The Desperate Hours: A member of the Afghan security forces died today in a firefight that broke out at the airport in Kabul. American forces also were involved.

  Hours earlier President Joe Biden said in a press briefing that he was considering extending the deadline for US troops to leave the country. Putting a happyface on the disastrous collapse and refugee crisis, Biden said, “We will welcome these Afghans who have helped us in the war effort over the last 20 years to their new home in the United States of America, because that’s who we are. That’s what America is.”

  Biden said yesterday that American troops have extended their security cordon around the airport in Kabul as the refugee airlift continues. He did not give details, but it’s dangerous for a military operation to have a single line of defense.

In a crush to get out of the country, a surging crowd at the Kabul airport over the weekend trampled to death a two-year-old girl. 

  At least half a dozen people have died in recent days as Afghans risk the crush rather than face what they believe might be certain death at the hands of the Taliban. Human rights groups report that the Taliban are going door to door looking for people who collaborated with the Americans.

  The NY Times spoke with one former interpreter in hiding who has been directly threatened. “I’m losing hope,” he said to the paper by telephone. “I think maybe I will have to accept the consequences.”

  The Times quotes another interpreter saying, “I’ve lost trust in the US government, which keeps saying, ‘We will evacuate our allies.’”

  In an attempt to speed up the evacuation, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin employed a law from the days of the Berlin Air Lift to order six domestic airlines to provide a total of 18 passenger jets.

  On this side of the world, US soldiers and veterans are coming to grips with defeat. Dan Berschinski, a West Point graduate and retired Army infantry officer wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post that on his first posting to Afghanistan he got a glimpse of how all this would end. A shopkeeper told him that Americans come and go, but the Taliban never leave.

  “He did not like the Taliban, the shopkeeper told me, but it would be in Afghanistan long after I would — and so he had no choice but to deal with it,” Berschinski wrote.

  Berschinski lost both legs to an IED. He said that the result in Afghanistan was predictable if you just paid attention. “Over the past several days, veterans like me have been asked whether our service was in vain,” Berschinski wrote. “My answer is that it won’t be if we draw the correct lesson from recent events and recognize that heartbreaking news footage, as awful as it is, is no justification for perpetuating an unwinnable war.”

Stormy Weather: At least 22 people are dead and two dozen reported missing after torrential rains produced flash flooding in Tennessee. Floods took out roads, bridges, cellphone towers, and telephone lines. Entire homes were washed off their foundations.

  In North Carolina, five people are dead and one missing in the wake of Tropical Storm Henri.

  The storm made landfall in Rhode Island yesterday, bringing high winds and drenching rains. Earlier, it had brought street flooding in the New York City area. As many as 140,000 homes were without power for a time, but Henri quicky dissipated and failed to deliver on what had been an enormous threat to New England.

Covid Nation: Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and his wife  Jacqueline, have been hospitalized in Chicago after testing positive for Covid-19.  He’s 79, and has Parkinson’s disease. She’s 77. Jackson is vaccinated and has campaigned for black people to get the shot.

  Phil Valentine, a prominent conservative radio host in Tennessee who refused to get vaccinated, died of Covid-19. Valentine had written on is blog that vaccines were not necessary and that his chances of dying from the virus were “way less than one percent.”

  After he got it, he said, “Unfortunately for the haters out there, it looks like I’m going to make it.” He wrote. “Interesting experience. I’ll have to fill you in when I come back on the air. I’m hoping that will be tomorrow, but I may take a day off just as a precaution.” Now he’s dead.

The Obit Page: Don Everly of the 1950s and 60s harmonic Everly Brothers duo has died at age 84. The brothers had big hits with “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Bye Bye Love,” and “Cathy’s Clown,” The Everly Brothers were a sensation in the late 1950s and early ’60s as rock and roll became a cultural phenomenon.

  Their harmonies influenced later acts, including Simon & Garfunkle.

  Don’s younger brother Phil died in 2014.

  The act stayed together until 2006, but it wasn’t always easy. They had an infamous on-stage blowup on July 14, 1973, when Phil smashed a guitar and left Don to finish the show by himself. Years later Don told Rolling Stone  that it was one of “the saddest days” of his life.

His Own Medicine: Former President Trump was booed by some of his supporters at a “Save America” rally in Alabama Saturday night when he encouraged the crowd to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

  “I believe totally in your freedoms, I do, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” Trump said. “But I recommend: take the vaccines.”

  In Alabama, 85 percent of the hospital patients with Covid-19 are unvaccinated.

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