to learn more, visit safetyactioncenter.pge.com caioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, august 28: the u.s. strikes against isis-k, as evacuations from afghanistan continue. preparations are underway in louisiana as hurricane ida is set to make landfall. and a new idea for making older homes more energy efficient. next on “pbs newshour weekend.” >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the anderson family fund. the estate of worthington

ma-smith. leonard and norma klorfine. the rosalind p. walter foundation. koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. barbara hope zuckerberg. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our u.s.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, visit www.consumercellular.tv. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the

american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thank you for joining us. president joe biden warned today that another terror attack on the airport in kabul afghanistan is “highly likely in the next 24-36 hours.” last night, the united states military launched a drone airstrike last night killing what the pentagon said were two high-profile members of isis-k, the afghan affiliate of isis in the middle east, in retaliation for the suicide bombing that killed 13 u.s. service members and more than 170 others. the pentagon said the strike hit territory in nangarhar province, a reported isis-k stronghold. the group claimed responsibility for the terror attack outside the gates of kabul's airport on thursday. today, pentagon press secretary john kirby would not say whether the individuals killed in the airstrike were behind thursday's attack. and he warned the threat of more attacks at the kabul airport is still active. >> we aren't thinking for a

minute tt what happened yesterday gets us in the clear. not a minute. but do we believe that we hit valid targets? bad guys who can do bad things and can plan bad missions, absolutely. and do we think that that will have some impact on their ability going forward, absolutely. >> sreenivasan: in kabul, the taliban now claims it has arrested some isis-k memrs in connection with the attack. at the airport, the pentagon confirmed troops have started their withdrawal. evacuation flights slowed today as the u.s. prepares for a final complete witrawal from afghanistan on tuesday. the u.s. and allies have flown more than 117,000 people out of kabul in the past two weeks, according to the pentagon. this afternoon, the department of defense released the names of the 13 service members killed on thursday, eleven marines, a navy hoitalman and an army staff sergeant. the youngest was 20 years old. the oldest was 31. for more on developments in

afghanistan and the region i spoke to jackie northam, npr's international affairs correspondent who is in islamabad, pakistan. our conversation was recorded this morning when it was early morning in islamabad. so, jackie, in islamabad, what are the concerns about the upheaval that's happening next door? >> well, one of the bigges concerns, of course, is that it will spill over into pakistan. you know, the whole idea was, is that the taliban was supposed to go in there and keep control, you know, it had taken the country very quickly, and securely in that this attack by isis-k has really upended that whole notion now. so, there is a huge concern, just what's going to happen? and i think that part of that is, is that the pakistan government is concerned that the attacky isis-k on thursday at the airport will embolden other groups. you know, there are a lot of militant groups in this area, and not all of them are targeting afghanistan. you know, there are some have tried to target the pakistan

government here as well. so, i think it's fair to say that this attack on thursday has really upended what the pakistanis thought might happen, and certainly what the taliban thought might happen once they took afghanistan. >> sreenivasan: the area between pakistan and afghanistan, i mean, technically, there might be lines on a map, but in that region, people go back and forth pretty freely. and i don't think many people recognize or remember how many afghans have been in pakistan since when the russians were there. i mean, what is pakistan doing knowing that there might be now another wave of refugees that come across the border? >> well, t first thing that they're doing is they're building a fence, because they've made it very clear that they do not want to take in thousands and thousands of afghans trying to flee taliban control next door. you're right. i mean, they house, they made home millions of afghans when the soviets were in afghanistan. and, you know, some people do have dual passports in that. and those are the people-- any

afghan has a pakistani visa, a passport, they are allowed to come back into pakistan. but right now, there are thousands amassing at-- certainly at one of the main borders here. you know, part of the problem is, again, it goes back-- they won't know who's coming across. you could have a militant coming across, for one thing. but the other problem here, too, is the economy is just in really, really bad shape. covid hit it very hard here. 20 million pakistanis lost their jobs. 55,000 small businesses went under because of covid. and it's just that the government here is saying we can't take on another rush of afghans coming in from next door. >> sreenivasan: jackie, one of the big concerns that's right now seeming to divide the republican party anyway is how we should treat and how we should vet the afghan refugees that are coming over. and there are also republican senators that say, "hey, you

know what? these are the people who serve shoulder to shoulder. we have service records for them. that's who we are helping escape afghanistan right now." from your sources on the ground there, how difficult is it for people who have served with the u.s. armed forces or nato lies to get out, especily considering now we are hearing repos that some of the last planes, so to speak, from the u.k. and other places are leaving? >> yeah, it's still very difficult. there is still a lot of people that need to get out of afghanistan, and that includes americans, certainly. but, you know, the whole operation was run with the help of afghansnd whether it be translators or fixers or anything else like that, the u.s. and its allies depended on these people. part of the problem was, is the process didn't get up and running fast enough. the paperwork was so cumbersome, so bureaucratic, that nobody expected, even the taliban i don't think, expected they were

going to seize power that quickly. and so, everything had to be accelerated. but you're right. i mean, the window of opportunity is closing at kabul airport. and even today, you know, the u.s. embassy in kabul is saying to americans, no, do not go near the airport. there are really high risk of threats of more attacks coming in. and we're down to just a couple of days now. and they might be left behind. it's a symbol that they might still try to run some commercial aircraft in and out of there. the taliban say they would try to facilitate that, but it is just so fluid right now and it is so utterly dangerous by that airport. >> sreenivasan: npr's jackie northam joining us from islamabad tonight. thanks so much. >> thank you. my pleasure. >> sreenivasan: on the u.s. gulf coast preparations and evacuations are underway as hurricane ida approaches, with new orleans projected to be in the center of the storm. ida made landfall in cuba yesterday afternoon with 75 mile per hour winds and heavy rain.

it moved quickly into the gulf of mexico leaving flooded streets and downed trees behind. warm waters in the gulf are adding fuel and the latest forecasts show ida making landfall sometime tomorrow near new orleans where resints are evacuating. from louisiana to miissippi and alabama, coastal residents are preparing. hospitals in the region are already near capacity as covid cases surge and say they are not planning to evacuate patients. the storm is projected to hit exactly 16 years to the day after hurricane katrina, a category three storm that struck new orleans and the region killinat least 1,800 people. this afternoon president joe biden received a virtual briefing on hurrice ida from the head of the federal emergency management agency. >> i'm urging people of the area, pay attention and be prepared. let me say it again: pay attention and be prepared. follow the guidance.

if you have to move, mask, because we're still facing covid delta variant as well. >> sreenivasan: the national hurricane center director, ken graham, joined us from miami shortly after non today for an update on the forecast and the preparations for ida on the gulf coast and beyond. ken, we're speaking saturday afternoon, where's the storm tracking? what is the area with the greatest amount of danger? >> yh, the greatest amount of danger in several different areas in these storms. it's always a right around that center. you start looking at the actual forecast, we are actually forecasting 140 mile per hour winds, a category four. so, you can see those winds right around the centein any one of those areas in that hurricane warning could see some of those winds. but it's so important, it's not just around that center. you have storm surge, you have rainfall well outside the center, and a lot of that is also life-threatening. >> senivasan: we had the mayor

of new orleans saying that it was too late to try and make a full-scale evacuation of the city. what would your advice be to anyone that is in the storm's path right now? >> i think for those areas, when you're outside the levee system, the risk reduction system, a lot of those folks are getting out of there as recommended, but othe, have a safe place. i mean, the hurricanes really don't care about any timelines. sometimes they give you a week's notice. sometimes they give you only days. so, the best thing to do is just have a safe place from the wd and have a safe place from the water. >> sreenivasan: how did this hurricane build up so much intensity so fast? is it slowing down? is it the warmer water? >> this is a situation where this system is going over some of the warmest water in the gulf of mexico, it's a loop current of warm water. and even towards the louisiana coast, it's very warm water. and when you combine that with very little wind shear, this is a type of system that can increase intensity very rapidly,

and that's what we're forecasting to do. >> sreenivasan: so, we've got diffent layers of problems here. on the one hand, you've got the wind. on the second, you've got the storm surge. and then the large amount of rain that this storm is carrying. >> everything you mentioned there is so life-threatening. that wind is life threatening. the storm surge, and those values of some areas getting 10-15 feet of storm surge, that is really water up your pant leg. that's inundation. but the other part is this life- threatening rainfall. some areas could see 10-15 inches of rain around southeast louisiana. and some places could even get 20 inches of rainfall. so, you combine that with the storm surge, and even on the mississippi coast over t mobile, central mississippi, 8- 10 inches of rain. just a dangerous situati when it ces to flooding. 90% of your fatalities in these tropical systems comes from the water. >> sreenivasan: is this storm season worse than usual? and i think the other thing people are wondering is, is this the new normal, that we are going to see more intense storms

forming off the gulf coast with these warmer waters in the future? >> yeah, we're coming off the 2020 season that was nothy of relentless, the busiest season, the most names we've ever had in a season and was in 2020. and, as predicted, this season looks to be above the average as well. and we seem to be headed that direction. we are seeing storms, observing them to be stronger. we're also seeing them rapidly intensify. and that really does play into the timelines. and when you have rapidly intensifying storms, that could shorten the timelines. >> sreenivasan: so, ida is not the last in the line. we've got another one coming down the barrel? >> yeah, and we're also forecasting for a system out in the pacific as well with nora, just a hurricane, with a large wind swath impacting portions of mexico. what we really have to watch out for as this system continues to move north into baja, some of that moisture could get into the desert southwest. and so many areas in t desert southwest have been saturated from a pretty active monsoon,

and that could cause some flash flooding. >> sreenivasan: ken graham, director of the national hurricane center, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank y. >> sreenivasan: for more national and international news visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: wind continues to make the effort to contain california wildfires a difficult task. the caldor fire in the sierra nevada mountains, has burned nearly 144,000 acres, an area larger than denver, and is currently only about 12% contained. the fire, which started on august 14, has forced residents of the lake tahoe resort area to flee as it continues its march towards homes and fills the air with smoke. meanwhile, the dixie fire, burning since july 13, which is now the second largest fire in california history, has grown to more than 747,000 acres and remains only 45% contained. the california department of forestry and fire protection,

said the fires have traveled up to eight miles in a single day, and reports firefighters are experiencing conditions never seen before, including increased spread rates and active nighttime burning. thousands of protesters took the streets day in washington and other u.s. cities demanding voting rights protections. the rally and march took place on the 58th anniversary of the historic march on washington the day the reverend martin luther king junior delivered h“" i have a dream” speech. organizers of today's "march-on washington and voting rights" said state-level moves to curb voting access are disproportionately impacting people of color. according to the brennan center for justice at new york university, at least 18 states have enacted laws restricting voter access. >> sreenivasan: a landmark climate report released this

month by the united nations concluded the earth is warming faster than previously thought, and scientists predicted dire consequences if more is not done to reduce colevels in the atmosphere. the u.s. and more than 100 countries have committed to become carbon neutral by the year 2050, but one of the biggest challenges ahead is making home more ergy efficient. that's because according to the u.n. report, residential buildings are the source of around one fifth of all greenhouse gasses emitted globally. now, one group in europe is trying out a way to retrofit older homes and buildings to make them energy neutral. newshour weekend special correspondent willem marx reported from the netherlands for our ongoing series "peril & promise: the challenge of climate ange." >> reporter: anton and joke toone have called this apartment in the dutch city of den haag home for the last 40 years. and not much changed until last summer, when a whole new facade was added to their building with thick insulation and triple

glazed windows, making their apartment much warmer, they say, anenergy efficient. it's one of more than 6,000 homes that have gotten a new climate-friendly energy retrofit based on ideas from a not-for- profit called enerigesprong. >> we always had in mind that buying a retrofit as easy as buying a new kitchen in ikea. this is one of the oldest... >> reporter: ron van erck is a co-founder of energiesprong or energy jump. it works with regulators, banks and entrepreneurs to plan how best to retrofit millions of existing homes. why? because in order to meet a goal set by more than 100 countries to become carbon neutral b 2050, existing homes, which produce about a fifth of all greenhouse gases, have to be made much more energy efficient. >> 80% of the buildings that will be here in 2050, at least in europe, have already been built. and they were not built to the standard that had in mind that we had to eliminate rbon

emissions. >> reporter: and so, unless we do that to those older buildings, we're never going to get there. >> i wouldn't say never, but not within the time frame that we got left. >> reporter: funded initially by the dutch government, energiesprong's mission was to figure out how to industrialize energy efficiency. part of that new standard: prefabrication and mass production. that's what is happening at this factory called rc panels. facades are produced at scale, made of thick insulation covered by a thin layer of fire resistant polyester. the outer layer can be made to look like bricks. the bricks laid by robots that can place the 2,000 pieces needed for a typical panel in about 20 minutes. they're very bendy bricks. >> it's very bendy because it's only for aesthetics actually. >> reporter: so, you can kind of just break it in half. >> yes. >> reporter: what does that mean when it's on the outside of a building? >> it stays this way, but the only advantage is if for ages to come you might want to demolish

a building in about 50 years time, and you can recycle it if you want to. and it means that there is much less material impact on the environment as well. >> reporter: lianda sjerps- koomen brought us to a construction site where new facades were being attached to a complex of 300 apartments. the facades include new replacement doors and triple glazed windows built right in to save time on site. >> they fit exactly. >> reporter: to the millimeter >> to the millimeter. because if you don't the door just doesn't open. because you have to have that same hole. it tailor made. tailor made, but in a standardized process, so that's the trick. >> reporter: attaching one of the panels can be done in as little as 15 minutes. these men are preparing to hoist this huge facade up into the air, and because there is a hook and anchor system on the back of it, they will essentially attach it to this existing building and it becomes like an insulation jacket for the whole apartment complex.

these are like huge blocks of lego essentially, and they just attach and attach and attach. and you can cover this huge apartment building in just a matter of hours. another part of energiesprongs retrofit strategy: making the switch to 100% electricity instead of gas to heat homes. that's where this comes in: the heat pump. it's like a refrigerator in reverse, taking heat from the outside air to warm a home. it uses very small amounts of electricity, but works best in a moderate climate, with well- insulated structures. >> so, we call this the modern chimney. it's not a chimney which gives smoke, but this is the heat pump providing you hot water and heating. >> reporter: the heat pump is part of a system produced by another dutch startup, factory zero. it makes energy modules that incorporate a water boiler, solar panels and a heat pump all controlled by computer. separately these elements would cost around $35,000. combined they are about $14,000.

cheaper, easier to install, but still expensive. jasper van den munckhof, the company's owner, says the key is to convince people the energy savings will help pay for the upgrade. >> it's the business model behind a net zero home. your energy bill goes to zero. literally it goes to zero, meaning that you have a lot of money to spend on actually retrofitting your home, getting the right machinery, etc. >> reporter: and thanks to lobbying by energiesprong the banks are in on the deal too. >> the banks in the netherlands actually give you an extra loan on top of your maximum mortgage if you take a net zero home like we provide. >> reporter: the energiesprong model is now being applied in about half a dozen other countries, including the united states. >> decarbonizing new york's buildings are, frankly, one of the biggest challenges in achieving our climate goals. >> reporter: doreen harris, head of the new york state energy research and development authority, told us about its new initiative called retrofit new york. >> retrofit new york is a $30 million initiative which is focused on bringing similar

technologies to bear here in new york that have been successfully deployed through energiesprong. >> reporter: what would you say to people who say $30 milliois a lot of money, but in the grand scheme of things, it's a drop in the ocean? what we see ourselves as is a catalyst for the broader investments that are needed. >> reporter: it's first project casa passiva in brooklyn, where two multifamily buildings are being retrofitted. interior pipes and radiators are being removed or sealed, and the buildings covered with a new facade plus all new heating and cooling systems. harris says that more than 30 other buildingwners, representing nearly 400,000 units of housing, have signed a retrofit new york pledge. the challenge here, six million buildings across new york state, which account for about 45% of the state's greenhouse emissions. >> we will likely need to use both carrots and sticks to achieve the goals that we have established. retrofit new york is a great example of a carrot, but it is

true that as these solutions become more widely available we will also need to rely on more traditional approaches like codes and standards, like mandates to improve efficiency. >> reporter: can this approach work if you don't have the finance guys, the government, the contractors, the homeowners essentially pulling in the same direction? >> the answer is no. and what we see is that there are a lot of initiatives going to try to do something about energy efficiency in buildings and try to scale that, but what they all try to do is tweak one thing and work on solving one problem. but if you don't solve all the problems at the same time, you know, the puzzle never really fits. so, what we tried to do is to understand which are all the pieces that we need to move and then talk to everybody that can move them and make sure that everybody knows that the other person also moves them. and then we go to that new reality at the same time. that's the philosophy behind what we tried to do here. >> reporter: ron van erck

acknowledges the work ahead is daunting. so far, these retrofit projects are mostly aimed at what's called “social” housing which is regulated and run by co-ops. and there are many styles of homes, which make standardization difficult. the netherlands needs to refurbish seven million houses to meet its 2050 climate targets, and van erck says it's just not possible to do that in the old-fashioned way. >> something needs to change and improve in the way we retrofit buildings if we want to get off fossil fuels. this is one of the better ideas that we've come across, at least so far. >> sreenivasan: that's all for this edition of “pbs newshour weekend.” for the latest news updates visit pbs.org/newshour. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. stay healthy and have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheimii. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the anderson family fund. the estate of worthington mayo-smith. leonard and norma klorfine. the rosalind p. walter foundation. koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural

differences in our communities. barbara hope zuckerberg. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: consumer cellular. and by: and byhe corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like yo thank you. you're watching pbs.

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