US completes evacuation of embassy in Afghanistan as flag comes down at diplomatic compound
CNN
The American flag at the US embassy in Kabul has been taken down, marking a final step in the evacuation of the embassy, days earlier than US officials initially projected, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The US scrambled to evacuate embassy staff and top officials from its diplomatic compound in Afghanistan Sunday as Taliban fighters entered the city, Afghan government officials fled the country and gunfire was heard at Kabul airport, multiple sources told CNN. Early Sunday, two sources familiar with the situation told CNN that the plan was to pull all US personnel from the embassy in Kabul over the next 72 hours. Hours later, most US embassy staff had been moved to Kabul airport for flights out of the country.Over and over at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Democratic senators confronted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about controversial comments they said he had made in the past. And over and over, President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services either denied having said those things or said he wasn’t sure he had said them.
Investigators are intensifying their search into what caused the collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter, with recovery crews still working to pull wreckage from the Potomac River and initial concerns already raised about the path of at least one of the aircraft.
The Trump administration is set to expand a purge of career law enforcement officials, with dozens of FBI agents who investigated January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack and Trump-related investigations as well as some supervisors being evaluated for possible removal as soon as the end of Friday, according to people briefed on the matter.