Thursday morning news - September 2, 2021

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

Taliban holds victory parade on U.S. military vehicles » Taliban fighters held a victory parade on Wednesday. Many rolled through the streets of Kandahar riding atop U.S. military vehicles…

AUDIO: [Helicopter]

… as an American made Blackhawk helicopter roared overhead.

AUDIO: [Helicopter]

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said Wednesday that the United States might coordinate with the Taliban on military strikes against the ISIS-K terror group.

MILLEY: In war, you do what you must.

The Taliban is not affiliated with ISIS-K as it is with al-Qaida.

Meantime, more than 30 California children are stuck in Afghanistan after traveling to the country to visit relatives weeks before the Taliban seized power.

Officials with three school districts said Wednesday that they have been in contact with the families who fear they have been forgotten by the U.S. government.

Milley said stranded Americans are not forgotten.

MILLEY: We will continue to evacuate American citizens under the leadership of the Department of State as this mission has now transitioned from a military mission to a diplomatic mission.

That means the Biden administration will now negotiate with the Taliban for the safe return of American residents and citizens.

School officials said the kids are enrolled in California schools but were unable to get out of Kabul before the U.S. government left them behind.

The officials said some of the children were born in the United States and are U.S. citizens.

Power makes slow return to eastern New Orleans » The lights are back on in some Louisiana homes. Power company Entergy said it’s slowly restoring power to New Orleans.

But Gov. John Bel Edwards acknowledged Wednesday that there’s a long road ahead to fix the storm-ravaged power grid.

EDWARDS: More than 11,000 homes and businesses were restored. Now, we were over a million, so I’m very mindful that it’s a start and only a start.

Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses remain without power or water service.

Entergy said powering up the state “will still take time given the significant damage.” And the pace of those repairs will determine how quickly the region's important oil refineries can restart operations that were shut down by Hurricane Ida.

Nine Louisiana refineries had to shut down due to the storm. Collectively, they account for about 13 percent of the nation’s refining capacity. That has triggered a jump in gas prices in some states.

Texas 6-week abortion ban takes effect » A law barring most abortions is now in effect in the state of Texas. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: The Supreme Court has not yet acted on an emergency appeal from abortion rights groups to put the law on hold.

If allowed to remain in force, the law would be the most far-reaching protections for the unborn in the United States since the high court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in 1973.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed the protections into law in May. The law prohibits abortions once a heartbeat can be detected in a fetus, usually around six weeks.

Under the Texas law, the state won't prosecute abortionists. Rather, private citizens have the power to sue them and anyone involved in facilitating abortions that violate the law.

At least 12 other states have passed laws to protect unborn babies early in pregnancy, but courts have blocked all of them from taking effect.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Fire crews report progress in defending Lake Tahoe from fire » California firefighters reported some progress Wednesday in the battle to defend communities on the south end of Lake Tahoe.

Officials have evacuated thousands of residents from the area as the Caldor Fire closed in.

Chance Inwood is air operations branch director. He said planes and helicopters are actively attacking the fire.

INWOOD: 120,000 gallons of retardant. That’s including two VLATs and five LATS. For rotary wing, that’s 384,000 gallons of water.

Operations section chief Tim Ernst said, “We lucked out a little bit yesterday with some of the winds that didn’t come up quite as hard as we expected them to."

The Caldor Fire has been burning toward Lake Tahoe, climbing over a high-elevation Sierra Nevada summit and descending into the Tahoe Basin.

Despite some positive developments, officials warned firefighters that critical weather conditions remained and they would likely face more gusty, swirling conditions.

5 missing and 6 hurt after Navy helicopter crash in Pacific » Rescue crews were still searching Wednesday for five missing sailors a day after a U.S. Navy helicopter crashed in the ocean off the coast of Southern California. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown reports.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Rescuers pulled one sailor from the water shortly after the MH-60S chopper crashed on Tuesday. He was listed in stable condition, but five others remained missing.

The helicopter crashed about 70 miles from San Diego after taking off from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. It was conducting what the Navy described as routine flight operations.

Five sailors aboard the carrier were also injured and were listed in stable condition.

The Coast Guard was helping the Navy search for the sailors in the chilly waters.

The Navy is investigating the cause of the crash.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

I’m Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org. 

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