 | | Police officers in Kunduz, Afghanistan, today during a campaign to retake the city from the Taliban. Reuters | Your Tuesday Briefing By ADEEL HASSAN |
| Good morning. |
| Here's what you need to know: |
| • Afghan Army's counterattack. |
| Afghan forces today began a campaign to retake Kunduz, a provincial capital in northern Afghanistan, from the Taliban. A U.S. military plane carried out an airstrike in support. |
| On Monday, the militant group conquered Kunduz, the first major city it has seized since 2001. About 10,000 American soldiers remain in the country, many of them focused on training or advising Afghan forces. |
| • At the United Nations. |
| President Obama and President Raúl Castro today hold their first formal meeting since the U.S. and Cuba restored diplomatic relations in July. Mr. Obama will also lead a summit meeting on countering the Islamic State militant group and other extremists. |
| And the president of Ukraine will address the General Assembly at a moment when the crisis in his country is drawing less global attention. |
| • The crisis in Syria. |
| It doesn't appear that Mr. Obama and Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, are any closer to a solution for Syria and its refugees, despite two speeches, one reception and a meeting on Monday at the U.N. |
| The migration crisis is likely to become much more dire, as the many thousands that have been displaced will soon face much colder weather. |
| • Kicking the can. |
| The House and Senate will try to pass a temporary spending measure that would avert a shutdown of the federal government on Thursday and that saves the bigger political feuds for the weeks ahead. |
| The bill does not include language cutting off federal financing for Planned Parenthood, which some Republicans badly wanted. Planned Parenthood's president, Cecile Richards, testifies today before one of several congressional committees that are investigating the group's practices. |
| • Biden tips the scales. |
| An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. would be the most popular presidential candidate if he were to join the race. |
| CNN says that Mr. Biden has an open invitation to participate in the first Democratic presidential debate next month. |
| And the cover story of our Sunday magazine is about Donald J. Trump, who says: "The branding of our country is at an all-time low." |
| • Puerto Rico's plight. |
| Puerto Rican officials will testify today before a skeptical Senate Finance Committee to explain why the U.S. territory may soon need federal assistance. |
| The island's government could run out of cash in November, the officials have warned. |
| MARKETS |
| • Wall Street stock futures point to a higher opening. European shares are mixed, and Asian indexes took a dive. |
| • Google will unveil new devices and Android software today in San Francisco. We're likely to see its latest Nexus smartphones and an update to Chromecast for streaming web video to TV sets. |
| • Tesla Motors, the maker of electric cars, will release its much-anticipated sport utility vehicle, the Model X, tonight at its factory in Fremont, Calif. |
| • The health of the U.S. housing market will be clearer today, as data for the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index is released. |
| NOTEWORTHY |
| • Fresh reads. |
| Among today's releases: Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel "The Heart Goes Last," Paul Theroux's travelogue "Deep South," and "After You," the sequel to the best seller "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes. |
| The historian Niall Ferguson has the first volume (1,008 pages) of an admiring two-part biography of Henry Kissinger. And the food writer Ruth Reichl returns with a 136-recipe cookbook, her first solo book since 1971. |
| • Curtains up for Oscar winner. |
| Lupita Nyong'o, who won an Academy Award for her role in "12 Years a Slave," makes her New York stage debut in "Eclipsed" a drama set in 2003, near the end of the second civil war in Liberia. |
| Ms. Nyong'o, who was born in Mexico and grew up in Kenya, plays one of the captive wives of a rebel commander who band together in a shack and find stability — until a new girl appears and disrupts the balance. |
| • Genius awards. |
| Lin-Manuel Miranda, the writer and star of the hit Broadway musical "Hamilton," and the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates are two of the 24 recipients of the MacArthur Foundation fellowships, a group best known as the "MacArthur geniuses." |
| The fellowships are awarded for creative accomplishment in various fields. The nominations are secret, so the winners were surprised to learn that they would get a stipend of $625,000 over five years, with no strings attached. |
| • TV premieres. |
| Tonight's new sitcoms: "Grandfathered," starring John Stamos (8 p.m. Eastern, Fox); "The Grinder," starring Rob Lowe (8:30 p.m., Fox). |
| And the sketch comedy "Adam Ruins Everything" (10 p.m., TruTV) gets a rave review. |
| • The future of football. |
| There is a small, but growing, trend of high schools disbanding their football teams as concerns about players' safety rise. |
| • Scoreboard. |
| Aaron Rodgers threw five touchdown passes, including three to Randall Cobb, and the Green Bay Packers beat the visiting Kansas City Chiefs, 38-28, on Monday night. |
|
| • Health update. |
| Eating more fruits and vegetables can help control weight, but new research suggests that it depends which fruits and vegetables you eat. |
| Another new study offers support for cancer treatment during pregnancy. |
| BACK STORY |
| The West is so dry that St. Thomas, Nev., a town flooded in the creation of Lake Mead, is visible again. |
| The lake, the largest reservoir in the U.S. and one of the largest artificial bodies of water in the world, was created by the construction of the Hoover Dam. Today is the eve of the 80th anniversary of its opening. |
| The dam rose to 726 feet high, about 170 feet higher than the Washington Monument, during the Great Depression. It harnessed the Colorado River, right at the Arizona-Nevada border, for irrigation and flood control, drinking water and electricity. |
| For this, Washington paid $49 million (about $900 million in today's dollars). Despite triple-digit desert temperatures and the deaths of 100 workers, the project was finished two years ahead of schedule. |
| It was named after Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer by profession. The dam's construction began during his only term as president, and it was finished under the man who defeated him, Franklin D. Roosevelt. |
| The dam's most visible result was the growth of Las Vegas nearby, but other beneficiaries included Los Angeles, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Denver and Phoenix. |
| You could say the Southwest was powered by Hoover Dam. |
| Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern and updated on the web all morning. |
| What would you like to see here? Contact us at briefing@nytimes.com. |
| You can sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox. |
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