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The World
Flights out of Kabul have been suspended as thousands of desperate Afghans rushed on to the runaway in a panic to escape the Taliban-controlled capital. A foreign official monitoring evacuation flights from the city said US marines had fired shots, while other Afghans fell to their deaths after clinging to the wheels of planes that were taking off. At least five people were reported to have died. (The Times, Financial Times)
President Biden will return to the White House from Camp David and deliver an address on the crisis in Afghanistan at 3:45 p.m. ET. (Axios)
The Taliban’s stunning takeover of Kabul sent shock waves around the world — with immediate implications for the complicated knot of three regional powers in Afghanistan’s neighborhood: Pakistan, India and China. In recent months, all three governments have escalated their diplomatic outreach to the group in anticipation of the possibility that the Taliban would grow into a political force in Afghanistan. That possibility — and more — became reality as Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar appeared likely to sweep into the vacated presidential palace in Kabul, ushering in a new geopolitical landscape in Asia. (Washington Post)
Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban leader freed from a Pakistani jail on the request of the US less than three years ago, has emerged as an undisputed victor of the 20-year war. While Haibatullah Akhundzada is the Taliban’s overall leader, Baradar is its political chief and its most public face. He was said to be on his way from his office in Doha to Kabul on Sunday evening. In a televised statement on the fall of Kabul, he said the Taliban’s real test was only just beginning and that they had to serve the nation. (The Guardian)
Afghanistan was the country most affected by terror as well as the least peaceful country in the world, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace. It has been at the opposite ends of both indices for several years now, with its rating only declining since their inception in the 2000s. Afghanistan was also the country with the biggest economic losses from terrorism, which were estimated at 16.7 percent of GDP in 2019 – far ahead of second-placed Syria with only 3.4 percent. Economic losses from all violence were placed at around 40 percent of GDP. (Statista, Institute for Economics and Peace)
Aid workers scramble to save Haiti earthquake victims as storm approaches: Tropical Depression Grace was expected to begin lashing Haiti later Monday, two days after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake killed nearly 1,300 people, a death toll that is expected to climb. (Washington Post)
Why are earthquakes so devastating in Haiti? Multiple fault lines between tectonic plates cut through or near the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic. What’s worse, not all of those fault lines behave the same way. “Hispaniola sits in a place where plates transition from smashing together to sliding past one another,” said Rich Briggs, a research geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Geologic Hazards Science Center. (Associated Press)
Canadians will go to the polls on September 20 to vote in a snap election two years ahead of schedule, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked the country’s governor-general to dissolve the legislature. (Financial Times)
Thai police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse protesters near the office of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Monday, as opposition parties moved to censure him in parliament over his handling of a COVID-19 crisis. (Reuters)
Iran buckled to public anger and will import US-produced BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as it faces record numbers of Covid-19 deaths; meanwhile, Covid deaths in England triple in one month. (Financial Times)
L.A. County coronavirus surge continues as schools prepare to reopen. (Los Angeles Times)
Japan plans to extend the state of emergency in cities including Tokyo until Sept. 12 and expand the declaration to seven additional prefectures. (Nikkei Asian Review)
In win for Gov. Abbott, Texas Supreme Court blocked local mask mandates. Several counties in Texas have sought to implement mask mandates, as COVID-19 cases surge across the state. (Houston Chronicle, Axios)
Economy
Companies are sitting on a record amount of cash amid lingering uncertainty about disruptions from Covid-19, defying expectations earlier this year that a waning pandemic would unleash a spending spree. (Wall Street Journal)
The SEC is headed for a scuffle with corporate America over how much information public companies must disclose about their most important asset: employees. Urged on by progressive Democrats, unions and investors, the regulator is working on a rule that will require public companies to disclose more information on their workforces, such as data on diversity, staff compensation and employee turnover. As companies depend less on physical assets and more on employees, including gig workers and contractors, such "human capital" data provides crucial insight into corporate strategy and governance issues. (Reuters)
Financial giant State Street is vacating its two New York City office locations. State Street is giving New York-based employees the option to work in other offices in New Jersey and Stamford, Conn. But the firm isn’t directing New York-based staffers to spend time in those offices, letting different groups across State Street determine the mix of in-person and remote work that suits them. State Street also secured some co-working space in Manhattan for those who want to use it. A firm spokesman said State Street changed its real-estate strategy in New York to accommodate a hybrid workforce. (Wall Street Journal)
Airbnb has been criticized for using confidential arbitration to address allegations of sexual assault and violence between guests and hosts. The travel rental platform is now changing its terms of service so that such claims are no longer forced into arbitration and may instead proceed in court. (Fortune)
Venture investors have crowded into the supply chain management space as the pandemic upended the flow of goods around the world with nearly $7 billion invested through July—setting 2021 up to eclipse the previous industry peak in 2019. (Crunchbase)
Technology
A new “page experience” update from Google will be introduced to all users by the end of August. If two websites are identical in every other way, the one that launches faster, jiggles around less when loading and lets users interact with it more quickly will be placed higher in Google Search. These three metrics, which Google calls core web vitals, will let the company rate a page’s user experience, alongside existing Google measurements of how mobile-friendly it is, whether its connection is secure and whether it contains intrusive elements such as pop-ups. (Wall Street Journal)
The Chinese government in April quietly took a stake and a board seat in TikTok owner ByteDance’s key Chinese entity — a move that hasn’t been previously reported. The move gives Beijing more insight into the inner workings of ByteDance, the world’s most valuable privately held tech company, which owns some of the most popular apps in China, such as Douyin and Toutiao, along with TikTok. The government’s right to one seat on a three-person board of directors at Beijing ByteDance Technology Co. Ltd., which holds Chinese business licenses related to Douyin and Toutiao, raises questions about how much more influence Beijing can exert over ByteDance as a whole. (The Information)
You’ve never heard of the biggest digital media company in America: Red Ventures, which started as a digital marketing company, has attracted serious investments from private equity firms. Its location has helped obscure what is perhaps the biggest digital publisher in America, a 4,500-employee juggernaut that says it has roughly $2 billion in annual revenues, a conservative valuation earlier this year of more than $11 billion, and more readers, as measured by Comscore, than any media brand you’ve ever heard of — an average of 751 million visits a month. (New York Times)
Quantum engineers from UNSW Sydney have removed a major obstacle that has stood in the way of quantum computers becoming a reality: they discovered a new technique they say will be capable of controlling millions of spin qubits -- the basic units of information in a silicon quantum processor. Until now, quantum computer engineers and scientists have worked with a proof-of-concept model of quantum processors by demonstrating the control of only a handful of qubits. But with their latest research, the team have found what they consider 'the missing jigsaw piece' in the quantum computer architecture that should enable the control of the millions of qubits needed for extraordinarily complex calculations. (University of New South Wales)
WSJ’s Joanna Stern talked with Apple’s Craig Federighi about the company’s child protection features: “He spoke about the stumbles the company made in the announcement. I pushed him to explain everything in plain English.” (Wall Street Journal, WSJ video)
Smart Links
Fed weighs ending asset purchases by mid-2022. (Wall Street Journal)
World’s third-busiest port remains partially shut in China. (Bloomberg)
China kills almost 300 partnerships with foreign universities after tutoring ban. (South China Morning Post)
These people who work from home have a secret: They have two jobs. (Wall Street Journal)
Second-hand car prices pick up in UK as chip shortage hits manufacturing. (Financial Times)
Oatly revenues jump 53% as appetite for dairy alternatives rises. (Financial Times)
Some investors urge Disney to ditch streaming bundle with Hulu and ESPN+ in favor of an all-in-one Disney+ offering. (Hollywood Reporter)