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| Presented By Facebook |
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| Axios AM |
| By Mike Allen ·Aug 20, 2021 |
| Happy Friday! Smart Brevity™ count: 1,182 words ... 4½ minutes. Edited by Zachary Basu. 🚨 Breaking: The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was the result of an organized plot, law enforcement officials tell Reuters. - Federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants. But the FBI believes the violence wasn't centrally coordinated.
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| 1 big thing: Worth 1,000 words |
Photo from video on social media: Omar Haidari via Reuters A baby is handed over the Kabul airport's perimeter wall to the U.S. Army for evacuation yesterday. The big picture: The U.S. is struggling to pick up the pace of evacuations, constrained by obstacles ranging from armed Taliban checkpoints to paperwork problems. - Taliban fighters and checkpoints ringed the airport — major barriers for Afghans who fear that their work with Westerners makes them targets for retribution. (AP)
The latest: 18,000+ people have been flown out of Kabul since the Taliban took over, a NATO official told Reuters, pledging to work to speed evacuations as criticism of the West's handling of the crisis mounted. |
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| 2. State Dept. cable warned of collapse |
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| Hundreds of people gather outside Kabul airport. Photo: AP |
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| An internal State Department memo dated July 13 warned of the potential collapse of Kabul soon after the Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawal of U.S. troops, The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription). - Why it matters: "The classified cable represents the clearest evidence yet that the administration had been warned by its own officials on the ground that the Taliban's advance was imminent and Afghanistan's military may be unable to stop it."
The cable was sent to Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Director of Policy Planning Salman Ahmed. - Blinken reviewed it shortly after receipt, a person familiar with the exchange told The Journal.
The cable was in State's dissent channel — a formal mechanism, established during the Vietnam War, allowing foreign service officers to raise concerns about policy, The Journal reports. - State Department spokesman Ned Price said Blinken reads every dissent and reviews every reply.
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| 3. How the world sees Afghanistan |
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| Courtesy The Economist |
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| "The fiasco in Afghanistan is a grave blow to America's standing," The Economist writes in its lead editorial (subscription): If the propagandists of the Taliban had scripted the collapse of America's 20-year mission to reshape Afghanistan, they could not have come up with more harrowing images. "As a result," The Economist writes, "America's power to deter its enemies and reassure its friends has diminished": Its intelligence was flawed, its planning rigid, its leaders capricious and its concern for allies minimal. That is likely to embolden jihadists everywhere, who will take the Taliban's victory as evidence that God is on their side. It will also encourage adventurism on the part of hostile governments such as Russia's or China's, and worry America's friends. ⚡ Humanitarian crisis rises: 14 million people in Afghanistan face severe hunger following the Taliban takeover, the UN food agency says. |
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| A message from Facebook |
| Internet regulations are as outdated as dial-up |
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| 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.
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| 4. America's patchwork back-to-school plan |
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| Illustration: Rae Cook/Axios |
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| Conflicting policies, fiery political debates and the continued spread of Delta are sewing chaos and uncertainty into the back-to-school season, Axios Local reporters write from across the country. - Why it matters: This will be the third school year in a row with COVID-related disruptions. Many students have already suffered severe learning loss. The gap between students could grow even wider, thanks to disparities in vaccinations and rising case counts.
Mask mandates for students aren't universal, but they're pretty common. - The Texas Education Agency yesterday suspended enforcement in public schools of the ban on mask mandates by Gov. Greg Abbott (R).
- Schools in Palm Beach County, Fla., that didn't require masks had to quarantine 440 students — just two days into the school year.
- Keep reading.
Sign up for the Axios Local near you. - Live now: Charlotte ... Denver ... Des Moines ... Northwest Arkansas ... Tampa Bay ... Twin Cities.
- Coming this fall: Atlanta ... Austin ... Chicago .... Columbus ... Dallas ... D.C. ... Nashville ... Philadelphia.
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| 5. Schools become parents' battleground |
| Families protest before the Hillsborough County School Board meeting in Tampa on July 27. Photo: Octavio Jones/Getty Images A school board meeting in Tampa lasted four hours, with a parade of emotional people trying to shoehorn elaborate political philosophy into one-minute speaking slots, Axios' Ben Montgomery reports. - Anti-mask moms wore T-shirts that said "Freedom Over Fear" and called masks "tyranny" and "oppression."
The big picture: The major issues dividing the country have dropped like an anvil on schools, The New York Times reports (subscription). - "From mask mandates to critical race theory and gender identity, educators are besieged."
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| 6. Amanda Gorman calls on Biden to support Afghan women and girls |
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| Now endangered: In 2015, Afghan girls study outside Jalalabad. Photo: Parwiz/Reuters |
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| Prominent women's rights advocates, including poet laureate Amanda Gorman, are calling on the Biden administration to protect and support Afghan women and girls and "honor its commitment to gender equity," Axios' Hans Nichols writes. - Why it matters: The activists — including the actors Connie Britton and Charlize Theron, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, and Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg — are the latest advocates to try to increase pressure on President Biden to do more for Afghans who could face persecution from the Taliban.
- The letter was organized by Vital Voices and Women for Women International, a group of celebrities, policy experts, NGO leaders and activists.
The context: The U.S. now has enough aircraft available to meet its goal of getting 5,000 to 9,000 people out of Afghanistan each day, the Pentagon told reporters yesterday. |
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| 7. Extreme heat becomes global health issue |
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| Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios |
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| Heat-related deaths around the world increased by 74% from 1980 to 2016, Axios' Marisa Fernandez writes from a study published yesterday in The Lancet. More than 356,000 people died from extreme heat-related causes in just nine countries in 2019, a death toll that's expected to grow as temperatures increase worldwide. - 1.3 million deaths were related to cold — a 31% increase since 1990.
Heat stress can lead to stroke, organ and brain damage. A pair of studies out of the University of Washington found it also causes several types of heart disease, diabetes and chronic kidney disease. |
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| 8. Growing service: At-home car repairs |
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| Photo: RepairSmith |
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| Just as the pandemic dragged car-buying into the 21st century, the repair business is also modernizing, Axios' Joann Muller writes from Detroit: - RepairSmith, a startup that lets you book an appointment online and then sends a mechanic to your home, is expanding after raising $42 million in new funding this week.
- The L.A.-based company, which launched in 2019 out of a Mercedes-Benz incubator program, is now in seven states and plans to expand to every major metropolitan area by the end of 2022. It serves all makes and models.
How it works: Customers enter a few details about their vehicle and can then get a price quote or schedule an appointment online. - For an oil change or brake job, the mechanic will show up at the appointed hour in a RepairSmith van with the necessary parts.
- Customers who aren't sure what's wrong can schedule a one-hour diagnostic visit. The mechanic will offer a quote and schedule a follow-up visit. If a job's too big, the car is towed to a repair shop.
- Mechanics are employed by RepairSmith, not independent contractors.
The big picture: Tesla and other newcomers offer at-home repair services because they don't have traditional dealerships where customers can bring their cars for maintenance. - Some luxury brands have been experimenting with similar services, and there are other startups in the space too, like YourMechanic.
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| A message from Facebook |
| Why Facebook supports updated internet privacy regulations |
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| Protecting privacy means something different than it did in 1996—the last time comprehensive internet regulations were passed. We've introduced tools like Privacy Checkup to help people control their information. Now we need updated regulations to set consistent data protection standards. |
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