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Firefighters advance on blaze that shut California highway
Firefighters were making progress on a wildfire that jumped across a Southern California freeway and spread across dry hillsides while a new blaze forced residents of a Northern California community to evacuate.
The fire broke out Saturday afternoon near Castaic in northern Los Angeles County. Pushed by 10-15mph (16-24 kph) winds, the blaze chewed through tinder-dry brush and jumped across the busy freeway, spread across more than a half of a square mile.
The California Highway Patrol closed a stretch of the interstate for several hours as air tankers dropped bright-orange retardant on the flames. A large flareup sent heavy smoke drifting toward freeway lanes Sunday afternoon, the CHP reported.
Two firefighters were taken to the hospital to treat burn injuries, said Andrew Mitchell, a spokesman for the Angeles National Forest.
Read:Biden to survey wildfire damage, make case for spending plan
Officials said the fire was about 63% contained Sunday, adding that firefighters made progress overnight with the help of water-dropping aircraft and an aggressive ground attack, Mitchell said.
He said crews would take advantage of the beginning of a cooling trend Sunday to build containment lines.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Meanwhile, a fire that erupted Sunday afternoon prompted Mendocino County authorities to evacuate parts of Calpella, a community on the Russian River about 6 miles (10 kilometers) north of Ukiah. Video footage posted on Twitter shows the fire pushing in the direction of Lake Mendocino.
Further north, residents of a mountain town devastated by the huge Caldor Fire south of Lake Tahoe will be allowed back Sunday to inspect the damage. Most of Grizzly Flat’s homes, as well as the school, post office, church and fire station were destroyed in the first days of the month-old fire. Evacuation orders were also lifted for homes along State Route 50 as containment of the 342-square-mile (886 square kilometer) wildfire increased to 65%.
President Joe Biden issued a disaster declaration late Sunday for El Dorado County in an effort to provide federal funding to state, tribal and eligible local governments, plus certain private nonprofit organizations, who have been affected by damage from the Caldor Fire.
Firefighters were diverted from battling the blaze to fight multiple overnight lightning fires when thunderstorms swept across the state Thursday night into Friday.
Read:At least 1 dead, 10 missing in landslide near Mexico City
The thunderstorms dropped light rain to slightly dampen the drought-stricken north, fire officials said.
Up to a half-inch of rain fell on portions of the Dixie Fire, which began in mid-July and has burned through huge swaths of the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades. However, fire officials said the rain is drying fast and vegetation is becoming more flammable.
The second-largest fire in California history has burned 1,500 square miles (3,885 square kilometers) of land and more than 1,300 homes and other buildings. It was 65% contained.
Biden to survey wildfire damage, make case for spending plan
President Joe Biden will promote his administration’s use of the Defense Production Act to aid in wildfire preparedness during a western swing in which he’ll survey wildfire damage in Idaho and California.
The administration activated the wartime provision in early August to boost the supply of fire hoses for the U.S. Forest Service, by helping to ease supply chain issues affecting the agency’s primary firehose supplier. It marks the second use of the wartime law, after the president used it to boost vaccine supplies, and the administration had not previously announced it publicly.
The use of the Defense Production Act helped an Oklahoma City nonprofit called NewView Oklahoma, which provides the bulk of the U.S. Forest Service’s hoses, obtain needed supplies to produce and ship 415 miles of firehoses. Biden planned to showcase the move as part of broader remarks on the work his administration has done to address yet another devastating wildfire season across the western U.S.
The president planned deliver remarks during a visit Monday to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, and then travel to Sacramento, California, where he’ll survey wildfire damage. He’ll wrap up the day in Long Beach for an election-eve event with California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who faces a recall vote on Tuesday.
Read: Lake Tahoe residents relieved homes spared from wildfire
Biden’s western visit is aimed primarily at drumming up support for his massive $3.5 trillion spending plan by linking it to beating back wildfires and upgrading social programs.
In the two-day trip, which includes a stop in Colorado on Tuesday, Biden is looking to connect the dots for Americans between the increasing frequency of wildfires in the West — as well other extreme weather events around the country — and the need to invest billions in combating the climate crisis as well as in a vast expansion of the social safety net.
His eleventh-hour pitch Monday in California comes the day before voters head to the polls to decide whether to recall Newsom and then replace him with Republican and talk-show host Larry Elder, who’s seen as the leading GOP alternative to Newsom, or any of the dozens of other candidates on the ballot.
The White House is trying to turn the corner after a difficult month consumed by a chaotic and violent withdrawal from Afghanistan and the surging delta variant upending what the president had hoped would mark a summer in which the nation was finally freed from the coronavirus.
Over the weekend, Biden acknowledged that his polling numbers have dipped in recent weeks, but argued his agenda is “overwhelmingly popular” with Americans. He said he expects his Republican opponents will seek to attack him instead of debating him on the merits of his spending plan.
“You’re going to see — and I get it — a lot more direct attacks on me, not what I’m for,” Biden told reporters on Saturday. “I’m a big boy. I’ve been doing this a long time.”
In addition to Republican opposition, Biden still needs to overcome the skepticism of two key centrist Democrats in the closely divided Senate. Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona have expressed concerns about the size of the $3.5 trillion spending package.
The climate provisions in Biden’s budget include tax incentives for clean energy and electric vehicles, investments to transition the economy away from fossil fuels and toward renewable sources such as wind and solar power, and creation of a civilian climate corps.
The president is scheduled to head to Denver on Tuesday to continue to plug his economic agenda.
Read:Lake Tahoe evacuees hope to return home as wildfire slows
The stop in Idaho, a state he lost by more than 30 percentage points last year, will offer Biden a deep-red backdrop to argue that making investments to combat the climate crisis should be a priority across party lines. Idaho and California have seen wildfire season turn into a year-round scourge.
The Biden administration in June laid out a strategy to deal with the growing wildfire threat, which included hiring more federal firefighters and implementing new technologies to detect and address fires quickly. Last month, the president approved a disaster declaration for California, providing federal aid for the counties affected by the Dixie and River fires. Just ahead of Monday’s visit he issued another disaster declaration for the state, this time aimed at areas affected by the Caldor Fire.
Biden traveled recently to New York, New Jersey and Louisiana to survey damage caused by Hurricane Ida. He declared it a “code red” moment for the nation to act on climate during a visit to a New York City neighborhood impacted by Ida.
“Folks, the evidence is clear: Climate change poses an existential threat to our lives, to our economy,” he said during the New York visit. “And the threat is here; it’s not going to get any better. The question: Can it get worse? We can stop it from getting worse.”
Tropical Storm Nicholas threatens Gulf Coast with heavy rain
Tropical Storm Nicholas headed toward the Texas coast Monday, threatening to bring heavy rain and floods to coastal areas of Texas, Mexico and storm-battered Louisiana.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said a hurricane watch was issued for the central portion of the Texas coast with much of the state’s coastline now under a tropical storm warning. Nicholas is expected to approach the middle Texas coast late Monday and could bring heavy rain that could cause flash floods and urban flooding.
In a special advisory late Sunday, forecasters said the center of Nicholas had reformed, and the system strengthened. It had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph) and was moving north-northwest at 12 mph (19 kph). It was located off the coast of northeastern Mexico, and was on a forecast track to pass near the South Texas coast later Monday, then move onshore along the coast of south or central Texas by Monday evening.
Nicholas over several days is expected to produce total rainfall of up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) in Texas and southwest Louisiana, with isolated maximum amounts of 20 inches (50 centimeters), across portions of coastal Texas beginning Sunday night through midweek.
Read:At least 1 dead, 10 missing in landslide near Mexico City
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the state has placed rescue teams and resources in the Houston area and along the Texas Gulf Coast.
“This is a storm that could leave heavy rain, as well as wind and probably flooding, in various different regions along the Gulf Coast. We urge you to listen to local weather alerts, heed local warnings,” Abbot said in a video message.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Sunday night declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm’s arrival in a state still recovering from Hurricane Ida and last year’s Hurricane Laura and historic flooding.
“The most severe threat to Louisiana is in the southwest portion of the state, where recovery from Hurricane Laura and the May flooding is ongoing. In this area heavy rain and flash flooding are possible. However, it is also likely that all of south Louisiana will see heavy rain this week, including areas recently affected by Hurricane Ida,” Edwards said.
The storm was expected to bring the heaviest rainfall west of where Hurricane Ida slammed into Louisiana two weeks ago. Although forecasters did not expect Louisiana to suffer from strong winds again, meteorologist Bob Henson at Yale Climate Connections predicted rainfall could still plague places where the hurricane toppled homes, paralyzed electrical and water infrastructure and left at least 26 people dead.
“There could be several inches of rain across southeast Louisiana, where Ida struck,” Henson said in an email.
Across Louisiana, 140,198 customers — or about 6.3% of the state — remained without power on Sunday morning, according to the Louisiana Public Service Commission.
The storm is projected to move slowly up the coastland which could dump torrential amounts of rain over several days, said meteorologist Donald Jones of the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
“Heavy rain, flash flooding appears to be the biggest threat across our region,” he said.
While Lake Charles received minimal impact from Ida, the city saw multiple wallops from Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta in 2020, a winter storm in February as well as historic flooding this spring.
“We are still a very battered city,” Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter said.
Read:Tropical Storm Mindy makes landfall on Florida Panhandle
He said the city is taking the threat of the storm seriously, as it does all tropical systems.
“Hope and prayer is not a good game plan,” Hunter said.
In Cameron Parish in coastal Louisiana, Scott Trahan is still finishing repairs on his home damaged from last year’s Hurricane Laura that put about 2 feet of water in his house. He hopes to be finished by Christmas. He said many in his area have moved instead of rebuilding.
“If you get your butt whipped about four times, you are not going to get back up again. You are going to go somewhere else,” Trahan said.
Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said via Twitter that Nicholas is the 14th named storm of 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. Only 4 other years since 1966 have had 14 or more named storms by Sept. 12: 2005, 2011, 2012 and 2020.
‘Don’t focus on hate’: World marks 20th anniversary of 9/11
The world solemnly marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11 on Saturday, grieving lost lives and shattered American unity in commemorations that unfolded just weeks after the bloody end of the Afghanistan war that was launched in response to the terror attacks.
Victims’ relatives and four U.S. presidents paid respects at the sites where hijacked planes killed nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest act of terrorism on American soil.
Others gathered for observances from Portland, Maine, to Guam, or for volunteer projects on what has become a day of service in the U.S. Foreign leaders expressed sympathy over an attack that happened in the U.S. but claimed victims from more than 90 countries.
“It felt like an evil specter had descended on our world, but it was also a time when many people acted above and beyond the ordinary,” said Mike Low, whose daughter, Sara Low, was a flight attendant on the first plane that crashed.
“As we carry these 20 years forward, I find sustenance in a continuing appreciation for all of those who rose to be more than ordinary people,” the father told a ground zero crowd that included President Joe Biden and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Read:US marks 20 years since 9/11, in shadow of Afghan war’s end
In a video released Friday night, Biden said Sept. 11 illustrated that “unity is our greatest strength.”
Unity is “the thing that’s going to affect our well-being more than anything else,” he added while visiting a volunteer firehouse Saturday after laying a wreath at the 9/11 crash site near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. He later took a moment of silence at the third site, the Pentagon.
The anniversary was observed under the pall of a pandemic and in the shadow of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is now ruled by the same Taliban militant group that gave safe haven to the 9/11 plotters.
“It’s hard because you hoped that this would just be a different time and a different world. But sometimes history starts to repeat itself and not in the best of ways,” Thea Trinidad, who lost her father in the attacks, said before reading victims’ names at the ceremony.
Bruce Springsteen and Broadway actors Kelli O’Hara and Chris Jackson sang at the commemoration, but by tradition, no politicians spoke there.
At the Pennsylvania site — where passengers and crew fought to regain control of a plane believed to have been targeted at the U.S. Capitol or the White House — former President George W. Bush said Sept. 11 showed that Americans can come together despite their differences.
“So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear and resentment,” said the president who was in office on 9/11. “On America’s day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grab their neighbor’s hand and rally to the cause of one another. That is the America I know.”
“It is the truest version of ourselves. It is what we have been and what we can be again.”
Calvin Wilson said a polarized country has “missed the message” of the heroism of the flight’s passengers and crew, which included his brother-in-law, LeRoy Homer.
“We don’t focus on the damage. We don’t focus on the hate. We don’t focus on retaliation. We don’t focus on revenge,” Wilson said before the ceremony. “We focus on the good that all of our loved ones have done.”
Read: From 9/11′s ashes, a new world took shape. It did not last.
Former President Donald Trump visited a New York police station and a firehouse, praising responders’ bravery while criticizing Biden over the pullout from Afghanistan.
“It was gross incompetence,” said Trump, who was scheduled to provide commentary at a boxing match in Florida in the evening.
The attacks ushered in a new era of fear, war, patriotism and, eventually, polarization. They also redefined security, changing airport checkpoints, police practices and the government’s surveillance powers.
A “war on terror” led to invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the longest U.S. war ended last month with a hasty, massive airlift punctuated by a suicide bombing that killed 169 Afghans and 13 American service members and was attributed to a branch of the Islamic State extremist group. The body of slain Marine Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo was brought Saturday to her hometown of Lawrence, Massachusetts, where people lined the streets as the flag-draped draped casket passed by.
The U.S. is now concerned that al-Qaida, the terror network behind 9/11, may regroup in Afghanistan, where the Taliban flag once again flew over the presidential palace on Saturday.
Two decades after helping to triage and treat injured colleagues at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, retired Army Col. Malcolm Bruce Westcott is saddened and frustrated by the continued threat of terrorism.
“I always felt that my generation, my military cohort, would take care of it — we wouldn’t pass it on to anybody else,” said Westcott, of Greensboro, Georgia. “And we passed it on.”
At ground zero, multiple victims’ relatives thanked the troops who fought in Afghanistan, while Melissa Pullis said she was just happy they were finally home.
“We can’t lose any more military. We don’t even know why we’re fighting, and 20 years went down the drain,” said Pullis, who lost her husband, Edward, and whose son Edward Jr. is serving on the USS Ronald Reagan.
Read: 9/11 artifacts share ‘pieces of truth’ in victims’ stories
The families spoke of lives cut short, milestones missed and a loss that still feels immediate. Several pleaded for a return of the solidarity that surged for a time after Sept. 11 but soon gave way.
“In our grief and our strength, we were not divided based on our voting preference, the color of our skin or our moral or religious beliefs,” said Sally Maler, the sister-in-law of victim Alfred Russell Maler.
Yet in the years that followed, Muslim Americans endured suspicion, surveillance and hate crimes. Schisms and bitterness grew over the balance between tolerance and vigilance, the meaning of patriotism, the proper way to honor the dead and the scope of a promise to “never forget.”
Trinidad was 10 when she overheard her dad, Michael, saying goodbye to her mother by phone from the burning trade center. She remembers the pain but also the fellowship of the days that followed, when all of New York “felt like it was family.”
“Now, when I feel like the world is so divided, I just wish that we can go back to that,” said Trinidad, of Orlando, Florida. “I feel like it would have been such a different world if we had just been able to hang on to that feeling.”
US marks 20 years since 9/11, in shadow of Afghan war’s end
Twenty years ago, the 11th of September dawned as just a date. By midnight, it was 9/11, the staggering starting point for a new era of terror, war, politics, patriotism and tragedy.
The U.S. marks the milestone anniversary Saturday under the pall of a pandemic and in the shadow of a frantic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which fell to the same militant rulers who gave safe haven to the plotters of the 2001 attacks.
“It’s hard because you hoped that this would just be a different time and a different world. But sometimes history starts to repeat itself and not in the best of ways,” said Thea Trinidad, who lost her father in the attacks and has signed up to read victims’ names at the ceremony at ground zero in New York.
President Joe Biden is scheduled to travel to all three attack sites: New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.In a video released Friday night, he mourned the ongoing losses of 9/11.
“Children have grown up without parents, and parents have suffered without children,” said Biden, a childhood friend of the father of a Sept. 11 victim, Davis Grier Sezna Jr.
But the president also spotlighted what he called the “central lesson” of Sept. 11: “that at our most vulnerable ... unity is our greatest strength.”
Former President George W. Bush, the nation’s leader on 9/11, is due at the Pennsylvania memorial and his successor, Barack Obama, at ground zero. The only other post-9/11 U.S. president, Donald Trump, is planning to be in New York, in addition to providing commentary at a boxing match in Florida in the evening.
Other observances — from a wreath-laying in Portland, Maine, to a fire engine parade in Guam — are planned across a country now full of 9/11 plaques, statues and commemorative gardens.
Using hijacked planes as missiles, the assailants inflicted the deadliest terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, taking nearly 3,000 lives, toppling the twin towers and ushering in an age of fear.Security was redefined, with changes to airport checkpoints, police practices and the government’s surveillance powers. In the years that followed, virtually any sizeable explosion, crash or act of violence seemed to raise a dire question: “Is it terrorism?” Some ideological violence and plots did follow, though federal officials and the public have lately become increasingly concerned with threats from domestic extremists after years of focusing on international terror groups in the wake of 9/11.
New York faced questions early on about whether it could ever recover from the blow to its financial hub and restore a feeling of safety among the crowds and skyscrapers. New Yorkers ultimately rebuilt a more populous and prosperous city but had to reckon with the tactics of an empowered post-9/11 police department and a widened gap between haves and have-nots.
READ: From 9/11′s ashes, a new world took shape. It did not last.
A “war on terror” led to invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the longest U.S. war ended last month with a hasty, massive airlift punctuated by a suicide bombing that killed 169 Afghans and 13 American service members and was attributed to a branch of the Islamic State extremist group. The U.S. is now concerned that al-Qaida, the terror network behind 9/11, may regroup in Afghanistan.
Two decades after helping to triage and treat injured colleagues at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, retired Army Col. Malcolm Bruce Westcott is saddened and frustrated by the continued threat of terrorism.
“I always felt that my generation, my military cohort, would take care of it — we wouldn’t pass it on to anybody else,” said Westcott, of Greensboro, Georgia. “And we passed it on.”
For Angelique Tung, who was at the trade center for a business meeting on 9/11 and escaped down 77 flights of stairs, the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan stirred empathy for troops who served there. Some now wonder whether their efforts and sacrifices made a difference, which makes Tung think of a question she has asked herself since surviving Sept. 11.
“I hope that, after 20 years, other people are asking that question: What good can come from this?” said Tung, of Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Sept. 11 propelled a surge of shared grief and common purpose, but it soon gave way.
Muslim Americans endured suspicion, surveillance and hate crimes. The quest to understand the catastrophic toll of the terror attacks prompted changes in building design and emergency communications, but it also spurred conspiracy theories that seeded a culture of skepticism. Schisms and resentments grew over immigration, the balance between tolerance and vigilance, the meaning of patriotism, the proper way to honor the dead, and the scope of a promise to “never forget.”
Trinidad was 10 when she overheard her dad, Michael, saying goodbye to her mother by phone from the burning trade center. She remembers the pain but also the fellowship of the days that followed, when all of New York “felt like it was family.”
READ: 9/11 artifacts share ‘pieces of truth’ in victims’ stories
“Now, when I feel like the world is so divided, I just wish that we can go back to that,” said Trinidad, of Orlando, Florida. “I feel like it would have been such a different world if we had just been able to hang on to that feeling.”
At least 1 dead, 10 missing in landslide near Mexico City
A section of mountain on the outskirts of Mexico City gave way Friday, plunging rocks the size of small homes onto a densely populated neighborhood and leaving at least one person dead and 10 others missing.
Firefighters scaled a three-story pile of rocks that appeared to be resting on houses in Tlalnepantla, which is part of Mexico state. The state surrounds the capital on three sides.
As rescuers climbed the immense pile of debris, they occasionally raised their fists in the air, the familiar signal for silence to listen for people trapped below. Firefighters and volunteers formed bucket brigades to pass 5-gallon containers of smaller debris away as they excavated.
“In this moment our priority is focused on rescuing the people who unfortunately were surprised at the site of the incident,” said Tlalnepantla Mayor Raciel Pérez Cruz in a video message. Authorities had evacuated surrounding homes and asked people to avoid the area so rescuers could work.
Rescuers carried a body on a stretcher covered with a sheet past AP journalists. The Mexico state Civil Defense agency said in a statement that at least 10 people were reported missing.
Among the volunteers were 30-year-old construction worker Martin Carmona, 30, and his 14-year-old son. “They organized us in a chain to take out buckets of sand, stone and rubble,” Carmona said. “A co-worker lives there. He has a wife and two young children under the debris.”
READ: Mexico City metro overpass collapses onto road; 20 dead
Carmona and his son arrived to the pile before government rescuers and his friend was already there digging for his wife and kids.
Neighbors began to complain that they need more help and organization.
Carmona said rescuers heard children, but after two hours of removing debris, authorities told volunteers to leave the area. Only relatives stayed to help the rescuers.
Search dogs clambered over the rubble with their handlers.
Ana Luisa Borges, 39, said she lives just three houses down from those hit by the landslide.
“It thundered horribly,” she said of the sound of the slide. “I grabbed my youngest son and ran out (of the house). Then came a very big cloud of dust.” Fortunately, her other four children were in school.
“There are a number of houses there,” she said of the slide area. “There was a building, but they tell us there are people there and children. I saw one person come out with head injury.”
Borges said they have been warned that another rock could come down and that she didn’t know where they were going to sleep tonight.
“They’ve only told us that we have to leave (our homes),” she said.
Tlalnepantla officials announced they were opening several shelters for displaced residents.
The neighborhood is a heap of jumbled houses climbing the mountainside, many with corrugated tin roofs, separated in places by just a steep staircase.
One massive boulder stopped against a two-story house barely its equal, knocking out the front wall and spilling the home’s contents into the street. A path of destruction traced uphill.
Maximinio Andrade, who lives with his parents and siblings — 14 family members in all — near the slide walked down the steep street pushing a flat-screen television on a hand cart. He had not been home at the time of the landslide, but feared thieves would enter now that the surrounding homes had been evacuated.
READ: Mexico City Under Fire
“They’ve already started stealing from the destroyed homes,” he said.
National Guard troops and rescue teams carrying lengths of rope made their way through narrow streets.
Images from the area showed a segment of the steep, green side of the peak known as Chiquihuite sheared off above a field of giant rubble with closely packed homes remaining on either side.
Mexico state Gov. Alfredo del Mazo said via Twitter that local, state and federal authorities were coordinating to secure the zone in case of more slides and to remove rubble to locate possible victims.
The landslide follows days of heavy rain in central Mexico and a 7.0-magnitude earthquake Tuesday night near Acapulco that shook buildings 200 miles (320 kilometers) away in Mexico City.
While visiting the scene later Friday, Del Mazo said authorities believe four homes were destroyed in the landslide and another 80 were evacuated as a precaution.
“It’s likely the earthquake and the intense rain we have had in recent days have affected (the area) and for this came the landslide and the break up of the mountain,” he said.
US gives 1st public look inside base housing Afghans
The Biden administration on Friday provided the first public look inside a U.S. military base where Afghans airlifted out of Afghanistan are being screened, amid questions about how the government is caring for the refugees and vetting them.
“Every Afghan who is here with us has endured a harrowing journey and they are now faced with the very real challenges of acclimating with life in the United States,” Liz Gracon, a senior State Department official, told reporters.
The three-hour tour at Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas, was the first time the media has been granted broad access to one of the eight U.S. military installations housing Afghans.
But even so, reporters, including those with The Associated Press, were not allowed to talk with any evacuees or spend more than a few minutes in areas where they were gathered, with military officials citing “privacy concerns.”
Nearly 10,000 Afghan evacuees are staying at the base while they undergo medical and security checks before being resettled in the United States. The operation was described by officials at the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State as a “historic” and “unprecedented” effort to facilitate the relocation of a huge number of refugees in less than a month’s time.
On Friday, Afghan children with soccer balls and basketballs played outside large white tents. Families walked down a dirt driveway with stacks of plastic food containers piled under their chins and Coca-Cola cans under their arms. One young girl, still wearing dirty clothing, cried in the middle of the road after her food spilled and soldiers attempted to help her. Inside the containers, which refugees had spent around 15 minutes in line for in the blistering sun, were traditional Afghan meals of basmati rice and hearty stew.
READ: Afghans face hunger crisis, adding to Taliban’s challenges
The U.S. government spent two weeks building what it calls a village to house the Afghans on the base. It is a sprawling area with scores of air-conditioned tents used as dormitories and dining halls on scrubby dirt lots, a landscape that in some ways resembled parts of the homeland they fled.
Under the program called “Operation Allies Welcome,” some 50,000 Afghans are expected to be admitted to the United States, including translators, drivers and others who helped the U.S. military during the 20-year war and who feared reprisals by the Taliban after they quickly seized power last month.
Nearly 130,000 were airlifted out of Afghanistan in one of the largest mass evacuations in U.S. history. Many of those people are still in transit, undergoing security vetting and screening in other countries, including Germany, Spain, Kuwait and Qatar.
Members of Congress have questioned whether the screening is thorough enough. Many of the Afghans who worked for the U.S. government have undergone years of vetting already before they were hired, and then again to apply for a special immigrant visa for U.S. allies.
After they are released from the base, they will be aided by resettlement agencies in charge of placing the refugees. The agencies give priority to places where the refugees either have family already in the United States or there are Afghan immigrant communities with the resources to help them start a new life in a foreign land. Those with American citizenship or green cards are able to leave once arriving at the base, according to a State Department representative.
If other evacuees — whose release is dependent on completing health protocols mandated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — choose to leave prior to the full resettlement period, that may be used against them.
So far, no one at Fort Bliss has been released for resettlement.
The Pentagon has said all evacuees are tested for COVID-19 upon arriving at Dulles International Airport outside Washington.
READ: As US military leaves Kabul, many Americans, Afghans remain
The Biden administration is also using the base to house thousands of immigrant children, mostly from Central America, who have been crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in record numbers on their own, without adults. The children are housed there until they can be reunited with relatives already in the United States or with a sponsor, usually a family friend, or sent to a licensed facility.
As flights resume, plight of Afghan allies tests Biden’s vow
Evacuation flights have resumed for Westerners, but thousands of at-risk Afghans who had helped the United States are still stranded in their homeland with the U.S. Embassy shuttered, all American diplomats and troops gone and the Taliban now in charge.
With the United States and Taliban both insisting on travel documents that may no longer be possible to get in Afghanistan, the plight of those Afghans is testing President Joe Biden’s promises not to leave America’s allies behind.
An evacuation flight out of Kabul on Thursday, run by the Gulf state of Qatar and the first of its kind since U.S.-led military evacuations ended Aug. 30, focused on U.S. passport and green card holders and other foreigners.
For the U.S. lawmakers, veterans groups and other Americans who’ve been scrambling to get former U.S. military interpreters and other at-risk Afghans on charter flights out, the relaunch of evacuation flights did little to soothe fears that the U.S. might abandon countless Afghan allies.
A particular worry are those whose U.S. special immigrant visas — meant for Afghans who helped Americans during the 20-year war — still were in the works when the Taliban took Kabul in a lightning offensive on Aug. 15. The U.S. abandoned its embassy building that same weekend.
Read: Biden defends departure from ‘forever war,’ praises airlift
“For all intents and purposes, these people’s chances of escaping the Taliban ended the day we left them behind,” said Afghanistan war veteran Matt Zeller, founder of No One Left Behind. It’s among dozens of grassroots U.S. groups working to get out Afghan translators and others who supported Americans.
An estimated 200 foreigners, including Americans, left Afghanistan on the commercial flight out of Kabul on Thursday with the cooperation of the Taliban. Ten U.S. citizens and 11 green-card holders made Thursday’s flight, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. Americans organizing charter evacuation flights said they knew of more U.S. passport and green-card holders in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and elsewhere awaiting flights out.
In the U.S., National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne said Thursday’s flight was the result of “careful and hard diplomacy and engagement” and said the Taliban “have shown flexibility, and they have been businesslike and professional in our dealings with them in this effort.”
But many doubt the Taliban will be as accommodating for Afghans who supported the U.S. In Mazar-e-Sharif, a more than weeklong standoff over charter planes at the airport there has left hundreds of people — mostly Afghans, but some with American passports and green cards — stranded, waiting for Taliban permission to leave.
Afghans and their American supporters say the Taliban are blocking all passengers in Mazar-e-Sharif from boarding the waiting charter flights, including those with proper travel papers.
Zeller pointed to the Taliban appointment this week of a hard-line government. It includes Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list with a $5 million bounty for alleged attacks and kidnappings, as interior minister, a position putting him in charge of granting passports.
The Trump administration all but stopped approval of the Afghan special immigrant visas, or SIVs, in its final months. The Biden administration, too, was criticized for failing to move faster on evacuating Afghans before Kabul fell to the Taliban.
The U.S. had also required some visa-seekers to go outside the country to apply, a requirement that became far more dangerous with the Taliban takeover last month.
“There are all of these major logistical obstacles,” said Betsy Fisher of the International Refugee Assistance Project, which provides legal services to SIV applicants. “How will people leave Afghanistan?”
Read: War is over but not Biden’s Afghanistan challenges
She said with no clear plan in place, the U.S. government could wind up encouraging people to go on risky journeys.
In July, after Biden welcomed home the first airlift, he made clear the U.S. would help even those Afghans with pending visa applications get out of Afghanistan “so that they can wait in safety while they finish their visa applications.”
Since the military airlifts ended on Aug. 30, however, the Biden administration and Taliban have emphasized that Afghans needed passports and visas. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday the administration was looking at steps like electronic visas.
Hundreds of Afghans who say they are in danger of Taliban reprisals have gathered for more than a week in Mazar-e-Sharif, waiting for permission to board evacuation flights chartered by U.S. supporters.
Among them was an Afghan who worked for 15 years as a U.S. military interpreter. He has been moving from hotel to hotel in Mazar-e-Sharif and running out of money as he, his eight children and his wife waited for the OK from the Taliban to leave.
“I’m frightened I will be left behind,” said the man, whose name was withheld by The Associated Press for his safety. “I don’t know what the issue is — is it a political issue, or they don’t care about us?”
The interpreter’s visa was approved weeks before the last U.S. troops left the country, but he could not get it stamped into his passport because the U.S. Embassy shut down.
He said Thursday that he doesn’t trust Taliban assurances that they will not take revenge against Afghans who worked for the Americans.
Read:Biden: Another attack likely, pledges more strikes on IS
Biden, already criticized for his handling of the evacuation, is being pushed by Democrats and also on both sides by Republicans, with some saying he’s not doing enough to help America’s former allies and others that he’s not doing enough to keep potential threats out of the U.S.
Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Mike Waltz, both Republicans, said in a statement that hundreds of those at-risk Afghans and U.S. residents remain “trapped behind enemy lines.” The Biden administration “must provide Congress and the American people ... with a plan to get them safely out of Afghanistan.”
The Association of War Time Allies estimates tens of thousands of special immigrant visa applicants remain in Afghanistan.
An American citizen in New York is trying to get two cousins out of the country who applied for SIVs late last year and were still waiting for approval when the U.S. Embassy shut down. She said both cousins worked for a U.S. aid group for a combined eight years and are frightened the Taliban will find them.
“They’re scared, they feel abandoned. They put their entire lives at risk, and when the U.S. was exiting, they were told they would get out,” said the American, Fahima, whose last name and the name of the aid group are being withheld to protect her cousins. “Where is the helping hand?”
From 9/11′s ashes, a new world took shape. It did not last.
In the ghastly rubble of ground zero’s fallen towers 20 years ago, Hour Zero arrived, a chance to start anew.
World affairs reordered abruptly on that morning of blue skies, black ash, fire and death.
In Iran, chants of “death to America” quickly gave way to candlelight vigils to mourn the American dead. Vladimir Putin weighed in with substantive help as the U.S. prepared to go to war in Russia’s region of influence.
Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, a murderous dictator with a poetic streak, spoke of the “human duty” to be with Americans after “these horrifying and awesome events, which are bound to awaken human conscience.”
From the first terrible moments, America’s longstanding allies were joined by longtime enemies in that singularly galvanizing instant. No nation with global standing was cheering the stateless terrorists vowing to conquer capitalism and democracy. How rare is that?
Too rare to last, it turned out.
Read: 9/11 artifacts share ‘pieces of truth’ in victims’ stories
Civilizations have their allegories for rebirth in times of devastation. A global favorite is that of the phoenix, a magical and magnificent bird, rising from ashes. In the hellscape of Germany at the end of World War II, it was the concept of Hour Zero, or Stunde Null, that offered the opportunity to start anew.
For the U.S., the zero hour of Sept. 11, 2001, meant a chance to reshape its place in the post-Cold War world from a high perch of influence and goodwill as it entered the new millennium. This was only a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union left America with both the moral authority and the financial and military muscle to be unquestionably the lone superpower.
Those advantages were soon squandered. Instead of a new order, 9/11 fueled 20 years of war abroad. In the U.S., it gave rise to the angry, aggrieved, self-proclaimed patriot, and heightened surveillance and suspicion in the name of common defense.
It opened an era of deference to the armed forces as lawmakers pulled back on oversight and let presidents give primacy to the military over law enforcement in the fight against terrorism. And it sparked anti-immigrant sentiment, primarily directed at Muslim countries, that lingers today.
A war of necessity — in the eyes of most of the world — in Afghanistan was followed two years later by a war of choice as the U.S. invaded Iraq on false claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. President George W. Bush labeled Iran, Iraq and North Korea an “axis of evil.”
Thus opened the deep, deadly mineshaft of “forever wars.” There were convulsions throughout the Middle East, and U.S. foreign policy — for half a century a force for ballast — instead gave way to a head-snapping change in approaches in foreign policy from Bush to Obama to Trump. With that came waning trust in America’s leadership and reliability.
Other parts of the world were not immune. Far-right populist movements coursed through Europe. Britain voted to break away from the European Union. And China steadily ascended in the global pecking order.
President Joe Biden is trying to restore trust in the belief of a steady hand from the U.S. but there is no easy path. He is ending war, but what comes next?
In Afghanistan in August, the Taliban seized control with menacing swiftness as the Afghan government and security forces that the United States and its allies had spent two decades trying to build collapsed. No steady hand was evident from the U.S. in the harried, disorganized evacuation of Afghans desperately trying to flee the country in the first weeks of the Taliban’s re-established rule.
Allies whose troops had fought and died in the U.S-led war in Afghanistan expressed dismay at Biden’s management of the U.S. withdrawal, under a deal President Donald Trump had struck with the Taliban.
THE ‘HOMELAND’
In the United States, the Sept. 11 attacks set loose a torrent of rage.
In shock from the assault, a swath of American society embraced the us vs. them binary outlook articulated by Bush — “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” — and has never let go of it.
You could hear it in the country songs and talk radio, and during presidential campaigns, offering the balm of a bloodlust cry for revenge. “We’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way,” Toby Keith promised America’s enemies in one of the most popular of those songs in 2002.
Americans stuck flags in yards and on the back of trucks. Factionalism hardened inside America, in school board fights, on Facebook posts, and in national politics, so that opposing views were treated as propaganda from mortal enemies. The concept of enemy also evolved, from not simply the terrorist but also to the immigrant, or the conflation of the terrorist as immigrant trying to cross the border.
The patriot under threat became a personal and political identity in the United States. Fifteen years later, Trump harnessed it to help him win the presidency.
THE OTHERING
In the week after the attacks, Bush demanded of Americans that they know “Islam is peace” and that the attacks were a perversion of that religion. He told the country that American Muslims are us, not them, even as mosques came under surveillance and Arabs coming to the U.S. to take their kids to Disneyland or go to school risked being detained for questioning.
For Trump, in contrast, everything was always about them, the outsiders.
In the birther lie Trump promoted before his presidency, Barack Obama was an outsider. In Trump’s campaigns and administration, Muslims and immigrants were outsiders. The “China virus” was a foreign interloper, too.
Overseas, deadly attacks by Islamic extremists, like the 2004 bombing of Madrid trains that killed nearly 200 people and the 2005 attack on London’s transportation system that killed more than 50, hardened attitudes in Europe as well.
By 2015, as the Islamic State group captured wide areas of Iraq and pushed deep into Syria, the number of refugees increased dramatically, with more than 1 million migrants, primarily from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, entering Europe that year alone.
The year was bracketed by attacks in France on the Charlie Hebdo magazine staff in January after it published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and on the Bataclan theater and other Paris locations in November, reinforcing the angst then gripping the continent.
Already growing in support, far-right parties were able to capitalize on the fears to establish themselves as part of the European mainstream. They remain represented in many European parliaments, even as the flow of immigrants has slowed dramatically and most concerns have proved unfounded.
Read: From election to COVID, 9/11 conspiracies cast a long shadow
Sweeping new vaccine mandates for 100 million Americans
In his most forceful pandemic actions and words, President Joe Biden ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans — private-sector employees as well as health care workers and federal contractors — in an all-out effort to curb the surging COVID-19 delta variant.
Speaking at the White House Thursday, Biden sharply criticized the tens of millions of Americans who are not yet vaccinated, despite months of availability and incentives.
“We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” he said, all but biting off his words. The unvaccinated minority “can cause a lot of damage, and they are.”
Republican leaders — and some union chiefs, too — said Biden was going too far in trying to muscle private companies and workers, a certain sign of legal challenges to come.
Read:Fighting Texas abortion law could be tough for federal gov’t
Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina said in a statement that “Biden and the radical Democrats (have) thumbed their noses at the Constitution,” while American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley insisted that “changes like this should be negotiated with our bargaining units where appropriate.”
On the other hand, there were strong words of praise for Biden’s efforts to get the nation vaccinated from the American Medical Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable — though no direct mention of his mandate for private companies.
The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. And the roughly 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be fully vaccinated.
Biden is also requiring vaccination for employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government — with no option to test out. That covers several million more workers.
Biden announced the new requirements in a Thursday afternoon address from the White House as part of a new “action plan” to address the latest rise in coronavirus cases and the stagnating pace of COVID-19 shots.
Just two months ago Biden prematurely declared the nation’s “independence” from the virus. Now, despite more than 208 million Americans having at least one dose of the vaccines, the U.S. is seeing about 300% more new COVID-19 infections a day, about two-and-a-half times more hospitalizations, and nearly twice the number of deaths compared to the same time last year. Some 80 million people remain unvaccinated.
“We are in the tough stretch and it could last for a while,” Biden said.
After months of using promotions to drive the vaccination rate, Biden is taking a much firmer hand, as he blames people who have not yet received shots for the sharp rise in cases killing more than 1,000 people per day and imperiling a fragile economic rebound.
In addition to the vaccination requirements, Biden moved to double federal fines for airline passengers who refuse to wear masks on flights or to maintain face covering requirements on federal property in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
He announced that the government will work to increase the supply of virus tests, and that the White House has secured concessions from retailers including Walmart, Amazon and Kroger to sell at-home testing kits at cost beginning this week.
The administration is also sending additional federal support to assist schools in safely operating, including additional funding for testing. And Biden called for large entertainment venues and arenas to require vaccinations or proof of a negative test for entry.
Read:9/11 artifacts share ‘pieces of truth’ in victims’ stories
The requirement for large companies to mandate vaccinations or weekly testing for employees will be enacted through a forthcoming rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that carries penalties of $14,000 per violation, an administration official said.
The rule will require that large companies provide paid time off for vaccination.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will extend a vaccination requirement issued earlier this summer — for nursing home staff — to other healthcare settings including hospitals, home-health agencies and dialysis centers.
Separately, the Department of Health and Human Services will require vaccinations in Head Start Programs, as well as schools run by the Department of Defense and Bureau of Indian Education, affecting about 300,000 employees.
Biden’s order for executive branch workers and contractors includes exceptions for workers seeking religious or medical exemptions from vaccination, according to press secretary Jen Psaki. Federal workers who don’t comply will be referred to their agencies’ human resources departments for counseling and discipline, to include potential termination.
An AP-NORC poll conducted in August found 55% of Americans in favor of requiring government workers to be fully vaccinated, compared with 21% opposed. Similar majorities also backed vaccine mandates for health care workers, teachers working at K-12 schools and workers who interact with the public, as at restaurants and stores.
Biden has encouraged COVID-19 vaccine requirements in settings like schools, workplaces and university campuses. On Thursday, the Los Angeles Board of Education v oted to require all students 12 and older to be fully vaccinated in the the nation’s second-largest school district.
Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, said in late July it was requiring all workers at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as well as its managers who travel within the U.S., to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 4. But the company had stopped short of requiring shots for its frontline workers.
CVS Health said in late August it would require certain employees who interact with patients to be fully vaccinated by the end of October. That includes nurses, care managers and pharmacists.
In the government, several federal agencies have previously announced vaccine requirements for much of their staffs, particularly those in healthcare roles like the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Pentagon moved last month to require all servicemembers to get vaccinated. Combined, the White House estimates those requirements cover 2.5 million Americans. Thursday’s order is expected to affect nearly 2 million more federal workers and potentially millions of contractors.
Biden’s measures should help, but what’s really needed is a change in mindset for many people, said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
“There is an aspect to this now that has to do with our country being so divided,” said Sharfstein. “This has become so politicized that people can’t see the value of a vaccination that can save their lives. Our own divisions are preventing us from ending a pandemic.”
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More than 177 million Americans are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, but confirmed cases have shot up in recent weeks to an average of about 140,000 per day with on average about 1,000 deaths, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most of the spread — and the vast majority of severe illness and death — is occurring among those not yet fully vaccinated. So-called breakthrough infections in vaccinated people occur, but tend to be far less dangerous.
Federal officials are moving ahead with plans to begin administering booster shots of the mRNA vaccines to bolster protection against the more transmissible delta variant. Last month Biden announced plans to make them available beginning Sept. 20, but only the Pfizer vaccine will likely have received regulatory approval for a third dose by that time.
Officials are aiming to administer the booster shots about eight months after the second dose of the two-dose vaccines.