 9 times more likely in those countries today than in the pre-industrial era, and has increased the region’s rainfall by 3 to 19 percent.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“As fire and drought continue to spread in the West, the normally cool and lush North Woods of Minnesota are battling their own extreme drought and wildfires that have closed the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for the first time since 1976.
The National Weather Service is forecasting the first substantial rain in weeks, with up to half an inch of rain Tuesday night into Wednesday and up to a few inches of rain Friday night into Saturday.
But with rainfall so far this summer about half the normal amount and the possibility that lightning strikes could spark new fires, the threat to the area is expected to remain high.
The U.S. Forest Service is still working to get everyone out of the Boundary Waters—a million acres of wilderness spotted with over 1,000 lakes—after issuing the precautionary evacuation order Saturday.
The order was put in place to protect campers from the extreme risk of fire, but also as a way to preserve resources so that forest managers can battle any blazes that come up and not have to divert resources to rescues.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Blackwater founder Erik Prince is among the growing number of private defense contractors and former spies who are attempting to turn a profit on desperate Afghans who want out of their country before the U.S. shutters its 20-year mission on August 31. The Wall Street Journal reports that Prince, who faces U.N. sanctions over his sketchy work in Libya and whose Blackwater guards were convicted of murder in 2014 while providing security for Americans in Iraq, told the WSJ he is charging upwards of $6,500 a seat on a private charter out of Kabul. The paper was not able to confirm whether Prince even had the capabilities to carry out private evacuations.” [Daily Beast] Read more at The Wall Street Journal
“Several American judges are working urgently to get 250 female judges and their families out of Afghanistan after reports that Taliban fighters are going door-to-door to hunt them down. Many of the judges were trained in the U.S. and have issued harsh judgments on Taliban fighters during the 20-year war, but most do not qualify for special visas because they’ve never been on a U.S. payroll. ‘The Taliban are searching for judges door to door. We are in danger,’ one unnamed judge told NBC News. ‘Their idea is that women can’t be judges at all.’ Patricia Whalen, who served as an international judge in the war crimes trials in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 2007-2012, and Lisa Walsh, North American regional director of the International Association of Women Judges, have reportedly been working with U.S. diplomats to get the women out of Kabul. ‘We could have all the planes in the world land at that airport, but getting to the tarmac is almost impossible,’ Whalen said.” [Daily Beast] Read more at NBC News
“An Oklahoma man who was indicted on Aug. 20 for his role in pushing an Associated Press photographer over a wall during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot has been arrested on federal assault charges. Benjamen Scott Burlew, 41, was caught on camera joining other rioters in attacking the photographer, according to a criminal complaint. While others were involved, footage shows Burlew ‘forcefully throw and push the photographer over the wall to the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building, several feet below,’ according to the Department of Justice. ‘Burlew continued to shove and push the photographer until the photographer was thrown backward over the wall, where he landed on his back on the grounds of the west lawn,’ the complaint states, adding that Burlew leaned over the wall to ‘observe [the photographer’s] fall.’ He has been released on $5,000 bond.” [Daily Beast] Read it at Axios
“GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Prosecutors preparing for the first prison sentence in an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are loudly signaling to five other defendants that a key insider has shared extraordinary details about the operation.
Ty Garbin cooperated within weeks of being arrested, willingly putting a ‘target on his back to begin his own redemption,’ the government said in a court filing.
Prosecutors want U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker to take that into consideration Wednesday when he sentences Garbin for conspiracy. The government is recommending a nine-year prison term, a long stretch but one that would be even longer if he had not assisted investigators after being charged.” Read more at AP News
“A former Trump campaign adviser is under DOJ scrutiny. Federal prosecutors are investigating GOP lobbyist Barry Bennett over allegations that he secretly set up and funded a U.S.-based advocacy group that represented Qatar while the Gulf nation feuded with its regional neighbors, according to people familiar with the matter.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Former University of Georgia and National Football League star Herschel Walker is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia at the urging of former President Donald Trump.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Vice President Kamala Harris trip delayed: The vice president's trip to to Vietnam on Tuesday was delayed after her office was made aware of a possible case of the so-called Havana syndrome.” Read more at USA Today
Charlie Watts arriving for a Rolling Stones concert in Zurich in 1976.Blick/RDB/ullstein bild, via Getty Images
“Lives Lived: Charlie Watts was quiet, unflashy and a bit aloof — despite playing drums for the Rolling Stones. He died at 80.” Read more at New York Times
The image used on the cover of Nevermind. Photograph: Kirk Weddle
“Spencer Elden, who appeared as a naked baby on one of rock music’s most iconic album covers – Nevermind by Nirvana – is suing the band, claiming he was sexually exploited as a child.
In a lawsuit filed in a Californian district court against numerous parties, including the surviving members of the band, Kurt Cobain’s widow Courtney Love, and the record labels that released or distributed the album in the last three decades, Elden alleges the defendants produced child pornography with the image, which features him swimming naked towards a dollar bill with his genitalia visible.
The lawsuit accuses the defendants of ‘commercial child sexual exploitation of him from while he was a minor to the present day … defendants knowingly produced, possessed and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer.’
Elden, who was four months old when the image was made, says he has suffered ‘lifelong damages’ from the 1991 album cover, including ‘extreme and permanent emotional distress with physical manifestations’, plus loss of education, wages, and ‘enjoyment of life.’
The lawsuit claims the image is ‘sexually graphic’, and says it makes Elden resemble ‘a sex worker – grabbing for a dollar bill’. It claims Elden was never paid for appearing on the cover, and that his parents never signed a release form for the image, which was shot specifically for the album cover. It has previously been reported that Elden was paid $250.
Elden is seeking damages of at least $150,000 from each of the 15 defendants, plus costs, and asks that the case be tried with a jury. The defendants have not yet responded to the lawsuit, or commented on it publicly. The Guardian has contacted Elden, his lawyer, and the managers of the Nirvana estate for further comment.” Read more at The Guardian