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| Presented By AT&T |
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| Axios AM |
| By Mike Allen ·Aug 31, 2021 |
| 🏖️ Good Tuesday morning. Enjoy the last day of August. - Smart Brevity™ count: 1,180 words ... 4½ minutes. Edited by Zachary Basu.
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| 1 big thing: Last soldier out |
| Photo: U.S. Central Command via AP How it ended: This image, made through a night-vision scope, shows the final American soldier to depart Afghanistan after America's longest war. - Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, who was coordinating the evacuation, boarded a C-17 cargo plane that lifted off from Kabul at 3:29 p.m. ET.
Image: George W. Bush Presidential Library How it started: On Oct. 7, 2001 — 7,267 days earlier, nearly 20 years — President George W. Bush announced the invasion, in the aftermath of 9/11: "We will not waver; we will not tire; we will not falter; and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail." - 1 in 4 of today's Americans hadn't been born, AP notes.
The toll: 2,461 U.S. service members killed ... 20,000 injured ... 3,846 U.S. contractors killed ... 66,000 Afghan military and police killed ... 47,245 Afghan civilians killed ... 51,191 Taliban and opposition fighters killed. - The tab (Afghanistan and Iraq): $2 trillion.
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| 2. Part 2: The exit |
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| Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP |
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| The Pentagon announcement came at 5:30 p.m. ET, with Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, speaking remotely from Tampa (shown above with Pentagon press secretary John Kirby). - "Every single U.S. service member is now out of Afghanistan," McKenzie said in response to a question. "I can say that with 100% certainty."
"It's a mission that brought Osama bin Laden to a just end along with many of his al-Qaeda co-conspirators," the general said. - "I'm proud that both my son and I have been a part of it."
McKenzie acknowledged: "We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out." Photo: AFP via Getty Images Above: Celebratory gunfire lit up the night sky in Kabul after the last U.S. plane took off — leaving the Taliban back in power, after all that. - ABC's Ian Pannell said in a special report, following the Pentagon briefing: "I was in Kabul the day it was liberated — the day the Taliban fled — and we were there again the day that the Taliban came back. And I think that will leave many Afghans wondering what this was all about. What happened to their hopes, their dreams, the lives that they built?"
President Biden addresses the nation today at 1:30 p.m. ET. |
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| 3. 🎧 New podcast series: "The Next Astronauts" |
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| Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios |
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| Dropping now ... Our new podcast series, "How it Happened: The Next Astronauts." - Axios Space author Miriam Kramer and Axios' "How it Happened" podcast team spent six months behind the scenes of the first space flight to orbit with only amateur astronauts — the Inspiration4 mission, which Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to launch Sept. 15.
The Axios journalists crisscrossed the country to follow the four civilian crew members, capturing the conversations as they grapple with the risks and prepare their families. - Why it matters: The launch is an ambitious test for a burgeoning space industry's futuristic dream of sending many more ordinary people to space in the next few years.
Inside the mission: Four crew members — Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Chris Sembroski and Hayley Arceneaux — will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on Sept. 15, Miriam writes. - They'll orbit the Earth for about three days, flying higher than the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope before coming in for a splashdown off the Florida coast.
🎧 Hear it here ... Keep reading. |
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| A message from AT&T |
| We are connecting communities to their American Dream |
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| We're making a $2 billion, 3-year commitment to help ensure broadband is more accessible and affordable, so low-income families like the ones Kamal works with have the opportunity to succeed. Learn more. |
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| 4. Big Easy faces weeks without power |
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| Photo: Gerald Herbert/AP |
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| Above: Jerilyn Collins returns to her destroyed home in LaPlace, La. — via this Louisiana National Guard high-water vehicle — to retrieve medicine and a few possessions for herself and her father after Ida passed. Graphic: MSNBC New Orleans escaped major damage. But the collapse of the Entergy transmission system left doubt and danger for those who hunkered down instead of evacuating, NOLA.com reports. |
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| 5. Axios-Ipsos poll: Vaccine hesitancy recedes |
 Data: Axios/Ipsos Poll. Chart: Kavya Beheraj/Axios Vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. is showing signs of crumbling, Axios' Margaret Talev writes from the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index. - Fewer adults than ever now say they won't take the shot. In the past two weeks, there has been a sharp increase in the share of parents who plan to get their younger kids vaccinated as soon as it's allowed.
What's happening: The biggest driver appears to be the rise of employer mandates. - One in three unvaccinated Americans in the survey said FDA approval would make them likely to take the vaccine.
- But 43% said their boss requiring vaccinations would make them likely to do so, up from 33% a month ago.
Keep reading. |
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| 6. Conservative trust in media craters |
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| Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Star Tribune via Getty Images |
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| The percentage of Republicans who trust national news organizations has been cut in half over the past five years, Axios Media Trends expert Sara Fischer writes from a Pew Research Center study. - Why it matters: GOP trust in media started dropping when President Trump took office, but has plummeted faster in the Biden era.
Before the Trump administration, both parties had a great deal of trust in the national media. - 35% of Republicans today say that they trust national news organizations, compared to 70% in 2016.
- Republicans have more trust in local outlets, but still trust local media far less than Democrats do.
Context: Pew's findings echo a long-term study from Gallup last year, which found that Democrats' trust in mass media grew to a near-record high during the Trump era, while Republicans' sank to an all-time low. |
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| 7. All national forests in California close |
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| Photo: Noah Berger/AP |
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| This snowmaking machine blasted water yesterday as the Caldor Fire encroached on Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort in Eldorado National Forest, Calif. The main buildings survived after the main fire front passed. - All national forests in California will close for two weeks — tonight through Sept. 17, disrupting countless Labor Day plans — because of wildfires, the U.S. Forest Service announced yesterday.
Photo: Noah Berger/AP Above: A Sierra-at-Tahoe chairlift is seen in a long camera exposure. |
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| 8. 🐦 Tweet du jour |
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| Via Twitter |
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| Matthieu Aikins, a New York Times Magazine contributor based in Afghanistan — one of only a few Western journalists in Kabul yesterday — tweeted this, 75 minutes before the Pentagon announcement. |
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| 9. First look: Michael Moore's movie night |
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| Michael Moore and then-Marine Cpl. Abdul Henderson in "Fahrenheit 9/11." Photo: Dog Eat Dog Films |
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| To mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 (and promote his Substack, which launched Aug. 17), Michael Moore plans a free online screening of "Fahrenheit 9/11," his 2004 documentary attacking "a fake War on Terror." - The Flint native will host the screening Friday, Sept. 10, at 9 p.m. ET, with Q&A after. He plans a "Mike's Movie Night" every other month.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" was the highest grossing documentary of all time. - "We are no longer '#1' except in our own minds," Moore says.
Register for the screening: Sign up for the free version of Moore's Substack. (Click "None" or "Free.") |
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| 10. 🏟️ 1 for the road: Full stadiums are back |
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| Illinois Fighting Illini packed the stands Saturday for victory over Nebraska Cornhuskers in Champaign, Ill. Photo: James Black/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images |
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| Shouts and applause returned to the U.S. Open yesterday — along with long lines for food, AP's Howard Fendrich writes. - A year after spectators were banned from the tennis tournament in Flushing Meadows because of COVID, 100% capacity is once again permitted — proof of vaccination needed; no masks required.
College football resumed Saturday, with tens of thousands in the stands. - The NFL is letting teams sell every ticket for the regular season, which begins Sept. 9.
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| A message from AT&T |
| We are connecting communities to their American Dream |
| |
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| We're making a $2 billion, 3-year commitment to help ensure broadband is more accessible and affordable, so low-income families like the ones Kamal works with have the opportunity to succeed. Learn more. |
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