Homeland security head Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday the United States has encountered an “unprecedented” number of migrants illegally crossing the border. In July, Customs and Border Protection took more than 212,000 people into custody. The spike from June to July was also notable because arrests usually drop during the hottest summer weeks.
More cities in Afghanistan are falling to the Taliban, including the second biggest city, Kandahar. Kandahar is a traditional stronghold for the militant group and a key economic hub. Three thousand American troops are being sent to secure the U.S. Embassy. State Department spokesman Ned Price said, “This is not an abandonment ... What this is, is a reduction in the size of our civilian footprint.” And the UN says more than 18 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance there as the conflict escalates.
What is in the $3.5 trillion budget blueprint? Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer publicly released the full text of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s proposal. It seeks to enact President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan and to meet Biden’s climate change goals of 80 percent clean electricity and 50 percent economy-wide carbon emission reductions by 2030. It would bar new taxes on families making less than $400,000 per year, as well as on small businesses and family farms. According to estimates in the bill, the deficit would increase from $1.3 billion in 2022 up to $1.8 trillion in 2031. Because of this deficit, the national debt would be $45 trillion by 2031.
Pop star Britney Spears’s father has agreed to step down as conservator of her $60 million estate, in what the pop star’s lawyer called a major victory on Thursday. That’s after months of public pressure from Britney Spears’s supporters. Spears’s father has controlled much of his daughter’s affairs for over a decade, since she suffered a public mental health breakdown in 2008.
Tune into Deep Dive as we explore these topics and more.
