The city of New Orleans has been placed under a curfew, forcing residents to remain home during the night hours indefinitely, as authorities try to prevent looting after a devastating hurricane knocked out power across Louisiana.
Effective immediately, the 8pm curfew was announced by New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell on Tuesday afternoon, and is set to continue “until terminated” by the city administration at a yet unspecified date. The curfew order makes exceptions for “emergency and relief works [sic],” and extends until 6am each morning.
I have signed an Executive Order mandating a city wide curfew, effective immediately for all residents from 8pm -6am. pic.twitter.com/IywxeUtrXN
During a Tuesday press conference, Cantrell defended her decision to deploy “anti-looting teams” across the city in an effort to stem a series of thefts and break-ins that followed Hurricane Ida, which made landfall Sunday and wreaked destruction across the Gulf coast. The mayor said the anti-looting initiative, done in conjunction with the state National Guard, had been “effective” so far, but would nonetheless be expanded with additional personnel.
“I spoke this morning about our anti-looting plan that has been in place, and it has been effective. But also I discussed that we will be ramping up additional capacity… from a proactive standpoint. That is with the Louisiana National Guard as well,” Cantrell told reporters.
Just shy of 1 million Louisiana residents remain without power after the category 4 hurricane virtually destroyed the state’s power infrastructure, while some 177,000 in Orleans parish are still in darkness, according to outage tracker PowerOutage.us. At least four people were killed due to the storm, including two in Louisiana and two in Mississippi.
The second-largest US state has passed a voter integrity bill that Democrats denounced as racist and sought to block by escaping to Washington, DC. Republicans say the law will make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.
On Tuesday, Governor Greg Abbott hailed the passage of Senate Bill 1 in the emergency session of the state legislature and said it was now on its way to his desk for signature. The law will “solidify trust and confidence in the outcome of our elections,” said Abbott, thanking its sponsors and everyone involved in making sure it was adopted.
The Texas election integrity bill is on its way to my desk!
According to Abbott, the bill “creates uniform statewide voting hours, maintains and expands voting access for registered voters that need assistance, prohibits drive-through voting, and enhances transparency by authorizing poll watchers to observe more aspects of the election process.” It also bans the distribution of “unsolicited applications for mail-in ballots and gives voters with a defective mail-in ballot the opportunity to correct the defect.”
Democrats had denounced the measures as “voter suppression” and argued it was “racist” because it somehow disproportionately affected ethnic minority communities that were implied to be their natural constituencies. Dozens of them got on a charter flight to Washington, DC in mid-July, seeking to deny the legislature a quorum and block the bill’s passage.
While they were greeted by Vice President Kamala Harris and hailed as heroes by national Democrats on Capitol Hill, the story quickly took an unfortunate turn, as half a dozen of the truant Texans tested positive for Covid-19, and reportedly infected at least one White House official and one aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California).
The filibuster ended up wilting under unfavorable media attention and the lawmakers quietly returned to Texas, where their attendance was compelled by threat of arrest under long-standing state rules.
Many Republican-run states have proposed or enacted election reform laws in the wake of controversy over the 2020 presidential vote, which saw Democrat Joe Biden beat the incumbent President Donald Trump amid the unprecedented surge in use of mail-in ballots and other innovative procedures, implemented by local authorities on grounds of the Covid-19 pandemic. Democrats have dismissed any concerns about the legitimacy of the vote as false conspiracy theories, and any Republican reforms as racist efforts to “suppress” voting. Their proposal to impose nationwide voting standards is currently pending in Congress.
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A US Marine who was relieved of duty over a viral video blasting the poorly managed exit from Afghanistan has quit the service, saying he’s lost all trust in American leaders while demanding accountability for their failures.
The controversial soldier, Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller, took to his Facebook account on Tuesday to announce his plans to leave the Marine Corps, sharing a photo of his resignation letter, which requests a termination date of September 11. He captioned the post with a message addressed to “the American leadership,” which concludes with what verges on a call for “revolution.”
“We the people submit our resignation with a requested date of 11 September 2021. Reason: Loss of trust and confidence,” Scheller wrote, echoing the wording of his letter.
We the people seek change. We the people seek leadership. We the people seek accountability. We the people WILL take it. Every generation needs a revolution.
The Marine first gained recognition last Thursday after posting a Facebook video shredding US military and political leaders for their handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying nobody had taken responsibility for a string of errors. “I have been fighting for 17 years. I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders: I demand accountability,” he said in the clip, which quickly went viral across several social media platforms.
Less than 24 hours after the video went live, however, Scheller announced in another Facebook post that he had been relieved of duty “based on a lack of trust and confidence” from his superiors. While he did not criticize their decision, Scheller remained adamant in urging accountability, calling on other Marines to “step up” and join him: “They only have the power because we allow it. What if we all demanded accountability?”
Before formally announcing his resignation, Scheller stirred further controversy with another video – filmed, he says, from “an abandoned school bus in eastern North Carolina” – entitled “Your move.”
“You have no idea what I‘m capable of doing,” he says in the video, in which he also discusses his exposure to toxic burn pits during his deployment in Ramadi, Iraq. He later adds, addressing fellow service members: “Follow me, and we will bring the whole f**king system down.”
The next day, Scheller said he was ordered to undergo a “mental health screening,” suggesting his recent criticisms were being attributed to a post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“First, excusing the actions of service members because of ‘PTSD’ does more damage to service members than any trauma in combat,” he said. “I have been in very traumatic combat situations. But because of that I am STRONGER.”
And for the people who checked on me after my last video… I’m sorry if I scared you. But know that despite my emotions, my words are always carefully thought out.
Despite tendering his resignation, Scheller has continued his battle with military leadership from his perch on social media, addressing Marine Commandant General David Berger in a confrontational post on Tuesday evening.
“I understand you want to court martial me. Your entire staff has already told me. All the Captains you spoke to today already texted me,” he wrote, adding “Your problem right now… is that I am moving faster than you. I’m out maneuvering you.”
Two high-level FDA vaccine officials have quit, raising eyebrows about the agency’s future. In addition to failing to appoint an FDA commissioner seven months into his term, Biden promoted a booster shot without agency go-ahead.
Two of the top executives involved in vaccine research and testing at the Food and Drug Administration are leaving the agency, according to a Tuesday letter from Peter Marks, chief of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. Marion Gruber and Phil Krause were director and deputy director, respectively, of the agency’s Office of Vaccines Research & Review.
A 32 year FDA veteran is quitting the agency due to the WH politically strong arming their decision making. If this doesn’t raise red flags among some of you, nothing will. https://t.co/om5VcnpxhC
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) August 31, 2021
While there was no official reason given for their departure, a former FDA bigwig told biotech outlet Endpoints that the pair complained that the CDC, and specifically its Advisory Committee on Immunization (ACIP), had seized the right to make decisions that had previously been left up to the FDA. The researchers were also supposedly upset with Marks for not standing up for them against the CDC. The Biden administration’s decision to announce a third round of mRNA “booster” shots without consulting them was merely the last straw.
After finally supplying its approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine eight months after they were authorized on an emergency-use basis, the FDA hinted last week that it would be making a booster shot of the mRNA-based drugs available on September 20th to those who’d received their second doses eight months prior.
@US_FDA is losing two giants who helped bring us many safe and effective vaccines over decades of public service. https://t.co/hkLJPDo2HK
Gruber spent over 30 years with the agency and plans to retire at the end of October, while Krause has worked for the FDA for over a decade. Despite the departure of the top two officials in its vaccine division, FDA spokesperson Stephanie Caccomo insisted in a statement emailed to Reuters that the agency remained “confident in the expertise and ability of our staff to continue our critical public health work, including evaluating COVID-19 vaccines.” The agency is being closely watched as Americans await authorization to vaccinate their children under 12 years old, who remain outside the age range for existing approvals.
Despite the FDA and the CDC’s joint announcement last week promising a third shot for those in need of an mRNA booster, the FDA’s seal of approval appeared to have been prematurely affixed. In a presentation on Monday, the ACIP called for a more targeted and cautious approach to the booster, arguing that fully vaccinated individuals continued to be protected against “most severe illness,” indicating there was little data to show the usefulness of booster shots in the general population. Instead, the committee suggested, medical authorities should focus on vaccinating those who hadn’t received the shot yet – including people in countries where the vaccine is scarce.
Faced with an economic crisis and mass emigration, the Taliban has declared attracting foreign investment to Afghanistan and creating a “roadmap” for national development as priorities, calling on professionals to work with them.
During a televised interview with Al Jazeera, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed the Islamist group will not “blame” or impose sanctions on individuals and businesses that collaborated with coalition forces during the two decades of conflict.
“We need to rebuild the Afghan economy, and for this we need professionals and experts. They need to get together and develop a roadmap for the country’s economic revival,” Mujahid said, adding that it was “necessary to create an atmosphere for attracting foreign investment.”
Last week, the group issued a similar call to skilled Afghans and warned the US and other countries not to “encourage” experts like engineers, doctors and the “educated elite” to leave the country, since their expertise would be needed. This was as thousands rushed to the Kabul airport in hopes to be evacuated out of Afghanistan – only for the Taliban to eventually shut the access to all but foreign citizens.
Claiming that the Taliban government will “create opportunities” for them, Mujahid told Afghans who worked with the US and its allies to “not be afraid” and “work with us for the benefit of the whole country and its unity.”
The latest announcement is in keeping with the group’s recent trend of adopting a conciliatory tone when asked about the way forward. Earlier in the month, the Taliban promised women’s rights and education under Islamic law, media freedom and amnesty for Afghan government officials.
Since the group’s first press conference after taking Kabul, the Taliban has maintained that it wished for peaceful relations with other countries – prompting diplomatic overtures from some, including Russia, China and Iran.
After the US wound up its withdrawal efforts on Monday, the Taliban declared Afghanistan to be a “free and sovereign” nation. Its political representative in Qatar, Mohammad Sohail Shahin, has invited foreign states to participate in reconstruction efforts and the development of Afghanistan’s natural resources.
While noting that the new government was keen to “attract foreign capital,” Mujahid said on Tuesday that any bilateral cooperation “should be based on common interests and not undermine the sovereignty of Afghanistan.”
Earlier this week, China’s special envoy for Afghan affairs, Yue Xiaoyong, told Chinese news portal Guancha.cn that Beijing was ready to participate in the “peaceful reconstruction” of Afghanistan and “willing to provide assistance.”
Noting China’s willingness to develop a “win-win situation” with the Taliban, Yue said talks with the group had been opened through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, an increasingly influential trade, political and security bloc within which Afghanistan has observer status.
On the other hand, the European Union had suspended development assistance to Afghanistan until the political situation became clear. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell had previously said the Taliban must respect UN Security Council resolutions and human rights values to be allowed to access some 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in development funds earmarked through 2024.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab has said the UK might provide up to 10% more humanitarian aid to the country, but added that the Taliban would not receive money that had been previously earmarked for security purposes.
US President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Tuesday suggested that the US would be providing humanitarian aid “directly to the people of Afghanistan.” He added that Washington would consider sending economic assistance directly to the Taliban depending on whether “they follow through on their commitments.”
The Afghan interpreter who helped retrieve then-Senator Joe Biden from the mountains of Afghanistan in 2008 has been left behind after the US withdrew from Kabul, and is reportedly now begging the White House to be rescued.
“Hello Mr. President: Save me and my family,” the Wall Street Journal quoted the man, whose name was given only as Mohammed, in an exclusive report on Tuesday. “Don’t forget me here.”
Now 36, Mohammed was the interpreter for the 82nd Airborne force that was deployed from Bagram Air Field to rescue Biden and his colleagues John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) in February 2008, when their helicopter made an emergency landing in Afghanistan during a bad snowstorm.
An Afghan interpreter helped rescue Joe Biden in 2008.
He had applied for a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV), the program to evacuate interpreters who helped the US over the course of the 20-year conflict, but got stuck when the contractor he worked for lost the relevant records, the WSJ reported.
“His selfless service to our military men and women is just the kind of service I wish more Americans displayed,” Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Till had written in support of his application. “If you can only help one Afghan, choose [him],” wrote Shawn O’Brien, an Army veteran who had worked with Mohammed in 2008.
None of that seemed to help when Mohammed made his way to the Hamid Karzai International Airport in mid-August, only to be told by US troops there that he could get in – but his wife and children could not, according to the Journal.
“I can’t leave my house,” he told the paper on Tuesday, after the last US military planes had departed Kabul. “I’m very scared.”
Asked about Mohammed’s plight later in the day, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration's message to him was, “thank you for the role you played in helping a number of my favorite people."
“We will get you out” in the “diplomatic phase,” Psaki added, saying that the administration's "commitment is enduring."
.@WSJ's @TParti asks Psaki about the paper's reporting that an translator who saved Biden, Chuck Hagel, & John Kerry and is trapped in Afghanistan.
Psaki says "thank you for the role you played in helping a number of my favorite people" and the U.S. will keep trying to help. pic.twitter.com/RBkC93wyhu
“Those who helped us are not going to be left behind,” President Biden had pledged on June 24. That was before the US-backed Afghan government completely collapsed and the Taliban took over Kabul, leaving the US troops surrounded at the airport.
The White House has boasted about evacuating 122,000 people during the 2-week airlift. Of that number, less than 6,000 were US citizens and the vast majority were Afghans looking to escape the Taliban. A number of Americans were left behind – the Biden administration would not say exactly how many – and apparently so did some Afghans who were promised rescue as well.
Biden has often referred to the 2008 incident to claim expertise in war on terrorism. The helicopter that carried the Senate delegation landed in a valley about 20 miles southeast of Bagram, in an area that wasn’t Taliban-controlled at the time, but was uncomfortably close to an area where heavy fighting had taken place. The three rescued senators later went on to serve in the Obama administration – Kerry as secretary of state, Hagel as the secretary of defense, and Biden as vice president.
The Biden administration decided to abandon Bagram early in the withdrawal process, acting on State Department and Pentagon advice that staging out of Kabul – a civilian airport in the middle of a densely populated urban area – was more convenient.
A coalition of 20 US states has filed a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of “changing law” by ordering schools to allow transgender girls, who are biologically male, to compete on female sports teams.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday by attorneys general from 20 Republican-run states, led by Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slattery. The suit claims that an executive order issued by Biden in January, along with two directives issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Education, amounted to an unlawful attempt to bypass Congress and change federal law.
Biden’s executive order tasked every federal agency with reviewing their policies to “prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.” Following the order, the EEOC and Department of Education issued their own guidance, which in the department’s case required schools and colleges to allow transgender women onto women’s sports teams.
Should a federally-funded school refuse to adhere to this, or refuse to allow a transgender student to use whatever bathroom they wish, the department’s guidance states that it can launch an investigation.
Biden’s order and the two memos that followed were based on an interpretation of Bostock v. Clayton County, a case that came before the Supreme Court last year. In a 6-3 verdict, the court ruled that employers cannot terminate employees “simply for being homosexual or transgender,” finding that the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s protections against “sex” discrimination also applied to “sexual orientation” and gender identity.
In the court’s ruling, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that “we do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.” Yet dissenting Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas predicted that the ruling would be used for just that, and the Biden administration has since proven them correct.
Dissent also came from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who argued that retroactively reinterpreting the Civil Rights Act was not the job of the Supreme Court. “We are judges,” he wrote, “not Members of Congress. Our role is not to make or amend the law.”
Slattery echoed these words on Tuesday when speaking of the lawsuit. “This case is about two federal agencies changing law, which is Congress’ exclusive prerogative,” he said in a statement. “The agencies simply do not have that authority. But that has not stopped them from trying.”
The Democratic Party has thus far failed to pass the Equality Act, an ambitious piece of legislation that would actually write such protections for transgender people into the law. With the Senate split 50-50 between both parties, the act is unlikely to pass any time soon. In the meantime, any attempts to do so in piecemeal fashion, as in the case of the EEOC and Department of Education, will face Republican resistance and likely be decided by the courts.
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The UK government has abandoned people who worked for the Brits in Afghanistan, a former embassy translator has told RT. The Afghan man is now on the run, fearing that the Taliban would ultimately find and kill him and his family.
The former interpreter, using the alias 'Said,' spoke to RT as the deadline for foreign forces to leave Afghanistan was set to expire, and after the US and UK forces officially had wrapped up their withdrawal. Said used to work as a patrolling translator for British security forces at the UK's Kabul Embassy and was eligible for getting evacuated. However, unable to reach the Kabul airport without outside help, he was ultimately left behind by the UK government.
The abrupt collapse of the Afghan government had apparently caught London by surprise, leaving the local employees of the UK wondering if it actually had any plan to extract them, Said told RT.
We had a lot of faith in the UK government because it's a powerful government. We never thought that we would be in this situation one day. I don't know why they did it to us, why they did this to us, why they left us without protection, without any plan.
While the man has applied for visas for himself and his family, he barely managed to secure approval only for his wife and himself. His parents, whom Said believes to be in danger as well, had their applications rejected.
"First they rejected my asylum case, then after they accepted my case they sent me an email approval, but what should I do with this email? This email will not help me with anything," Said said.
Said did not elaborate on why his case was initially turned down, but the UK's Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) originally rejected applications from former local employees who had been dismissed from service. The policy has repeatedly come under criticism and was revised over the past few months, with only those Afghans dismissed for "serious" or criminal offences disqualified from ARAP.
The evacuation process proved to be extremely chaotic, and Said says the UK government did effectively nothing to rescue him except for producing more paperwork. The former translator and his family failed to reach the airport, as they were turned away by the Taliban militants patrolling its vicinity.
We had a movement order from the British government, they told us to go to the airport. We couldn't even touch the gate because the Taliban checkpoint was there and they were beating people. The help is like saying something, and doing another thing.
Despite the repeated promises by the Taliban to not persecute Afghans who'd worked for foreign nations and the ousted government, Said is now on the run in fear for his life. The militants have already "occupied" his home as they conducted house-to-house searches to find collaborators, he claimed.
It's almost one week [since] I don't have any shelter.. I keep changing my place. I lost hope, I lost everything.
Said's work as a translator has become a sort-of social stigma, with Afghans now wary of even talking to the man and others like him. "We're cursed, we're abandoned now. If they [Afghans] help us, they believe that the Taliban will kill them also. That's why they're not even talking with us," he said.
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With the last US troops leaving Afghanistan after a devastating bombing, President Joe Biden has described the chaotic evacuation of Kabul as an “extraordinary success” the likes of which “no nation has done in all of history.”
“Last night in Kabul, the US ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history,” Biden told reporters on Tuesday, almost a day after the last US plane took off from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
The retreat from Afghanistan didn’t just mark an end to that war, he said, but an end to an era of military operations “to remake other countries.”
Cristiano Ronaldo's emotional reunion at Old Trafford stands in clear contrast to the man he has spent much of his career duelling with, Lionel Messi, whose fairytale career looks set to conclude at a club he has little link to.
Between them, both Ronaldo and Messi have left an indelible mark on the beautiful game, dominating football's list of individual honors for well over a decade and firmly etching their names in the list of the sport's greatest ever players.
During their respective heydays, a cold war of sorts brewed between football's two most talented icons. It played out almost entirely in La Liga as the Barcelona/Real Madrid rivalry took on a whole new element, the question of "Ronaldo or Messi?" echoing on school playgrounds across the world in a new kind of cultural war.
All things, though, must pass. Ronaldo took his leave from Spain in 2018, switching Real Madrid for Juventus and leaving the kingdom to his sparring partner Messi as he sought to pursue different honors, awards and trophies.
It is hard to deny that Messi and Spanish football as whole weren't affected by this divorce. Last year, when Messi revealed his desire to move away from the Camp Nou it seemed like the inevitable result of dwindling interest when the Spanish league was denied its biggest box office showdown between the two best players in the world, with the infamous Barca-Real rivalry almost an afterthought... the co-main event, even.
Of course, Messi would ultimately recant his open pursuit of a move away from Catalonia last year when it looked as though he was heading for a legal battle with the club he has represented since he was a boy - only for all parties' hands to be tied this summer when Spanish league rules dictated that Barcelona simply couldn't afford to renew Messi's contract.
Today, around three weeks after he signed for oil-rich Paris Saint-Germain, the juxtaposition between he and the man to whom his career will be forever linked, couldn't be much more different.
The memory of a distraught Lionel Messi standing at a podium with tears streaming down his face as he processed the reality that he had to move to a new country, uprooting his family in the process - live in front of the media, no less - appears to be the polar opposite of Cristiano Ronaldo's Manchester United homecoming.
CR7 (as he will continue to be after reportedly persuading Edinson Cavani to part with his #7 jersey) was brought back to Old Trafford in a whirlwind transfer, just hours after he looked set to commit the most grievous of sins in joining Manchester City.
It is a move endorsed by some of the club's most legendary figures like Sir Alex Ferguson, Rio Ferdinand and others, and the mammoth outlay from the Glazer Family for a player who turns 37 in a few months' time has been resoundingly supported by the Red Devils faithful, bringing a feel-good factor to the club just months after the stadium was quite literally stormed by disgruntled supporters in the wake of the ill-fated Super League announcement.
Those cynical enough among us might say that this is little more than the Glazers' currying favor with fans who had called for their heads just weeks ago. After all, a move for Cristiano Ronaldo wasn't part of United's transfer strategy this summer and is instead something of an opportunistic indulgence - but ask anyone who packs themselves into the Stretford End and they will tell you that the move for Ronaldo has returned a 'feel good' factor to the club.
Smiles are back on faces - and chiefly Ronaldo's, as judging by his gushing note on Instagram to Manchester United supporters in which he described the transfer as a "dream come true".
Would Lionel Messi be able to say the same of his own career move?
Messi made his debut for Paris Saint-Germain as a second-half substitute against Reims on Sunday and it almost seemed like his opponents were more enthusiastic about it than he was. The Reims goalkeeper even persuaded Messi to pose for a picture holding his child; an heirloom which will live long in their family but will likely be quickly forgotten by Messi himself.
Messi will, of course, be welcomed with open arms by PSG fans when he makes his home debut as fans clamor to see their new hero in the flesh - but there's just something different about Ronaldo's own move to a place where he is already part of the fabric of the club.
In a sense, it is something of a shame that Messi will play out the autumn of his career at a club whose primary motivation in signing him was that they were the only ones who could afford his salary: a cold, calculated move which stands against the verve and mastery he displayed on the pitch for so many years for a club he truly loved.
Ronaldo came home. Messi, it feels like, is living out of a hotel.
By John Balfe
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
A passenger bus has plunged off a cliff in the Peruvian Andes, killing at least 29 people on board. The accident came just days after another bus, carrying mine workers, went off a cliff in a different part of the mountain region.
The incident occurred outside the town of Matucana in central Peru early on Tuesday. The bus veered off Peru's Central Highway, plummeting into an abyss. The vehicle was carrying some 63 passengers at the time of the crash, a police officer told local broadcaster Canal N.
Footage circulating online shows rescuers working at the crash site. The bus apparently overturned multiple times, becoming reduced to an almost unrecognizable pile of mangled metal.
Tuesday's accident came just days after a similar crash occurred in a different part of the Andes, in the Peruvian province of Cotabambas. In that incident, a bus carrying mining workers went over the cliff edge as it navigated through a serpentine road on August 27.
The vehicle overturned and landed upside down after falling onto a lower section of the road, footage from the scene showed. The accident killed 16 people on board, injuring two more.
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After nearly 20 years of fighting against the US in Afghanistan, the victorious Taliban posed with captured American gear at the Kabul airport, held a mock funeral for NATO in Khost, and flew a Black Hawk helicopter over Kandahar.
The last US troops left the Hamid Karzai International Airport on Monday, just before the clock struck midnight local time. On Tuesday morning, Taliban fighters strolled through the airport they now controlled, littered with debris, posing for photos with the captured vehicles, aircraft and equipment.
#Taliban fighters mock US in American uniforms as group takes over #Kabul airport
Taliban leaders reviewed a “special forces” unit, equipped with weapons and gear captured from the US-trained Afghan army, on the Kabul runway.
“It is a historical day and a historical moment.... we liberated our country from a great power,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, adding that the past two decades should serve as “a big lesson for other invaders, a lesson for the world.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby acknowledged on Tuesday that a lot of US equipment with “a lethality component to it” has fallen into Taliban hands, but said it doesn’t pose a threat to the US or neighboring countries.
“These are not the kinds of things that the Taliban can make great strategic use out of,” Kirby told reporters.
The Taliban thought otherwise, however, showing off at least one newly acquired Black Hawk helicopter in the skies over Kandahar in a couple of videos. The second clip caused some confusion on social networks, as more than a few American commentators claimed the figure dangling from the helicopter was someone being executed.
The “Talib Times” account that posted the video said no such thing, however. On closer look, the man seemed to be a Taliban fighter joyriding on a rescue harness.
Our Air Force!
At this time, the Islamic Emirate's air force helicopters are flying over Kandahar city and patrolling the city. pic.twitter.com/rlE6nUldZf
Meanwhile, in the southeastern city of Khost, a crowd of Taliban supporters held a mock “funeral” for the ousted occupiers, carrying coffins draped with US, NATO, British and French flags, as well as some banners of the defeated Islamic Republic of Afghanistan – now replaced by the white flag of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate.
People of Kabul in large number participated in the symbolic funeral of the US and NATO... interestingly both Taliban and former government flags were present during the procession... pic.twitter.com/Q8Jkv1EZjH
Taliban hold mock funerals for British, American, and NATO forces as thousands take to the streets to celebrate 'victory' over the west after last US flight took off
Taliban 'victory' parades took place in Afghanistan today after the last US troops left the country overnight pic.twitter.com/oT1nqBro3u
The US withdrawal turned into a mad scramble to evacuate just over 6,000 US citizens – along with tens of thousands of Afghan civilians – on August 14, when the Taliban took over Kabul without a fight and the Washington-backed government collapsed. It also turned tragic last week, when up to 200 Afghans and 13 US troops died at the entrance to the airport, in a suicide bombing claimed by the terrorist group ISIS-K.
Intersting now... the Flag Pole which held and represented all the NATO nations at the military side of Kabul Airport.
— Brit & Co'wealth Military 🇬🇧 🇲🇾 🇳🇿🇨🇦🇦🇺 (@BritComMil) August 30, 2021
The Pentagon has acknowledged that some US citizens could not reach the airport and were left behind. The State Department was tasked with negotiating their safe passage out of Afghanistan.
Russian artistic swimming star Varvara Subbotina has opened up on her fears about an “obsessed” fan who hounded her on social media as well as the darker side to some of the attention she earns online.
Subbotina, 20, is a four-time world champion who regularly tops lists of her country’s most eye-catching female athletes.
That appeal has earned her growing social media popularity to accompany her success in the pool – but the Moscow-born star admitted in a recent interview with Sport24 that some aspects of being in the spotlight were initially hard to come to terms with.
“Before, it was ‘wow’ for me, but now I react quite calmly, at some moments I even try not to pay attention,” Subbotina said of her appearance in lists of Russia's ‘most beautiful’ sports stars.
“When I appear top of some list, on the one hand, a flurry of criticism immediately appears, on the other – enthusiastic comments.
“I try not to pay attention because it distracts me. When there is a flurry of criticism, it starts to annoy me, it's hard.”
Subbotina said the criticism often centers on doubts about the “naturalness” of her appearance – which she has long dismissed.
“For three years now, I'm already tired of telling them, but you can’t prove it to people. I haven’t resorted to plastic surgery, and I don’t plan to do that in the near future,” said the star.
“They criticize me that I behave incorrectly for a synchronized swimmer, that if I display photos like that, I’m in a certain service industry, and so on.
“How can you say that about a girl, just seeing her from a photograph?”
Subbotina admitted that she would be open to doing a photoshoot for a men’s magazine – but only if the circumstances were right.
“I can't say ‘100% yes’ [that I would], definitely not right now. Maybe later, but for now, I’d probably refuse.
"My coach always tells me: ‘First of all, think about your reputation.’ If I’m doing a shoot for a magazine like that, what will they write about me later? Even more of what’s being written now.”
In a disturbing aspect to her fame, Subbotina recently revealed that she'd been hounded by one particularly persistent fan online.
“Now more people have reacted to this,” said the star after sharing examples of the messages she had received.
“I shared a similar story about a year ago, I was told that ‘everything’s fine, someone's just kidding.’ But now I understand that this is overstepping the boundaries, I really start to worry.
“A lot of people have written to me about who I can turn to, my acquaintances have friends, relatives, lawyers, who can help with this.
“We discussed it, but I was told: ‘It won’t work to start a case against this person, because there are no direct threats as such’…
“The fact that I shared this, that so many people supported me, made me happy, it made me feel better.
"But until the whole situation is resolved, I'll remain in constant tension.”
Subbotina said that the person in question had bombarded her with flowers as well as claims that the pair would get married and have children together – before turning nasty and claiming that she “should be treated in a psychiatric hospital.”
“I once again blocked his new account. And he began to write to my younger sister. Just imagine what was in my head: ‘I’m not at home, my sister is at home alone, and this crazy person is writing to her,’" Subbotina added.
“Now, thank God, competent people are dealing with this issue, which frees me from the responsibility to monitor this myself.”
The swimming star admitted that she even gets offered money online for certain services – but either blocks the offending accounts or issues a dismissive response before shutting them off.
“This is immoral at the very least. I say: ‘Do I look like an escort girl?’” Subbotina said.
“After they send that to me, the person either gets blocked, or I first write: ‘Hello, I don’t do this. If you’re looking for this, this isn’t the place for you,’ and then also block them.”
Subbotina is currently making a return to training after missing the Tokyo Olympic Games this summer when she underwent surgery for a long-running nasal issue.
The US Department of Education has warned school officials in five states that it is investigating whether their bans on mask mandates are “prevent[ing] students with disabilities from safely returning to in-person education.”
Officials in Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah have been warned by the department’s Office of Civil Rights that, while the office hasn’t yet determined there had been a violation, the ban on universal indoor masking may prevent schools from meeting their legal obligations regarding providing an “equal educational opportunity” to disabled students at high risk for Covid-19.
The office has declined to look at Florida, Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas, noting that, while they have at various times adopted or considered blanket bans on mask mandates in schools, their plans for full-scale bans have been scuttled by “court orders or other state actions,” the DoE letter, sent on Monday, explained.
President Joe Biden declared earlier this year that governors must not interfere with students safely returning to the classroom “without compromising their health or the health of their families or communities.” DoE Secretary Miguel Cardona lamented in a Monday statement, that parents nationwide, especially those with disabled children, might be “putting their children at risk and preventing them from accessing in-person learning equally.”
The OCR hinted at darker consequences for schools in the affected five states that failed to do as they were told, declaring that a lack of mask mandates in those states “may be preventing schools... from meeting their legal obligations not to discriminate based on disability and from providing an equal educational opportunity to students with disabilities who are at heightened risk of severe illness from COVID-19.”
The Biden administration has not made clear what might befall those schools which fail to impose mandates, with Cardona merely bemoaning state leaders’ “putting politics over the health and education of the students they took an oath to serve.” Vowing to “fight to protect every student’s right to access in-person learning safely,” he warned that “possible enforcement actions under applicable laws” could be next for those schools that decline to do as they are told.
It isn’t just the Department of Education that has set its sights on mask mandates for every American child. The American Civil Liberties Union has plunged itself head-first into the irony pool, suing South Carolina last week over its ban on mask requirements in schools. Insisting students with disabilities were barred from the classroom because their peers were not forced to wear masks in class, they declared the “courts must intervene” – though nothing in the anti-mandate law prevents students who want to wear masks from doing so.
The governors on the other side are pushing back. Oklahoma’s Kevin Stitt, a Republican, is wrestling with the Board of Education in the state’s Cherokee Nation, insisting its call for mask mandates runs contrary to state law, even as multiple districts quietly enforce their own mask mandates – with medical and religious exemptions.
South Carolina’s majority-Republican legislature has backed up the governor by prohibiting school districts that require masks from receiving state funding to implement the mandates. Florida Republican Ron DeSantis, one of the most visible opponents of mandatory masking, saw his order struck down in court on Friday, while Texas Governor Greg Abbott has seen his own order challenged by 60 separate school districts and ultimately blocked from taking effect last week.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has set off online outrage by suggesting the killing of 13 US troops in last week’s Kabul airport bombing was an acceptable price to pay for the Biden administration’s evacuation ‘successes.’
“The men and women who gave their lives... that doesn’t take the place of all of the progress, all of the work that’s been done to evacuate people,” Psaki said on Sunday in a press briefing. She added that the 13 fallen service members sacrificed their lives to save thousands of people, “and that is something that should be honored, should be valued, and we will continue to look for ways to do that.”
Author Andrew Pollack called the statement “shameful,” while he and other Twitter users puzzled over what great progress Psaki is claiming in a chaotic withdrawal that has left hundreds of people dead and billions of dollars in US military equipment in Taliban hands.
BREAKING
Jen Psaki says that the 13 marines who gave their life, does not take the place of all of the Progress the Biden Administration has made in Afghanistan.
“Thirteen US service members are dead, the Taliban controls Afghanistan and ISIS-K is on the rise,” said Tommy Pigott, rapid response director for the Republican National Committee. “Yet, Psaki calls this progress? It didn’t have to be this way. The blood, chaos and death at the Kabul airport is on Biden.”
13 U.S. service members are dead, the Taliban controls Afghanistan, and ISIS-K is on the rise.
Yet Psaki calls this "progress"?
It didn't have to be this way. The blood, chaos, and death at the Kabul airport is on Biden. https://t.co/QROLZBqFff
The administration’s handling of the withdrawal has drawn criticism from Democrats, too. Harrison Becker, a self-described “proud Georgia Democrat,” said Psaki’s statement missed the mark. “Yes, you guys made incredible progress, no doubt, but 13 Americans are well, dead, so, y’know...”
You could have worded this a bit better, Mrs. Psaki. Yes, you guys made INCREDIBLE progress, no doubt, but 13 Americans are well… Dead. Soooooo… Y’know…
— Harrison Becker 🇺🇸💙 (@HarrisonBecker7) August 30, 2021
The press sectary’s dismissive comment came on the heels of Sunday’s “dignified transfer” ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the caskets of the 13 fallen troops were carried past President Joe Biden, military leaders and family members of the deceased. Biden angered many Americans by apparently looking down at his watch to check the time during the solemn ceremony.
Critics, including members of Congress and parents of some of the Marines who were killed in Kabul, have blasted the administration for a withdrawal plan that unnecessarily put Americans in harm’s way. For instance, Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller said evacuations could have been done more safely had the Pentagon not prematurely abandoned Bagram Airfield. He was relieved of duty less than 24 hours after posting a Facebook video criticizing the withdrawal.
But Psaki said the administration has saved the lives of 120,000 evacuees, including 6,000 Americans, by getting them out of Afghanistan. But she managed to anger more observers by saying Biden “knows firsthand” the grief that families of the fallen soldiers are suffering, alluding to the death of his son Beau Biden in 2015. The 46-year-old Beau Biden died of brain cancer, seven years after he deployed to Iraq as an Army lawyer.
“Jen Psaki just compared the Marines and Corpsmen that were killed at Kabul airport with Beau Biden’s death,” one commenter tweeted. “There is no level too low for this regime to go to deflect from this debacle.”
Jen Psaki just compared the Marines & Corpsmen that were killed at Kabul airport with Bo Biden's death...there is no level too low for this regime to go to deflect from this debacle. pic.twitter.com/6NkrYeeYgD
Thanking the US military for ending the withdrawal from Afghanistan “with no further loss of American lives,” President Joe Biden asked the country to pray for everyone involved, including refugees, until his address tomorrow.
“I want to thank our commanders and the men and women serving under them for their execution of the dangerous retrograde from Afghanistan as scheduled – in the early morning hours of August 31, Kabul time – with no further loss of American lives,” Biden said in a statement the White House released on Monday evening, after the Pentagon confirmed the last US planes had left Kabul.
The military had executed “the largest airlift in US history, evacuating over 120,000 US citizens, citizens of our allies, and Afghan allies of the United States,” Biden said, “with unmatched courage, professionalism, and resolve.”
Now, our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended.
As of Monday, the Pentagon said the US had evacuated over 122,000 people during the Kabul airlift – only 5,400 of them US citizens, and the rest mainly Afghan nationals fleeing the Taliban rule. An estimated 250 Americans appear to have remained in Afghanistan, however.
Biden said he would speak on Tuesday afternoon about his decision “not to extend” the US presence at the Hamid Karzai International Airport beyond August 31. Ending the airlift mission was the “unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and of all of our commanders on the ground,” as “the best way to protect the lives of our troops, and secure the prospects of civilian departures for those who want to leave Afghanistan” in the coming weeks and months, he added.
Securing the passage of “any Americans, Afghan partners, and foreign nationals who want to leave Afghanistan” will be the job of the State Department and rely on the Taliban living up to its commitments to the “international community,” the White House statement said.
Even as critics blasted his administration for apparently abandoning Americans – after losing 13 service members to a suicide bombing last week – Biden urged the nation to join him in “grateful prayer” for the troops and diplomats who carried out the airlift with “unparalleled results.” He also asked for prayers for volunteers and veterans who helped the evacuation, and everyone about to “welcome our Afghan allies to their new homes around the world, and in the United States.”
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan turned into a frantic scramble on August 14, when the Washington-backed Afghan government collapsed without much of a fight and the Taliban took control of most of the country, including Kabul. Several thousand US troops were then deployed to guard the airport from crowds of Afghans attempting to flee – some clinging to US planes as they took off, only to fall to their deaths.
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A former ISIS militant, awaiting trial in Russia, claims he had been recruited by UK agents to spy on the terrorist group. The man told RT he ended up fighting in the terrorists' ranks, allegedly, after being abandoned in Syria.
Azamat Ayvazov, 33, who is in a pre-trial facility in Russia's southern republic of Dagestan, gave an exclusive interview to RT's Ilya Petrenko, who became interested in the unusually talkative ex-militant's side of the story.
The man claims that ending up in the ranks of the notorious terrorist group was never his intention, and instead holds himself to be a victim of "geopolitical games."
Ayvazov left Russia some 10 years ago, gaining refugee status in the UK. Following the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack, he ended up on the radar of the British secret services, as they allegedly screened "Muslim-looking" individuals.
Ayvazov claims the UK secret services ultimately recruited him for spying on European jihadists in Syria's Raqqa, then the 'capital' of the self-styled caliphate of Islamic State (IS, ISIS/ISIL). The mission, which Ayvazov was allegedly promised to get £20,000 for, was expected to last three months only, after which the man was promised an evacuation. However, Ayvazov claims his spy masters dumped him, and he had no choice but to actually fight in IS ranks.
The militant suffered a serious wound and had a long recovery period before trying to reach the EU again – where he was caught with counterfeit documents and ultimately extradited to Russia.
RT cannot verify the man's claims, and whether his alleged audio recording of a recruitment attempt is authentic. RT has contacted the MI6 for comment, but has not received a response.
Watch the full interview below:
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Battered by Hurricane Ida, parts of Louisiana will be without power for up to a month in the wake of the storm. The hurricane plunged New Orleans into darkness and toppled transmission towers across the state.
Making landfall in Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane on Sunday, Ida brought howling 150mph winds, lashing rain, and up to 16 feet of water surging onto the Gulf Coast and up into New Orleans and beyond.
The city’s protective levees, upgraded following the catastrophic losses suffered during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, did their job and saved New Orleans from more severe flooding, but the entire city was left without power due to “catastrophic transmission damage,” per the City of New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
Electricity supplier Entergy began assessing damage to the grid on Monday, and discovered that Ida had disabled all eight lines feeding electricity to the city. The company estimated that completely restoring power could take up to a month, according to a Washington Post report.
Outside the city, the wait could be even longer. “There are about 10 parishes that the electrical grids are completely collapsed and damaged, smashed, out, however you want to put it,” Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Director Joe Valiente told NPR on Monday, with ‘Parish’ referring to a Louisiana division equivalent to a ‘county’ elsewhere in the US.
Restoring power to some coastal locations could take up to six weeks, Valiente added. At present, around a million customers are without power in Louisiana, the majority of them served by Entergy.
Photos taken across Louisiana show the challenges faced by technicians in the coming days and weeks, with steel transmission towers lying mangled and useless on the ground. One tower spanning the Mississippi river between the cities of Avondale and Harahan on the outskirts of New Orleans had entirely collapsed, sending the power lines into the muddy waters of the Mississippi below.
One of the reasons New Orleans is without power. This transmission line that runs across the Mississippi River from Avondale to Harahan had a collapsed tower. Lines are literally in the River. #hurricanida#lawx#neworleanspic.twitter.com/tYzjXkkaAl
With wide-ranging damage still to be surveyed before repairs begin, residents of New Orleans and other Louisiana towns and cities will be relying on generators for some time to come. Even New Orleans’ sewerage board is counting on generators to deliver clean drinking water to the city and clear the streets of storm water.
Governor John Bel Edwards has said that hospitals will have power restored first, as the generators currently providing their electricity will eventually fail otherwise.
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The House committee investigating the Capitol riot will demand to preserve telecom and social media records of the members of Congress and the Trump family it believes were involved in the January 6 rally, CNN has reported.
The House Select Committee plans to ask telecom companies to preserve phone records from certain Republican lawmakers, including ex-president Donald Trump, and a group of Trump family members, CNN reported on Monday. All of those whose records have been targeted allegedly played some role in the January 6 'Stop the Steal' rally in Washington DC, which devolved into the riot many in the current administration have termed an insurrection.
While the committee has opted not to publish the names of the lawmakers whose records are being requested, those affected either "attended, spoke, actively planned, or encouraged people to attend," multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The committee has not yet resorted to subpoenaing the records, though it has the power to do so if the companies are uncooperative.
Those whose names have been made public are, perhaps unsurprisingly, all Republicans. Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colorado), Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jody Hice (Georgia), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar (Arizona), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Matt Gaetz (Florida), Mo Brooks (Alabama), Madison Cawthorn (North Carolina), and Scott Perry (Pennsylvania) are among the "exhaustive list of people" Select Committee Chair Bennie Thompson has revealed the committee plans to contact.
According to Thompson, "several hundred" people's phone records would ultimately be requested. Aside from the members of Congress, an array of Trump family members would also be targeted, including sons Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, daughter-in-law Lara Trump, and Donald Jr.'s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle. Nor was chasing after the technology firms the first or only way his committee was seeking the required information – "issuing subpoenas is not the first thing we have to do," he told CNN, declaring that "we'll do what's required to get the information."
At least one member of Congress is pushing back against the seemingly partisan act of surveillance, however. Indiana Rep. Jim Banks (R) lamented in a letter to Thompson that "rifling through the call logs of your colleagues would depart from more than 230 years of Congressional oversight," insisting the "authoritarian undertaking has no place in the House of Representatives and the information you seek has no conceivable legislative purpose."
Rep. Jordan has warned that continued partisan prowling could trigger a corresponding investigation from the Republican party. While insisting he "had nothing to hide," the congressman warned that if Democrats "cross this line" there could be "political retribution."
It is true that the FBI's investigation into the events of January 6 has thus far turned up no proof of any organized plot to overturn the November 2020 election of Joe Biden, according to four law enforcement officials who spoke to Reuters earlier this month. Nevertheless, federal agents have arrested some 570 people believed to be involved with the unrest, including some members of militia-type groups. However, those groups appeared to lack any real plan of action for what they might do after making it inside the Capitol, the agents found. The scant presence of police during the protest confused many of the demonstrators, several of whom claimed in the aftermath of the riot that they weren't expecting to be let into the Capitol with so little resistance.
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