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White House: President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris deliver remarks this morning to mark the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. At 2 p.m., Mr. Biden has a bilateral meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi.

Inflation Expectations: One of the most important signals of future inflation has begun to ease in the past month, which should help reassure the Federal Reserve that the recent price surge will prove largely temporary. 

💬 Live Q&A: What's going on with U.S. inflation and interest rates? Join chief economics correspondent Nick Timiraos in conversation with reporters Gwynn Guilford and Valerie Bauerlein at 1 p.m. Ask questions and watch here.

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President Biden's major objectives are being tested, along with his deal-making skills, six months into his presidency, with coronavirus cases rising, consumer prices ticking up--prompting warnings about long-term inflation--and a bipartisan infrastructure deal and a broader Democratic spending bill a long way from Mr. Biden’s desk, report Ken Thomas and Catherine Lucey. 

• The White House views Mr. Biden’s legislative agenda as the best way to position Democrats in next year’s midterms.
• Polls showing growing concern over inflation have prompted Mr. Biden to push back against critics who say his spending policies, and pursuit of tax increases, are the wrong economic prescription.

The U.S. has stepped up airstrikes in southern Afghanistan amid growing apprehension over a Taliban offensive threatening Kandahar, pointing to a continuing role for the U.S. military in the country, report Alan Cullison and Gordon Lubold. The fall of Kandahar would deal a heavy blow to the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

The administration is considering a new round of economic sanctions targeting Belarus and its authoritarian leader.

Lawmakers negotiating on an infrastructure package said they were struggling to resolve a dispute over how much to increase public-transit funding, threatening to extend the already-delayed timeline for the infrastructure bill, report Kristina Peterson and Andrew Duehren. Lawmakers and aides said they were also still haggling over which leftover Covid-19 relief funds could be tapped to help pay for the bill.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois who had voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump, has been named to the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, reports Gwynn Guilford. Rep. Liz Cheney is the other Republican on the committee.

Expectations are low that the Jan. 6 commission will be much more than a setting for a partisan food fight. But even partisan food fights can bring to the surface important information, as might ongoing court cases.

▶️Video: While Covid-19 vaccinations are highly effective at preventing hospitalizations or death, they aren't foolproof in preventing infection. This poses problems for events such as the Olympics, and raises broader questions about immunity.

• The Covid-19 Delta variant is changing calculations of governments world-wide about how quickly they can leave the pandemic behind.

• Some parents, even those who have been vaccinated themselves, are holding off on getting their children immunized, citing safety concerns.

• Covid-19 immunity is waning in people who were fully immunized with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in January but a third dose is still rarely needed, said BioNTech’s CEO.

America’s weak population growth, already held back by a decadelong fertility slump, is dropping closer to zero because of the Covid-19 pandemic, report Janet Adamy and Anthony DeBarros. The depth of the problem hinges on several variables that could change direction in the coming years.

• What concerns demographers is that after births peaked in 2007, they never rebounded from the nearly two-year recession that followed even though there was a subsequent decade of economic growth. 
• 📣 Should the federal government offer any incentives to help increase births in the U.S.? If so, what? Join the conversation.

Money managers world-wide funneled more than $900 billion into U.S. funds in the first half of 2021, a sign of confidence that the U.S. remains poised to pull through the Covid-19 pandemic better than many other countries, Sebastian Pellejero reports.

• 🎧What’s News: WSJ’s Paul Hannon discusses the global economic outlook and the threat of the Delta variant.

• Americans' optimism about the future of the country has plunged since the beginning of the year, a new poll finds. (ABC News)
• The flights by Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are getting all the attention, but they are just a small part of a much broader range of activities in space unfolding now. (New Yorker)
• The push for new antitrust and regulatory actions against big technology companies could be blunted by a judicial system now more populated with conservative judges. (Axios)

This newsletter is a production of the WSJ Washington bureau. Our newsletter editors are Kate Milani, Troy McCullough and Toula Vlahou. Send feedback to capitaljournal@wsj.com. You can follow politics coverage on our Politics page and at @wsjpolitics on Twitter.