Tag Archives: United States

U.S. job openings vault to record high as employers scramble for workers

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. job openings raced to a new record high in July while layoffs rose moderately, suggesting last month’s sharp slowdown in hiring was due to employers being unable to find workers rather than weak demand for labor.

The Labor Department’s monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report, on Wednesday also showed a steady increase in the number of workers voluntarily quitting their jobs, a sign of confidence in the labor market.

“This is a super tight job market,” said Jennifer Lee, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto. “The ongoing struggle to find the right worker for the right role continues.”

Job openings, a measure of labor demand, jumped 749,000 to 10.9 million on the last day of July, the highest level since the series began in December 2000. The broad increase in vacancies was led by the health care and social assistance, finance and insurance, and accommodation and food services industries.

Job openings rose in the Northeast, South, Midwest and West regions. The job openings rate surged to a record 6.9% from 6.5% in June, driven by medium-sized businesses with 50-249 employees. The rate for large firms with 5,000 or more employees fell.

Hiring slipped 160,000 to 6.7 million, pulled down by decreases in retail trade, durable goods manufacturing and educational services. State and local government education hiring increased, as did federal government employment. The hiring rate fell to 4.5% from 4.7% in June. The hires rate dropped for large businesses with 5,000 or more employees.

LABOR CRUNCH

The JOLTS report followed in the wake of a government report last Friday that showed nonfarm payrolls increased by only 235,000 jobs in August, the smallest gain since January, after surging by 1.053 million in July.

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended labor market dynamics, creating worker shortages even as 8.4 million people are officially unemployed.

Lack of affordable childcare, fears of contracting the coronavirus, generous unemployment benefits funded by the federal government as well as pandemic-related retirements and career changes have been blamed for the disconnect.

The labor crunch is expected to ease starting in September, with the government-funded unemployment benefits having expired on Monday. The new school year is underway and most school districts are offering in-person learning.

But soaring COVID-19 cases, driven by the Delta variant of the coronavirus, could cause reluctance among some people to return to the labor force. Employment is 5.3 million jobs below its peak in February 2020.

The JOLTS report also showed 107,000 people voluntarily quit their jobs in July, lifting the total to 4.0 million. That reflected increases in the wholesale trade as well as state and local government education areas.

There were decreases in the number of people quitting in the transportation, warehousing, utilities and federal government categories.

The quits rate was unchanged at 2.7%. It is normally viewed by policymakers and economists as a measure of job market confidence. Some economists said the JOLTS report could put pressure on the Federal Reserve to announce when it would start scaling back its massive monthly bond-buying program.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell last month affirmed the ongoing economic recovery, but offered no signal on when the U.S. central bank plans to cut its asset purchases beyond saying it could be “this year.”

“It takes two to tango and the problem with job creation would appear to be a reluctance to supply labor, not a diminishment of demand, and we would love to hear the economic theory that explains how continued Fed bond purchases encourage workers to return to work,” said Conrad DeQuadros, a senior economic advisor at Brean Capital in New York.

Layoffs and discharges rose a modest 105,000 to 1.5 million. That lifted the layoffs rate to 1.0% from 0.9% in June. There were 83 unemployed workers for every 100 job openings in July.

“Even if demand slows down or even falters, job seekers remain in a relatively favorable bargaining position,” said Nick Bunker, director of research at Indeed Hiring Lab.

(Reporting by Lucia MutikaniEditing by Paul Simao)

Oil slides 2% on worries about weak demand

By Nia Williams

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Oil prices fell on Tuesday on concerns about weak demand in the United States and Asia, although ongoing production outages on the U.S. Gulf Coast helped to limit losses.

Industry analysts said a strengthening U.S. dollar also weighed on crude prices. A strong dollar makes oil more expensive for holders of other currencies.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down $1.45 or 2.1% from Friday’s close at $67.84 a barrel at 1648 GMT. There was no settlement price for Monday due to the Labor Day holiday in the United States.

Brent crude futures fell 93 cents, or 1.3%, to $71.30 a barrel by, after falling 39 cents on Monday.

The U.S. economy created the fewest jobs in seven months in August as hiring in the leisure and hospitality sector stalled amid a resurgence in COVID-19 infections.

Analysts said the oil market was still assessing the data from Friday as well as Saudi Aramco’s move on Sunday to cut October official selling prices (OSPs) for all its crude grades sold to Asia by at least $1 a barrel.

The deep price cuts, a sign that consumption in the world’s top-importing region remains tepid, come as lockdowns across Asia to combat the Delta variant of the coronavirus have clouded the economic outlook.

“There’s some concern about demand going forward because of a weak jobs report in the U.S. and COVID fears. The market is catching a bad mood,” said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.

Oil prices found some support from strong Chinese economic indicators and continued outages of U.S. supply from Hurricane Ida.

China’s crude oil imports rose 8% in August from a month earlier, customs data showed, while China’s economy got a boost as exports unexpectedly grew at a faster pace in August.

More than 80% of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico remained shut after Ida, a U.S. regulator said on Monday, more than a week after the storm made landfall and hit critical infrastructure in the region.

(Additional reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar in London and Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo; Editing by Jane Merriman and Edmund Blair)

Mexico adopts firm stance on auto dispute ahead of U.S. talks

By Sharay Angulo

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico expects the United States to comply with automotive rules in the new North American trade pact, a senior official said, taking a firm line ahead of high-level talks next week clouded by a dispute over the future of the car industry in the region.

Mexico and Canada have been at odds for months with the United States over the application of regional content requirements for the auto industry, one of the cornerstones of last year’s United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade pact.

The two countries favor a more flexible interpretation of the rules than the one taken by U.S. officials.

When asked late on Thursday whether a new methodology could be used to avoid taking the row to an international tribunal, Deputy Economy Minister Luz Maria de la Mora told Reuters: “No, because we’re not renegotiating (USMCA). It’s about honoring what was agreed in the treaty.”

“The text of the agreement made very clear what scope for flexibility there was in the deal,” she added, noting that differences between the United States and Mexico on the issue had begun while the Trump administration was still in office.

Under USMCA, which replaced the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), carmakers must meet a 75% threshold for North American content for vehicles in order to qualify for tariff-free trade within the region.

With NAFTA, which former U.S. President Donald Trump had decried as a “disaster” for U.S. industry, the content threshold stood at 62.5%.

Top U.S. and Mexican officials are due to restart the so-called high level economic dialogue on Sept. 9 in Washington, talks that were suspended during Trump’s time in office.

Mexican Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier will be among the participants at the dialogue, which Mexico’s government said is in part aimed at deepening economic integration.

On Aug. 20, Mexico requested formal consultations over the interpretation and application of the stricter automotive content rules, but de la Mora said these had not yet begun.

Making the rules tougher than what was agreed under USMCA risked backfiring on the industry, reducing competitiveness, raising costs and making the region “less attractive for investment and production,” de la Mora said.

She added that disputes over content requirements only fanned uncertainty and could even end up benefiting suppliers from other parts of the world with laxer rules like South Korea.

Nevertheless, earlier this week, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he did not expect the dispute to end up before an international tribunal, and expressed optimism that agreement could be reached before long.

(Reporting by Sharay AnguloEditing by Chizu Nomiyama and Frances Kerry)

U.S. job growth takes giant step back as Delta variant hits restaurants

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy created the fewest jobs in seven months in August as hiring in the leisure and hospitality sector stalled amid a resurgence in COVID-19 infections, which weighed on demand at restaurants and hotels.

But other details of the Labor Department’s closely watched employment report on Friday were fairly strong, with the unemployment rate falling to a 17-month low of 5.2% and July job growth revised sharply higher. Wages increased a solid 0.6% and fewer people were experiencing long spells of unemployment.

This points to underlying strength in the economy even as growth appears to be slowing significantly in the third quarter because of the soaring infections, driven by the Delta variant of the coronavirus, and relentless shortages of raw materials, which are depressing automobile sales and restocking.

“It is important to keep the right perspective,” said Brian Bethune, professor of practice at Boston College. “Given the supply chain constraints and the ongoing battle to lasso COVID-19 to the ground, the economy is performing exceptionally well.”

The survey of establishments showed nonfarm payrolls increased by 235,000 jobs last month, the smallest gain since January. Data for July was revised up to show a whopping 1.053 million jobs created instead of the previously reported 943,000.

Hiring in June was also stronger than initially estimated, leaving average monthly job growth over the past three months at a strong 750,000. Employment is 5.3 million jobs below its peak in February 2020. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast nonfarm payrolls increasing by 728,000 jobs in August.

Though the Delta variant was the biggest drag, fading fiscal stimulus was probably another factor. The response rate to the survey is lower in August and the pandemic has made it harder to adjust education employment for seasonal fluctuations.

The initial August payrolls print has undershot expectations over the last several years, including in 2020. Payrolls have been subsequently revised higher in 11 of the last 12 years.

“The August payroll figures have historically been revised higher in the years since the Great Recession, sometimes significantly, and there’s a good chance this effect will occur again this time,” said David Berson, chief economist at Nationwide in Ohio.

Employment in the leisure and hospitality sector was unchanged after gains averaging 377,000 per month over the prior three months. Restaurants and bars payrolls fell 42,000 and hiring at hotels and motels decreased 34,600, offsetting a 36,000 gain in arts, entertainment and recreation jobs. Retailers shed 29,000 jobs.

Construction lost 3,000 jobs. There were gains in mining, financial services, information and professional and business services as well as transportation and warehousing.

Manufacturing added 37,000 jobs, led by a 24,100 increase in the automobile industry. Factory hiring remains constrained by input shortages, especially semiconductors, which have depressed motor vehicle production and sales.

General Motors and Ford Motor Co announced production cuts this week.

Motor vehicle sales tumbled 10.7% in August.

That, together with raw materials shortages, which are making it harder for businesses to replenish inventories, prompted economists at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to slash third-quarter GDP growth estimates to as low as a 3.5% annualized rate from as high as a 8.25% pace. The economy grew at a 6.6% pace in the second quarter.

Government payrolls fell by 8,000 in August as state government education lost 21,000 jobs. August is the start of the back-to-school season, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles the employment report cautioned that “pandemic-related staffing fluctuations in public and private education have distorted the normal seasonal hiring and layoff patterns.”

Stocks on Wall Street were mixed. The dollar slipped against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices fell.

SILVER LININGS

Details of the smaller household survey from which the unemployment rate is derived were fairly upbeat.

Household employment increased by 509,000 jobs, enough to push the unemployment rate to 5.2%, the lowest since March 2020 from 5.4% in July. The jobless rates, however, continued to be understated by people misclassifying themselves as being “employed but absent from work.” Without this problem, the jobless rate would have been 5.5%.

Even so, a broader measure of unemployment, which includes people who want to work but have given up searching and those working part-time because they cannot find full-time employment, dropped to a 17-month low of 8.8% from 9.2% in July.

Though the participation rate was steady at 61.7%, about 190,000 people entered the labor force last month. Even more encouraging, the number of permanent job losers declined 443,000 to 2.5 million. The number of long-term unemployed dropped to 3.2 million from 3.4 million in the prior month.

They accounted for 37.4% of the 8.4 million officially unemployed people, down from 39.3% in July. The duration of unemployment fell to 14.7 weeks from 15.2 weeks in July.

Economists did not believe the pullback in hiring was enough for the Federal Reserve to back away from its “this year” signal for the announcement of the scaling back of its massive monthly bond buying program, given strong wage growth.

“For the Fed a taper announcement is still likely coming in either November or December,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan in New York.

The 0.6% jump in average hourly earnings after a 0.4% rise in July boosted annual wage growth to 4.3% in August from 4.0% in the prior month. The increase, led by lower-paying industries, is the result of worker shortages caused by the pandemic. There were a record 10.1 million job openings at the end of June.

There is cautious optimism that the labor pool will increase because of schools reopening and government-funded benefits expiring on Monday. But the Delta variant could delay the return to the labor force by some of the unemployed in the near term.

About 41,000 women, 20 years and older, dropped out the labor force. The number of number of people saying they were unable to work because of the pandemic increased 497,000 in August, the first rise since December. There was also a slight rise in the number of people working from home.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)

Analysis: U.S. Supreme Court’s rightward lurch put Roe v. Wade on the brink

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – During a 2016 presidential debate, then-candidate Donald Trump made a statement that seemed brash at the time: If he were elected and got the chance to nominate justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion would be overturned.

By this time next year, with the court having tilted further to the right thanks to Trump’s three appointments to the nation’s highest court, his prediction could come true.

The court’s decision on Wednesday night to allow Texas’ six-week abortion ban to go into effect in apparent contravention of the 1973 Roe decision suggests the court is closer than ever to overturning a ruling U.S. conservatives have long reviled.

“We don’t know how quickly or openly the court will reverse Roe, but this decision suggests that it’s only a matter of time,” said Mary Ziegler, an expert on abortion history at Florida State University College of Law.

Two generations of American women have grown up with access to abortion, although its use has declined over the past decade.

But while Roe handed liberals a victory on a crucial issue of the times, it also helped to power the religious right into a galvanizing force as it worked to get the decision overturned.

Since Congress never acted to formalize abortion rights – which shows what a hot button issue it is politically – the same court that once legalized abortion has the power to allow states to ban it.

In the coming months, the court will weigh whether to throw Roe out altogether as the justices consider whether to uphold a 15-week abortion ban in the state of Mississippi.

Unlike the Texas dispute, in which the justices did not directly address whether Roe should be reversed, they will in the Mississippi case.

A ruling is due by the end of June 2022, just months before an election that will determine whether the Democrats retain their narrow majority in both houses of Congress.

The last time the Supreme Court was this close to overturning Roe, in 1992, opponents were bitterly disappointed when the court’s moderates banded together and upheld abortion rights. Although the Supreme Court had a conservative majority, it was not deemed conservative enough.

MCCONNELL’S ROLE

The reason why the outcome could be different now is in part thanks to the decades-long efforts of conservative legal activists to re-shape the court, which bore fruit during Trump’s presidency. Trump was aided by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as well as the death of liberal icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which gave him a third vacancy to fill just before he lost the November 2020 election.

All three Trump nominees were pre-vetted by conservative lawyers associated with the Federalist Society legal group. All three — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — were in the majority as the court allowed the Texas abortion law to go into effect.

The court now has a rock-solid 6-3 conservative majority, which means that even if one peels away – as Chief Justice John Roberts did on Wednesday and in another abortion case in 2020 – the conservative bloc still retains the upper hand.

Conservative Republican McConnell played a key role in the Senate, which has the job of confirming nominees to the bench.

Democrats’ hopes were raised early in 2016, when conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died, that what had been a 5-4 conservative majority on the high court could switch to a 5-4 liberal majority for the first time in decades. McConnell crushed those dreams, refusing to move forward with then-Democratic President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.

As a result, when Trump came into office in early 2017 he was able to immediately nominate Gorsuch, who was duly confirmed by McConnell’s Republican-led Senate.

Trump and McConnell then pushed through the nomination of Kavanaugh to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018 despite allegations of sexual misconduct against the nominee, which he denied. Kennedy was a conservative but had voted to uphold abortion rights in key cases, including in 1992.

Finally, in September 2020, Ginsburg died. In an unprecedented move, Trump and McConnell installed Barrett just days before Election Day on Nov. 7, leading to widespread accusations of hypocrisy but cementing the conservative majority.

Despite the favorable winds, some anti-abortion advocates are playing down the importance of the Supreme Court’s Texas ruling, and say the fate of Roe v Wade is still up in the air.

“I’ve long thought the court should overturn Roe because it is not based on what the Constitution actually says,” said John Bursch, a lawyer at conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, before adding: “This order doesn’t give a signal either way about what the majority will do in the Mississippi case.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Scott Malone and Sonya Hepinstall)

U.S. to invest $3 billion in COVID-19 vaccine supply chain – White House official

By Carl O’Donnell and Lisa Lambert

(Reuters) -The U.S. plans to invest $3 billion in the vaccine supply chain as it continues to work to position itself as a leading supplier of vaccines for the world, a top U.S. health official said on Thursday.

The funding, which will begin to be distributed in the coming weeks, will focus on manufacturers of the inputs used in COVID-19 vaccine production as well as facilities that fill and package vaccine vials, White House COVID adviser Jeffrey Zients said during a news conference.

“The investments we are making, the $3 billion, are in U.S. companies that will expand their capacity for critical supplies,” Zients said.

He added that areas of focus will include lipids, bioreactor bags, tubing, needles, syringes, and personal protective equipment. The White House has not yet selected specific companies to receive the funds.

U.S. demand for COVID-19 vaccines remains high as the White House prepares to begin offering a third booster shot to Americans later this month, pending a regulator greenlight. The United States also plans to give hundreds of millions of shots to other countries during the remainder of the year.

Top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci added that he would not be surprised if a third dose became standard for COVID-19 vaccines that originally were expected to require two shots.

U.S. cases of COVID-19 have surged to a seven-day average of more than 150,000 per day, up from less than 10,000 in June, according to federal data, as the contagious new Delta variant continues to circulate.

The daily average of COVID-19 deaths has risen this week to more than 950 from around 900 last week, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said.

Fauci downplayed concerns about a new COVID-19 variant known as Mu, or B.1.621, that some scientists are concerned could be resistant to vaccines.

“Even when you have variants that do diminish somewhat the efficacy of vaccines, the vaccines still are quite effective against variants of that type,” Fauci said.

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell in New York and Ahmed Aboulenein and Lisa Lambert in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Leslie Adler and Mark Porter)

Israel opposes Biden plan to reopen U.S. Palestinian mission in Jerusalem

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel said on Wednesday that a U.S. plan to reopen its consulate in Jerusalem that has traditionally been a base for diplomatic outreach to Palestinians is a “bad idea” and could destabilize Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s new government.

The prior administration of President Donald Trump signaled support for Israel’s claim on Jerusalem as its capital by moving the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. It later subsumed the consulate, in west Jerusalem, in that mission.

It was among several moves that incensed the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as capital of a hoped-for, future state.

President Joe Biden has pledged to restore ties with the Palestinians, back a two-state solution and move forward with reopening the consulate. It has been closed since 2019, with Palestinian affairs handled by the embassy.

“We think it’s a bad idea,” Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told a news conference when asked about the reopening. “Jerusalem is the sovereign capital of Israel and Israel alone, and therefore we don’t think it’s a good idea.

“We know that the (Biden) administration has a different way of looking at this, but since it is happening in Israel, we are sure they are listening to us very carefully.”

Wasel Abu Youssef, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official, told Reuters that the Israeli rejection of the consulate’s opening was expected, adding: “They are trying to maintain the status quo and block any political solution”.

Asked about Lapid’s remarks, a U.S. Embassy spokesperson said: “As Secretary Blinken announced in May, the United States will be moving forward with the process to reopen our consulate in Jerusalem. We do not have additional information to share at this time.”

The spokesperson said the United States was not reversing its decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem nor its recognition of the city as Israel’s capital.

Israel captured the city’s east, along with the occupied West Bank and Gaza, in the 1967 Middle East war.

It deems all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital – a status not recognized internationally. In recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, Trump said he was not taking a position on “any final-status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem”.

Bennett, a nationalist atop a cross-partisan coalition, opposes Palestinian statehood. Reopening the consulate could unsettle Bennett’s government, which ended long-term premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure in June, Lapid said.

“We have an interesting and yet delicate structure of our government and we think this might destabilize this government and I don’t think the American administration wants this to happen,” he said.

Divisions among Palestinians also cast doubt about the prospects for diplomacy, Lapid said. “I am a devoted believer in the two-state solution … but we’ll have to admit the fact this is not feasible in the current situation.”

(Writing by Rami Ayyub;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Jonathan Oatis)

Majority of Afghan allies may have missed out on airlift – U.S. official

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States may have left behind the majority of Afghans who helped in the 20-year war effort along with their families as U.S. citizens were prioritized in the airlift that came to an end this week, a senior State Department official said on Wednesday.

The departure of the last U.S. military flights out of Kabul on Monday marked the end of an operation that saw more than 123,000 people brought out of Afghanistan in less than two weeks.

President Joe Biden has pledged to keep helping 100 to 200 U.S. citizens left in the country who wanted to leave and a much larger group of at-risk Afghans, including former interpreters for the U.S. military.

Asked how many potential applicants to the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program for Afghan allies and their families remained in Kabul, a senior State Department official said they could not provide an estimate.

“But I would say it’s the majority of them just based on anecdotal information about the populations we were able to support,” the official said. About 2,000 SIV applicants were brought to the United States before the broader airlift began in mid-August.

Initial efforts to prioritize those Afghans for evacuation were marred by security concerns at the airport gates and difficulties in giving them credentials that could not be replicated, the official said.

U.S. officials had a legal obligation to help American citizens who were stuck in Kabul and prioritized their departure, the official said. About 5,500 U.S. citizens were on evacuation flights from Kabul after Aug. 14, according to the State Department.

“Everybody who lived it is haunted by the choices we had to make and by the people we were not able to help depart in this first phase of the operation,” the official said.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis, Arshad Mohammed and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

‘Everybody screwed up’: Blame game begins over turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan

By Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle and Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A week into the evacuation from Kabul, the U.S. military was forced to take a drastic step: stop all flights from Hamid Karzai International Airport for seven hours because there was nowhere for the evacuees to go.

For months, military officials had urged the U.S. State Department to convince other countries to take Afghans at risk from Taliban retaliation. They had largely failed to secure agreements with other countries, prompting officials across the U.S. government to rush to try to find space for the evacuees.

The Biden administration’s scramble was emblematic of failures over the past month, which culminated with a hastily organized airlift that left thousands of U.S.-allied Afghans behind and was punctuated by a suicide bombing outside Kabul’s airport that killed 13 U.S. troops and scores of Afghans.

The chaotic end to America’s longest war has sparked the biggest crisis of President Joe Biden’s seven months in the White House, finger-pointing within the administration and questions about who, if anyone, would be held responsible.

Despite the missteps, the administration carried out one of the largest airlifts in history, evacuating more than 120,000 Americans, Afghans and people of other nationalities amid the threat of attacks by Islamic State militants.

The last U.S. troops left Afghanistan on Monday.

Current and former officials and lawmakers said there is little appetite for Biden to fire or demote top advisers over the handling of the U.S. withdrawal. The Democratic president, meanwhile, has strongly defended his administration’s actions.

Frustrated and angry, officials at the Pentagon have privately blamed the lack of urgency leading up to the airlift on the State and Homeland Security departments, who in turn have blamed the White House for slow decision-making.

“Finger-pointing is an ugly Washington sport … in this case, fingers could be pointed in all directions and probably be right in each case,” said Dan Fried, a former senior U.S. diplomat now at the Atlantic Council think tank.

“A failure like this is collective. Everybody screwed up,” Fried added.

A source familiar with the matter defended the evacuation planning and said the State Department was unaware of any concerns at the Department of Defense about a lack of urgency in the effort.

White House officials told Reuters that firings have not been discussed, but the administration expects Congress to aggressively investigate the turbulent exit from Afghanistan in hearings.

One Biden administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said any dismissal would be seen as a tacit admission that the president had erred in removing troops unconditionally from the South Asian nation.

Biden, in a defiant speech on Tuesday, defended his decision to withdraw the troops and stood by the evacuation plan.

“Some say we should have started mass evacuations sooner and ‘Couldn’t this have be done – have been done in a more orderly manner?’ I respectfully disagree,” said Biden, who noted that he was ultimately responsible for the withdrawal.

POLITICAL DECISION

Biden’s party narrowly controls the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and aides in both chambers said that, while Democrats would investigate and expect to hold hearings, they are wary of giving Republicans a platform to attack the president.

Democratic congressional committee leaders have pledged thorough reviews of the events in Afghanistan, but they made clear they intend to look into the entire 20-year conflict, which unfolded under the watch of four presidents, starting with Republican President George W. Bush.

On Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the administration has provided many classified and unclassified briefings to lawmakers.

“Now, it’s a 20-year war, so there’s obviously a lot to dig into,” she said.

Democrats want to pursue Biden’s domestic agenda – expanding social programs, funding infrastructure and protecting voting rights. On the national security front, they want to highlight their investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

How Congress eventually proceeds will depend on the level of interest from voters.

Less than 40% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said last month that the Biden administration would conduct a “hotwash” – an after-action review – to discover what went wrong in Afghanistan, and that he expected results of that review to be made public.

White House officials said on Tuesday the review had not begun.

WHO IS TO BLAME?

The last month in Afghanistan was a series of failures, from the intelligence and military to diplomatic and immigration fronts, with one core error the failure to anticipate the speed of the Taliban’s advance and collapse of the Afghan military.

“In some way, everyone is to blame,” a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

Some Republicans have pointed fingers at Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken as the ones most responsible for setting the conditions for a chaotic evacuation, and have demanded their departure.

Republicans also have called for Biden to fire the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who negotiated the Trump administration’s 2020 deal with the Taliban that set the stage for the withdrawal.

But when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked whether he thought Biden or Blinken should be impeached, the California Republican did not answer, saying instead his focus was on getting the Americans out of Afghanistan.

Defense officials told Reuters the State Department appeared out of touch with the reality on the ground in Afghanistan and had too much confidence in the Afghan government.

During a congressional hearing in June, Blinken was asked if the administration was considering getting at-risk Afghans out of the country while their cases were being reviewed.

“If there is a significant deterioration in security, that could well happen, we discussed this before, I don’t think it’s going to be something that happens from a Friday to a Monday,” Blinken said.

The Taliban seized two of Afghanistan’s three largest cities – Kandahar and Herat – on Friday, Aug. 13 and took Kabul, the capital, two days later.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle, Arshad Mohammed, Humeyra Pamuk, Jarrett Renshaw. Editing by Mary Milliken, Phil Stewart and Paul Simao)

Texas’s near-total abortion ban takes effect after Supreme Court inaction

By Andrew Chung and Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) -A Texas ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy took effect on Wednesday after the U.S. Supreme Court did not act on a request by abortion rights groups to block the law, which would prohibit the vast majority of abortions in the state.

Abortion providers worked until almost the midnight deadline, when the court’s inaction allowed the most restrictive ban in the country to be enforced while litigation continues in the groups’ lawsuit challenging its constitutionality.

The law amounts to a near-total ban on abortion procedures given that 85% to 90% of abortions occur after six weeks of pregnancy, and would likely force many clinics to close, the groups said.

Such a ban has never been permitted in any state since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, in 1973, they said.

At Whole Women’s Health in Fort Worth, clinic staff worked up to midnight, serving 25 patients in the 2-1/2 hours before the deadline, said spokeswoman Jackie Dilworth.

The national group said its Texas locations, also including Austin and McKinney, remained open on Wednesday.

“We are providing all abortion medication and abortion procedures, but as long as the patient has no embryonic or fetal cardiac activity,” Dilworth said. “Our doors are still open, and we’re doing everything we can to come within the law but still provide abortion care to those who need us.”

Planned Parenthood and other women’s health providers, doctors and clergy members challenged the law in federal court in Austin in July, contending it violated the constitutional right to an abortion.

The law, signed on May 19, is unusual in that it gives private citizens the power to enforce it by enabling them to sue abortion providers and anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks. Citizens who win such lawsuits would be entitled to at least $10,000.

Abortion providers say the law could lead to hundreds of costly lawsuits that would be logistically difficult to defend.

In a legal filing, Texas officials told the justices to reject the abortion providers’ request, saying the law “may never be enforced against them by anyone.”

“Texas Right to Life is thankful that the Texas Heartbeat Act is now in effect. We are now the first state ever to enforce a heartbeat law. We still await word from SCOTUS,” spokeswoman Kimberlyn Schwartz said in a statement, using an acronym for Supreme Court of the United States.

‘ALL-OUT EFFORT’

Democratic U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted the Texas move.

“This radical law is an all-out effort to erase the rights and protections of Roe v Wade,” Pelosi wrote on Twitter. Using the legislation’s number, she added, “we will fight SB8 and all immoral and dangerous attacks on women’s health and freedoms with all our strength.”

A court could still put the ban on hold, and no court has yet ruled on its constitutionality, Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, wrote in a tweet.

“Despite what some will say, this isn’t the ‘end’ of Roe,” he wrote.

Texas is among a dozen mostly Republican-led states that have enacted “heartbeat” abortion bans, which outlaw the procedure once the rhythmic contracting of fetal cardiac tissue can be detected, often at six weeks – sometimes before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

Courts have blocked such bans.

The state of Mississippi has asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in a major case the justices agreed to hear over a 2018 law banning abortion after 15 weeks.

The justices will hear arguments in their next term, which begins in October, with a ruling due by the end of June 2022.

The Texas challenge seeks to prevent judges, county clerks and other state entities from enforcing the law.

A federal judge rejected a bid to dismiss the case, prompting an immediate appeal to the New Orleans, Louisiana-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which halted further proceedings.

On Sunday, the 5th Circuit denied a request by the abortion providers to block the law pending the appeal. The providers then asked the Supreme Court for an emergency ruling.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and Gabriella Borter in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone, Gerry Doyle and Jonathan Oatis)