The Morning Dispatch: Cubans March for Freedom
Happy Tuesday! The Dispatch’s softball team faces off against the Brookings Institution tonight, with the winner taking sole control of first place. Please send some good vibes our way—we’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow!
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
The White House on Monday expressed support for the Cuban people as mass protests in the Caribbean nation extended into their second day. “We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.
Israel’s Ministry of Health on Monday began offering a third dose of Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to severely immunocompromised individuals as the Delta variant spreads. Pfizer executives briefed U.S. health officials on Monday about the possibility, but no shift in policy was announced. “The CDC and the FDA said that based on the data that we know right now, we don’t need a boost,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said. “That doesn’t mean that that won’t change. We might need … to give boosters either across the board or to certain select groups, such as the elderly or those with underlying conditions.”
Army Gen. Austin Scott Miller—the top commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan since 2018—stepped down from his post on Monday, transferring his authority to Marine Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command.
