News Roundup: Gunfight Erupts at Kabul Airport as Biden Considers Extending Withdrawal Deadline

BY JACK CROWE

August 23, 2021

Good morning and welcome to the News Editor's Roundup, a weekly newsletter that will ensure you're up to date on the developments in politics, business, and culture that will shape the week's news cycle — as well as those that might escape mainstream attention.

Gunfight Erupts at Kabul Airport as Biden Considers Extending Withdrawal Deadline

A deadly gunfight erupted at Kabul airport in Afghanistan Monday morning, killing a member of the Afghan security forces and wounding other personnel, the German military announced on Twitter.

Mayhem erupted at the embattled airport around 4:15a.m. local time, when Afghan guards responded to gunfire from unidentified attackers.

U.S. and German soldiers were reportedly involved in the skirmish, drawing their weapons to return fire against a suspected sniper, CNN first reported. The pentagon has not acknowledged the incident.

Biden Job Approval Falls to Record Low amid COVID Resurgence

After a politically tumultuous summer, marked by a COVID rebound, partisan gridlock over domestic legislative packages, a spiraling immigration crisis, and now a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden's job-approval rating has slumped below 50 percent among adults for the first time in his presidency.

Forty-nine percent of adults approve of Biden's overall job performance, while 48 percent disapprove, according to a new NBC News poll. This represents a decrease from an April NBC News poll, in which 53 percent of adults approved of Biden's job and 39 percent disapproved. Rural and white voters account for much of the drop-off, NBC reports.

FBI Finds Little Evidence of Organized Plot for January 6 Capitol Riot

The FBI has uncovered little evidence that the January 6 Capitol riot was organized beforehand, four current and former law-enforcement officials told Reuters on Friday.

Federal officials have arrested about 570 participants since the riot occurred, and dozens have been charged with assaulting a police officer. However, the FBI does not believe that far-right groups and supporters of former President Trump coordinated the riot, sources said.

"Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases," a former senior law-enforcement official with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. "Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages."

Judge Finds California Gig-Worker Law Unconstitutional in Blow to Uber, Lyft

A California judge on Friday struck down a 2020 ballot measure that allowed Uber and Lyft to classify their gig workers as independent contractors, allowing them to deny said workers full-time benefits.

After Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, InstaCart, and Postmates reportedly spent over $200 million lobbying for the measure, known as Proposition 22, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch ruled that the "entirety" of the measure is "unenforceable."

Roesch explained in his ruling that this is because a section within Prop 22 "limits the power of a future legislature to define app-based drivers as workers subject to workers' compensation law" and "is not severable" from the rest of the measure.

U.S. Embassy Tells Americans to Avoid Kabul Airport over 'Potential Security Threats'

The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan on Saturday warned Americans looking to evacuate not to head to Kabul airport unless directed to do so, citing "potential security threats."

"Because of potential security threats outside the gates at the Kabul airport, we are advising U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so," read a security alert from the embassy.

The alert came one day after President Biden claimed that the U.S. had not received reports of American citizens being unable to enter Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

"We have no indication that they haven't been able to get in Kabul through the airport," Biden said at the press conference. "We know of no circumstance where American citizens who are carrying an American passport are trying to get through to the airport" unsuccessfully.

University of Virginia Disenrolls 238 Unvaccinated Students

The University of Virginia announced on Friday that it had disenrolled 238 students who failed to comply with the school's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

UVA requires "all students who live, learn, or work in person at the university" to be fully vaccinated for the upcoming school year.

The students now have until August 25 to receive a COVID vaccine and re-enroll for fall classes, Brian Coy, a school spokesman, told the Washington Post. Students also have the option to return to campus in the spring, given they meet the vaccination requirement at that time.

More than 96 percent of UVA students are vaccinated, in compliance with the school's vaccine mandate which it announced in May.

Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair Slams Biden's 'Dangerous' Abandonment of Afghanistan

Former prime minister Tony Blair, who in 2001 presided over Britain's military intervention in Afghanistan alongside the United States in response to the 9/11 attacks, slammed President Biden's chaotic withdrawal from the country on Sunday.

"The abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous, unnecessary, not in their interests and not in ours," Blair wrote in a statement published on his organization's website.

Blair's comments come after Biden denied at a press conference Friday that America's reputation has been damaged and that U.S. allies have lost faith in our ability to conduct foreign policy amid the botched Afghanistan pull-out.

Defense Department Orders Six U.S. Commercial Airlines to Assist with Afghan Refugee Evacuation

The Department of Defense has ordered six commercial airlines to send passenger jets to assist with the evacuation of Afghan collaborators and refugees from war-torn Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, invoking the Civil Reserve Air Fleet established in 1952 after the Berlin Airlift, requested civilian airliners provide 18 planes to help move evacuees who have already exited the country to locations in Europe and the Middle East. Per the program's stipulation, the fleet can be activated in a time of "major national defense emergency."

The activation is for 18 jets: four from United Airlines; three each from American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines, and Omni Air; and two from Hawaiian Airlines.