captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, august 29: the somber return of the service members killed in afghanistan. hurricane ida grows in strength as it makes landfall. and poland's crack down on l.g.b.t.q. rights. 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 sylvia a. and simon b. poyta programming endowment to fight antisemitism.

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 ameri, 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 has been offering no-contract wireless plans, designed to help people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan 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. the u.s. military carried out it's second drone airstrike today in afghanistan since last thursday's deadly terrorist attack outside the kabul airport. pentagon officials said the strike targeted a suspected suicide bomb vehicle, and came as the bodies of the 13 u.s. service members killed last week were returned to the u.s. president biden and first lady jill biden were in delaware today to attend the dignified transfer, a military custom marking when remains of service members killed in action are returned to u.s. soil. the president and first lady also met privately with families of some of those killed in thursday's attack, which an affiliate ofhe islamic state, isis-k claimed to have carried out. 11 of the service members were marines, along with a navy medic and an army soldier.

they ranged in age from 20-31 and included two women and nine men. as many as 170 afghan civilians were also killed in the attack. today's drone airstrike targeted a suspected suicide bomb vehicle near the kabul airport. the strike came a day after the u.s. embassy warned all u.s. citizens to avoid the airport, citing a specific and credible threat. in a statement, a military spokesperson said “we are confident we successfully hit the target. significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material.” flights from the kabul airport continued today. biden administration officials said there are an estimated 300 americans who want to leave still in afghanistan, along with about 4,000 troops. an estimated 114,400 americans, foreign nationals, and vulnerable afghans have been airlifted from the kabul airport in the last two weeks, according to biden administration officials.

we will have more on afghanistan coming up in the broadcast. hurricane ida made landfall on the louisiana coast today as a dangerous category 4 storm with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour. by this morning, parts of the shoreline in new orleans were already underwater, and hurricane force winds had caused more than 100,000 power outages across the state. this afternoon, new orleans' officials said they are confident new levees built around the city after the devastation of hurricane katrina, will be able to withstand hurricane ida. katrina made landfall exactly 16 years ago-- august 29, 2005. hospitals, already grappling with a covid-19 surge, are instituting hurricane readiness plans and remaining open. new orleans mayor latoya cantrell urged residents and visitors who hadn't evacuated to hunker down and keep streets clear so that first responders could do their jobs once the storm passes. >> we need you to stay in from

this point going forward. all morning, all afternoon, all evening. as it relates to monday morning, we should see some signs that we're moving out of this, but you are not to come out until you receive more information from the city of new orleans. >> sreenivasan: ahead of ida's arrival, president biden approved emergency declarations for louisiana, and for mississippi, where the coastal city of gulfport was battered by intense rain as the hurricane approached. newshour correspondent roby chavez is in new orleans and he joined us this afternoon with more on the hurricane and what is ahead over the coming days. roby, tell me, how is new orleans preparing? >> well, hari, it's going to be a long night. the hurricane made landfall about 11:00 this morning, and officials expect this to be a very significant event causing catastrophic damage. currently here outside, you can

see the wind is already blowing. we've had some gusts up to 74 miles an hour. and the storm is still a bit a ways away. in south louisiana where they're taking a big hit, officials there told folks hug your kids, say a prayer and hunker down. this storm is comi. we expect this to be the most powerful storm since the 1850s. we did see a lot of rapid intensification with this storm overnight. we saw it increased 45 miles per hour. keep in mind, on friday, this was a cat one with 74 miles per hour. it is now onshore with 150 miles per hour as a cat four. officials are expecting flash flooding, catastrophic winds and a powerful storm surge. governor john bel edwards has declared a state of emergency and he's activated some 5,000 members of the national guard. down in south louisiana, there's a mandatory evacuation that is

in place in the coastal parishes in lafourche, terrebonne and st. charles, but officials tell us at least 50% of those residents decided to ride this storm out, even though they warned this would be a life altering storm, hari. >> sreenivasan: i know you've got relatives in that area. what is the reason that some of those folks decide not to leave when these hurricanes come by? >> you know, they're a proud people. you know, my dad, my sister, my brothers and sisters are all down there. i grew up in lafourche parish, right where this storm is coming up, bia lafourche. and sometimes it's just hard to get them to move. they love their houses. they love their livelihood. if something is going to happen, they want to be there. i will say it's been a long time since we've seen a storm of this magnitude hit this area in southeast louisiana, betsy back in 1965. so, no one has seen a storm quite like this.

and i think they may have underestimated it. >> sreenivasan: and this is a city that is in some ways still recovering from the damage that katrina did 16 years ago to the day. >> yeah, so, keep in mind, new orleans is about 50 miles from the coast, but we will get some hurricane force winds. you know, hurricane katrina, this is the 16th anniversary of it, there's a lot of anxiety with folks about this approaching storm-- p.t.s.d., if you will-- worried that this will be catastrophic as well. during katrina, as you remember, the levees failed. since katrina they've spent some $40 billion to repair the levees. this wilbe the first big test to see whether or not that works or not. now, officials say they do expect some overtopping because of the huge storm surge that is expected, but they do believe that will be just enough to be able to pump that water out, it doesn't cause massive flooding. >> sreenivasan: roby, so how are you planning to get through this storm?

how long is it expected to last, and what kind of damage are officials telling you to prepare for? >> look, hari, this storm will be a big event. it's going to last some 18 hours, well into the night, not clearing until monday morning. officials have said to expect power outages, large, massive power outages that could last anywhere from a week, and they're even talking about possibly as long as a month. now, these winds are very damaging as well. the ground has been very saturated here. so, we expect that there will also be a lot of storm damage. >> sreenivasan: newshour's roby chavez joining us from new orleans tonight. thanks so much. >> absolutely. >> sreenivasan: for the latest updates and more national and international news visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: for more on the situation in afghanistan and what's ahead, i spoke with kirsten fontenrose, director of the scowcroft middle east security initiative at the atlantic council. she was a senior director at the national security council in 2018.

so, kirsten, when we look at what's happening in afghanistan right now, how much instability does it add to this region? >> quite a bit, and for several differenreasons. one is the risk of refugee flows. and this is the main concern of our european partners. they're already looking at a lot of pressure on their systems and their political dynamics from refugee flows out of syria, for instance, and this is adding to it. it also raises the security risk for pakistan. we're worried about the taliban and the isis-k successes, emboldening groups inside pakistan, which is already, you know, a little bit of a trouble country for us in terms of the c.t. threat. we're also worried about our ability to conduct c.t. operations and the likelihood of either al-qaida or isis-k trying to establish a new territorial hold inside afghanistan where we are not there to keep them outside the country any longer. and we're also worried about what this means for u.s. influence in the region writ large. we're watching saudi arabia sign a partnership with russia on defense issues while this is

happening this week. we're watching china, iran and russia conduct planning for a maritime exercise, which will be meant as a signal that they provide a better partnership than the u.s. and nato can, for instance. so, there are quite a few implications on several different levels. >> sreenivasan: what are the consequences of this withdrawal, this deadline by the middle of this week? if the president says that he's going to withdraw his diplomatic corps essentially, what happens to any americans that are still there? >> but the diplomatic effort will be with the taliban about establishing a way for u.s. folks to continue to leave that will probably be using commercial and chartered flights. it will no longer be through military operations on the ground. it will no longer be through marines with feet on the ground. we're seeing macron present a proposal for a humanitarian zone around the airport to keep the airport open. and you can expect the u.s. administration to ask the taliban to include operations to get americans out within that

safe zone. so, the taliban should probably agree to this. it's in their interest to keep that airport open to keep aid coming in, to keep trade flowing. but they're not likely to support the idea of afghans departing if they're not american citizens. so, it will take quite a bit of diplomacy and leverage tget them to agree to something larger that's not only american citizens. there's a proposal here in the u.s. that's being discussed about establishing a humanitarian corridor to the airport that would allow for people to safely travel without taliban checkpoints and without creating crowds at the gates that are targets for isis-k, for instance. but again, the taliban does not want to see afghans who are non- american citizens leaving. they claim it is a brain drain. i think it is probably reducing their targets for kidnap for ransom, but they do make an argument that they need the smartest and brightest of afghans to stay in the country to help them rebuild it. >> sreenivasan: withhese suicide attacks, are we seeing the beginnings of a power struggle inside afghanistan now?

>> we are seeing a power struggle, you absolutely nailed it. isis-k does not want the taliban to take over control of the country because the taliban has made an agreement with the u.s. that they will not allow afghanistan to be a safe haven for isis specifically or for al- qaida or affiliates. well, if you're isis, that's untenable. they've got to chaenge the taliban's authority there. no better way to do it than to make it look like the taliban does not have control of security of the country. so, you have that dynamic. the other power dynamic you have is with the haqqani network. they are currently in control of security of kabul, and they have this loose affiliation of sorts with the taliban as far as the taliban likes to say publicly, but really they're very linked. but because they are not the same organization, haqqani network can carry out operations that the taliban can claim plausible deniability of. so, this means you could have haqqani network conducting murder operations around the city. they have a history that goes back even before 2008 of suicide bombings. theylso love to conduct kidnappings for ransom. so, i expect we will see people that they consider high value

moneymakers, people that they consider very valuable to multinational n.g.o.s being kidnapped and held for ransom as a way to make money for the taliban haqqani network going forward, since they are going to be cut off from official international flows of funding. >> sreenivasan: kirsten fontenrose, director of the scowcroft middle east security initiative at the atlantic council. thanks so much for joining us. >> happy to be here. thank you. >> sreenivasan: poland's right-wing populist leader came to power last year decrying what he called l.g.b.t. ideology. he said it was spreading throughout his country at the expense of traditional family values. poland is member of the european union, and dozens of its municipalities have enacted "l.g.b.t. ideology-free" zones, making members of the gay community fear for their safety and their lives. newshour weekend special

correspondent simon ostrovsky reports, with support from the pulitzer center, for our ongoing series "exploring hate: anti semitism, racism and extremism." >> reporter: welcome to pulawy. this working-class polish town about 85 miles south of warsaw is among some 50 municipalities in the country that have officially declared their opposition to l.g.b.t.s. we're meeting david socha, a 20-year-old activist who lives here, to find out what it's like to be gay in a city whose leadership has publicly come out against his community. >> they enacted a statement about "stopping the ideology pushed forward by the l.g.b.t. subculture." so, they are basically calling l.g.b.t. people a subculture, and that this subculture has an ideology. >> reporter: the declaration is part of a broader push by the ruling right-wing populist law and justice party to pull poles toward so-called traditional values, and erode democratic norms in the process. the hallmark of the campaign has

been the assertion that l.g.b.t. people don't actually exist. according to law and justice, it's simply an ideology. in practical terms, for socha, this has meant avoiding certain parts of town where he's afraid of getting jumped by skinheads and soccer fans that he believes have been emboldened by the city's-- and increasingly, the country's-- stance on the l.g.b.t. community. >> they can say that they are against discrimination, that they don't discriminate against people, but the reality is, they opened the gate for all the kind of hate. so it made me much more cautious when i walk around the city because there have been incidents where my home was targeted. >> reporter: socha's street was plastered with anti-l.g.b.t. flyers and stickers, and he's even been chased. he fears it's only a matter of time before the attacks turn violent. ( protests ) in other parts of poland, they already have, like this pride parade in the city of

bialystok in 2019. bart staszewski filmed the moment soccer hooligans pelted attendees with large paving stones on his gopro camera. he's also an activist fighting for l.g.b.t. equality in poland. >> if we look on the map of poland, it's one-third of poland which created discriminatory acts against the people. >> reporter: when multiple communities across the country started enacting the anit- l.g.b.t. declarations in 2019, he hit on a creative way to draw attention to the phenomenon. >> i came into the idea to create this photo project, to came to each of those places, make a photo of it, and invite l.g.b.t. people who are actual living there to join me and to pose to the photo and to share their story. >> reporter: staszewski created a realistic-looking road sign that he hung up at the city limits to mock the towns as l.g.b.t.-free zones. it was an instant viral internet hit in poland, and soon drew

the ire of the country's ruling party. >> suddenly became the-- the national enemy by the prime minister, who was accusing me of lies, anti-polish lies. >> reporter: poland's slide towards authoritarianism hasn't been without pushback. other countries in the european union have noticed the changing attitudes about women's rights, the independence of the courts, and the protection of the l.g.b.t. community's rights. here in pulawy, for example, where an anti-l.g.b.t. resolution was passed, two cities in europe, which were twinned with pulawy, ended their partnership with the municipality in protest. six other european cities cancelled twinning applications with polish municipalities that have enacted the declarations. and it's not just symbolic. some e.u. funding was also suspded. although they don't carry the force of law, these texts aren't for the faint of heart. pulawy's declaration is titled

"on halting the ideology pushed by the l.g.b.t. subculture." it effectively equates homosexuality with pedophilia, declaring that the city administration is committed to "doing everything to stop perverts who are interested in the early sexualization of polish children and adolescents." this divisive style of politics has pitted poles against one another in a way not seen since the collapse of communism in this country. according to poland's outgoing human rights ombudsman, adam bodnar, it's all part of a broader effort by the government to erode the country's hard-won democratic norms. the ruling party has done everything to weaken the parliament and the courts, while at the same time, raising the profile of divisive political issues that rally its base. >> so i remember well that in 2016, like, that hot topic was the question of refugees and the migration crisis in europe. and at that time, polish government was presenting this as a huge threat to polish

identity, christianity, conservative values. later on, it appeared that the useful political coin is protection of l.g.b.t. rights. so sometimes we see that the government is trying to make something like a culture war in the society just by raising the profile of the issue, and by presenting some arguments against l.g.b.t. persons. >> reporter: this tactic regularly sparks outcry among supporters of the l.g.b.t. community, who most recently protested outside the education ministry after poland's education minister criticized one of poland's many pride parades that took place this summer as a "fetish." ( protests ) >> ( translated ): every pole can see exactly what is happening in these streets and know what equality is, what tolerance is, but what happened there has nothing to do with equality or tolerance. this is a fetish and a distortion of equality and tolerance. >> reporter: aleksandra iwanowska is an 18-year old

high school student who participated in the protest outside the minister's office. >> he basically follows the line introduced in the 2020 presidential elections, that l.g.b.t.+ community is not a community, it's an ideology. and i've had, actually, my friends being called out, even physically abused on the streets because they wore something rainbow. i'm just angry at the fact that it takes guts in pold to hold your girlfriend or your boyfriend by a hand in public. >> reporter: poland's deputy foreign minister, pawe£ jab£oñski, defended his government's stance in an interview with newshour weekend. the law and justice party leadership have repeatedly declared that members of the l.g.b.t. community aren't people, and that l.g.b.t. is simply an ideology, essentially suggesting that there's no such

a thing as gay people. >> nobody said such thing, that members of l.g.b.t. community or any other community are not people. they were saying that l.g.b.t. ideology is something entirely diffent from particular people because there is a political movement behind it. l.g.b.t. movement intends to change the definition of marriage, for example. this is a political agenda. one can agree with that, or one can disagree with that. and i don't see any problem with declaring that this is simply an ideology which we do not agree with, because it's inconsisten >> reporter: why don't you declare that heterosexuality is an ideology? >> because this ideology is inconsistent with our constitution. we very often hear how important is the rule of law, how important is to observe the rights that are prescribed in our constitution. and our constitution is very clear about this, that marriage is a union of women and men. >> reporter: jablonski's claim that law and justice never say l.g.b.t.s are not people is

easily disproved. here's polish president andrzej duda speaking at a rally of supporters during his latest election campaign last year, in which he accused the l.g.b.t. rights movement of promoting a viewpoint more harmful than communism. >> ( translated ): they are trying to tell us that they're people, but this is just an ideology. >> reporter: poland's human rights ombudsman argues that the government's stance on l.g.b.t.s threatens not just democracy in poland, but the unity of the e.u. as a whole. if poland doesn't have to protect its minority groups, why should other member states have to uphold democratic norms? >> and at the end of the day, you do not have a europe of values based on rule of law, on l.g.b.t. rights, on protection of different minorities, on democratic values. but you have a-- like, a loose confederation of states that are not following the same values on which the european union is built. so that is why i claim that it is existential threat r the

european union. >> sreenivasan: finally tonight, the actor ed asner has died. asner was best known for his role as lou grant, the t-v newsroom boss on "the mary tyler moore show" in the 1970s. >> you know what? you've got spunk. ( laughter ) >> well-- >> i hate spunk! >> sreenivasan: he won three emmys for that role and two more when his character became the lead in a spin-off series call“" lou grant.” asner had more than 300 acting credits. he was santa claus in the 2003 hit film “elf” and he was the voice of the elderly hero in the hit 2009 film, “up.” ed asner was 91 years old. we have more about ed asner's career and life online, and newshour will have continuing coverage of hurricane ida and the withdrawal of u.s. forces from afghanistan in the week ahead.

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 wachenheim iii. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the anderson family fund. the sylvia a. and simon b. poyta programming endowment to fight antisemitism. 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 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. you're watching pbs. to make healthy li

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