Contributing Writers

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We speak with Stéphane Vincent, a Haitian citizen journalist who is helping the BBC to cover the aftermath of the devastating August 14 earthquake for the BBC and says the destruction in Les Cayes is reminiscent of the 2010 earthquake that struck the country. “To relive that again was very heart-wrenching,” he says. “The people have been feeling left out and abandoned by government.

We get reaction to the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan from British member of Parliament and former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, one of the leading critics of the Afghan War in Britain. He says critics who warned against invading Afghanistan, and later Iraq, have been vindicated, and calls for an official inquiry into the war.

As the U.S. proceeds with evacuating people from Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover of the country, we speak with author and former NPR reporter Sarah Chayes, who covered the fall of the Taliban in 2001, then lived in Kandahar until 2009, where she ran a soap factory, and went on to become a special adviser to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mike Mullen in Kabul. She says it was apparent shortly after the U.S.

As the United States has begun the final phase of evacuations of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies from the Kabul airport, we speak with Obaidullah Baheer, an Afghan academic who has decided to stay in Kabul despite the risks. Baheer’s grandfather, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is a former mujahideen fighter once nicknamed the “Butcher of Kabul,” now among the senior political figures in the country attempting to shape a post-U.S. government with the Taliban.