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| Welcome to Tuesday, Daily Briefing readers. You may be just waking up to the news that the Biden administration is expected to recommend COVID booster shots for all Americans, regardless of age. That announcement could come this week. Also, as chaos continues to reign in Afghanistan, the Taliban announced a vague "amnesty" and urged women to join their government. |
| Steve is here with Tuesday's news. |
| 🌎 New this morning: You got the vaccine. But your college roommate didn't. Now what? Roommate situations at colleges and universities across the nation could get tricky with COVID. |
| ⚖ "Running off to Cancun during tough times": CNN fired back at Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for mocking journalist Clarissa Ward over the head covering she wore in Kabul while covering the fall of Afghanistan. |
| 📺 "I'm not an advisor, I'm a brother": Chris Cuomo returned from his vacation to his CNN show "Cuomo Primetime" and broke his silence on his older brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, resigning from office amid a sexual harassment scandal. |
| 🏈 "Health and safety has always been our number one priority": The Las Vegas Raiders have become the first NFL team to require proof of vaccination to attend home games. |
| 📱 100 million wireless customers possibly affected: T-Mobile confirmed it was hit by a data breach, but it can't yet determine whether customer data was impacted. |
| 🎧 On today's 5 Things podcast, hear how the Taliban are trying to urge women that things will be different this time around. You can listen to the podcast every day on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your smart speaker. |
| What else is happening today: |
US expected to recommend COVID booster shots for all Americans |
| In news likely to resonate with most Americans as they begin their day Tuesday, Biden administration officials are expected to recommend COVID-19 booster shots for all Americans, regardless of age, eight months after they received the second shot, a source confirmed to USA TODAY late Monday. The news, which will be announced as soon as this week, comes as the delta variant rages across the country. It also comes amid anxieties about the Pfizer vaccine's waning immunity and the Food and Drug Administration's approval of booster vaccines for immunocompromised people. Data published by Israel's Ministry of Health shows protection from the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine dropped off after six months. "It gets down to the 40 to 50% effectiveness range, whereas it used to be 95%," said Dr. Eric Topol, an expert on the use of data in medical research. Booster shots will begin as early as mid-September once the FDA formally approves vaccines. |
As chaos reigns in Afghanistan, Taliban announces 'amnesty' |
| The Taliban declared an "amnesty" across Afghanistan and urged women to join its government Tuesday, trying to calm nerves across the tense capital city of Kabul. Senior Taliban leader Amir Khan Muttaqi is said to be in Kabul negotiating with political leadership, the Associated Press reported. The talks are aimed at bringing non-Taliban leaders into the government. The movement comes a day after President Joe Biden said he made the right call to pull American troops out of Afghanistan even though he said the Taliban's swift seizure of Kabul unfolded faster than expected. "I stand squarely behind my decision," Biden said Monday during a speech at the White House. Critics said Biden may have explained why the U.S. is leaving Afghanistan well, but he failed to address how the U.S. is leaving as American troops scrambled to evacuate thousands from the U.S. Embassy and images from Kabul's airport bring the fall of Vietnam in 1975 to mind. |
 | | A Taliban fighter sits on the back of vehicle with a machine gun in front of the main gate leading to the Afghan presidential palace, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 16, 2021. The U.S. military has taken over Afghanistan's airspace as it struggles to manage a chaotic evacuation after the Taliban rolled into the capital. | | Rahmat Gul, AP | |
Additional coverage on the fall of Afghanistan |
| 🌏 "I was angry, somewhat depressed. I felt empty": Veterans wanted the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan, but the nation's sudden collapse could complicate mental health issues. |
| 🌏 Opinion piece from an ex-Obama adviser: President Joe Biden must fire his national security adviser for the failure in Afghanistan, writes Brett Bruen. |
| 🌏 "Nobody should be surprised": This is why Afghan security forces crumbled so quickly to the Taliban. |
| 🌏 Will women be oppressed again? One of Afghanistan's first female mayors, Zarifa Ghafari, is worried the Taliban may kill her. |
| 🌏 "I am heartbroken and shattered": Afghan-Americans express their devastation for their loved ones who still are in Afghanistan. |
Newsmakers in their own words: Joe Biden on withdrawing from Afghanistan |
 | | President Joe Biden speaks about the fall of Afghanistan from the East Room of the White House on Monday, August, 17, 2021. | | Associated Press photo; USA TODAY graphic | |
| President Joe Biden said Monday he made the right call to pull American troops out of Afghanistan even though he said the Taliban's swift seizure of Kabul unfolded faster than expected. "I stand squarely behind my decision," Biden said during a speech at the White House. Biden added Afghan officials – including former President Ashraf Ghani – had assured him Afghan forces would fight the insurgents. |
📸 Photo of the day: Desperate Afghans pour onto runways at Kabul airport 📸 |
 | | Hundreds of people run alongside a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane, some climbing on the plane, as it moves down a runway of the international airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug.16. 2021. | | Verified UGC via AP | |
| Thousands of Afghans desperate to flee their besieged country poured onto the runways at Kabul's international airport Monday and swarmed a departing U.S. military jet in a horrific tableau that President Joe Biden described as "gut-wrenching" even as he defended his decision to withdraw American forces. At least seven people died in the mayhem as Afghanistan plunged deeper into chaos. |
| Click here to see more photos of the pandemonium at Kabul airport as Afghans attempted to flee the country and the Taliban. |
3 named storms swirl in Atlantic Basin, including in quake-damaged Haiti |
| Tropical Storm Fred brought heavy rains over the Southeast early Tuesday while earthquake-damaged Haiti reeled under a drenching from Grace, a depression that regained tropical storm status overnight. Fred's maximum sustained winds had weakened after its landfall late Monday and were at 40 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Thousands of Florida Panhandle residents were reported without power. In Haiti, thousands are reeling from the effects of Grace Tuesday as the storm slammed the tiny nation already devastated by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake. Officials warned rainfall could reach 15 inches in some areas before the storm left. The death toll from Saturday's temblor stood at over 1,400, with thousands more injured. Over 7,000 homes were destroyed along with hospitals, schools and churches. The third storm to watch for is Tropical Storm Henri, which formed Monday near Bermuda and is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic season. |
What else people are reading: |
| 🔵 "My chair is my independence and to be left in an over sized airport chair is degrading": Irish Paralympic athlete Patrick Flanagan was "gutted" to find wheelchair "completely broken" at London's Heathrow Airport on his way to Tokyo. |
| 🔴 "She was the perfect victim for someone like Trevor": WARNING: This story contains descriptions of violence. The woman who has accused Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer of sexual assault took the witness stand and gave tearful testimony about her two encounters with him at his home earlier this year. |
| 🔵 "I thought it was the wrong idea": Lady Gaga may have won her first Academy Award for her and Bradley Cooper's 2018 remake of "A Star Is Born," but Barbra Streisand, who starred in the 1976 remake with Kris Kristofferson, isn't impressed. |
| 🔵 No evidence the dog muzzle was intended as a threat: Dr. Michelle Fiscus, Tennessee's former top vaccination official who was fired in July, may have sent herself a dog muzzle, and there's no evidence it was intended to threaten her. |
| 🔵 "Exploited his status as a musician": Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan is being sued for allegedly grooming and sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in 1965. |
 | | Singer and songwriter Bob Dylan | | Associated Press photo; USA TODAY graphic | |
Hundreds of Nashville students quarantining after the first week of school |
| More than 1,000 students and staff are in quarantine Tuesday after the first week of school in Nashville, Tennessee, where more than 250 cases of COVID-19 were recorded . In total, 980 students and 95 staff are in quarantine or isolating. The situation in Nashville schools is happening as the nation is seeing hospitalizations for those under age 50 hit all-time highs. "We're seeing a lot of people get seriously ill," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Biden administration's lead adviser on the pandemic, said Sunday on CBS. "The hospitalizations are on the brink of actually overrunning the hospitals, particularly intensive care units." The U.S. has had more than 36.89 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 622,000 deaths, according to Tuesday morning's Johns Hopkins University data. |
ICYMI: Some of our top stories published Monday |
| 🔴 "His enduring memory will be of the incredible person that he was": USA Fencing coach Anthony 'Buckie' Leach, who led the U.S. women's foil team at the Tokyo Olympics, died in a motorcycle accident over the weekend. |
| 💲 Permanent food stamps boost: Benefits for about 42 million program participants will be increased by more than 25% after finishing a review that determined existing benefits are too low to pay for a healthy diet. |
| 🎬 Star makes claims in new interview: Johnny Depp talks about 'Hollywood's boycott of me' in his first interview since losing a libel suit in Great Britain. |
Check your freezer: Frozen shrimp recalled for possible salmonella |
| A nationwide recall in effect Tuesday for frozen shrimp sold at Whole Foods, Meijer and more stores for possible salmonella contamination. According to a recall notice on the Food and Drug Administration website, there have been nine reports of salmonella-related illnesses linked to frozen shrimp products from Avanti Frozen Foods. Affected products include "various sizes of frozen cooked, peeled, deveined, shrimp (with some packaged with cocktail sauce) sold in various unit sizes," which were distributed nationwide from November 2020 to May 2021. The recall dated Aug. 13 is an expansion of one from late June, and the company said it "has been initiated out of an abundance of precaution and will cover a large amount of product that has not been associated with any illness." |
| The Daily Briefing is free, but several stories we link to in this edition are subscriber-only. Please support our journalism and become a USA TODAY digital subscriber today. |
| Contributing: The Associated Press |
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