• Politico Playbook: How the White House wants to spin the fall of Kabul
• Reuters: Taliban officials: there will be no transitional government in Afghanistan
• Reuters: U.S. says Kabul airport under fire after Taliban enters Afghan capital 
• CNN: The latest on Afghanistan as Taliban edges closer to taking control 
• Politico: Blinken: Evacuations from U.S. embassy in Kabul under way
• CNN: US Embassy in Afghanistan tells staff to destroy sensitive materials
• NYT: As Taliban Capture Cities, U.S. Says Afghan Forces Must Fend for Themselves
• ABC: US moving personnel out of its embassy in ‘orderly’ manner: Blinken
• White House: Remarks by President Biden on the Drawdown of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan
• Vox: Time is running out to save Afghans who helped US troops 
• ABC News: Biden and Trump bear responsibility for Afghanistan: Cheney
• Politico: Republicans trash Afghanistan ’embarrassment’ in closed-door briefing 
• CNN: Top Republican on foreign affairs committee slams Biden over ‘unmitigated disaster’ in Afghanistan 
• Daily Beast: Even the U.K. Is Turning on Biden’s Hasty Afghan Pullout 
• The Guardian: Biden in an impossible bind as Afghanistan blame game begins
• WSJ: Biden’s Afghanistan Exit Raises Questions About His Foreign-Policy Record 
• NYT op-ed: Biden Could Have Stopped the Taliban. He Chose Not To.
• New Yorker: “Not Our Tragedy”: the Taliban Are Coming Back, and America Is Still Leaving
• Slate: Trump’s New Big Lie: Afghanistan 
• WaPo op-ed: Afghan lives ruined or lost will be part of Biden’s legacy 
• Intelligencer: The Withdrawal From Afghanistan Was Destined for Disaster 
• Politico op-ed: Joe Biden’s Afghanistan pull-out is a mistake we will pay for 
• New Yorker: The Uncomfortable Truth of Biden’s Rapid Afghanistan Withdrawal
• NYT: As U.S. Leaves Afghanistan, History Suggests It May Struggle to Stay Out 
• NYT: Biden Takes Two Paths to Wind Down Iraq and Afghan Wars

VACCINES, MASKS, & CULTURE WARS 

• NYT: Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count
• NYT: Tracking Coronavirus in Florida: Latest Map and Case Count
• NYT: Tracking Coronavirus in Texas: Latest Map and Case Count
• NYT: Tracking Coronavirus in Mississippi: Latest Map and Case Count
• The Sunday Times: In America’s Covid culture war, Republican leaders vie to be most freedom-loving
• CNN: These 8 states make up half of US Covid-19 hospitalizations. And the surge among the unvaccinated is overwhelming health care workers 
• Vox: The Texas GOP’s war on governing 
• CNN: Republicans are seizing on backlash to new mask and vaccine mandates 
• NYT: Texas takes its ban on school mask mandates to the state Supreme Court.
• Slate: Homeland Security Warns New COVID Restrictions May Spark Attacks by Domestic Extremists 
• Vox: Anti-mask hysterics at Tennessee school board meeting show how basic public health is now polarizing
• WaPo: Florida Gov. DeSantis threatens to hold school leaders’ pay if they require masks: ‘Financial consequences’ 
• NYT: ‘This Is Really Scary’: Kids Struggle With Long Covid
• WaPo: Public health collides with politics as latest wave of mask wars takes off
• NYT: Gov. Greg Abbott bars mandates for vaccinations and masks in Texas. 
• The Atlantic: THE MESSIEST PHASE OF THE PANDEMIC YET 
• NYT: Tracking Coronavirus in Georgia: Latest Map and Case Count
• The Guardian: Vaccine hesitancy is a symptom of people’s broken relationship with the state
• Slate: What’s Really to Blame for Low Black Vaccination Rates
• Business Insider: Marjorie Taylor Greene downplayed reports that hospitals were packed with COVID-19 patients, saying ‘we can’t live forever’
• FiveThirtyEight: Unvaccinated America, In 5 Charts 
• AP: More US cities requiring proof of vaccination to go places 
• CNN: Twitter suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s account for one week 
• The Atlantic: The Tucker Carlson Fans Who Got Vaxxed
• Slate: Anti-Vax Radio Host Urges Friends to Get Vaccinated Before Dying of COVID 
• Slate: The Lucrative Business of Stoking Vaccine Skepticism
• Al Jazeera: US vaccination rates increase alongside spread of Delta variant
• AP: AP-NORC poll: Most unvaccinated Americans don’t want shots

CENSUS

• Cook Political Report: New Census Dataset Is Mostly Good News for Democrats 
• CNN: M​​ultiracial population grew in almost every county in the US. It doesn’t mean racism is over 
• Business Insider: ​​This map shows the fastest growing and shrinking cities in America over the last decade
• Bloomberg Government: Minority Population Gains Won’t Guarantee More Political Clout
• Punchbowl: Census numbers out today. Have Republicans already won the House?
• NYT: Let the Gerrymandering (and the Legal Battles) Begin 
• AP: Census data kicks off effort to reshape US House districts
• AP: Census data sets up redistricting fight over growing suburbs
• ABCNews: Census data release sets off nationwide redistricting battles
• Politico: Redistricting sprint begins with major census data drop 
• Democracy Docket: What Does the New Census Data Mean for Voting Rights? 
• NPR: What The New Census Data Can — And Can’t — Tell Us About People Living In The U.S.
• USAToday: Some states are in a ‘pickle’: COVID broke the ‘clockwork’ of redistricting, putting calendars in chaos
• CBSNews: Census data shows U.S. growing more diverse as congressional redistricting fights loom