Month: August 2021

A huge firefighting force gathered Tuesday to defend Lake Tahoe from a raging wildfire that forced the evacuation of California communities on the south end of the alpine resort and put others across the state line in Nevada on notice to be ready to flee.The streets of the popular vacation haven, normally filled with thousands of summer tourists, were all but deserted after rapid growth of the Caldor Fire forced a mass evacuation on Monday and triggered hours of gridlocked traffic.“It’s more out of control than I thought,” evacuee Glen Naasz said of the fire that by late Monday had been pushed by strong winds across two major highways, burning mountain cabins as it swept down slopes into the Tahoe Basin.More firefighters arrived just after dark Monday and many were dispatched to protect homes in the Christmas Valley area, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the city of South Lake Tahoe.Thick smoke prevented air firefighting operations periodically last week. But since then, 23 helicopters and three air tankers dumped thousands of gallons of water and retardant on the fire, fire spokesman Dominic Polito said.The National Weather Service warned of critical fire weather conditions through Wednesday due to strong gusts, very low humidity and extremely dry fuels.Ken Breslin was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic less than a mile (1.6 kilometers) from his home in the city of 22,000, with only a quarter-tank of gas in his Ford Escape. His son begged him to leave Sunday night, but he shrugged him off, certain that if an evacuation order came, it would be later in the week.“Before, it was, ‘No worries … it’s not going to crest. It’s not going to come down the hill. There’s 3,500 firefighters, all those bulldozers and all the air support,’” he said. “Until this morning, I didn’t think there was a chance it could come into this area. Now it’s very real.”As flames advanced toward South Lake Tahoe, residents just over the state line in Nevada faced evacuation warnings.Monday’s evacuation orders came a day after communities several miles south of the lake were abruptly ordered to leave as the fire raged nearby. South Lake Tahoe’s main medical facility, Barton Memorial Hospital, evacuated dozens of patients. The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office transferred inmates to a neighboring jail.“There is fire activity happening in California that we have never seen before. The critical thing for the public to know is evacuate early,” said Chief Thom Porter, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. “For the rest of you in California: Every acre can and will burn someday in this state.”The threat of fire is so widespread that the U.S. Forest Service announced Monday that all national forests in California would be closed until Sept. 17.“We do not take this decision lightly, but this is the best choice for public safety,” Regional Forester Jennifer Eberlien said.More than 15,000 firefighters were battling dozens of California blazes, including crews from Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia, said Mark Ghilarducci, director of California’s Office of Emergency Services. About 250 active-duty soldiers were being trained in Washington state to help clear forest debris by hand.Crews from Louisiana had to return to that state because of Hurricane Ida, he said.Only twice in California history have blazes burned from one side of the Sierra Nevada to the other, both this month, with the Caldor and Dixie fires, Porter said.The Dixie, the second-largest wildfire in state history at 1,215 square miles (3,147 square kilometers), was burning about 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of the Lake Tahoe-area blaze. It prompted new evacuation orders and warnings Monday.The Lake Tahoe area is usually a year-round recreational paradise offering beaches, water sports, hiking, ski resorts and golfing. South Lake Tahoe bustles with outdoor activities, and with casinos available in bordering Stateline, Nevada.Mayor Tamara Wallace thought the Caldor Fire would stay farther away. Fires in the past did not spread so rapidly.“It’s just yet another example of how wildfires have changed over the years,” Wallace said as she gathered treasured items and prepared to leave.The last two wildfires that ripped through populated areas near Tahoe were the Angora Fire that destroyed more than 200 homes in 2007 and the Gondola Fire in 2002 that ignited near a chairlift at Heavenly Mountain Resort.Since then, dead trees have accumulated and the region has coped with serious droughts, Wallace said. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive, scientists say.Traffic out of South Lake Tahoe crawled Monday, but Wallace said the evacuation was orderly because residents heeded officials’ orders.Not everyone agreed. The California Highway Patrol added “quite a bit of additional personnel” to help guide a chaotic evacuation from South Lake Tahoe, as huge traffic jams slowed the evacuation of vehicles, CHP Assistant Commissioner Ryan Okashima said.The fire destroyed multiple homes Sunday along Highway 50, one of the main routes to the lake’s south end. It also roared through the Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort, demolishing some buildings but leaving the main base buildings intact. Crews used snow-making machines to douse the ground.Cabins burned near the unincorporated community of Echo Lake, where Tom Fashinell has operated Echo Chalet with his wife since 1984. The summer-only resort offers cabin rentals, but was ordered to close early for the season because of wildfires.Fashinell said he was glued to the local TV news. “We’re watching to see whether the building survives,” he said.The Caldor Fire has scorched nearly 300 square miles (777 square kilometers) since breaking out Aug. 14. After the weekend’s fierce burning, containment dropped from 19% to 16%.More than 600 structures have been destroyed, and at least 33,000 more were threatened. Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak on Monday declared a state of emergency in his state, citing the high risk that the California would burn across the state line.Diane Kinney, who has lived in South Lake Tahoe since the 1970s, said this it was the first time her neighborhood was ordered to evacuate. She and her husband packed up keepsakes, jewelry and insurance papers shortly after noon. They left behind their 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle.“There are definitely advantages of being in the mountains, being with these beautiful pine trees,” she said. “But we definitely have to get out now.”
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The Biden administration plans to make federal lands cheaper to access for solar and wind power developers after the clean power industry argued in a lobbying push this year that lease rates and fees are too high to draw investment and could torpedo the president’s climate change agenda.Washington’s decision to review the federal land policy for renewable power projects is part of a broader effort by President Joe Biden’s government to fight global warming by boosting clean energy development and discouraging drilling and coal mining.“We recognize the world has changed since the last time we looked at this and updates need to be made,” Janea Scott, senior counselor to the U.S. Interior Department’s assistant secretary for land and minerals, told Reuters.Solar Energy Powering More US Local Government Buildings Once prohibitively expensive, solar energy is embraced as cost-saving and eco-friendly by US cities and counties On Tuesday, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced it has initiated a process to revise regulations related to renewable energy permitting and rights-of-way on public lands starting with four public listening sessions in September and a separate consultation with Native American tribes.The sessions will focus on rent lease schedules and fees for wind and solar rights-of-way, application processing times and environmental justice considerations.The push for easier access to vast federal lands also underscores the renewable energy industry’s voracious need for new acreage: Biden has a goal to decarbonize the power sector by 2035, a target that would require an area bigger than the Netherlands for the solar industry alone, according to research firm Rystad Energy.At issue is a rental rate and fee scheme for federal solar and wind leases designed to keep rates in line with nearby agricultural land values.Under that policy, implemented by President Barack Obama’s administration in 2016, some major solar projects pay $971 per acre per year in rent, along with over $2,000 annually per megawatt of power capacity.For a utility-scale project covering 3,000 acres and producing 250 megawatts of power, that is a roughly $3.5 million tab each year.Wind project rents are generally lower, but the capacity fee is higher at $3,800, according to a federal fee schedule.The renewable energy industry argues the charges imposed by the Interior Department are out of sync with private land rents, which can be below $100 per acre, and do not come with fees for power produced.They are also higher than federal rents for oil and gas drilling leases, which run at $1.50 or $2 per year per acre before being replaced by a 12.5% production royalty once petroleum starts to flow.”Until these overly burdensome costs are resolved, our nation will likely miss out on living up to its potential to deploy homegrown clean energy projects on our public lands — and the jobs and economic development that come with it,” said Gene Grace, general counsel for clean energy trade group American Clean Power Association.The renewable energy industry has historically relied on private acreage to site large projects. But big tracts of unbroken private land are becoming scarce, making federal lands among the best options for future expansion.To date, the Interior Department has permitted less than 10 gigawatts of solar and wind power on its more than 245 million acres (99 million hectares) of federal lands, a third of what the two industries were forecast to install nationwide just this year, according to the Energy Information Administration.The solar industry began lobbying on the issue in April, when the Large Scale Solar Association, a coalition of some of the nation’s top solar developers – including NextEra Energy , Southern Co and EDF Renewables – filed a petition with the Bureau of Land Management asking for lower rents on utility-scale projects in the nation’s blistering deserts.A spokesperson for the group said the industry initially focused on California because it is home to some of the most promising solar acreage and because land around major urban areas like Los Angeles had inflated assessments for entire counties, even on desert acreage not suitable for agriculture.Officials at NextEra, Southern, and EDF did not comment when contacted by Reuters.In June, the BLM lowered rents in three California counties. But solar representatives called the measure insufficient, arguing the discounts were too small and that the megawatt capacity fee remained in place.Attorneys for both the solar companies and BLM have discussed the issue in phone calls since, and further talks are scheduled for September, according to Peter Weiner, the attorney representing the solar group.”We know that the new folks at BLM have had a lot on their plates,” Weiner said. “We truly appreciate their consideration.”
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Two people were killed and at least 10 others were injured after a roadway collapsed in Mississippi on Monday night. WDSU-TV reports that the Mississippi Highway Patrol, emergency personnel and rescue teams responded to Highway 26 in George County, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) northeast of Biloxi, to find both the east and westbound lanes collapsed, troopers confirmed. Cpl. Cal Robertson with the Mississippi Highway Patrol said the collapse is around 50 to 60 feet (15 to 18 meters) in length and 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 meters) deep. Robertson said seven vehicles were involved in the incident and that, “some of these cars are stacked on top of each other.” Cranes will be needed to get the cars out of the hole, he said. Robertson believes the torrential amount of rain may have caused the roadway to collapse, adding that drivers may not have seen the roadway in front of them was impassable. Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm, blasted ashore Sunday as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S., knocking out power to all of New Orleans, blowing roofs off buildings and reversing the flow of the Mississippi River as it rushed from the Louisiana coast into one of the nation’s most important industrial corridors. Ida’s 150-mph (230 kph) winds tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane to ever hit the mainland U.S. The identities and conditions of the of those involved in the accident have not yet been released. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden is set to address the nation Tuesday following the withdrawal of the last American troops from Afghanistan and the end of a two-decade war that leaves the Taliban in power.Biden said in a brief statement Monday that he would specifically speak about his decision not to extend the U.S. troop presence in Kabul beyond the August 31 deadline he set.For weeks, Biden and other members of his administration discussed the possibility of staying longer, balancing the challenges and benefits of a massive operation to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan civilians against credible security threats.“It was the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and of all of our commanders on the ground to end our airlift mission as planned,” Biden said. “Their view was that ending our military mission was 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 weeks and months ahead.”“The Taliban has made commitments on safe passage and the world will hold them to their commitments,” he added.Biden’s decision to stick to the withdrawal deadline drew criticism from political opponents, and from some allies. The U.S. exit comes days before the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks that prompted the United States to send troops into Afghanistan to go after the al-Qaida terrorists who planned the attacks and the Taliban militants who harbored them.
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It’s August 31, the deadline imposed by President Joe Biden for U.S. forces to be out of Afghanistan. At least 122,000 people were evacuated by the U.S. military and coalition forces, 5,400 of them Americans. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has the latest.Produced by: Bakhtiyar Zamanov   
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Disabled adults are gaining independence through programs that teach the skills they need to enter the workforce. Mike O’Sullivan met two disabled people in Los Angeles who have found meaningful work and say it has made a difference in their lives.  Camera: Roy Kim, Mike O’Sullivan 
 
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U.S. military planes have carried the last U.S. service members and diplomats from Kabul’s airport, ending America’s longest war. Ordinary Americans closely watched the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, as they did the start of the war nearly 20 years ago, in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks. But Americans often tended to forget about the Afghanistan war in between, and it received measurably less oversight from Congress than the Vietnam War did. But its death toll for Afghans and Americans and their NATO allies is in the many tens of thousands. And because the U.S. borrowed most of the money to pay for it, generations of Americans to come will be paying off its cost, in the trillions of dollars. A look at the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, by the numbers, as the last Americans deployed there departed. Much of the data below is from Linda Bilmes of Harvard University’s Kennedy School and from the Brown University Costs of War project. Because the United States between 2003 and 2011 fought the Afghanistan and Iraq wars simultaneously, and many American troops served tours in both wars, some figures as noted cover both post-9/11 U.S. wars. The longest war: Percentage of U.S. population born since the 2001 attacks plotted by al-Qaida leaders sheltering in Afghanistan: roughly 25. The human cost: American service members killed in Afghanistan: 2,461. U.S. contractors, through April: 3,846. Afghan national military and police, through April: 66,000. Other allied service members, including from other NATO member states, through April: 1,144. Afghan civilians, through April: 47,245. Taliban and other opposition fighters, through April: 51,191. Aid workers, through April: 444. Journalists, through April: 72. Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of U.S. occupation:Percentage drop in infant mortality rate since U.S., Afghan and other allied forces overthrew the Taliban government, which had sought to restrict women and girls to the home: about 50. Percentage of Afghan teenage girls able to read today: 37. Percentage of Afghans with access to electricity in 2005: 22. In 2019: 98. Days before the U.S. withdrawal that the Taliban retook control: 15. Oversight by Congress: Date Congress authorized U.S. forces to go after culprits in September 11, 2001, attacks: September 18, 2001. Number of times U.S. lawmakers have voted to declare war in Afghanistan: 0. Number of times lawmakers on Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee addressed costs of Vietnam War during that conflict: 42. Number of times lawmakers in same subcommittee have mentioned costs of Afghanistan and Iraq wars through midsummer 2021: 5. Number of times lawmakers on Senate Finance Committee have mentioned costs of Afghanistan and Iraq wars from September 11, 2001, through midsummer 2021: 1. Paying for war on credit, not in cash: Amount President Harry Truman temporarily raised top tax rates to pay for the Korean War: 92%. Amount President Lyndon Johnson temporarily raised top tax rates to pay for the Vietnam War: 77%. Amount President George W. Bush cut tax rates for the wealthiest, rather than raise them, at outset of Afghanistan and Iraq wars: at least 8%. Estimated amount of direct Afghanistan and Iraq war costs that the United States has financed through debt as of 2020: $2 trillion. Estimated interest costs by 2050: up to $6.5 trillion. The wars end; the costs don’t: Amount Bilmes estimates the United States will pay in health care, disability, burial and other costs for roughly 4 million Afghanistan and Iraq veterans: more than $2 trillion. Period those costs will peak: after 2048. 
 
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One of the lasting legacies of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks may finally be repealed by U.S. lawmakers seeking to limit presidential war-making powers. The 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (or AUMFs) for the war on terror have been a subject of heated debate on Capitol Hill almost since they were passed. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more. Produced by:  Katherine Gypson  
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The U.S. Education Department on Monday opened a civil rights investigation into five U.S. states that have banned school districts from requiring face masks to combat the spread of the coronavirus, suggesting that the bans discriminated against students with disabilities. The agency sent letters to officials in South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Oklahoma and Iowa, all states that have barred local districts from mandating masks. The letters alleged that the states may be keeping local school districts from meeting the needs of students with disabilities, often children who are at increased risk of severe illness if they contract the coronavirus. U.S. President Joe Biden earlier this month said the Education Department would look to use its authority to try to block states from interfering with school districts that want to require masks.  In numerous states, Republican governors critical of the Democratic president have contended that masking should be a personal choice for parents and families, part of the contentious national debate over mask and vaccine mandates, especially as the delta variant of the coronavirus has surged by tens of thousands of new cases in recent weeks. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has argued for universal masking in schools. Earlier in August, Biden said, “Unfortunately, as you’ve seen throughout this pandemic, some politicians are trying to turn public safety measures — that is, children wearing masks in school — into political disputes for their own political gain.” In announcing the investigation, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said, “It’s simply unacceptable that state leaders are putting politics over the health and education of the students they took an oath to serve.”He said his agency “will fight to protect every student’s right to access in-person learning safely and the rights of local educators to put in place policies that allow all students to return to the classroom full-time in-person safely this fall.” The letters to the five states said the investigation “will focus on whether … students with disabilities who are at heightened risk for severe illness from COVID-19 are prevented from safely returning to in-person education, in violation of federal law.”At least four other states — Florida, Texas, Arkansas and Arizona — have tried to ban local face mask mandates as well, but the mandates there are not currently being enforced because of court orders or other state actions, the Education Department said.  
 
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Fire officials ordered more evacuations around the Tahoe Basin as a two-week old blaze encroached on the threatened mountain towns surrounding glimmering Lake Tahoe.By nightfall, all residents on the California side of the Lake Tahoe Basin were warned to evacuate the region, after fire officials had stressed for days that protecting the area was their top firefighting priority.”Today’s been a rough day and there’s no bones about it,” Jeff Marsoleis, forest supervisor for El Dorado National Forest, said Sunday evening. A few days ago, he thought crews could halt the Caldor Fire’s eastern progress, but “today it let loose.”Flames churned through mountains just a few miles southwest of the Tahoe Basin, where thick smoke sent tourists packing at a time when summer vacations would usually be in full swing ahead of the Labor Day weekend.”To put it in perspective, we’ve been seeing about a half-mile of movement on the fire’s perimeter each day for the last couple of weeks, and today, this has already moved at 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) on us, with no sign that it’s starting to slow down,” said Cal Fire Division Chief Erich Schwab.Some areas of the Northern California terrain are so rugged that crews had to carry fire hoses by hand from Highway 50 as they sought to douse spot fires caused by erratic winds.The forecast did not offer optimism: triple-digit temperatures were possible and the extreme heat was expected to last several days. A red flag warning for critical fire conditions was issued for Monday and Tuesday across the Northern Sierra.The blaze that broke out August 14 was 19% contained after burning nearly 245 square miles (635 square kilometers) — an area larger than Chicago. More than 600 structures have been destroyed and at least 18,000 more were under threat.The Caldor Fire has proved so difficult to fight that fire managers pushed back the projected date for full containment from early this week to Sept. 8. But even that estimate was tenuous.In Southern California, a section Interstate 15 was closed Sunday afternoon after winds pushed a new blaze, dubbed the Railroad Fire, across lanes in the Cajon Pass northeast of Los Angeles.Further south, evacuation orders and warnings were still in place for remote communities after a wildfire broke out and spread quickly through the Cleveland National Forest on Saturday. A firefighter received minor injuries and two structures were destroyed in the 2.3-square-mile (5.9-square-kilometer) Chaparral Fire burning along the border of San Diego and Riverside counties, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It was 10% contained Sunday.Meanwhile, California’s Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history at 1,193 square miles (3,089 square kilometers) was 48% contained in the Sierra-Cascades region about 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of the Caldor Fire. Nearly 700 homes were among almost 1,300 buildings that have been destroyed since the fire began in early July.Containment increased to 22% on the 12-day-old French Fire, which covered more than 38 square miles (98 square kilometers) in the southern Sierra Nevada. Crews protected forest homes on the west side of Lake Isabella, a popular recreation area northeast of Bakersfield.More than a dozen large fires are being fought by more than 15,200 firefighters across California. Flames have destroyed around 2,000 structures and forced thousands to evacuate this year while blanketing large swaths of the West in unhealthy smoke.The California fires are among nearly 90 large blazes in the U.S. Many are in the West, burning trees and brush desiccated by drought. Climate change has made the region warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.The Department of Defense is sending 200 U.S. Army soldiers from Washington state and equipment including eight U.S. Air Force C-130 aircraft to help firefighters in Northern California, the U.S. Army North said in a statement Saturday. The C-130s have been converted to air tankers that can dump thousands of gallons of water on the flames.
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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is scheduled to visit the White House on Wednesday, September 1st. VOA’s Ostap Yarysh reports on the long-awaited meeting from Washington.Camera: Kostiantyn Golubchyk, Contributor: Myroslava Gongadze
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Three prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center are expected to get their first day in court after being held for 18 years in connection with the deadly 2002 Bali nightclub bombings and other plots in Southeast Asia.Indonesian prisoner Encep Nurjaman, known as Hambali, and two Malaysians are to be arraigned Monday before a military commission on charges that include murder, conspiracy and terrorism. It is merely the first step in what could be a long legal journey for a case that involves evidence tainted by CIA torture, the same issue that is largely responsible for causing other war crimes cases to languish for years at Guantanamo.The hearing also comes as the Biden administration says it intends to close the detention center, where the U.S. still holds 39 of the 779 men seized in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and invasion of Afghanistan.The three men charged in connection with the nightclub bombings were held in secret CIA confinement for three years, followed by 15 more at the isolated U.S. base in Cuba.The decision to charge them was made by a Pentagon legal official at the end of the Trump administration, complicating the effort to close the detention center, said Brian Bouffard, a lawyer for Mohammed Nazir bin Lep, one of the Malaysian men.That made it more difficult for the new administration to add any to the list of those who could potentially be transferred out of Guantanamo or even sent home. “It will even be harder after an arraignment,” Bouffard said.Whether the arraignment would actually take place was not certain. Lawyers have sought to put the case on hold for a number of reasons, including what they have said is insufficient access to interpreters and other resources to mount a defense. The accused were still expected to show up for the hearing.The Navy judge presiding over the case in the commission, a hybrid of military and civilian law, is expected to consider that question before the charges can be formally presented in a secure courtroom surrounded by coils of razor wire on the base.Nurjaman was a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian militant group with ties to al-Qaida. The U.S. government says he recruited militants, including bin Lep and the other Malaysian charged in the case, Mohammed Farik bin Amin, for jihadist operations.Among the plots that al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah carried out were the October 2002 suicide bombings of Paddy’s Pub and the Sari Club in Bali, Indonesia, and the August 2003 suicide bombing of the J.W. Marriott in Jakarta, Indonesia. The attacks together killed 213 people, including seven Americans, and injured 109 people, including six Americans. Dozens of victims were foreign tourists, mostly Australians.Prosecutors allege bin Lep and the other Malaysian, Mohammed Farik bin Amin, served as intermediaries in the transfer of money used to fund the group’s operations.All three were captured in Thailand in 2003 and transferred to CIA “black sites,” where they were brutalized and subjected to torture, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report released in 2014. In 2006, they were moved to Guantanamo.It’s unclear why it’s taken so long to charge them before the military commission. Military prosecutors filed charges against the men in June 2017, but the Pentagon legal official who oversees Guantanamo cases rejected the charges for reasons that haven’t been publicly disclosed.The case has many elements that make it complex, including whether statements the men made to authorities can hold up in court because of the abuse they experienced in CIA custody, the fact that people have already been convicted, and in some cases executed, in Indonesia for the attack, and the long time it has taken to even bring charges — much less get to a trial at some point in the future.Some of these same issues have come up in the case against five Guantanamo prisoners charged for planning and aiding the Sept. 11 attacks. They were arraigned in May 2012 and remain in the pretrial phase, with no trial date yet scheduled.Bin Amin’s lawyer, Christine Funk, predicted a lengthy period of defense investigation that will require extensive travel, once the pandemic is over, to interview witnesses and look for evidence. Still, she said, her client is “anxious and eager to litigate this case and go home.”
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Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in the U.S. Gulf Coast state of Louisiana as a dangerous Category 4 storm, had weakened to a Category 2 storm by Sunday night.  The storm remains strong, however, and the National Hurricane Center said late Sunday that Ida was responsible for “catastrophic storm surge, extreme winds, and flash flooding…in portions of southeastern Louisiana.”   Ida has knocked out the electrical power in portions of Louisiana and Mississippi, leaving more than a million people in the dark, including the entire city of New Orleans.  The first death from Ida has been reported, the result of a fallen tree. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 165 kph Sunday night.  The NHC said residents should expect heavy rainfall along the southeast Louisiana coast, spreading northeast into the Lower Mississippi Valley Monday. Rainfall totals of 25 to 45 centimeters are possible across southeast Louisiana into far southern Mississippi, with as much as isolated maximum amounts of 61 centimeters possible.   “This is likely to result in life- threatening flash and urban flooding and significant river flooding impacts,” the weather forecasters said. Cars drive through flood waters along route 90 as outer bands of Hurricane Ida arrive on Aug. 29, 2021, in Gulfport, Miss.Hurricane warnings are in effect for Morgan City, Louisiana to the mouth of the Pearl River, Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas, and metropolitan New Orleans Sixteen years ago, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina came ashore in Louisiana as a Category 3 storm. Katrina was blamed for 1,800 deaths, levee breaches and devastating flooding in New Orleans. The city’s federal levee system has been improved since then, and Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards predicted the levees would hold. “Will it be tested? Yes. But it was built for this moment,” he said.  Before Ida arrived, Edwards declared a state of emergency and said 5,000 National Guard troops were standing by along the coast for search and rescue efforts. In addition, 10,000 linemen were ready to respond to electrical outages once the storm passed.  Alabama Governor Kay Ivey also declared a state of emergency for coastal and western counties in the state. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell ordered people who live outside the city’s protective levee system to evacuate. And she urged those who remained in the city to hunker down. “As soon the storm passes, we’re going to put the country’s full might behind the rescue and recovery,” President Joe Biden said after a briefing at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington. The president said he had signed emergency declarations for Louisiana and Mississippi and has been in touch with the governors of those two states and Alabama.  The Gulf Coast region’s hospitals now face a natural disaster as they are struggling with a surge in patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, due to the highly contagious delta variant.  “COVID has certainly added a challenge to this storm,” Mike Hulefeld, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Ochsner Health, told the Associated Press. Edwards said about 2,500 people are being treated for COVID-19 in the state’s hospitals as the hurricane passes through.  Since the start of the pandemic, Louisiana has had 679,796 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 12,359 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Its vaccine tracker says just 41% of the state’s nearly 4.7 million population are vaccinated.   “Once again we find ourselves dealing with a natural disaster in the midst of a pandemic,” Jennifer Avegno, the top health official for New Orleans, told the AP.  Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Robert Owens was feeling defeated and helpless Sunday as he waited in Louisiana’s capital city for landfall by one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to strike the U.S.  The 27-year-old had spent anxious days watching long lines of cars evacuating from Baton Rouge, bound for safer locations out of state as Hurricane Ida approached. He had hoped he and his wife, his mother-in-law, roommate and four pets would be among them. But leaving would have required money for gas and a hotel room — something they didn’t have.  Out of desperation, Owens went to ACE Cash Express on Saturday and submitted documents for a payday loan. He was denied, told he didn’t have enough credit history.  By Sunday, it was clear they would be riding out the storm at home in his family’s duplex apartment.  “Our bank account is empty – we can’t afford to leave,” he said.  Owens said most people in his low-income neighborhood are in the same predicament. They want to leave to protect families but have no choice but to stay.  “A lot of us here in my neighborhood have to just hunker down and wait, not knowing how bad it’s going to get. It’s a terrifying feeling,” he said. “There are people who have funds to lean on are able to get out of here, but there’s a big chunk of people that are lower-income that don’t have a savings account to fall on,” he continued. “We’re left behind.” By Sunday night at 9 p.m., Owens said his family and all others in his neighborhood had lost power. The sky was lighting up green from transformers blowing up all around them, he said. Several trees had collapsed on neighbors’ properties, but it was too dark to see the full extent of the damage. Owens said they were trying to use a flashlight to survey the street but were wary of jeopardizing their safety.  “Never in my life have I encountered something this major,” he said as giant gusts rattled his home’s windows.  He said there were a few times when it sounded like the roof of his duplex might come off. He said his wife was packing a bag of clothes and essentials, just in case.  “We’ll shelter in the car if we lose the house,” he said. The family all share his wife’s Toyota Avalon, a vehicle “not nearly big enough” to shelter four people, three dogs and a cat.  Earlier in the day, Owens said he was hurriedly placing towels under leaking windows in his duplex and charging electronics. He tried to go to Dollar General and Dollar Tree to pick up food, but they were closed. His family has lights glued around the walls of the house. They planned to hide in the laundry room or the kitchen when the storm hits — places without windows. “There’s a general feeling of fear in not knowing what’s going to be the aftermath of this,” he said. “That’s the most concerning thing. Like, what are we going to do if it gets really bad? Will we still be alive? Is a tree going fall on top of us?” Owens said his mother-in-law is on disability. His roommates both work for Apple iOS tech support. His wife works scheduling blood donations. All of them rely on the internet to work from home, and if it goes out, they won’t be able to bring in any money. “We might be without work, and rent, power, water, all of those bills will still be needing to get paid,” he said. “We are a little bit concerned about losing our utilities or even our house — if it’s still standing — because we’re not going to have the money for any other bills.” He said it’s hard to feel so vulnerable, like his family is getting left behind. “The fact that we are not middle class or above, it just kind of keeps coming back to bite us over and over again, in so many different directions and ways — a simple pay-day advance being one of them,” he said. “It’s like we’re having to pay for being poor, even though we’re trying to not be poor.” 
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Here are the latest developments in Afghanistan as of August 29:  * The United States conducted an airstrike Sunday against a vehicle that posed a threat to the Kabul airport, U.S. officials said. The airstrike came hours after the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued warnings of a credible threat of an imminent attack in the area.* Dozens of countries issued a statement reiterating their commitment to evacuate their citizens and Afghan allies from Afghanistan, adding that they had “received assurances from the Taliban” of safe passage to and through the airport for these people even after the August 31 deadline.* A senior Taliban leader confirmed to VOA, on the condition of anonymity, that the group is in the final stages of announcing a new Cabinet and it is expected to include all of the members of its current Rahbari Shura, or leadership council.    * President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden met with the families of the 13 U.S. service members killed in a bombing near the Kabul airport last week. At least 170 Afghans were killed in the blast.*Several veteran Afghan leaders, including two regional strongmen, are seeking talks with the Taliban and soon plan to form a new front for negotiations concerning the country’s next government, according to Reuters.
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The United States conducted an airstrike Sunday against a vehicle that posed a threat to the Kabul airport, and the U.S. Central Command is now looking into reports of civilian casualties.“We are aware of reports of civilian casualties following our strike on a vehicle in Kabul,” Captain Bill Urban, CENTCOM spokesperson, said in a statement Sunday night.The U.S. is investigating and, “We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life,” Urban said.Earlier Sunday the military said its forces struck a vehicle, “eliminating an imminent ISIS-K (Islamic State Khorasan) threat to Hamad Karzai International airport.”  US Airstrike Hits Attacker Targeting Kabul Airport Earlier, US President Joe Biden warned that another attack on the airport was likely soon In his statement Sunday night, Urban said the results of the airstrike are still being assessed and that the secondary explosions “may have caused additional casualties. It is unclear what may have happened, and we are investigating further.”According to reporting in The New York Times, the drone strike or the secondary explosions killed as many as nine civilians, among them children. Dina Mohammadi said her extended family resided in the building and that several of them were killed, including children, according to the Associated Press. She was not immediately able to provide the names or ages of the deceased.Karim, a district representative, said the strike ignited a fire that made it difficult to rescue people. “There was smoke everywhere and I took some children and women out,” he said.Ahmaduddin, a neighbor, said he had collected the bodies of children after the strike, which set off more explosions inside the house, AP reported.Airlift winds downThe evacuation has airlifted about 120,00 people out of Kabul since the end of July, according to the White House as of early Sunday morning, and it is facing a Tuesday deadline.“This is the most dangerous time in an already extraordinarily dangerous mission, these last couple of days,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC’s This Week on Sunday.  Republican U.S. Senator Ben Sasse, also on ABC, criticized the Biden administration’s evacuation operations.“There is clearly no plan. There has been no plan. Their plan has basically been happy talk,” he said. Blinken said in an interview on CNN that about 300 American citizens are seeking evacuation from Afghanistan.Ongoing threatsPentagon spokesperson John Kirby said at a briefing Saturday that threats against the airport “are still very real, they’re very dynamic, and we are monitoring them literally in real time. And, as I said yesterday, we are taking all the means necessary to make sure we remain focused on that threat stream and doing what we can for force protection.”The security threats have made the evacuation of Americans and some Afghans more difficult.“There doesn’t appear to be any concerted effort to get SIVs (Special Immigrant Visa holders) out at this point,” a State Department official told VOA from the airport. But the department is still trying to evacuate local embassy staff, U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.US to Host Virtual Meeting of Foreign Ministers on AfghanistanThe United States will host the meeting of ‘key partners,’ the State Department said Sunday 
The U.S. evacuation of Afghans at the airport has wound down significantly, with most of the remaining 100 American civilian government staffers set to leave before midnight, according to a State Department official who spoke with VOA Saturday on the condition of anonymity.The airport terminals are mostly empty, said the official, who expressed mixed feelings about the operation.“I feel the frustration of the failure of the operation overall,” said the official, who described the decision-making process of getting Afghans evacuated as “chaotic” and “subjective.”
 
“But I’m extremely proud of the work of the guys on the ground, just the kind of bare-knuckled diplomacy of getting to know the Afghans, even though some of us didn’t know the language,” the official said. 
VOA White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report, which includes information from The Associated Press and Reuters.Carla Babb, Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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Hurricane Ida made landfall in the U.S. Gulf Coast state of Louisiana Sunday as a Category Four storm, with 240-kilometer-per hour winds on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. The storm’s arrival comes 16 years after Hurricane Katrina’s onslaught. As Arash Arabasadi reports, memories of Katrina still loom large. 
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Afghan American Haseeb Kamal had been married only one day when Kabul fell to Taliban control. His terrifying exit from Afghanistan meant leaving his new wife and most of his family behind. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti has his exclusive story for VOA.amera: Mike Burke
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President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware Sunday to honor the 13 U.S. military personnel killed in last week’s attack outside the Kabul airport.“The President and the First Lady will meet with the families of fallen American service members who gave their lives to save Americans, our partners, and our Afghan allies in Kabul,” a White House statement said.The Bidens are then participating in a “dignified transfer,” a military ritual of receiving the remains of those killed in foreign combat.The deadly attack last week took place as thousands were gathered outside the airport, trying to leave Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover of the country. At least 170 Afghans were killed along with the 13 U.S. service members.Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility. (Some information provided by the Associated Press.)
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