Texas Governor Greg Abbott has tested positive for the coronavirus, just one day after he attended a packed indoor Republican event in Dallas, where he and most attendees were unmasked. Abbott, who said he was not showing symptoms of COVID-19, imposed a statewide ban on vaccine and mask mandates last month, though a judge later blocked the ban on mask mandates.

President Joe Biden has allocated $500 million in new funds for relocating Afghan refugees following the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. The U.S. had already vowed to help evacuate over 80,000 Afghan civilians who qualify for special immigrant visas and face possible retribution from the Taliban, such as translators and interpreters for the U.S. military or NATO, but critics say the Biden administration needs to move faster and expand refugee resettlement from the country.

“The only thing more tragic than what’s happened to the Afghan people is that in a few days America will have forgotten Afghanistan again,” says Matthew Hoh, a disabled combat veteran and former State Department official stationed in Afghanistan’s Zabul province who resigned in 2009 to protest the Obama administration’s escalation of the War in Afghanistan. He says much of the U.S.

We go to Kabul for an update as the Taliban moves to secure control of Afghanistan. The group said Tuesday former government officials will not face retribution and that the rights of women and journalists will be upheld. The Taliban’s rhetoric and the relatively restrained behavior of its fighters in Kabul are starkly different from how the group governed Afghanistan after seizing power in 1996, when it imposed draconian restrictions on everyday life.