lerks get to wo. >> brangham: barney rubin, robin raphel, thanks very much. >> you're welcome. >> brangham stay with us. coming up the devos agenda. how the secretary of education views for-prit schools. and, a "brief but spectacular" take on the importance of traveling abroad. now, to another story about extreme weatheand its impact. wildfires have plagued northern california and the pacific northwest this year. in california alone, some 6,400e burned nearly 1.5 million acres. most destroy wildlands, but, as special correspondent cat wise reports, some urban areas are increasingly under threat. it's not only from the flames, as researchers are ting understand the risks from all that smoke and ash. >> reporter: last october, this was santa srosa california' coffey park neighborhood. today, nearly a year later, it looks like this. crews of busy construction e rebuilding hundred of homes. nail by nail, communities around the region are rising from te ash-- but the questions about what was in that ash, and in the air above, that could impact resen long after the rebuilding is done. on a recen

ard, ambassador robin raphel had nearly a 40-yearr in the foreign service, including as the assistantsecretary of asate for sout. she's now a senior associate at the center for strategic andte ational studies, and has been active in efforts to promote a political track inan aftan. welcome to you both. thank you very much. let me start with you. we do have some metrics of progress in afghanistan, but are they isolated? >> well, i woulr't say the isolated. i think the most important metric of progress now is thatis afghn's connected to the world. there's social media. there's o internet andn and so forth. as many people indicate, there are a lt of improvements and social indicators, health, education, longevity, litacy, so on and so forth. you have a new generation of young peoplen afghanistan that want to stay and help develop the couny in a more progressive way. but, of course, there' also insecurity as we've seen today, and previously. there's a war economy that's not sustainable. there's corruption. and, of course, much of the progress is confined to kabul and the urban areas. >> br