Life well planned. The freeman foundation. By judy and Peter Blum Kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for americas neglected needs. And by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Jane im jin obrien in washington andhis is bbc world news america. The ask activity as activity increases in afghanistan, Security Forces see the u. S. Still plans to leave. Kathy im in atlanta, georgia, where we find out what it takes to run a congressional race in the time of covid. Google is charged with abusing its monopoly in search engines. Welcome to world news america on pbs and around the globe. More than 100 10,000 afghans and 35 hundred Coalition Forces have been killed in americas longest running war. Peace talks with the taliban have stalled, but donald trump has tweeted that troops will be home by christs. With the u. S. President ial election two weeks away, weve been talking to our course our correspondent in afghanistan where u. S. Forces have been embroiled for nearly 20 years. Flying out the heavily fortified quarters, general miller knows the details of every district. Afghans in charge here raise the alarm. Taliban forces are stealthily closing in on the city. Its much the same across the country. A looming u. S. Pullout is on everyones mind. His presence is meant to signal american support. The rhetoric should not be threatenin with everybody should be doing is finding ways to bring this down, but we will be defending the afghan Security Forces. We have shown a great deal of restraint as we try to make this Peace Process work. Going home is on their minds, too. Their commanderinchief declaring they should be home at christmas, but the february deal between the United States and the taliban says the final pullout is next spring. Can you really leave in may with conditions like this . Those are political decisions. We make military recommendations. I will leave that for policy guidance. Its not a question of are they ready. They have to be ready. The commitment i see from them as they understand they are the Security Forces that must secure thafghan people. Afghans ready for the fight. These men just signed up. Thousands of young recruits are put through their paces at couple kabuls biggest training center. The army struggles with desertions. I lived in holland for several years. I came back to my country. My country needs me to fight the enemy. Thealiban are training, to. Slick videos like this are propaganda weapons which can be as powerful as guns on the ground. Both sides are preparing for war now while they talk about peace. The taliban could play smart politics and negotiate in good. In goodwill. It instills fear and threatens. Its a different ballgame once they get. Once they get into more conditional warfare. My personal fear is if we are not able to secure or save afghanistan from civil war. How likely is a civil war right now . Its very likely, but we are doing what we can to make a deal. North of kabul at the largest u. S. Base in bagram, they are ready to go. Day by day, there are more signs that american troops are packing up. This used to be its biggest military base. It is shrinking by the day. But afghans say it is a growing impact in their own lives. Years ago, when u. S. Forces searched, so, too, did live in bagram. Now the life what in this town is draining, too. Jobs are drying up. You can feel the uncertainty on the streets and the fear. 100 , im scared. The taliban are here amongst us. How close are the taliban to where we are standing now . I dont know if its you or me, but they are definitely amongst us. The end draws near for u. S. Engagement which dragged on for nearly 20 years, a moment fraught with risk and resolve. Jane we correspondent joins me from kabul. Some say this is a betrayal of the u. S. Mission. Do afghans see it that way . Its a very, very complicated deal, a very sensitive deal at this very sensitive hour. Every afghan agrees that they have to find a way out of this war. There has to be peace and a negotiated way to end the fighting. There has been criticism here. The Afghan Government played no part in this deal, but the deal did pave the way for historic talks between the United States sorry, between the Afghan Taliban and an Afghan Government delegation. Those talks are now stalled in th gulftate of qatar, and even the most optimistic estimate is those talks will take years. This is a moment where afghans believe they have to take every option possible but they wish they were they wish there were better options. Jane you got this question in your piece about if the afghans were ready. Based on what youve seen, do you think they are . Again, when you are trying to defend your people, defend your country, that means you have to step up on a whole number of fronts. For some years now, the fighting all the fighting has been done by afghan forces, including highly trained special forces. Some of the weaknesses have been when it comes to, for example, the United States fermentable airpower. We have seen time and again that th use of american firepower made the difference in denying the taliban there much sought after prize of taking a provincial capital, but the Senior Security leaders here say they are training on that front, too, training their own pilots. They now have some of their own warplanes, which the taliban did not expect. American warplanes were given to the afghan, to the afghans, but it is part of their own force. The clock is ticking, but they have to be ready when the time comes. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. Georgia has become a mustwatch state. While it hasg been considered a republican strongho, like many other parts of the country, it has become a shifting battleground. A lot of people are wondering and feel free to toss a coin will georgia turn blue . Katty i guess the question will be when will georgia turn blue. Weve been talking about if the polls are wrong and if trump can still win this election, but theres another scenario, and thats a massive repudiation of trumps presidency that sweeps democrats into offices across the country. Not saying its going to happen, but th polls as tight as they are, its a possibility strategists from both sides are talking about. If biden wins georgia, state democrats will embrace the hardfought victory. Its got to happen. If not now, then when . We got to change this country. People are tired. I think the historic nature of this ticket is bringing in a lot of people. And george it is no longer just a black white state. This is an extraordinarily verse state. Im feeling really good. Im feeling really good. Based on the early turnouts of early voting, im feeling really comfortable and confident. One woman trying to help that blue shift a former radio host turned politician running for congress in georgias 11th district. Traditionally a republican district, but its getting more diverse, and she hopes it can be indicative of a new georgia. Is this what campaning looks like in the time of covid . This is how i spend two to four hours at least every weekend, and now that we are getting closer, we will do it during the week,oo. We have an in person event tonight, but its really the first one we have had in months, and its outside, so its only a handful of people. It is further out to the district, a little northwestern here, but im excited for that. Your republican competitor are they doing in person offense . Are republicans being as strict about social distancing . One of our disadvantages is that my opponent is Walking Around without a mask, not taking covid seriously, and putting people at risk. I think hes more doing events the knocking doors, to be fair, but hes at churches, definitely out meeting people, and we are not doing that because we dont want to put peoples ves at risk. This is a tough district. The chances of a democrat taking it are slim. The numbers everybody is using to sort of judge this race do not actually tel the full story of this district. The district is changing pretty dramatically. Cherokee county is now the fastest grong county in metro atlanta, meaning younger, more dense, more diverse, so thats l good for democrats. I guess the big question is is this the year . Democrats have long had the fantasy of georgia becoming democratic, the fantasy of texas coming democratic. Is 20 20 the year that does it for georgia . This is the craziest year any of us can remember, so this is a huge opportunity for us. I think we have the right people in place. Im the first woman to run in 20 years. Honestly, its been a lot of democratic names on ballots. Thereave not been a lot of people who have seriously campaigned and seriously raise money and we are doing all of that. Is the Democratic Party helping you out . Are they paying attention to your race and hoping to flip georgias 11th district . Ty really are not, and i understand theres a lot going on around the state right now with two senate races in a couple of really contentious congressional races, but on the other hand, i think everyone is underestimating this district. Everything we see points to a much closer race in this district then anyone is predicting. Im hoping for a big night on election night, and im hoping the National News and everybody is going to be like, where did this district 11 come from . Katty good luck on election night. Jane there are, by the way, a lot more women running on both sides of the ticket. Republicans in georgia are putting up a fight as well. What is the gop doing to keep this state ready . Im joined by a conservative commentator here in atlanta, georgia. Thank you for joining me. Weve seen a lot of enthusiasm on the democratic side in these weeks of early voting. I guess on election day itself is when republicans will turn out in forc are they going to catch up . I dont kw if we have to catch up. There has also been a lot of republicans who turned out the vote in the early voting week. Early voting has traditionally been part of our normal y of voting for a number of weeks. We had democrats urging voters to either vote by mail or vote absentee. I know some people got a Voicemail Message from the Democratic Party saying to stay home and stay safe. Maybe that was coming to republicans. We have been encouraging voters to go in person for a number of weeks, so im excited to see what the results of that is. Jane it may be too early. 2020 may not be the year georgia flips from red to blue, but do you think it is heading that way down the line . Thats an interesting question. I think theres always a path to flipping any state. I think it rests upon ideological differences. I feel as voters become more relaxed in their principles and morals, they seem to lean more toward the liberal side of things, we will see a state begin to turn blue, but at the same time, we have to keep in mind that the state was traditionally blue. It was one republican governor who came after having had a republican governor for a long time in the past, we had democratic leadership, and then we had a republican governor in sonny perdue, and then another republican governor who used to be a democrat. I dont know if it is about political leanings as much as ideological changes that may be happening, and then we have a president who has really stepped up and kind of shook things up a bit. The last democratic president to when was bill clinton back in 1992. If the Republican Party is going to be successful in georgia with Younger Voters moving in, more voters of color moving in, more educed voters moving in, its going to have to do a better job, isnt it, including those people in its tent . Im a young voter, i am a minority, and i am that and they have included me. I think we have done a good job engaging voters. I think we are going to start having more of those tough discussions. Traditionally, i feel like republicans have turned to cheat, and i think those days are long gone now. We are fighting back and able to accurately defend our side of things. The more we have tough discussions mike company my company, my town hall in georgia, we do town halls, so the more we have those discussions, the more we bring people in. Jane thank you very much for joining us. Going to be such an interesting night. Im going to be watching georgia to see if it is that icing on the cake. Jane i want to pick up on that early voting. 1. 7 Million People have already cast ballots. How is that complicated the race how is that complicating the race . They can start the process of sorting those ballots, which hopefully means when we get to election day on november 3, georgia is in a better position to release results fro those early ballots than some states that do not start processing do not start processing until election day itself. Hopefully when we get to november 3, we will not be wondering when we will get results. Jane fingers crossed. Thank you very much for joining us. Lets have a quick look at some of the other days news. France is to give two top honors to the teacher beheaded by a teenager last week. Samuel paty was called martyr. You are watching bbc world news a nasa spacecraft is landing on an asteroid 200 million miles away. It could give us clues about how earth began. Riot police are being deployed across nigeria as authorities struggled to contain violent protests against police brutality. There have been reports of shooting. Demonstrations began earlier this month against a Notorious Police unit. The government line is that they have already disbanded the group, and there are other issues, namely that the families of victims be compensated. The government has not addressed the key issues. They say the they say they need more time. The Vice President apologized to nigerians saturday evening, telling them steps were being taken to address their issues, but as peoplee contind to come out on the streets, weve seen violence snowball across the country. The governmenhas decided enough is enough. It has set a curfew in some parts of the country. Ja the u. S. Government has filed charges against google, accusing the company of using its market power to monopolize internet searches online advertising. It marks the biggest case brought by u. S. Regulators against a company and follows a hear of investigation. Explain this tme google is free. I use it. Everybody uses it. It works. What are regulators worried out . Yeah, google is free. The lawsuit compared google to some of the oil tycoons in the early 20th century. What happened there was there was a monopoly and all the prices went up, and thats why there was action. In this case, its difficult because google does not charge anything. Google says how can they be anticonsumer of they are offering a service that is free . Thats why i think this will take a long time because its difficult to nail down a company in that kind of way. Google is obviously the big kahuna here. Other Tech Companies are watching closely. How worried should they be . I think Tech Companies should be really worried. A few weeks ago, there was a congressional hearing. Democrats concluded also to things about tech. They said facebook had an unassailable lead in social media, that apple is a gatekeeper. Todays lawsuit was supported b republicans, so what you have here is bipartisan support to act and when you have bipartisan support to ask, that is going to worry a lot of these big Tech Companies. Having said that, google shares have increased since the case was announced. I think most investors think the case will take years to sort out and are not too worried. Jane we probably will not notice anything, either. Thank you for joining me. An American Space probe has touched down on an asteroid the size of the Empire State Building some 200 million miles from earth. The nasalead expedition aims to collect dust and grit from the surface. Researchers believe the rocks still contain a lot of the chemistry that was present when the sun and planets came to be more than 4. 5 billion years ago. And lift off of osiris rex, its sevenyear mission to boldly go to an asteroid and back. The beginning of a 1. 2 biion mile journey. Today, four years after it launched, nasas osiris rex going fo rock or the probe will lower its self onto the asteroid for just a few seconds, enough time for its sampling arm to vacuum up some precious dust and grit. It sounds like extraordinary lengths to go to to grab asteroids and bring them back to grab dirt and bring back to earth. They are basically the Building Blocks of the planet. Basically, this time capsule that will tell us about what was going on in the early solar system and how the sun and planets formed and evolved. Is half a century since the apollo astronauts brought kilos of moon rock books home, and if this sampling mission works, it will give scientists the biggest cash of space rocks since those lunar excursions the biggest chaache of space rocks since the lunar excursions. Osiris rex is set to return with samples in stember 2023. Jane not long to wait then. Before we go, one canadian town in quebec recently held a nailbiter of an election of their own. Voters in asbestos agreed to change their towns name wonderhy. It was once home to the Worlds Largest asbestos months, but since their closure, the town has been hindered by the negative exposure. Close to half of voters turned out for a parking lotbased carveout. Not everyone is happy about the decision, calling some of the suggested names ridiculous. It will now be known as valley of the spring. Thats nice. You can find more on our website and to see what were working on at any time, check us outn narrator funding for this presentation of this program is provided by. Language specialists teaching spanish, french and more. Raymond james. The freeman foundation. By judy and Peter Blum Kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for americas neglected needs. And by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Nat the height of the conflict. Into vietnam he became a single parent of two young children. We moved a lot. We slept in rest areas. We slept in our car. I didnt realize that we were actually homeless. It makes your world really small. If we happened to stay in a motel that happened to have a tv, it was really special. We loved nova. Especi when it would be about space. Would talk for hours about the universe. Watching nova, i felt big, like, my mind was big, my ideas were big. The trajectory of my life changed. I could see a world outside of our poverty and i felt like things were going to get better. Pbs opened up a world i didnt know existed. Judy good evening. Im judy woodruff. On the newshour tonight. No deal in sight. Americans continue to feel the financial pain as congress and the white hoe grapple with the prospect of no covid relief for months. Suing big te, the u. S. Justice department brings an antitrust lawsuit against google, alleging the tech giant abused its standing to stifle competition at the expense of consumers. And the cost of beef. A shift to imported meat in american groceries as a result of the pandemic causes dire repercussions in nicaragua