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| Presented By Bank of America |
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| Axios AM |
| By Mike Allen ·Sep 22, 2021 |
| 🍂 Good Wednesday morning, and welcome to fall. Smart Brevity™ count: 1,189 words ... 4½ minutes. Edited by Justin Green. 🥊 Breaking: Former President George W. Bush's first campaign event of the '22 midterms will be a fundraiser for Rep. Liz Cheney, The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription). 🔋Please join Axios' Ben Geman and me today at 12:30 p.m. ET as we talk Climate Week with White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy and Environmental Defense Fund president Fred Krupp. Sign up here. |
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| 1 big thing: COVID saps public schools |
 Data: National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Map: Sara Wise/Axios The pandemic has weakened public schools, with Zoom classes, teacher fatigue and student disengagement taking tolls. U.S. charter school enrollment increased 7% between the 2019-20 school year and the 2020-21 year — a jump of 240,000 pupils, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools reports. - During the same period, non-charter public school enrollment dropped 3% — a whopping 1.5 million students.
What to watch: Public schools that waffle over mask policies or delay the return to in-person learning could frustrate even more parents |
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| 2. "Large scale" release of Haitians in U.S. |
| Migrants' encampment along the International Bridge near the Rio Grande in Del Rio, Texas., yesterday. Photo: Julio Cortez/AP Many Haitian migrants camped in the Texas border town of Del Rio are being released in the U.S., two federal officials tell AP. - Haitians have been freed on a "very, very large scale" in recent days, according to one U.S. official, who put the figure in the thousands.
What's happening: Many are released with notices to appear (NTA) at an immigration office within 60 days. That takes less processing by Border Patrol agents than ordering an appearance in immigration court. - The Homeland Security Department is busing Haitians to El Paso, Laredo and Rio Grande Valley, and this week added flights to Tucson.
Photo: Julio Corte/AP The new wall: Texas Department of Safety vehicles line up along the bank of the Rio Grande to try to block new migrants. |
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| 3. 🌐 U.S. becomes world stage |
| Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images With more than two dozen world leaders appearing in person at the UN in New York for the first time during the pandemic, President Biden said that "as we close this period of relentless war, we're opening a new era of relentless diplomacy": We will lead on all the greatest challenges of our time — from COVID to climate, peace and security, human dignity and human rights. But we will not go it alone. Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters After returning from New York, Biden — who used to commute home to Delaware every night when he was in the U.S. Senate — greeted Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the Oval Office by saying: "I understand, Boris ... you came down on Amtrak, is that right?" - Johnson: "I did. And ... you're a living deity — "
- Biden: "I am."
- Johnson: " — on Amtrak, I can tell you."
- Biden: "I've traveled millions of miles. ... If I were a conductor, I'd be number one in seniority."
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| A message from Bank of America |
| New help for striving communities |
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| As the private sector innovates aid and financing, seeking holistic solutions to neighborhood challenges is the cornerstone of the approach. Businesses, which rely on healthy communities for their own prosperity, must play a big part in driving solutions. See why. |
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| 4. D.C. office boom grinds to halt |
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| Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios |
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| The decades-long office boom that remade the District has all but stopped, partly because of workplace trends, Paige Hopkins and Cuneyt Dil write in Axios D.C., which debuted this week. (Sign up here.) - Why it matters: Dizzying construction reshaped the city, reinvigorated downtown and created bustling new communities.
Stunning stat: Only one new office building is scheduled for completion after 2022, commercial real estate firm CBRE says. - "The pipeline is dwindling to zero," Randy Harrell, CBRE's Vice Chairman, tells Axios. "In a normal environment we'd see ... between one and two million square feet [of new office space] delivering every year in Washington."
What's happening: Money to invest in new office construction just isn't there, Harrell says. He blames reports of high vacancy rates and the pandemic-induced exodus from major metros. Both catalysts make investment firms uneasy about new projects. The home-building pipeline remains strong. And growth continues just outside D.C.: - Amazon is pouring billions into its HQ2 just across the Potomac River in Arlington, Va. The company says its 350-foot-tall tower, "The Helix," will bring 1,900 jobs.
Share this story. |
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| 5. Woodward/Costa channel Biden aides |
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| George Stephanopoulos interviews Robert Costa and Bob Woodward on Monday. Screengrab: ABC |
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| "Peril" — the instant bestseller by Bob Woodward and his Washington Post colleague Robert Costa — grabbed headlines for its Donald Trump reporting. But half the book covers President Biden, with Woodwardian channeling of top advisers' interior monologues: In a 50-50 Senate, each Democrat was a tall pole in the tent. Everyone was needed. [Chief of staff Ron] Klain recalled that they all thought that life in the Obama White House had been hard with 58 Democratic senators. He fantasized that if Biden had 58 Democrats, as chief of staff Klain would only have to work three days a week. (p. 347-8) When Biden announced his Afghanistan withdrawal decision in April, he "did not expect to see on television and in the newspapers so much critical commentary," Woodward and Costa write: Several days after the announcement, [Secretary of State Tony] Blinken and [national security adviser Jake] Sullivan were with the president in the Oval Office. ... "Mr. President," Blinken said, trying to provide some comfort, "this was an incredibly hard decision." ... Biden was standing by the Resolute Desk. Blinken could see the president was still carrying the burden of the decision. Presidents lived in the world of the suboptimal. Standing there alone, the president lightly tapped the desk. "Yeah," Biden said, "the buck really does stop here." (p. 391) Flashback: Then-Vice President Biden "told others privately in 2009, 'The military doesn't f--- around me,' more than implying they had with Obama." (p. 336) |
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| 6. Facebook fights for its image |
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| Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios |
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| Facebook is ditching apologies and taking a more combative stance against critics as it faces a barrage of negative coverage and leaked internal reports, Axios managing editor Scott Rosenberg reports. The New York Times reported (subscription) a Facebook "effort to show users pro-Facebook stories" in an "informational unit" marked as coming from Facebook: - "[T]he move was sensitive because Facebook had not previously positioned the News Feed as a place where it burnished its own reputation."
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone tweeted: "Kinda like the New York Times uses the New York Times to promote the New York Times?!" |
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| 7. SEC chair sees short life for crypto |
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| Via Twitter |
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| SEC Chair Gary Gensler said he doesn't see long-term viability for thousands of cryptocurrencies, likening them to the wildcat banking era before federal regulation, The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription). - "I don't think there's long-term viability for five or six thousand private forms of money," Gensler told the WashPost's David Ignatius at a virtual event. "So in the meantime I think it's worthwhile to have an investor-protection regime."
Translation: Regulation. |
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| 8. 🍔 Exclusive: Leo DiCaprio backs cultivated-meat startups |
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| Mosa Meat's cultured steak tartare. Photo: Redwan Farooq/Mosa Meat |
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| Actor and environmentalist Leo DiCaprio is investing in a pair of cultivated meat startups and joining their advisory boards, Axios Future correspondent Bryan Walsh scoops. - Why it matters: Cultivated meat — which uses animal cells to grow only the parts that consumers will eat, rather than an entire cow — is criticized by some greens for the energy it requires.
DiCaprio will invest undisclosed sums in Dutch startup Mosa Meat, which made the world's first cell-based hamburger, and Israel's Aleph Farms, which produced the first cell-based steak ("Steak done right"). |
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| A message from Bank of America |
| Sustainable communities and the private sector |
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| Bank of America is finding new ways to provide help to the communities it operates in. "Sustainable finance can be a powerful tool in addressing critical environmental and social issues affecting local communities around the country." - Bank of America Vice Chairman Anne Finucane. Learn more. |
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