The Taliban respond with force to an outpouring of public anger.  —  Even as the Taliban took their first steps to create a functioning government, they faced the first street protests on Wednesday against their takeover of Afghanistan, with demonstrations in at least two cities.

Kinder, gentler Taliban murder woman in the streets for not wearing a burqa  —  I'm not sure, but it sounds as if not all of the Taliban militants received their copy of the strongly worded letter from the United Nations.  The New York Post is reporting today that a woman in Takhar province …

Ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani resurfaces in UAE after fleeing Kabul, Emirati government says  — Ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled his country as its capital Kabul was being overtaken by Taliban fighters, is now in the United Arab Emirates.

Biden Broke Our Deal With the Taliban  —  It's a foreign-policy humiliation unlike anything our country has endured since the Iran hostage crisis.  —  'The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country [of Afghanistan] is highly unlikely," …

CIA's Former Counterterrorism Chief for the Region: Afghanistan, Not An Intelligence Failure — Something Much Worse  —  While it's certainly convenient to depict the shock and miscalculation U.S. officials claim over Afghanistan's tragic, rapid fall to the Taliban as an intelligence failure, the reality is far worse.

Taliban Block Routes to Kabul Airport, Hampering Evacuations From Afghanistan  —  Residents in eastern city of Jalalabad stage first protest against Taliban rule  —  Afghans and Westerners stranded in Kabul after Sunday's Taliban takeover started trickling into the city's U.S.-controlled airport …

A First Amendment Precedent  —  The Supreme Court may reconsider a major case concerning freedom of the press.  The Times's Adam Liptak explains why.  —  Four years ago, at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch indicated that a 1964 precedent protecting press freedom was secure.

The mujahideen resistance to the Taliban begins now.  But we need help.  —  Ahmad Massoud is the leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan.  —  In 1998, when I was 9 years old, my father, the mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, gathered his soldiers in a cave in the Panjshir Valley of northern Afghanistan.

U.S. reports more than 1,000 COVID deaths in single day  —  The United States reported more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, equating to around 42 fatalities an hour, according to a Reuters tally, as the Delta variant continues to ravage parts of the country with low vaccination rates.

Texas school district makes masks part of dress code to get around Gov. Abbott's order … A small Texas school district has made facial coverings part of its dress code, in a bid to get around Gov. Greg Abbott's executive order banning mask mandates.  —  The board of the Paris Independent …

U.S. announces plan to offer boosters to all Americans starting in late September  —  Top U.S. health officials announced Wednesday that the country has developed a plan to start offering Covid-19 booster shots to all Americans beginning the third week of September, citing evidence that protection …