TikTokers flood Texas abortion whistleblower site with Shrek memes, fake reports and porn  —  Critics of Texas' new law have been filing hundreds of fake reports to the whistleblowing website in hopes of crashing it  —  Pro-choice users on TikTok and Reddit have launched a guerrilla effort …

Health Officials Advise White House to Scale Back Booster Plan for Now  —  Federal regulators warned on Thursday they may not have enough data to recommend boosters for anyone except certain recipients of the Pfizer vaccine by late September.  —  WASHINGTON — Top federal health officials …

The Two Afghanistans  —  The journalist Anand Gopal has long reported for The New York Times and others from stretches of Afghanistan that few other Westerners have entered.  So when an MSNBC interviewer asked him this week what he considered the greatest American misconception about the country, I was struck by his answer:

Joe Manchin's new threat to destroy Biden's agenda is worse than it seems  —  When President Biden travels to storm-ravaged Louisiana on Friday, he will continue amplifying the case for getting much more serious about tackling the climate change that is fueling such extreme weather events.

It's Still All About COVID  —  For the last couple of weeks, I've been watching focus groups.  Two of those groups included independent-leaning voters who don't align themselves strongly with either party.  One other group was comprised of so-called Democratic “surge” voters …

Jobs report disappoints — only 235,000 positions added vs. expectations of 720,000  —  Job creation for August was a huge disappointment, with the economy adding just 235,000 positions, the Labor Department reported Friday.  —  Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 720,000 new hires.

Patients overdosing on ivermectin backing up rural Oklahoma hospitals, ambulances  —  SOUTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA, Okla. (KFOR) - A rural Oklahoma doctor said patients who are taking the horse de-wormer medication, ivermectin, to fight COVID-19 are causing emergency room and ambulance back ups.

Trump administration deliberately slowed entry of Afghan allies  —  (CNN)Stephen Miller seemed floored by the idea, raised during a fall Cabinet meeting in 2018, of  keeping open the doors for Afghan allies and other Middle East refugees to enter the US.   —  “What do you guys want?”

At odds with boss, some Biden aides privately alarmed as millions of workers head over jobless benefits cliff  —  Some White House officials are split on what will happen when the benefits cease next week, but advisers downplayed any rift.  —  The Biden administration faces internal dissatisfaction …

‘QAnon Shaman’ Jacob Chansley pleads guilty to felony in US Capitol riot  —  (CNN)The so-called “QAnon Shaman” who stormed the US Capitol in a horned bearskin outfit pleaded guilty Friday to a felony for obstructing the Electoral College proceedings on January 6.

Here's what we know about the mu variant … A coronavirus variant known as “mu” or “B.1.621” was designated by the World Health Organization as a “variant of interest” earlier this week and will be monitored by the global health body as cases continue to emerge across parts of the world.

Misinformation on Facebook got six times more clicks than factual news during the 2020 election, study says  —  Right-leaning pages also produce more misinformation, the forthcoming study found.  —  A new study of user behavior on Facebook around the 2020 election is likely …

Trump Tower's key tenants have fallen behind on rent and moved out.  But Trump has one reliable customer: His own PAC.  —  NEW YORK — Inside Trump Tower, swank suit-maker Marcraft Clothes once rented the entire 18th floor, outfitting its offices with fireplaces, mahogany-lined closets and two bars for schmoozing customers.

What We Actually Know About Waning Immunity  —  Reports of vaccines' decline have been greatly overstated.  —  Vaccines don't last forever.  This is by design: Like many of the microbes they mimic, the contents of the shots stick around only as long as it takes the body to eliminate them …

Biden signs executive order requiring review, release of some classified 9/11 documents  —  President Biden on Friday signed an executive order that would require the review, declassification and release of classified government documents related to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Former Trump campaign operative plans rally for those charged in Capitol riot  —  Law enforcement authorities are monitoring plans by supporters of former president Donald Trump to rally outside the U.S. Capitol later this month to argue that the hundreds of people charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection …

Afghan evacuation raises concerns about child trafficking  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials are looking into reports that in the frantic evacuation of desperate Afghans from Kabul, older men were admitted together with young girls they claimed as “brides” or otherwise sexually abused.

‘This is imaginary’: CNN fact-checks Kevin McCarthy's Fox News interview claim  —  CNN's Daniel Dale fact-checks a claim made by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy during a Fox News interview where he asserted thousands of Taliban fighters left Afghanistan and are trying to enter the US.Source: CNN

Afghanistan's Corruption Was Made in America … In 2005, I visited a branch of Afghanistan's national bank in Kandahar to make a deposit.  I was launching a cooperative that would craft skin-care products for export, using oils extracted from local almonds and apricot kernels …