'I found it disappointing'
| 'I found it disappointing'  This is the most critical week of Joe Biden's presidency since last week.
Democrats are expected to try yet again to pass two bills that are fundamental to Biden's legacy -- a $1 trillion infrastructure program to mend crumbling roads, bridges, airports and railroad infrastructure and a companion social spending measure now whittled down to $1.75 trillion. A closely watched governor's race in the state of Virginia -- where Biden won by 10 percentage points last year -- could send Democrats into panic if a Republican candidate wins. And all the while, the President will be on the world stage at the Glasgow climate talks, where he's hoping to reassert US leadership in saving the planet after a G20 summit this weekend revealed how far apart nations are on cutting carbon emissions.
Biden's presidency is on the edge. His approval rating has dipped to 42% in a new poll by NBC News, which suggests that many voters who are not hardcore Democrats have deserted him -- and even some in his own party are apathetic. With those numbers, history also suggests his party could be devastated at midterm congressional elections next year as it tries to cling to the Senate and the House.
Biden needs to restore momentum -- especially as former President Donald Trump is showing every sign of being a prohibitive favorite for the next Republican presidential nomination. To do so, he needs to pass those two bills and give himself domestic achievements that any president would envy: Free pre-school, home care for sick and elderly Americans, and expanded health care subsidies could change millions of lives, even if they take years to bed in.
But fierce feuding between Democrats has put the focus on what has been taken out of the bills to appease everyone. That means that the success of passing them -- if it happens -- could be diminished among the most committed Democratic base voters. And they're the ones the party needs to show up at next year's midterms.  Speaking in Rome, Italy on Sunday, Biden was clearly disillusioned by other countries' lack of commitment ahead of this week's COP26. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping -- as well as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro -- are skipping the crucial climate summit in Glasgow. The world and America A "number of people" were injured after two trains collided in the UK.
Three wedding guests in Western Afghanistan were reportedly killed for playing music.
Tokyo police arrested a suspect on the scene of a knife attack on a train. And the island nation of Tonga just identified its first Covid-19 case.  'You can see the wear it takes' Students at Douglas High School in Nevada say adults' anger at the school board meetings over masks, vaccines and how race is taught is actually overshadowing the more substantive problems facing the district, like a lack of substitute teachers, emotional struggles with returning to school and the ongoing fear of a shutdown of schools.
Kimora Whitacre, a senior, listened in on one of the school meetings via the public Zoom link. She didn't recognize any of the speakers who complained to the school board as parents. But she knows what the rancor was doing to her teachers. "You can see the wear it takes on our administrators," Whitacre said. "They're just trying to educate us. That's where I get disappointed. We're just trying to learn." 'Two down, eight to go' "Two down, eight to go."
That's how Trump greeted news that Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger -- one of the few Republican legislators who spoke the truth about the last election -- would not run for re-election.
Trump has made it a personal mission to force out the small band of ten Republicans who voted to impeach him over the Capitol insurrection. It's a bit like in Voltaire's Candide when an admiral was executed "pour encourager les autres."
Kinzinger, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghan wars and a member of the Democratic-led House Select Committee probing the insurrection, is a genuine conservative. But he's been outspoken in condemning Trump's continuing attack on American democracy — a campaign that most of the rest of the House Republican Party has indulged.
The Illinois congressman fell victim to a redrawing of congressional districts by his state's dominant Democrats, which meant he would likely have had to battle for the Republican nomination. But even if that were not the case, it's a safe bet that he would have faced a Trump-backed opponent from within his own party. Pro-Trump forces are currently challenging the only Republican more outspoken than Kinzinger, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, for the party's nomination. And another member of the anti-Trump ten, Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, has already decided not to run for reelection. The latest retirements are testimony to the extraordinary and enduring power of Trump over his party.
"You ultimately come to the realization that basically it's me, Liz Cheney and a few others that are telling the truth," Kinzinger told ABC News on Sunday.
"And there are about 190 people in the Republican Party that aren't going to say a word, and there's a leader of the Republican caucus that is embracing Donald Trump with all he can," Kinzinger said, referring to pro-Trump House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has a good chance of being the next speaker. Thanks for reading. On Monday, Biden will attend COP26 in Scotland. The US Supreme Court will hears oral arguments in two cases involving challenges to Texas's abortion ban. South Africans vote in municipal elections. View in browser | All CNN Newsletters
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