Democracy Now!

U.S. Marks 20th Anniversary of 9/11 Attacks, FBI Releases First Declassified Document on Saudi Links to 9/11 Hijackers, George W. Bush Compares "Violent Extremists at Home" to 9/11 Attackers , Capitol Police Want to Reinstall Fencing Ahead of Far-Right "Justice for J6" Rally , Taliban Government Orders Segregated Schools and Dress Codes for Women, No Evidence of Bomb in Vehicle Hit by U.S. Drone Strike That Killed 10 Afghan Civilians, Appeals Court Sides with Florida Gov. DeSantis, Reinstates Ban on Mask Mandates, Lebanon Announces New Government Headed by Former Prime Minister, Wildfires Rage in Spain and California as Monsoon Floods Kill 17 in Pakistan, Global Witness: Record Number of Environmental Activists Killed in 2020, 4,000 Indigenous Women Take to Streets of Brazil Ahead of High Court Ruling on Tribal Sovereignty, U.S. Army Was Training Guinean Soldiers When They Launched Military Coup, Fighting in Burma Kills 20 as U.N. Weighs Whether to Recognize Junta or National Unity Government, Iran and U.N. Atomic Watchdog Reach Deal to Resume Monitoring of Nuclear Sites, North Korea Tests "Strategic" Long-Range Cruise Missiles, Biden Campaigns with Newsom in California on Last Day of Recall Vote, Chileans Commemorate Sep. 11, 1973, Coup That Overthrew Allende and Imposed Brutal Dictatorship

On the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we revisit a conversation we hosted in January of 2002 between Masuda Sultan, an Afghan American woman who lost 19 members of her family in a U.S. air raid, and Rita Lasar, a New Yorker who lost her brother in the World Trade Center attack. Lasar would become an active member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Masuda later wrote the memoir, "My War at Home."

Twenty years ago, Rep. Barbara Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against war in the immediate aftermath of the devastating 9/11 attacks that killed about 3,000 people. "Let us not become the evil that we deplore," she urged her colleagues in a dramatic address on the House floor. The final vote in the House was 420-1. This week, as the U.S. marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Rep. Lee spoke with Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman about her fateful vote in 2001 and how her worst fears about "forever wars" came true. "All it said was the president can use force forever, as long as that nation, individual or organization was connected to 9/11. I mean, it was just a total abdication of our responsibilities as members of Congress," Rep. Lee says.

Biden Orders Vaccine Mandates for Federal Workers and Large Employers, International Flights Resume from Kabul Airport; Taliban Torture Journalists Covering Protests, Syrian Army Enters Daraa, Birthplace of Uprising Against Assad a Decade Ago, Biden Admin Extends TPS for 400,000 People Through 2022, Whistleblower Details Abuse of Migrant Children at Fort Bliss Base in Texas, SCOTUS Stays Execution of Texas Death Row Prisoner, DOJ Sues Texas over Unconstitutional Abortion Ban , Biden Withdraws Gun Control Advocate as ATF Nominee, Names Ally to Big Polluters for Key Energy Post, EPA Seeks Permanent Block on Pebble Mine Project in Alaska's Bristol Bay , Harvard Divests from Fossil Fuels After Years-Long Student Campaign , Nabisco Workers in 5 States Continue Strike, as Buffalo Starbucks Workers Fight to Unionize

In his new book, Yale historian Samuel Moyn explores whether the push to make U.S. wars more "humane" by banning torture and limiting civilian casualties has helped fuel more military interventions around the world. He looks in detail at the role of President Obama in expanding the use of drones even as he received the Nobel Peace Prize. "What happened after 2001 is that, in the midst of an extremely brutal war on terror, a new kind of war emerged. … It was important to Americans to see their wars fought more humanely," says Moyn. "Even though this represents a kind of progress, it also helped Americans sustain war and helped make the war on terror endless." Moyn's new book is "Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War."

As this week marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., we look at a new five-part documentary series on Netflix about the attacks and the response from the United States, both at home and abroad. "Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror" features a wide range of interviews with survivors of the attacks, U.S. officials, former CIA members and veterans, as well as soldiers in the Afghanistan National Army, Taliban commanders, and Afghan officials, warlords and civilians. "What we really wanted to do was tell the story not just of what happened that day, but how we got there and where our response to those attacks took us as a country," says director Brian Knappenberger. We also speak with co-executive producer Mohammed Ali Naqvi, an award-winning Pakistani filmmaker, who says the film was an attempt to go "beyond the binary narrative of good versus evil."

WHO Calls for Halt to COVID Booster Shots in 2021, Says Vaccines Should Go to Poorer Countries, COVAX Cuts 2021 Vaccine Forecast; Australia Joins Call for Waiver on Vaccine Patents, Los Angeles Schools Poised to Require Vaccinations for Students 12 and Older , Afghanistan Evacuations Continue as Taliban Reestablishes Ministry of "Virtue and Vice", Main Suspect in 2015 Paris Attacks Tells Court He Was a Soldier for the Islamic State, Human Rights Campaign President Fired in Latest Fallout from Cuomo Sexual Harassment Probe, Virginia Removes Statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, 17 Patients Die as Floods Hit Mexican Hospital; Record Drought Worsens Brazil's Energy Crisis, Super Typhoon Chanthu Hurtles Toward Philippines and Southeast China, Ida's Death Toll Hits 82 as Hundreds of Thousands Remain Without Power in South, Biden Admin Aims to Boost U.S. Solar Output to 45% of All Energy Use by 2050, Indigenous Activists Lead Months-Long Campaign to Protect Vancouver Island's Ancient Forests

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says global vaccine inequity endangers everyone on the planet, including those in rich countries, and says the best way to solve the problem is to drastically increase production of COVID-19 vaccines. "As long as the disease is festering someplace in the world, there are going to be mutations," Stiglitz says. "So it's in our own self-interest that we get the disease controlled everywhere."

As unemployment benefits for millions of U.S. workers expired on Labor Day, with many states suffering the worst surge of the pandemic, economist Joseph Stiglitz says it's "disturbing" federal aid was allowed to lapse. "This is going to feed into the problems posed by the Delta variant." Stiglitz also talks about whether Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell should stay in the job, saying he has done a "reasonable job" during the pandemic but has a tendency "to side with Wall Street and engage in deregulation."

Oil and gas investigative journalist Antonia Juhasz says the extent of damage done after Hurricane Ida from the fossil fuel and petrochemical industry from leaks, spills, flaring, ruptures and chemical releases in the Gulf Coast could be among the worst of such events ever recorded. As half a million electricity customers continue to suffer without power, Juhasz also reports New Orleans faces excessively high durations and frequencies of power outages that mostly hit neighborhoods which are majority people of color and low income.

As part of our ongoing coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, one of the strongest storms to ever hit the United States, we go to St. James Parish, Louisiana, to speak with Sharon Lavigne, the 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize winner, who lives in the heart of Louisiana's "Cancer Alley," home to more than 150 petrochemical facilities. She is now documenting oil spills in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida even as her home was badly damaged.

As the Taliban announces a new acting government in Kabul led by hard-liners from its previous stint in power and fight against U.S. occupation, Danish Afghan journalist Nagieb Khaja says the composition has been a "surprising outcome" as many observers expected the group to strike a more conciliatory tone. "It's really been disappointing for the people who have been looking for a glimpse of hope," Khaja says. This comes as protests grow nationwide, and aid organizations are warning of a looming humanitarian crisis.

Taliban Announces Acting Gov't as Protests Take Place Across Afghanistan, 75% of U.S. Adults Partially Vaccinated; Quarter of New Cases Are Children Amid Delta Surge, New Zealand Eases Restrictions; Cuba Rolls Out Vaccines for Children as Young as 2, Pro- and Anti-Bolsonaro Protesters Rally on Brazil's Independence Day, Gov. Abbott Claims He Will "Eliminate Rapists" as He Signs Voter Restriction Bill into Law, Biden Warns of Existential Threat of Climate Change as He Visits NY and NJ in Ida's Wake, Global Coalition Calls on U.N. to Postpone November Climate Talks Amid Pandemic, Vaccine Inequity, Mexico's Top Court Decriminalizes Abortion, 7.0 Earthquake Rattles Acapulco, Killing at Least One Person, Bitcoin Crashes as El Salvador Adopts Cryptocurrency as Legal Tender, Amnesty Report Finds Syrian Refugees Were Raped, Tortured After Returning Home, 9/11 Suspects Return to Court After Pandemic Delay, But Trial Won't Start Until at Least 2022

As we look at the public health crisis that followed the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City, we speak with Lila Nordstrom, a student in 2001 at Stuyvesant High School, which neighbors ground zero and was reopened while the site was still burning and releasing toxic smoke and dust. "Our school wasn't just next to the World Trade Center site, but we were also in the center of the clean-up operations," says Nordstrom. "There were not any safety precautions being taken to protect us as we walked to and from school. The building that we were attending school in smelled like smoke 24 hours a day for the entire length of time." Nordstrom is one of the voices in the new PBS documentary "9/11's Unsettled Dust" and author of a new book titled "Some Kids Left Behind: A Survivor's Fight for Health Care in the Wake of 9/11."

As we look at "9/11's Unsettled Dust" and the massive environmental and public health crisis that followed the 9/11 attacks in New York City 20 years ago this week, we speak with Joe Zadroga, father of New York police officer James Zadroga, who died of a respiratory illness after assisting in rescue efforts at ground zero. He says government officials spent years denying his son's symptoms were related to ground zero rescue efforts. "We spent five years trying to get Jimmy help," says Zadroga. "Everyone refused to help us." Congressmember Carolyn Maloney said she faced extreme pressure to change the name of the James Zadroga Health and Compensation Act, which provides billions in healthcare for them.

As this week marks the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, we look at an enraging new documentary, "9/11's Unsettled Dust," on the impact of the toxic, cancer-causing smoke and dust that hung over ground zero and how the Environmental Protection Agency put Wall Street's interests before public health and told people the air was safe to breathe. One of the key figures in the film is Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, who was among the first to expose the public health and environmental crisis at ground zero in a series of reports for the New York Daily News. He says the intense backlash from the mayor's office and federal officials "cowed" the newspaper, but he has no regrets. "My only mistake was believing that it would take 20 years for people to get sick," González says. "It took about five years for the deaths and the severe illnesses to really become apparent." Director Lisa Katzman says she made the film because she was a resident of Lower Manhattan who saw the attack and its aftermath up close and wanted "to address the lack of accountability" from city and federal officials. "The same people that were always touting 'Never forget! Never forget!' and constantly reminding us of the heroism of these responders were unwilling to do anything to actually help them," notes Katzman.

Jobless Benefits for Millions Expire on Labor Day After Congress and White House Fail to Act, Over 1,000 U.S. Schools Cancel In-Person Classes Due to COVID-19, Taliban Defeat Last Pocket of Resistance, Step Up Attacks on Afghan Women, 90% of Afghanistan's 2,300 Healthcare Centers May Soon Be Forced to Close, Warns WHO, Millions in Ethiopia's Tigray Are on Brink of Famine, Warns World Food Programme, Guinean Army Colonel Deposes President Alpha Condé in Military Coup, Millions Rally for Brazil's Far-Right President, Raising Fears of Trump-Like Insurrection, Mexico Breaks Up Caravan of Asylum Seekers; U.S. Deports Refugees to Guatemala City, Hundreds of Thousands Lack Electricity More Than a Week After Hurricane Ida, Weather Disasters Struck Counties Home to One in Three U.S. Residents This Summer, Rep. Ilhan Omar Leads "The Squad" in Protests Against Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline, Hundreds of Detroit-Area Families Urged to Evacuate Homes Near Gasoline Spill, Ex-Marine Sniper Who Fought in Iraq and Afghanistan Kills Four in Their Florida Home, Michael K. Williams, Who Starred in HBO's "The Wire," Dies of Apparent Drug Overdose, Composer Mikis Theodorakis, Who Survived Torture and Exile by Greek Dictatorship, Dies at 96, Mexico City to Replace Columbus Monument with Statue of Indigenous Woman

In an extended conversation with Spencer Ackerman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning national security reporter, he examines the connection he sees between the rise of right-wing extremism in the United States and the so-called war on terror, which he writes about in his new book, "Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump." He begins his book with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh visiting the far-right paramilitary compound in Elohim City, Oklahoma, before what was then called the worst terror attack in U.S. history.

We speak to the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Spencer Ackerman about how the U.S. could have ended the War in Afghanistan two decades ago, when the Taliban offered to surrender and hand over Osama bin Laden. "It was the Bush administration, the United States, that said such a deal was unacceptable — not to the Afghans, but unacceptable to the United States, that now took it on itself, as it has so often throughout its history in so many parts of the world, to tell Afghans the way their country was about to be," Ackerman says.

We look at the crisis in Afghanistan with Bilal Sarwary, an Afghan journalist who was based in Kabul and reported on Afghanistan for 20 years before he fled with his family after the Taliban seized power. We first spoke to Bilal on August 18, three days after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan after the U.S.-backed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. At the time, Bilal was hoping to stay in Afghanistan, but just days later he and his family boarded a flight to Doha. He posted a message on Twitter reading, "The day I leave my country, my city, my Kabul. A massacre of my dreams and aspirations. A tragic day in my life." On August 25, a week after our first interview, Bilal joined us again, this time from Doha. He spoke about his decision to leave Afghanistan.

Amid a surge in COVID-19 cases, we look at the experiences of meatpacking workers during the pandemic and beyond. Dulce Castañeda, a founding member of Children of Smithfield, a Nebraska-based grassroots advocacy group led by the children and family members of meatpacking workers, says conditions in the meatpacking plants during the pandemic remained as usual. "It was a situation where they weren't receiving the protections that they needed," she tells Democracy Now!, adding that workers often don't have the time or resources to advocate for themselves. Castañeda and her family are profiled in a new book by journalist Eyal Press titled "Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America."

As the United States ends a 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, a former intelligence analyst for the CIA's drone program offers an apology to the people of Afghanistan "from not only myself, but from the rest of our society as Americans." During deployments to Afghanistan, Christopher Aaron says he was able to see "the human toll, the resource toll of these wars, as well as the fact that the policy of dropping 'guided missiles' at people from remote controlled airplanes was not allowing us to actually win the war." We also speak with Eyal Press, who profiles Aaron in his new book, "Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America." He says the U.S. has developed a military strategy of carrying out drone strikes and wars "in the shadows: doing it out of sight, out of mind."

Ahead of Labor Day, we speak with journalist and sociologist Eyal Press about his new book, "Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America." Press profiles workers like prison guards and oil workers — people who make their livelihoods by doing "unethical activity that society depends on and tacitly condones but doesn't want to hear too much" about, he says. "This work is largely hidden, and we rarely hear from the people on the frontlines who are delegated to do it," Press tells Democracy Now! "The powerful and the privileged really don't do the dirty work in America — they not only don't do it, they don't see it."

As the death toll from the remnants of Hurricane Ida in the northeastern United States climbs to 46, President Biden is visiting New Orleans, which is under curfew enforced by police and the National Guard as most of the city remains in the dark amid sweltering temperatures. "This is truly déjà vu," says Malik Rahim, who joins us by phone from the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, where he co-founded the mutual aid group Common Ground Collective after Hurricane Katrina. "This hurricane happened when it was the worst time in America to be poor."

Ida's Death Toll Soars After Record Rains Flood Northeastern States, Aerial Photos Show Oil and Chemical Spills Spawned by Hurricane Ida, Humanitarian Flights to Afghanistan Resume as U.N. Warns of Widespread Hunger, Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga Resigns After Critics Blast His Response to COVID-19, Over 15 Million COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Have Gone to Waste in the United States, Democrats Ready Reproductive Rights Bill After SCOTUS Refuses to Halt Texas Ban on Most Abortions, 7.5 Million U.S. Residents to Lose Jobless Benefits, with Millions Bracing for Cuts in Aid, Sen. Joe Manchin Demands "Pause" on $3.5 Trillion Spending Bill, Enraging Fellow Democrats, EPA Study Finds Climate Crisis Will Impact Communities of Color the Hardest, Court Orders Biden Administration to Stop Turning Asylum Seekers Around at Border, Georgia Ex-Prosecutor Indicted for Allegedly Protecting Ahmaud Arbery's Killers, Israeli Soldiers Kill 1 Palestinian, Wound 15 Others at Protest Against Gaza Blockade, Protests Mount as El Salvador Prepares to Adopt Bitcoin as Legal Tender

With the official end of the War in Afghanistan, we speak with Rafia Zakaria, author of "Against White Feminism," about how U.S. officials used the plight of the women in the country to justify the 2001 invasion and subsequent occupation. "Feminism has been delegitimized in Afghanistan because it is associated with an occupying force," says Zakaria. "Now Afghan women are left to pick up the pieces and deal with the Taliban."

Mahbouba Seraj, president of the Afghan Women's Network and a longtime advocate for women's rights, says the Taliban have already restricted women's freedoms since taking over the country, despite their assurances that they have shifted their views since the last time they were in power. "If they continue like this, … Afghanistan will go back another 200 years," says Seraj. "One cannot just disregard the women of Afghanistan and say they don't exist. This doesn't work."

Three police officers and two paramedics in Colorado have been criminally charged in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who was tackled by police, placed in a chokehold and later injected with a large amount of the powerful sedative ketamine. McClain, who was not suspected of any crime, suffered a cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and died several days later. His death sparked nationwide protests and led to new police accountability legislation being passed in Colorado. "This case has made sweeping changes," says Colorado state Representative Leslie Herod. "But I've got to tell you: It would not have happened if it weren't for the protests."

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to let stand a new anti-abortion law in Texas, which bans all abortions in the state after six weeks — before most people even realize they are pregnant — and allows for private citizens to sue anyone who "aids and abets" a person in getting an abortion. Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, says, "It is clearly an unconstitutional law" that must be reversed. "It's absolutely an abomination," says Northup, who urges Congress to pass new legislation protecting reproductive rights as legal challenges to the Texas law continue.

Supreme Court Refuses to Halt Texas Anti-Abortion Law While Legal Challenges Proceed, Hurricane Ida's Remnants Bring Tornadoes, Flooding and Record Rainfall to Northeast, Gulf Coast Faces Shortages of Food, Water and Energy Days After Hurricane Ida's Landfall, U.N. Says Fivefold Increase in Extreme Weather Events Caused Over 2 Million Deaths Since 1970, Taliban Parade U.S.-Made Military Hardware as Refugees Gather at Afghanistan's Borders, New York Extends Eviction Moratorium Halted by U.S. Supreme Court, Texas School District Cancels Classes After 2 Teachers Die of COVID-19, Colorado Grand Jury Indicts 3 Cops, 2 Paramedics in Killing of Elijah McClain, Nigerian Officials Shut Down Zamfara Schools After Latest Mass Kidnapping, Judge Approves $4.5 Billion Settlement, Shielding Sackler Family from Future Opioid Lawsuits, Biden Issues Warning to Russia as Ukrainian President Zelensky Visits White House, GOP Leader McCarthy Threatens Companies That Cooperate with House Insurrection Probe

As Haitians cope with the devastating aftermath of a 7.2 magnitude earthquake, Tropical Storm Grace and the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July, a coalition of over 300 rights groups is denouncing the Biden administration's ongoing deportations to Haiti and urging it to expand temporary protected status. "How do you tell somebody not to come when they are dealing not only with man-made crisis, political crisis and violence, and on top of it dealing with natural disasters?" asks Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance.

In a major setback for reproductive rights, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed a Texas law to go into effect that bans abortions after six weeks — before most people even know they are pregnant. Until now, no other six-week ban has ever gone into effect in the United States. The law is seen as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and allows private citizens to file civil suits against abortion providers or anyone who "aids or abets" an abortion after six weeks. "What Texas has done is blanket unconstitutional," says Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Afghan doctor Wais Aria describes how he fled Afghanistan with his family after the Taliban takeover, packing up his wife and four children and trying for days to leave from the Kabul airport, where he was beaten by the Taliban. They managed to catch a flight out of the country Thursday and arrived in the U.S. on Saturday. "It was a disaster for me and my children," says Aria, now in Alexandria, Virginia.

President Joe Biden has forcefully defended his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, describing the removal of U.S. forces as an "extraordinary success." He noted in a speech Tuesday that the U.S. helped more than 120,000 people flee Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power, and called for a new era in foreign policy. Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, says Biden's speech was honest about the costs of war and the need to get out, but she says it's "clearly not true" that the U.S. is winding down the war on terror. "The U.S. is still waging war in a host of other countries."

Biden Defends U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan, Signals End to U.S. Nation-Building Through War, Louisiana Gov. Tells Hurricane Ida Evacuees "Do Not Return" Amid Power Outages, Lack of Services, Texas Enacts Near Total Ban on Abortions, the Most Draconian Anti-Choice Law in the Country, Texas Legislature Passes Voter Suppression Bill, Sending Measure to Governor's Desk, Pennsylvania, New York Announce New Measures to Curb COVID Transmission in Schools, NYC Housing Advocates Call for Extension of Eviction Moratorium, EU Vaccinates 70% of Adults; Israel Rolls Out Booster Shots; Filipino Health Workers Protest Gov't, Court Gives Jail Time to 7 Prominent Pro-Independence Activists in Hong Kong, New Saudi Labor Rules Put Hundreds of Yemenis at Risk of Deportation, Virginia Gov. Grants Posthumous Pardons to 7 Black Men Executed in 1951, R. Kelly Survivors Recount Assault, Patterns of Abuse and Control During Federal Trial, HHS Opens New Office to Address Health Impacts of Climate Crisis, Progressive Dems Call on Biden to Replace Powell with Fed Chair Who Will Take on Climate Crisis

Hurricane Ida and the increasing threats from extreme weather are a wake-up call to divest from fossil fuels that make climate disasters worse and more frequent, says Reverend Lennox Yearwood Jr., the president and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus, who is originally from Shreveport, Louisiana, and established the Gulf Coast Renewal Campaign after Hurricane Katrina. "We know who is causing these storms. We know who is causing the climate crisis. They're right there in Louisiana with us: It's the fossil fuel industry. So we've got to stop it," Yearwood says.

As Hurricane Ida is downgraded to a tropical depression, Louisiana's main utility company Entergy says it could be weeks before it restores electricity to nearly a million people in the storm's path, including all of New Orleans. We speak with Flozell Daniels Jr., president of the Foundation for Louisiana, who evacuated his home city and is calling for "a just and fair recovery" that addresses preexisting crises, including COVID-19 and poverty. "These are disasters that were already happening," he says. He also describes the power of the oil and gas industry lobbyists he has challenged as a member of Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards's Climate Initiatives Task Force.

As the United States ends its military presence in Afghanistan after 20 years of occupation and war, the Costs of War Project estimates it spent over $2.2 trillion in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and by one count, over 170,000 people died during the fighting over the last two decades. Kathy Kelly, longtime peace activist who has traveled to Afghanistan dozens of times and coordinates the Ban Killer Drones campaign, says it will be important to keep international focus on the people of Afghanistan. "Everybody in the United States and in every country that has invaded and occupied Afghanistan ought to make reparations," Kelly says. "Not only financial reparations for the terrible destruction caused, but also to address … the systems of warfare that ought to be set aside and dismantled."

As the last U.S. forces leave Afghanistan, ending the longest war in U.S. history, we go to Kabul to speak with Danish Afghan journalist Nagieb Khaja, who was once kidnapped by the Taliban and later embedded with them on a reporting assignment. He has been investigating Sunday's U.S. drone strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children.

Taliban Celebrate as Last U.S. Troops Leave Afghanistan, Over 1 Million in Path of Hurricane Ida Could Remain Without Power for Weeks, Florida Withholds Funds to Schools Defying Gov. DeSantis's Ban on Mask Mandates, Advocates Demand Biden End Deportations to Haiti After Devastating Earthquake, Over 500 Migrants Rescued in Mediterranean; EU Plans to Bar Entry to Afghan Refugees, U.N. Hails End to Worldwide Use of Toxic Leaded Gasoline, Mass Evacuations Ordered for Lake Tahoe Region as Caldor Wildfire Spreads, Federal Court Strikes Down Trump-Era Rule Gutting Clean Water Act, Emergency Petition Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Halt Texas Anti-Choice Law, Texas House Advances Bill to Severely Restrict Use of Abortion Pills, Lawmakers Order Telecom Companies to Preserve Records of January 6 Insurrection, John Pierce, Anti-Vax Lawyer for Capitol Insurrectionists, Hospitalized with COVID-19, Relatives of Mexico's Disappeared Accuse Government of Failing to Act

U.S. troops in Afghanistan are racing to evacuate people from the country ahead of Tuesday's withdrawal deadline as the Kabul airport is targeted by rocket fire from militant groups. The rocket attacks come just days after over 175 people, including 13 U.S. troops, died after a suicide bomb outside the airport, with the group ISIS-K claiming responsibility for the attack. The Pentagon has publicly acknowledged that some of the people killed outside the airport on Thursday may have been shot dead by U.S. servicemembers in the panic after the suicide bombing. The U.S. retaliated over the weekend with two airstrikes the Pentagon says targeted more potential suicide bombers, but local residents say the strikes also killed Afghan civilians, including as many as six children. "We see how the war on terror in Afghanistan started and how it is ending now: It's with drones and civilian casualties," says Emran Feroz, an Austro-Afghan journalist and author. He says the U.S. airstrikes in the final days of the war — and the innocent people they killed — are emblematic of the entire 20-year conflict. "In many rural areas, these things happened on a daily basis," says Feroz.

Despite desperate climate warnings against new fossil fuel development, ExxonMobil is pursuing a massive new oil project in Guyana that is projected to be the corporation's largest oil production in the world. A new investigation by Antonia Juhasz, a longtime oil and energy investigative reporter, reveals the project will release 125 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, turning Guyana from a carbon sink into what she says could be a "carbon bomb" and posing major environmental risks.

Two-thirds of Louisiana's industrial sites lie in the path of Hurricane Ida, including oil refineries, storage tanks and other infrastructure like oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana's Gulf Coast is a major oil and gas hub, with 17 oil refineries, two liquefied natural gas export terminals, as well as a nuclear power plant and many Superfund sites. Oil spills and chemical releases due to climate change-intensified storms are a "worsening, consistent problem" in Louisiana's Gulf Coast, says Antonia Juhasz, a longtime oil and energy investigative journalist. Communities of color living on the Gulf Coast near polluting gas and oil infrastructure "now also have to deal with that worsening climate crisis creating a storm that harms these facilities, that then causes more releases," she adds.

Hurricane Ida has completely knocked out power to the city of New Orleans and reversed the flow of the Mississippi River after it hit southern Louisiana and Mississippi, flooding the area with storm surges. The Category 4 storm hit on the same date Hurricane Katrina devastated the area 16 years earlier. "This is a storm like no other," says Monique Verdin, a citizen of the United Houma Nation and part of the grassroots collaborative Another Gulf Is Possible. "This is a part of South Louisiana that is losing land at one of the fastest rates," Verdin notes. She also discusses how the storm hit the area as "Delta has been raging in the Mississippi River Delta."

Up to 10 People Killed in U.S. Strike in Kabul, Rockets Fired at Airport as Withdrawal Deadline Nears, Hurricane Ida Slams into Louisiana, Killing One Person, Cutting Power to Entire City of New Orleans, Florida Judge Says Schools Can Impose Mask Mandates; Dr. Fauci Banks Vaccine Mandates for Students, Rev. Jesse Jackson Transfers to Rehab as Wife Moves to ICU; Conservative Radio Hosts Die of COVID-19, Thousands Rally for Voting Rights on Anniversary of March on Washington, 30 Yemeni Soldiers Killed in Attack During Military Exercise, Israel Launches New Airstrikes on Gaza; Soldiers Use Live Fire on Palestinian Protesters, Kidnapped Nigerian Children Freed After Months in Captivity, Mexican Authorities Attack Caravan of U.S.-Bound Asylum Seekers, Extinction Rebellion Actions in London Demand Fossil Fuel Divestment, Indigenous Groups Gather in Brazil's Capital as High Court Nears Major Ruling on Land Rights, Evacuations Ordered as Caldor Fire Threatens Lake Tahoe Basin, Sen. Bernie Sanders Touts $3.5 Trillion Spending Bill in Conservative and Swing States, Los Angeles City Council Commemorates El Salvador's Missing and Murdered, Ed Asner, Acclaimed Actor and Labor & Political Activist, Dies at 91

The conservative talk radio host Larry Elder is now the Republican front-runner challenging Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom in a special election that could also shape national politics. California voters cast ballots on September 14 on whether to recall Newsom, after a right-wing campaign to unseat the governor garnered enough signatures to trigger the vote. If Newsom fails to get more than 50% support for staying in office, the candidate with the most votes replaces him as governor. "This whole thing started with anti-immigrant nativists in California who were upset about the pro-immigrant, pro-Latino policies that Gavin Newsom was putting in place," says Los Angeles Times columnist Jean Guerrero. "[Elder] basically wants to take California back to the 1990s, when we saw an incredibly anti-immigrant and anti-Black decade in California." Elder was a mentor to Stephen Miller, the xenophobic, anti-immigration former Trump adviser, which Guerrero writes about in her book, "Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda."

As thousands of people in Afghanistan attempt to flee the country before the United States' withdrawal on August 31, we look at how the Trump administration made it much harder for Afghans who worked with the U.S. to apply and receive what is known as a special immigrant visa, or SIV. Oliva Troye, a former top aide to Mike Pence who resigned in protest, has placed the blame on Trump's xenophobic adviser Stephen Miller, saying he peddled "racist hysteria" in White House meetings about bringing Afghan allies to the U.S. "Stephen Miller would say, 'Well, these are terrorist cells in the making if you bring them here,'" says Troye, director of the Republican Accountability Project and former homeland security adviser to Pence. "I know for a fact that the Trump administration was planning this withdrawal for several years," says Troye. "Why were they not actively prioritizing this population so that we wouldn't be in the situation we're in today?"

We speak with Haroun Rahimi, assistant professor of law at the American University of Afghanistan, about the Islamic State affiliate that claimed responsibility for this week's devastating suicide bombings at Kabul airport, which killed more than 110 people, including 13 U.S. troops. Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, is a puritanical group that is "critical of all other sects of Islam," says Rahimi. "Whatever Muslim that thinks differently than them is a major target for them." He says the group's name refers to a region of the former Islamic empire and is an attempt to reestablish "some past lost glory" in a bid to attract disaffected Muslim youth.

We go to Kabul, Afghanistan, for an update as the death toll from twin suicide bomb attack outside the airport has topped 110 people, including 13 U.S. troops. The suicide bombers struck near the crowded gates of the airport where thousands of Afghans had gathered in an attempt to flee the country before the withdrawal of U.S. troops on August 31. Afghan journalist Ali Latifi, a Kabul-based correspondent for Al Jazeera English, spoke with witnesses who described a scene of shock and panic following the blasts. "When the bomb went off, it was literally, they said, people walking on top of one another," says Latifi. "Basically, it was, as they described it, mayhem."

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