| ADMINISTRATION: The Taliban’s blitz through Afghanistan’s provincial capitals in the past week forced a surprised Biden administration on Thursday to order the evacuation of most U.S. embassy staff members from Kabul (NBC News and The Associated Press). The Pentagon is sending more than 3,000 troops to the capital city to assist with the exodus of U.S. personnel, including at the airport, said a spokesman, adding that the U.S. embassy will remain open. The United Kingdom said about 600 troops would be deployed on a short-term basis to support British nationals leaving the country, and Canada is sending special forces to help evacuate its embassy. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani of the departure of U.S. diplomatic personnel. An administration summary of the conversation on Thursday night called it “an evolving security situation.” The State Department said it “will accelerate the tempo of Special Immigration Visa (SIV) flights” to airlift more Afghans out of the country who assisted U.S. forces and are seen as at risk under Taliban rule. That effort has been underway for weeks. Today, the Taliban captured another three provincial capitals, including Helmand, and on Thursday controlled the southern city of Kandahar, considered a major strategic and symbolic victory (The Associated Press and The New York Times). President Biden announced in April that U.S. troops would withdraw from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, a timeline later accelerated to Aug. 31. The Pentagon this week said the Afghan government’s fight against the Taliban is up to the Afghan army. "It really depends on the kind of political and military leadership that the Afghans can muster to turn this around," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Thursday. NPR: Conditions in Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan, now at least two-thirds of the country, are "brutal," said Foreign Policy journalist Lynne O’Donnell, who reported from Kabul. Susan Glasser, The New Yorker: “Not our tragedy”: The Taliban are coming back and the United States is still leaving. 
© Getty Images > Drug prices: Biden on Thursday implored Congress to include strict controls on prescription drug prices in the mammoth social policy bill that Democrats plan to draft this fall. Rising pharmaceutical prices have been an issue of intense concern among members of both parties for years, but lawmakers have been pressured by industry lobbying (The New York Times). Biden said he wants at least three provisions included in the $3.5 trillion social policy bill that Democrats hope to pass later this year without relying on Republicans. He wants Medicare to be granted the power to negotiate lower drug prices, pharmaceutical companies to face penalties if they raise prices faster than inflation, and a new cap on how much Medicare recipients must spend on medications. Congressional Democrats have already said they want to include all three measures in the so-called reconciliation bill pending this year. “There aren’t a lot of things that almost every American could agree on,” the president said Thursday at the White House. “But I think it is safe to say that all of us, whatever our background or our age and where we live, could agree that prescription drug prices are outrageously expensive in America.” Biden is dangling benefits from lower drug prices that majorities of Americans support: lower insurance premiums and copays; plus lower insulin prices, costs for arthritis medications and a less expensive tab for cancer drugs that he maintains would all dramatically plummet for millions of consumers. > Immigration: The U.S. topped federal tallies of illegal border crossings recorded during the past 21 years, exceeding 200,000 in July, according to Customs and Border Protection data released Thursday. Administration officials predicted earlier this year that the volume of migrants crossing the border would decline with the summer heat. Instead, Central American adults and children are crossing again in large groups of 300 or more, and U.S. border facilities are jammed with migrants shoulder-to-shoulder in detention facilities (The Washington Post). “The situation at the border is one of the toughest challenges we face,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday, speaking in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. “It is complicated, changing and involves vulnerable people at a time of a global pandemic.” Biden tasked Vice President Harris to tackle the “root causes” of illegal migration with government leaders in Central America. That project is a few months old. Officials in Abilene, Texas, complained on Thursday that the federal government in June and July used the local airport for chartered flights of undocumented migrants, including 65 who were released into the general community and directed to the Salvation Army, according to Mayor Anthony Williams (Abilene Reporter News). 
© Getty Images > West Wing: White House Legislative Affairs Director Louisa Terrell tells The Guardian in an interview that she values outreach to Capitol Hill in terms both large and small and not always along strict party lines. “You’ve got to be realistic. There are places where there are synergies and there are places where we’re just going to agree to disagree, so let’s just look around in the backyard and see if there are some things that we can work on,” said Terrell, who leads a 15-person team. “And if we can’t let’s just keep staying in touch and make sure you’re getting what you need from the agencies as you do your work. There are lots of ways of engaging even if you’re not trying to dig through a really hard policy issue.” ***** CORONAVIRUS: The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday amended the emergency use authorizations for the Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines to allow some people with compromised immune systems to get a third dose. The change is specific to patients who have been unable to mount an adequate immune response against the virus, even after being fully vaccinated (NBC News and The Hill). > Mandates: The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to an Indiana University COVID-19 vaccine requirement raised in a lawsuit brought by eight students who said the risks of being vaccinated outweigh potential benefits to their age group. It was the first legal test of a coronavirus vaccine mandate to come before the justices. A challenge to the policy was directed to Amy Coney Barrett, the justice in charge of that region of the country, who denied it. There were no noted dissents from other justices. "Protection of others does not relieve our society from the central canon of medical ethics requiring voluntary and informed consent," they told the justices, seeking an emergency order to block the back-to-campus requirement (NBC News). According to a tally by The Chronicle of Higher Education, more than 670 of the nation's colleges and universities now require students to be vaccinated. In another decision on Thursday, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked part of a rental eviction moratorium put in place by New York to help tenants dealing with high unemployment and economic distress during the pandemic. The ruling temporarily lifted part of New York’s policy, which had precluded landlords from challenging a tenant’s self-certified claim of financial hardship. But the order does not interfere with a tenant’s ability to mount a so-called “hardship defense” in an eviction court proceeding (The Hill). > More mandates: The administration announced Thursday that all Health and Human Services (HHS) employees who may come in contact with patients must be vaccinated against COVID-19, adding to a growing list of federal workers who will be mandated to get vaccinated, including U.S. military and patient-centered employees of the Veterans Affairs Department. The move will affect 25,000 HHS workers, including those at the National Institutes of Health and the Public Health Services Commissioned Corp. — medical workers who get deployed in health emergencies — and the Indian Health Services, the agency said. The requirement will also apply to contractors, trainees and volunteers at HHS medical and clinical research facilities (NBC News). The city of San Francisco on Thursday said it will become the first major U.S. municipality to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for a variety of indoor activities such as entry to gyms, restaurants and bars (San Francisco Chronicle). Add Facebook to the list of companies requiring U.S. employees to show proof of vaccination and wear masks when they eventually return to offices. In Facebook’s case, the office retunions won’t happen before January (after initially aiming for October), the company announced on Thursday (Bloomberg News). > Schools: There is no national consensus about how to keep students in classrooms safe from COVID-19 infection. A national patchwork of standards for mask-wearing, virus testing and vaccines pits public health against the current swirl of partisan politics, reports The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel. There are no coronavirus mandates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the federal government trailed behind requirements set by companies, industries, hospitals and universities before requiring proof of vaccination from certain federal workers and contractors at the VA, U.S. military and HHS. > Data disclosure: After weeks of Florida foot-dragging about publicly releasing more detailed coronavirus data about rising infections, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday signaled a willingness to shift from weekly to daily reports. “With these daily cases, those are reported publicly every day to the CDC so people have access to that. But in terms of breaking it down by county, that may not be a bad idea going forward. I know we used to look at that a lot,” he said (Miami Herald). | 
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