The Morning Dispatch: Afghanistan Falls

President Ashraf Ghani flees the country, the Taliban prepares to assume state power, and the U.S. scrambles to get the last of its people out.

By The Dispatch Staff

Aug 16, 2021

Happy Monday. Let’s get to the news.

The Taliban continued to march through Afghanistan over the weekend, capturing Kabul on Sunday as the Afghan government collapsed and its president, Ashraf Ghani, fled the country. President Joe Biden deployed an additional 1,000 troops to the region in an effort to aid the evacuation of the United States’ embassy in the capital city.
Nearly 1,300 people are dead and tens of thousands more injured or displaced after Haiti was rocked by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake on Saturday. The country—still reeling from the assassination of its president last month—is expected to be hit by a tropical depression later today.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released data on Friday showing that, globally, July 2021 was the hottest month in at least 142 years, outpacing July 2016, July 2019, and July 2020 by 0.02° F.

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