WHY IS A TV SHOW SPAWNS A TURKISH ‘TED FORMULA 1 FANS FESTIVAL LASSO’ ACROSS THE ATLANTIC WHERE A HIT? Weekend PAGE 12 | SPECIAL REPORT CAMELS JASON WRESTLE SUDEIKIS AND MEN EXPLAINS GOSSIP CHALLENGING THE PAGE 21 | INSIDE THE FIGHT BACK PAGE | IMAGE OF MIDDLE TELEVISION TRAVEL EASTERN WOMEN WITHIN FACEBOOK OVER TRANSPARENCY PAGE 18 | STYLE PAGE 7 | BUSINESS .. INTERNATIONAL EDITION | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, JULY 17-18, 2021 Global angst Budget aims as America at overhaul withdraws of American way of life NEWS ANALYSIS WASHINGTON David Brooks Biden’s agenda gambles on a $3.5 trillion plan facing many obstacles OPINION BY JIM TANKERSLEY For most of the past century, human dignity had a friend — the United The $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that States of America. It is a deeply flawed Democrats have presented in the Sen- and error-prone nation, like any other, ate promises to reshape the United but America helped defeat fascism and States government’s role in the econ- communism and helped set the context omy in ways that President Biden and for European peace, Asian prosperity his party have called essential to re- and the spread of democracy. building the American middle class, lift- Then came Iraq and Afghanistan, ing people out of poverty and tackling and America lost faith in itself and its the threat of climate change. global role — like a pitcher who has Its passage in Congress remains far been shelled and no longer has confi- from assured, with a series of hurdles in dence in his own stuff. On the left, the coming months, including filling in many now reject the key details on taxes and spending and The U.S. is idea that America holding together a fragile Democratic pulling back can be or is a global coalition. But if the plan’s central compo- champion of democ- nents become law, it would be the cap- just as the racy, and they find stone achievement that Democrats world’s re- phrases like “the promised when they won a pair of Sen- actionaries indispensable na- ate elections in January to gain narrow make their tion” or the “last best control of Congress — and it could come push. hope of the earth” with a reach that exceeds its cost. ridiculous. On the PHOTOGRAPHS BY JIM HUYLEBROEK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES The proposal, announced in recent right the wall-build- Afghan commandos at a frontline position in a civilian house in Kunduz, a provincial capital in northern Afghanistan that has been cut off on all sides by Taliban insurgents. days, could pave the way for legislation ing caucus has given that fundamentally overhauls Ameri- up on the idea that the rest of the cans’ relationship with work, school and world is even worth engaging. the federal government. It would put in Many people around the world have place much of Mr. Biden’s vision to add always resisted America’s self-ap- years of guaranteed public education to pointed role as democracy’s champion. fight inequality, lift more women into the But they have also been rightly ap- Taliban tighten the noose work force with subsidized child care palled when America sits back and and paid leave and send monthly checks allows genocide to engulf places like KUNDUZ, AFGHANISTAN the melons,” said the vendor, Abdel to parents to alleviate poverty — a pro- Rwanda or allows dangerous regimes Alim, speaking to New York Times jour- vision that Mr. Biden quickly champi- to threaten the world order. nalists while he kept an eye on a lane oned. The Afghans are the latest witnesses within Kunduz city from which he said It would expand Medicare, the health to this reality. The American bungles in Afghan provincial capital Taliban had emerged. “Most people insurance program for older Americans, Afghanistan have been well docu- have left,” he said. “There is fighting all to include dental and vision coverage, mented. The United States has spent under siege as insurgents the time.” and it would impose large taxes on cor- trillions of dollars and lost thousands squeeze feeble government The Taliban are pressing in on all porations, high earners and the green- of its people. But the two-decade strat- sides of Kunduz, a provincial capital of house gas emissions that drive climate egy of taking the fight to the terrorists, BY ADAM NOSSITER roughly 374,000 in Afghanistan’s north, change. in Afghanistan and elsewhere, has AND NAJIM RAHIM and on several other provincial capitals, And all of those changes could fade meant that global terrorism is no long- as the Afghan government’s war with quickly — or never even make it to Mr. er seen as a major concern in daily life. The Afghan way of war in 2021 comes the Taliban enters a new and dangerous Biden’s desk — if Democrats’ political Over the past few years, a small force down to this: a watermelon vendor on a phase. For weeks, the insurgents have calculations are off and they cannot of American troops has helped prevent sweltering city street, a government captured vulnerable districts across the muster the 50 votes they need in the some of the worst people on earth from Humvee at the front line just 30 feet country’s north, sometimes without fir- Senate or if they suffer even a handful of taking over a nation of more than 38 away, and Taliban fighters lurking un- ing a shot. And in the past week, the Tal- defections by fiscal moderates in the million — with relatively few American seen on the other side of the road. iban said they had captured an impor- House. BROOKS, PAGE 11 When the shooting starts, the vendor tant border crossing with Pakistan, at The blueprint reflects a deliberate makes himself scarce, leaving his mel- Spin Boldak — the fourth crossing they choice by the president and his party to The New York Times publishes opinion ons on the table and hoping for the best. have seized in less than a month. advance as many new spending pro- from a wide range of perspectives in When it stops, selling resumes, to It is all part of a broader strategy to grams and tax cuts as possible, but also hopes of promoting constructive debate customers now all too rare. tighten the noose around the Afghan Families displaced by fighting took refuge at the Bibi Amina school in Kunduz, one of to allow some of them to expire in a few about consequential questions. “I don’t have a choice. I’ve got to sell AFGHANISTAN, PAGE 4 six schools in the city that have been allocated for those forced to flee their homes. BUDGET, PAGE 8 Mixing it up, she landed in the ’80s Behind her, with its strings and ham- and gospel choirs before concentrating For her third album, mers exposed, was the battered upright on her own performing career. By then piano she learned to play as a child. Ev- she had married a fellow conservatory Laura Mvula explored ery so often, her cat, Marley, wandered student, Themba Mvula, an opera sing- Stories that stay with you. setting her sound free by. er who was born in Zambia. Mvula was born Laura Douglas; her Mvula’s 2013 debut album, “Sing to Experience the power of The New York Times in print. Subscribe to the International Edition. BY JON PARELES parents are from St. Kitts and Jamaica. the Moon,” willfully and elegantly ig- She grew up in the suburbs of Birming- nored most 21st-century sounds. In nytimes.com/powerinprint The English songwriter Laura Mvula ham, England, feeling like an outsider: a songs about idealism and self-affirma- changed nearly everything as she made Black girl in a “predominantly white tion, Mvula drew on conservatory skills her third album. middle-class neighborhood,” she re- to bolster the raw soul passion in her She changed her sound, her songwrit- called. “I was never quite sure of where voice. She reached back to the studio ing method, her collaborators and (in- to place myself.” pop of the 1950s and 1960s, writing plush voluntarily) her label. Her family was devoutly Christian, harmonies backed by orchestral ar- After two award-winning, brilliantly and Mvula’s songs often invoke prayer. rangements, dramatic choirs and jazz- idiosyncratic albums of time-warped or- (One new song, “Church Girl,” juxta- tinged rhythm sections. chestral pop, Mvula’s latest, “Pink poses her naïve youthful expectations The album earned comparisons to Noise,” swerves in an entirely different with the disillusionments of adult life, vintage Nina Simone, and was nomi- direction: toward the brash, glossy, syn- wondering, “How can you dance with nated for the Brit Awards and the Mer- thesizer-driven R&B-pop of the 1980s. the devil on your back?”) She sang regu- cury Prize; it won her two MOBO “I need to be able to go — wherever,” larly in church and also studied classical awards, which recognize British “Music Mvula, 35, said in a video chat from her music, playing violin. of Black Origin.” Mvula sang at the 2014 living room in London. “There’s the feel- She earned a degree in composition at Nobel Peace Prize concert. ing of risk, of not quite knowing what I’m the Birmingham Conservatoire. She Mvula’s 2016 album, “The Dreaming doing. This was always going to be an ROSIE MATHESON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES also sang in Black Voices, an a cappella Room,” grappled with, among other album of liberation and championing The English singer and songwriter Laura group directed by her aunt; wrote songs things, the end of her marriage and her myself.