Monday, Sept. 6

· Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department is “urgently” examining options to challenge the recent Texas legislation banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy “to protect the constitutional rights of women and other persons” and pledged to cooperate with the FBI to respond to threats to abortion providers.

· The Coast Guard announced it is investigating reports of 350 incidents of oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Ida. Local news outlets in Louisiana reported that the Coast Guard set up a pollution response team in Baton Rouge.

Tuesday, Sept. 7

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised Qatar for its participation in the military and civilian evacuation of Afghanistan, saying that “no country has done more than Qatar.”
• During a tour of two states devastated by Hurricane Ida, President Joe Biden pinned the blame for the disaster squarely on climate change. “My message to everyone grappling with this devastation is: We’re here, we’re not going home till this gets done,” Biden said. “I really mean that. We’re not leaving. We’re going to continue to shout as long as it takes to get real progress here ... Climate change poses an existential threat to our lives, to our economy, and the threat is here, it’s not going to get any better. The question: Can it get worse? We can stop it from getting worse.”

Wednesday, Sept. 8

· Speaking in Germany during a meeting with allied nations, Secretary of State Blinken outlined the United States’s three core policy objectives towards Afghanistan following the complete U.S. troop withdrawal there: enabling the departures of people seeking to leave, “preventing terrorist groups from using Afghanistan as a base,” and ensuring humanitarian assistance.

· The Supreme Court granted a last-minute stay of execution to John Ramirez, 37, a prisoner in Texas sentenced to death for stabbing a convenience store clerk to death during a 2004 robbery, after asking that his Baptist pastor be allowed to hold him as he is put to death by lethal injection, a request the Texas Department of Criminal Justice initially denied.

· Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the U.S. could default on its debt sometime in October if Congress does not raise or suspend the debt limit. “Once all available measures and cash on hand are fully exhausted, the United States of America would be unable to meet its obligations for the first time in our history,” Yellen wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

· The Supreme Court announced that it will resume hearing arguments in person starting in October. However, the courtroom will still not be open to the public, and will provide a live audio feed instead. This arrangement is set to remain in place for arguments in October, November and December. “Courtroom access will be limited to the justices, essential court personnel, counsel in the scheduled cases and journalists with full-time press credentials issued by the Supreme Court,” the announcement said.

Thursday, Sept. 9

· In a blow to the president’s gun control agenda, Biden withdrew his nomination of David Chipman to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, conceding that he could not gather the 50 votes to get the nomination through the Senate. Chipman is a former A.T.F. agent known for his staunch opposition to the gun lobby.

· The Taliban accused the U.S. of violating the peace deal the two signed in 2020 by keeping its interior minister Sirrajudin Haqqani on the U.S. terror list. Haqqani has been accused of attacks on the U.S. military and has a $5 million bounty on his head.

· Alyssa Farah, a former Pentagon spokeswoman, said the White House under Trump pressured the military to downplay the impact of a 2020 Iranian missile attack on a U.S. base in Iraq that injured at least 110 troops, an attack that came in retaliation to the U.S.’s killing of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike on Jan. 3.

· The Justice Department sued Texas over its recent law banning abortions after six weeks, a law Attorney General Garland described as “clearly unconstitutional.” Garland further said it was an “obvious” effort to work around the articulated right to privacy, which allows abortions at up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.

· Biden announced a new series of measures to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates, such as mandatory vaccinations for federal employees and a requirement that large employers either ensure workers are vaccinated or test them weekly for the virus. Reuters reported that businesses that do not comply with the latter regulation could face a fine of up to $14,000 for each time it is broken.

Friday, Sept. 10

· The White House announced it pushed out by either firing or asking to resign 18 appointees of former President Donald Trump from their posts on the advisory boards of military service academies including Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and Russell Vought. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration is seeking to ensure that nominees and board members are “qualified to serve” and have values that align with the president.

• Biden and China’s president Xi Jinping spoke by phone, ending a nearly seven-month gap in direct communication between the leaders as relations between the two nations continued to plummet. According to the White House, the conversation lasted about 90 minutes and focused on finding ways to improve U.S.-China ties in “areas where our interests converge, and areas where our interests, values and perspectives diverge.”

Saturday, Sept. 11

• Biden, along with many other high-level current and former U.S. dignitaries, attended a memorial in New York City for the nearly 3,000 victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

· The FBI released a newly declassified 16-page document on contacts made between the hijackers and their contacts in the U.S. leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The document describes communications that the hijackers had with Saudi associates in the U.S., but offers no evidence the Saudi government was complicit in the plot as believed by some members of the victims’ families who pressed for more 9/11 documents to be declassified.

· An internal Capitol investigation recommended disciplinary action against six police officers for their actions during the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Three were singled out for “unbecoming conduct,” another for failing to comply with orders, one officer for improper remarks and the last for “improper dissemination of information.”

Sunday, Sept. 12

• House Democrats circulated a draft proposal to raise as much as $2.9 trillion to pay for most of Biden’s sweeping social safety net expansions by implementing a wealth surtax on individuals who make more than $5 million a year and an increased corporate tax rate of 26.5% on the country’s richest businesses.