“The U.S. completed its military withdrawal from Afghanistan, returning the country to Taliban rule and an uncertain future two decades after the group was ousted. NATO warned militants could join refugees fleeing the country, adding to security threats for neighboring countries, Europe and the U.S.
President Joe Biden said the Supreme Court perpetrated an ‘assault’ on women’s rights by allowing harsh new Texas abortion restrictions to take effect. The curbs are at odds with Supreme Court precedents that protect abortion rights until much later in pregnancy, and raise new questions about the durability of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.Biden also pressed insurers to cover damage from Hurricane Ida. The storm is testing the administration’s ability to assist tens of thousands of people in a path of destruction stretching from the Gulf Coast to the New York City region, which suffered catastrophic flooding.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will resign after failing to control the country’s coronavirus surge, with two former foreign ministers seen as leading the pack to replace him. A key challenge for the next leader will be managing rising tensions with China, especially over Taiwan.Finally, Chinese President Xi Jinping had a busy week, in the public eye for five days in a row to give speeches and approve policy closely tied to his drive to revamp the world’s second-largest economy.” Read more at Bloomberg
“NEW YORK —State and local leaders in the Northeast on Friday vowed to strengthen infrastructure and improve emergency alerts after Ida’s aftermath caused scores of deaths and untold costs in destruction on its path north from Louisiana’s Gulf Coast.
At least 49 people were killed after torrential wind and rain pounded New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, ripping through buildings, sparking massive flooding and leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power. Officials, some of who said they were caught off guard by the deluge, fear the death toll could rise as several people remain missing.
Leaders in New York and New Jersey told reporters their states needed to prepare for this type of storm to become normal as climate change scrambles weather patterns across the country.” Read more at Washington Post
A person sorts through belongings from their flooded Queens home on Sept. 3 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“Employers sharply reduced hiring in August, an emphatic displayof how the spread of the pernicious coronavirus Delta variant is restraining the economy as Americans pull back on travel, dining out, and shopping.
US employers added 235,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday, far short of forecasts and the smallest increase since January, when COVID-19 infections also were rising. The unemployment rate edged down to 5.2 percent from 5.4 percent in July.
The report underscores how the pandemic continues to distort the labor market and hinder the full recovery of the22 million jobs that disappeared in March and April of last year.” Read more at Boston Globe
“More than 9 million Americans are set to lose their unemployment benefits and millions more will see their weekly incomes plummet as a host of federal pandemic jobless aid programs expire next week.
Three programs covering a combined 12.1 million people will end on Monday without action from the White House or Congress.
Twenty-six states pulled out of at least some of those programs earlier this summer as businesses struggled to fill a record-breaking 9 million job openings.
But there are still 5.4 million gig workers, contractors and others not covered by traditional unemployment insurance who will lose their weekly benefits early next week. Another 3.9 million Americans receiving extended aid will see those payments disappear on Monday as well.
And a separate 3.9 million Americans will no longer receive a $300 weekly supplement to other job aid programs, leaving them with substantially less money.
On top of that, the August jobs report released on Friday showed a significant slowdown in the rate of hiring, indicating a tougher job market in September.
President Biden, moderate Democratic lawmakers and virtually all Republicans have argued that it’s time for the additional support to expire after several months of rapid job growth, up until August, and inflation lingering at uncomfortable heights. Recent studies have also shown a noticeable uptick in job growth in states that pulled out of those unemployment insurance (UI) programs, but with limited impact on labor force participation.” Read more at The Hill
“A Senate panel has set its sights on the Supreme Court’s increasingly common practice of deciding weighty cases on an emergency basis, a procedure the justices used this week to greenlight Texas’s severe curtailment of abortion access.
Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, announced Friday that the committee would hold a hearing on the court’s so-called shadow docket, which often produces consequential rulings without the justices having received a comprehensive set of paper briefs or hearing oral arguments.
The court recently used the truncated process to rule on significant disputes over immigration policy and federal eviction protections, and to leave intact a new Texas law that bans most abortions in the country’s second-most populous state.” Read more at The Hill
“WASHINGTON — President Biden denounced Texas’s new abortion law Friday as ‘almost un-American’ and said it creates a ‘vigilante system’ under which private citizens are empowered to police the ban.
Biden’s comments, in response to a reporter’s question at the White House, were his first public remarks on the matter. He has previously issued written statements decrying the law, which bans abortions as early as six weeks and allows anyone to file a lawsuit against any other person who has aided someone in obtaining an abortion, with the potential for a $10,000 payoff.
‘I have been and continue to be a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade, No. 1,’ Biden said Friday morning. ‘And the most pernicious thing about the Texas law, it sort of creates a vigilante system where people get rewards to go out and to — ‘ He did not finish the thought.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Abortion Bans Risk Alienating Suburban Voters Republicans Need
The Texas law will complicate Republican efforts to stem their losses among college-educated suburban voters. Ryan Teague Beckwith explains how it might play into the 2022 midterm elections.America’s strictest abortion law could undermine the appeal of Texas for both companies and workers.
Read how the law turns the public into enforcers.” Read more at Bloomberg
A protester dressed as a handmaiden outside the Texas state capitol.
Photographer: Sergio Flores/Getty Images North America
“President Biden on Friday signed an executive order that would require the review, declassification and release of classified government documents related to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In doing so, Biden said he was fulfilling a promise he had made while campaigning for president, in which he had vowed, if elected, to direct the U.S. Attorney General to ‘personally examine the merits of all cases’ where the government had invoked state secrets privilege and ‘to err on the side of disclosure in cases where, as here, the events in question occurred two decades or longer ago.’
‘When I ran for president, I made a commitment to ensuring transparency regarding the declassification of documents on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America,’ Biden said in a statement Friday. ‘As we approach the 20th anniversary of that tragic day, I am honoring that commitment.’” Read more at Washington Post
“A public interest group is calling for an ethics investigation into House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) after he told communications companies that the GOP ‘will not forget’ if they turn phone and email records over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The complaint from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) argues that both McCarthy and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) violated House rules by threatening to retaliate against companies that comply with legal requests.
The House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol sent letters to 35 tech and communications firms Monday asking for a trove of documents, including for personal communications of those involved with the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally on Jan. 6 — a group likely to include lawmakers.” Read more at The Hill
“WASHINGTON — Top federal health officials have told the White House to scale back a plan to offer coronavirus booster shots to the general public later this month, saying that regulators need more time to collect and review all the necessary data, according to people familiar with the discussion.
Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who heads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned the White House on Thursday that their agencies may be able to determine in the coming weeks whether to recommend boosters only for recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine — and possibly just some of them to start.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Nationally, covid-19 deaths have climbed steadily in recent weeks, hitting a seven-day average of about 1,500 a day Thursday, after falling to the low 200s in early July — the latest handiwork of a contagious variant that has exploited the return to everyday activities by tens of millions of Americans, many of them unvaccinated. The dead include two Texas teachers at a junior high, who died last week within days of each other; a 13-year-old middle schoolboy from Georgia; and a nurse, 37, in Southern California who left behind five children, including a newborn.” Read more at Washington Post
“The bare-chested man photographed on Jan. 6 standing on the Senate dais in horns, fur-lined headdress, and red-white-and-blue face paint pleaded guilty Friday to felony obstruction of Congress in the Capitol riots, potentially facing three to four years in prison.
Jacob Anthony Chansley, 33, became of the most visible participants in the storming of the US Capitol, captured in news coverage worldwide chanting, praying, and shouting, ‘Mike Pence is a f****** traitor’ while holding a flag-draped spear at the vice president’s presiding desk in the Senate chamber, writing a note, ‘It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming!’
On Friday, Chansley in a deal with prosecutors pleaded guilty to one of six charged counts: corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding, a joint session of Congress meeting to certify the 2020 presidential election.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey (Pa.) urged his party to not nominate former President Trump in the 2024 presidential race.
In an interview with CNBC on Friday, Toomey was asked whether he would be disappointed if Trump became the GOP nominee in 2024.
‘Yeah, after what happened post-2020 election. I think the president’s behavior was completely unacceptable,’ Toomey said. ‘So I don’t think he should be the nominee to lead the party in 2024.’
‘There’s no one obvious candidate, but there are many, many people who could do a fantastic job,’ he added.
Toomey has pushed back against Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
The Pennsylvania Republican was one of seven GOP senators who voted to convict the former president on impeachment charges of inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He was later censured by several county Republican parties in his home state for the vote.
Trump, who consistently polls as the most popular Republican among GOP voters, has publicly flirted with running again in 2024.” Read more at The Hill
“When Kraft merged with Heinz in 2015, it was meant to be another chance for the private equity firm 3G Capital to apply the same ruthless cost savings it had already introduced at Heinz and had used throughout the consumer goods industry. But at Kraft Heinz, the strategy was pushed too far, federal regulators said.
On Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission said it had charged the packaged food giant and two former executives with a ‘scheme’ to inflate those cost savings. Kraft Heinz will pay $62 million to settle the case.” Read more at New York Times
“NEW YORK — Naomi Osaka, the reigning U.S. Open women’s champion and the world No. 3, doesn’t know when she’ll play her next tennis match.
Towards the end of a press conference on Friday night, after losing to 18-year-old, unseeded Canadian Leylah Fernandez in the third round, 7-5, 6-7 (2), 4-6, she shed tears while trying to articulate how she processes winning, losing, and this particular third-round loss. She ended the press conference by saying that she thinks she’ll take a break from playing ‘for a while.’
It’s been an atypical year for Osaka, who pulled out of both Wimbledon and the French Open this summer and saw the ripple effects of those decisions on the court in the Tokyo Olympics and now in this 2021 U.S. Open. After the match, Osaka described her return stats as ‘horrendous’ and said overall, that she ‘didn’t play that well.’ She tallied 36 unforced errors for the night.
Entering Friday’s match, Osaka had won 16 straight Grand Slam matches, but got rattled when things started to go Fernandez’s way on the court. With a chance to close the match on her serve in the second set, Osaka was broken instead when she missed a forehand wide. That forced a tiebreaker, in which she made five unforced errors.” Read more at USA Today
“Shannon Spruill, the professional wrestler who went by the name Daffney Unger, died of an apparent gunshot wound to the chest, according to a Gwinnett County (Ga.) Police Department incident report obtained by USA TODAY Sports.
Spruill, 46, was found dead on her bed and a firearm next to her on the bed Thursday when police officers entered Spruill’s apartment in Norcross, Georgia, on a welfare check, according to the incident report.
Her death was announced on Thursday in a statement by SHIMMER women’s professional wrestling. But a cause of death was not released at the time.” Read more at USA Today
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