V Bloombergu:

A third shot is coming. U.S. regulators authorized giving an extra dose of Covid-19 vaccine to the most vulnerable people, but it’s a decision that comes with a price, as it could further exacerbate vaccine inequality across the world. Australia is facing its worst crisis since the pandemic began, while Austin, Texas, has warned residents the situation there is dire. Contrast that with the U.K., which is slowly emerging from the latest wave even after the government pushed ahead with an almost full reopening. Sam Fazeli explains in Bloomberg Opinion, the fast-spreading delta variant has increased infection risk among children, and the world apparently needs quicker—not more—antigen tests. 

America’s biggest hunt. Six thousand miles from Wall Street, in the ancient Silk Road city of Almaty, lies a little-known financial empire. Inside a members-only club, two cockatoos keep watch. Above a bronze samovar, a flat screen television shows the corporate crest: a green “F” on a green shield. Few can explain how this obscure brokerage in Kazakhstan has outrun Wall Street firms. But outrun them it has. —David E. Rovella

The dramatic unravelling of the situation in Afghanistan puts U.S. President Joe Biden’s reputation for foreign-policy expertise at risk, Jonathan Bernstein writes in Bloomberg Opinion. In another black eye for the U.S., the International Monetary Fund is handing a $1 billion lifeline to Belarus’s authoritarian regime.

Humanity is facing a climate “code red,” the United Nations said in a withering assessment of the challenges ahead. The past decade was probably hotter than any period in the past 125,000 years, and mankind is undoubtedly the culprit. Infernos like the Dixie Fire are now the new normal for California.