| | | | | | | Presented By Facebook | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen ·Aug 19, 2021 | | Happy Thursday! Smart Brevity™ count: 1,185 words ... 4½ minutes. Edited by Zachary Basu. | | | | | | 1 big thing: Racing the Taliban |  | | | Photo: ABC News | | | | President Biden says U.S. troops will stay in Kabul past Aug. 31 if Americans are still being evacuated, but made no such promise for the tens of thousands of Afghans who aided the War on Terror: - "The commitment holds to get everyone out that, in fact, we can get out and everyone that should come out," Biden told ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "And that's the objective. That's what we're doing now. That's the path we're on. And I think we'll get there." Watch the video.
- Up to 15,000 Americans remained in Afghanistan after the Taliban took control Sunday. Biden told ABC that the estimate for Afghan allies is 50,000 to 65,000, counting their families.
Biden didn't have a clear answer on whether the exit could have been handled better: - "[T]he idea that, somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens." Watch the video.
Afghan security guards stand on wall as hundreds of people gather outside Kabul's international airport. Photo: AP Vivid reporting by Axios' Stef Kight and Dave Lawler shows a massive backlog remains for Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applications for Afghans who worked on behalf of the U.S. government. - When Kabul fell, a years-long operation to protect people who'd worked with U.S. troops over two decades instantly morphed into a frantic airlift, with thousands of Afghans still in limbo.
Bureaucratic, national-security and health-related obstacles now endanger many vulnerable, deserving Afghans. - 20,000 Afghans are in the pipeline. About 2,000 have been brought to the U.S. An additional 800 will arrive in coming days.
In-person interviews with applicants were suspended because of COVID. The State Department eventually started virtual interviews. - The next steps for Afghan SIV applicants who are able to reach the Kabul airport will depend on where they are in the application process. If they haven't already been interviewed, they'll likely be sent to third countries, including Qatar or Albania.
Go deeper: Inside the White House scramble to protect Afghan allies. |     | | | | | | 2. Facebook data slice: Packers, hemp, Jesus | Screenshot: Player Alumni Resources LLC Pushing back on an outsider's Top 10 list that's heavy on politics, Facebook debuted its own quarterly "Widely Viewed Content Report," highlighting posts like a debate over whether sugar goes in spaghetti. - The WashPost's Will Oremus called the report "deeply weird": "It shows, for instance, that the most-viewed link on Facebook in a recent three-month period was to the website of a Wisconsin firm that offers to connect Green Bay Packers fans to former players" (above).
Read the lists. | | | | | | | | 3. Mapped: Summer surge |  Data: CSSE Johns Hopkins University (Kansas data via CDC, Aug. 3-16). Map: Axios Visuals Hospitals across the country are filling up with COVID patients, and some are running out of ICU beds, Axios' Caitlin Owens reports. - One in five ICUs throughout the U.S. had at least 95% of beds occupied last week, The New York Times reported — a figure that had doubled in recent weeks.
Share this map. | | | | | | | | A message from Facebook | | Internet regulations are as outdated as dial-up | | |  | | | | Facebook supports updated regulations, including four areas where lawmakers can make quick progress: - Reforming Section 230.
- Preventing foreign interference in our elections.
- Passing federal privacy law.
- Setting rules that allow people to safely transfer data between services.
| | | | | | 4. Pic du jour | | Photo: Vatican Media via Reuters Pope Francis, a soccer lover, was presented with a foosball table yesterday during his weekly general audience at the Vatican. | | | | | | | | 5. Modern Noah's Ark: Staving off extinction | A male Devils Hole pupfish swims over algae. Photo: Brett Seymour/National Park Service The guy above is a Devils Hole pupfish, which has been called the rarest fish on Earth — as few as 40 of them have been counted in recent years, and ecologists cheered in 2019 when the tally reached 136. - The fish is part of what's being called a "modern-day Noah's Ark," the L.A. Times' Louis Sahagún reports (subscription):
After a hellish summer of extreme fire, drought and heat in California, federal biologists, research institutions, conservation organizations and zoos are racing faster than ever to save the most threatened species: - The tools include emergency translocations, captive breeding programs and seed banks.
The Times reports that in Amargosa Valley, Nev., scientists established a captive colony of Devils Hole pupfish in a $4.5-million, 100,000-gallon tank. It's a fiberglass replica of a nearby natural rock tub in Death Valley National Park, where the species has lived since the Ice Age. | | | | | | | | 6. 🇮🇱 Israel's scary sign about vaccine | | Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett briefs the media about COVID at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem yesterday. Photo: Abir Sultan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images Israel, one of the world's most vaccinated societies, now has one of the highest infection rates, raising questions about the vaccine's longevity, The New York Times reports (subscription): - A fourth COVID wave "is rapidly approaching the levels of Israel's worst days ... last winter." The daily rate of confirmed new cases has more than doubled in the past two weeks.
Some experts tell The Times that Israel's "high rate of infections among early vaccine recipients may indicate a waning of the vaccine's protections" — a fear that contributed to the U.S. decision, announced yesterday, to offer boosters to most Americans beginning Sept. 20. | | | | | | | | 7. 🏡 Building like it's 2007 |  Data: Census Bureau; Chart: Axios Visuals The number of new homes under construction has soared to levels not seen since the housing market crash 14 years ago, Sam Ro writes in Axios Markets. - 689,000 single-family homes were under construction in July — the highest number since July 2007.
Why it matters: Home prices have been surging as demand for houses has outpaced supply. Homebuilders are doing what they can to keep up, but supply-chain bottlenecks have led some to turn away buyers. | | | | | | | | 8. ⛏️ Palantir buys gold | | Palantir, the data-mining giant that moved its HQ last year from Silicon Valley to Denver, disclosed in an SEC filing that it had purchased $50.7 million in 100-ounce gold bars — a hedge against future calamity. - Under the heading "Investment in Gold," the filing says: "Such purchase will initially be kept in a secure third-party facility located in the northeastern United States and the Company is able to take physical possession of the gold bars ... at any time with reasonable notice."
After Barron's reported the filing's buried gold, COO Shyam Sankar told Bloomberg that Palantir is embracing nontraditional currencies: "You have to be prepared for a future with more black swan events." | | | | | | | | 9. ☭ Putsch alert: Failed Soviet coup d'état, 30 years ago today |  | | | Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP | | | | Above, Soviets kick the fallen statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the secret police, in front of KGB headquarters, on Lubyanka Square in Moscow in August 1991. - "As dawn broke on Aug. 19, 1991," scholar David Satter writes for The Wall Street Journal's Opinion section (subscription), "tanks and armored cars converged on Moscow and Soviet citizens received the stunning news that President Mikhail Gorbachev had been overthrown in a coup. ... For the next three days, the fate of the world hung in the balance."
- The coup failed — but helped speed the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union collapsed four months later.
Chronicling the coup: Coverage from that day ... Photographer's account of the shot above. | | | | | | | | 10. Fall books preview: Pandemic fiction | | Photo: AP The pandemic has now lasted into a second fall season for publishing, and a growing number of authors — including Jodi Picoult, Louise Erdrich, Gary Shteyngart and Hilma Wolitzer — have worked it into their latest books, AP's Hillel Italie writes in a fall-books preview. - Inaugural poet Amanda Gorman, 23, has two books out this fall.
Huma Abedin has written "Both/And," and #MeToo pioneer Tarana Burke tells her story in "Unbound." - Others with memoirs coming include Katie Couric, Jamie Foxx, James Ivory, Steve Van Zandt, Dave Grohl, Robbie Krieger and two basketball greats, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony.
- Former national security official Fiona Hill, a key witness during Trump's first impeachment trial, tells her story in "There Is Nothing for You Here."
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