(NOTE LANGUAGE) While Will Smith‘s slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars is still echoing throughout the Fresh Prince star’s career, some fans are turning the tide in his favor, thanks to a joke Rock recently made at the expense of Nicole Brown Simpson.
As reported, Rock recently told a comedy show crowd that he was asked to host the upcoming Academy Awards again, but he turned it down, comparing it to asking “Nicole Brown Simpson to go back to the restaurant.”
A forgotten pair of Brown’s sunglasses led waiter Ron Goldman to bring them to the Brentwood, California home of O.J. Simpson‘s ex-wife — and the grisly 1994 murder of both of them.
Some took to Twitter to do a little smacking of their own of the comic. “#WillSmith should’ve slapped #ChrisRock even harder for the s*** he is spewing,” one Twitter user commented.
“Another woman serving as foils for #ChrisRock’s ‘jokes.’ Dear #WillSmith, all is forgiven,” opined another.
One tweeted a photo of Will slapping Rock with the caption, “This mf is tasteless classless and CORNY ASF and always has been #slap #ChrisRock #again.”
Another Twitter user offered, “Let’s get people to take turns slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars every year.”
Another fumed, “Can the academy suspend Chris Rock over his Nicole Brown Simpson remark?… I think I understand where Will Smith was coming from better.”
Smith was banned from all Motion Picture Academy events for 10 years because of the incident, for which he’s repeatedly apologized.
Despite sexual misconduct allegations against frontman Win Butler, Arcade Fire‘s tour continued Tuesday in Dublin, Ireland.
The show, which marked the “Wake Up” outfit’s first since Pitchfork first reported the allegations on Saturday, was opened by Feist. While Feist has not publicly commented on the situation, photos posted to social media by attendees of Tuesday concert show signs displayed on the “1234” artist’s merch booth saying that sales would be donated to Women’s Aid Dublin, which was confirmed by Billboard.
The allegations against Butler, which came from four people interviewed by Pitchfork, range from sending unwanted sexually explicit photos and demanding such photos and videos from women aged 18 to 23 when he was between 36 and 39 to sexual assault.
In a statement to Pitchfork, Butler acknowledged having relationships with all four accusers, which took place during his marriage to longtime partner and Arcade Fire bandmate Régine Chassagne, but describes each encounter as “mutual and always between consenting adults.”
“I have never touched a woman against her will, and any implication that I have is simply false,” he said.
Arcade Fire’s tour is scheduled to continue Wednesday with another show in Dublin. The outing is set to come to the U.S. in October, with opener Beck.
If you are affected by abuse and needing support, or know someone who is, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). You can also chat online at thehotline.org or online.rainn.org, respectively.
(NEW YORK) — New and updated COVID-19 booster shots were given an emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday morning, paving the way for shots in arms as soon as next week.
The booster shots were updated to target two different COVID strains in one shot — the current omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, which make up 99% of new cases in the U.S., and the original strain of COVID-19.
This is the first time current COVID-19 vaccines have had a major upgrade. In the future, experts expect the vaccines could be updated periodically to match current strains — akin to the way the flu shot is slightly different each year.
Public health officials directed the vaccine companies to create a bivalent vaccine — a vaccine that targets two different strains — in the hopes that the compilation will provide broader protection against COVID this fall and winter, as infections could rise with flu season, the cold weather and more time indoors.
Before the shots are able to be administered to the public, an independent panel of experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet on Thursday to review the data on the booster shots.
If the panel votes in favor of recommending the shots, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky could give the final sign-off within days and shots could be administered after the holiday weekend.
The U.S. government has purchased about 171 million shots, between contracts with Pfizer and Moderna.
Pfizer’s updated vaccine is authorized for people 12 and older, while Moderna’s shot is for people 18 and older. A review of the new boosters for children under 12 is expected soon.
“The COVID-19 vaccines, including boosters, continue to save countless lives and prevent the most serious outcomes (hospitalization and death) of COVID-19,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said in a press release on Wednesday morning.
“As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” he said.
Unlike the original vaccines and boosters, these new shots will not go through a lengthy clinical trial process where thousands of Americans are dosed with the vaccines to test their safety and long-term effectiveness. However, federal health officials stress that these new shots will still be just as safe as the original vaccines because the underlying vaccine platform, mRNA, is the same, and has been through many varying clinical trials.
“We have worked closely with the vaccine manufacturers to ensure the development of these updated boosters was done safely and efficiently. The FDA has extensive experience with strain changes for annual influenza vaccines. We are confident in the evidence supporting these authorizations,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement.
“The public can be assured that a great deal of care has been taken by the FDA to ensure that these bivalent COVID-19 vaccines meet our rigorous safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality standards for emergency use authorization,” Marks added.
Part of that review was an evaluation of a clinical study of a different updated booster shot that vaccine companies had made during an earlier omicron wave. The clinical trial of that booster shot, which targeted the BA.1 variant and the original strain of COVID, was considered relevant enough to the bivalent vaccines targeting the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages that the FDA found it to be enough to authorize.
Health experts say that the decision not to use time-consuming clinical trials for each new shot is also a strategic move, in an effort to keep vaccines up to date with the rapidly evolving variants — a process that will likely mimic how the flu vaccine is altered each year.
It’s unclear what the demand for new booster shots will be. Across the country, more than half of those eligible to be boosted have yet to do so, according to data from the CDC.
Although the immunity provided by COVID-19 vaccines continues to wane with time, data published by the CDC shows that COVID-19 booster doses are still offering protection against severe forms of disease and death, particularly among older Americans.
Among people ages 50 years and older, the unvaccinated had a risk of dying from COVID-19 that was 14 times higher than their fully vaccinated and double-boosted peers.
Ellie Goulding said she suffered with imposter syndrome when she was entering the music business, especially when she was told her voice was too unusual to be a lead singer.
Speaking with Bustle, Ellie, who celebrates her third wedding anniversary today, opened up about an interaction she had at the start of her career that rocked her confidence.
“I’ve always remembered this guy telling me I should stick to playing guitar because I’m really good at guitar, that my voice was really quite unusual and not to everyone’s taste,” she recalled. “It made me really, really insecure.”
Ellie added she wasn’t very sure of herself back then and didn’t have it in her to tell the guy off, admitting, “I was really affected by what other people thought of me.” She added, “I had impostor syndrome; I didn’t think I deserved any success… I was so apologetic.”
Thankfully, she came into her own and has this advice to those who grapple with the same insecurities: “When you begin to shave off other people’s opinion of you rather than your opinion of yourself, your life becomes a lot clearer.”
And, if presented with the opportunity to speak to her younger, more insecure self, Ellie would tell her, “Please just believe in what you’re doing. Keep moving forward and stop waiting for other people’s validation in what you do and who you are as an artist and performer.”
Ellie knows it’s unlikely she will ever time travel, so she focuses now on improving her confidence and embracing who she is.
What’s helping her out is a resurgence of her 2010 hit “Lights,” which has blown up on TikTok. Ellie says she’s “thrilled” more people are discovering her music.
(NEW YORK) — U.S. labor unions enjoy their highest level of approval in almost 60 years, as high-profile worker victories at Amazon and Starbucks have galvanized public support. However, union membership — the lifeblood of the labor movement — has fallen to a historic low.
The decline of labor power stems in part from federal labor law, since employers retain wide latitude to obstruct union campaigns, labor experts told ABC News. Businesses, in turn, often push down wages and weaken labor conditions in pursuit of a competitive advantage, exploiting the lack of worker representation at their firms, the experts said.
But a first-of-its-kind state bill that cleared the California legislature on Monday could circumvent those challenges and transform the future of worker bargaining, the analysts said.
If signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, the law would allow hundreds of thousands of fast food workers to bargain collectively over the terms of their work at large companies across the sector, rather than be forced to form a union at a single workplace and negotiate with one employer at a time. Using a newly created state-level council, California could raise pay and improve working conditions for the industry.
“It’s really significant because it’s giving fast food workers a seat at the table on a sector-wide basis,” Sharon Block, the executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard University Law School, told ABC News.
“Once this is up and running, fast food companies can’t compete against each other based on who can drive down labor costs as much as possible to make themselves more profitable,” she added.
The bill made it through the California Senate by a margin of 21 to 12 on Monday, after the state assembly passed a version of the measure in January. It remains unclear whether Newsom will sign it into law.
The measure would create a 10-person council made up of industry and worker representatives, as well as two state officials, that could set standards across the sector on issues of health and safety, and impose an industry-wide minimum wage.
Angelica Hernandez, a crew manager at a Los Angeles-based McDonald’s, said she welcomes the potential to influence conditions at the company.
“They make us do the work of two to three people, and yet our salary is barely just enough for one person,” she told ABC News.
When Angelica began working at McDonald’s 17 years ago, she made around $7.50 or $8.50 per hour, she said. Now, she makes $17.75 per hour but still struggles to pay for what she needs, she said.
“Now, we’ll have a say to better represent what workers need across the industry,” she said.
McDonald’s did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
The bill does have limitations. It puts a ceiling on a potential minimum wage for fast food workers at $22 next year. At that time, the statewide minimum wage will reach $15.50. Cost-of-living adjustments in the industry-wide minimum wage are required by the bill but would not go into effect until 2024.
Moreover, decisions made by the sector-wide council would only apply to large companies with 100 or more locations nationwide.
The bill marks a dramatic advance for the labor movement in its effort to organize workers, like those in fast food, who’ve struggled to improve conditions in their industries, said Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, one of the nation’s largest unions and a major backer of the bill.
“We think this model is a gigantic step forward for workers who’ve been excluded since the beginning of time in our country,” Henry told ABC News.
SEIU supports efforts to spread the model to other states, including worker-friendly state houses in New York and Illinois, she said. Ultimately, she added, the union aims to enshrine the model into federal law.
“Over labor history, law has always followed the militant action of workers who are fearless and determined in making new models happen,” she said.
Some industry representatives have opposed the bill. Michelle Korsmo, president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association, a trade group, warned that it will lead to increased costs for the fast food sector, which will place a significant burden on small businesses.
“It’s rare that a state legislature passes a bill that would hurt small businesses, their employees, and their customers,” Korsmo said in a statement, adding that this bill “does just that.”
“This comes at a time when inflation is at record highs and families are struggling every month,” she said.
Some precedent exists for the bill — both domestically and abroad. Workers routinely negotiate on a sector-wide basis in some European countries, including, for instance, fast food workers in Denmark.
A similar model raised wages for fast food workers in New York, where a statewide labor board in 2015 set the minimum wage for the industry at $15 per hour. It marked one of the first major victories for the Fight for $15, a labor movement that aimed to raise wages and unionize the fast food sector.
New York’s wage board — a statute that allows a governor to call a commission to investigate and raise pay for a given sector — went into effect during the New Deal era.
“Folks discovered this thing still existed, dusted it off, and tried it,” Shaun Richman, a labor scholar at State University of New York’s Empire College, told ABC News. “It made SEIU true believers of this process.”
Now, California is on the verge of implementing a law that would allow fast food workers to negotiate for pay and better conditions on an ongoing basis.
“It’s replicable,” Richman said. “There’s a tremendous amount of potential to increase union power.”
No, it’s not “a Bourbon Street steak with an Oreo shake”: Walker Hayes says that now that he’s got a lifetime Gold Card from Applebee’s, he tries to stay healthy in his menu selections.
“I’ve been trying to stay on the lighter side lately, because we eat so much of it,” the singer admits in an interview with Southern Living’s Biscuits & Jam podcast.
“Lately I’ve been doing the Southwest bowls,” he continues. “And the quesadilla burger is really, really good. But the spinach dip, man — I never go without getting the spinach dip.”
Of course, Walker’s Applebee’s association comes from “Fancy Like,” the megahit song that celebrates a night out at the chain restaurant with his family. But the singer says his relationship with Applebee’s dates all the way back to his teen years, when he and his wife, Laney, were just high school sweethearts.
“It’s crazy to think I used to steal my dad’s credit card and take Laney there when we were in 11th grade,” Walker recounts. “Who would’ve thought two kids sitting there eating a Bourbon Street steak, going, ‘One day you’re gonna write a song that basically just blows Applebee’s up?’”
It’s only been a month since Jordan Peele‘s Nope hit theaters and he’s already hinting at a potential sequel.
While Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer star in the sci-fi horror film, it’s a character portrayed by Michael Busch and billed as “Nobody” on IMDB that has fans buzzing with theories, in part becuase the character appears in the trailer but not the actual film.
When asked about the character during a recent interview withThe New York Times, Peele acknowledged the speculation.
“People are doing a lot of interesting detective work, is what’s going on… The story of that character has yet to be told, I can tell you that,” Peele shared. “Which is another frustrating way of saying, I’m glad people are paying attention. I do think they will get more answers on some of these things in the future. We’re not over telling all of these stories.”
Charlbi Dean, the 32-year-old South African actress who starred in CW’s series Black Lightning and this year’s Cannes Film Festival winner Triangle of Sadness, has died. Variety reports her death resulted from “an unexpected illness.” Triangle of Sadness was Dean’s first lead role; she and The King’s Man star Harris Dickinson played a celebrity couple who take a cruise on a mysterious yacht, only to find it’s not the luxury trip they thought it was…
Nicolas Cage is gearing up to star in an upcoming comedy titled Dream Scenario, Deadline reports. The only details known at the moment are that it is a comedy and it’s being produced and financed by A24, with Kristoffer Borgli directing. Most recentlym Cage appeared in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which also starred Pedro Pascal and Tiffany Haddish. Next on the docket for Cage is the Western thriller Butcher’s Crossing and an action comedy titled Renfield…
The cause of death for Elvis star Shonka Dukureh has been revealed as “hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease,” according to the coroner’s report obtained by Us Weekly. The death was determined to be “natural.” Dukureh, 44, was found dead in her Nashville, Tennessee home on July 21. Per the outlet, she was “discovered unresponsive in bed by her minor son … [who] ran to the neighbors for help, who then called 911…”
Richard Roat, who made appearances in shows like Seinfeld, Friends, Cheers, Murphy Brown, Dallas, Hawaii Five-O and Happy Days, has died. He was 89. According to Deadline, Roat’s family said he died on August 5 in Orange County, California. Roat has also made appearances in popular sitcoms like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, 7th Heaven, Matlock, and more…
(LONDON) — Twenty-five years after her death, the legacy of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, endures across the world.
Diana died in a car crash on Aug. 31, 1997, at the age of 36, while fleeing the paparazzi in Paris. Her death prompted worldwide mourning and messages of condolences from leaders across the globe.
On Wednesday, Diana’s sons Prince William and Prince Harry will mark the 25th anniversary of their mother’s death privately with their families, sources close to both princes confirm to ABC News.
Harry spoke recently about the anniversary at a charity event in Aspen, Colorado.
“I want it to be a day filled with memories of her incredible work and love for the way she did it,” he said. “I want it to be a day to share the spirit of my mum with my family, with my children, who I wish could have met her. Every day, I hope to do her proud.”
Diana’s legacy, including her charity and advocacy work, lives on both in books and popular media as well as in the minds of those who remember her.
“She was an incredible lady who changed the world for the better,” ABC News royal contributor Robert Jobson said while reflecting on Diana’s legacy with Good Morning America.
The people’s princess
Unlike royals before her, many felt that Diana had a unique way of connecting with those around her. In the years before her tragic death, she touched countless lives and helped give a voice to the voiceless.
Whether it was visiting hospices and schools, meeting with those who were dying or comforting victims of active land mines, Diana prioritized those who were in need, making them feel seen and heard.
“I make the trips at least three times a week, and spend up to four hours at a time with patients holding their hands and talking to them,” Diana once said about her work with the Royal Brompton Hospital, London, according to the charity organization The Diana Award. “Some of them will live and some of them will die, but they all need to be loved while they are here. I try to be there for them.”
Diana’s commitment to caring for others manifested itself early on, when she was a young girl attending West Heath Girls’ School in Sevenoaks, Kent. According to the royal family’s official website, Diana was given her school’s award for the “girl giving maximum help to the school and her schoolfellows.”
While being involved with philanthropic causes has always been part of the royal family’s duties, Diana took things a step further, traveling the world to refugee camps and soup kitchens and making sure she was present wherever there was great need.
One particularly memorable moment came in 1987, when Diana famously challenged the stigma surrounding AIDS by shaking hands with a terminally ill AIDS patient during a visit to London’s Middlesex Hospital. The interaction was brief but proved to the public that HIV/Aids was not passed from person to person through touch, a common misconception at the time.
Diana’s humanitarian efforts and empathy prompted former Prime Minister Tony Blair to describe her as “The People’s Princess” while paying tribute to her following the news of her death.
“She was a wonderful and a warm human being, although her own life was often sadly touched by tragedy,” Blair said at the time. “She touched the lives of so many others in Britain and throughout the world with joy and with comfort. How many times shall we remember her in how many different ways — with the sick, the dying, with children, with the needy? With just a look or a gesture that spoke so much more than words, she would reveal to all of us the depth of her compassion and her humanity.”
Mom, Diana’s most important role
In addition to her humanitarian efforts, Diana saw her most important role as being a mother.
She made it a priority to give both William and Harry as much of a normal life as possible. Many believed she broke the mold of royal motherhood in the process.
From visiting Disney World, to going to the movies, to sending William and Harry to school outside palace walls instead of to a governess, Diana set her own course and rebelled against the parenting precedents which she felt did not suit her or her sons.
In one famous instance, Diana insisted on bringing 9-month-old William with her on an official visit to Australia, instead of leaving him with nannies while she toured the Commonwealth.
“She was very informal and really enjoyed the laughter and the fun,” William said in the 2017 documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy. “But she understood that there was a real life outside of palace walls.”
Some may recall a video of Diana in 1991, taking part in a foot race during a field day at Wetherby School, a boys school in London that both William and Harry attended. In it, Diana is seen giving her all in the race with other parents, her blazer and skirt blowing around in the wind.
William and Harry’s upbringing greatly influenced the way they raise their own children.
William and his wife Kate, the duchess of Cambridge, enrolled their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis in school at an early age. It was announced recently that all three will attend a new school together, after the family moves to Windsor.
The royal couple also allow their kids to be kids, despite the rules set forth by the royal family, which have historically been quite strict.
In June, Charlotte and George were all smiles as they celebrated their great grandmother Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, which marked her 70th year on the throne. Louis also stole the show during the traditional Trooping the Color ceremony, making silly faces and covering his ears during the military flyover, much to the public’s delight.
Harry and his wife Meghan, the duchess of Sussex, have also modeled their parenting style after that of Diana, choosing to raise their two children Archie and Lilibet in California, after stepping away from their roles as senior working royals in 2020.
“The highlight for me is sticking him on the back of the bicycle in his little baby seat and taking him on these bike rides, something which I never was able to do when I was young,” Harry told Oprah in an interview last year about raising Archie in California.
The family have also gravitated toward more low-key get-togethers when possible. Photos from Lilibet’s first birthday party, which was held at at Frogmore Cottage, the Sussexes’ home in the U.K., during the Jubilee weekend in June, showed a pared down celebration, with a representative for the family describing it as a casual, backyard picnic attended by close friends and family. The children enjoyed face paint and and cake, according to U.K.-based photographer Misan Harriman, who attended the gathering.
Continuing Diana’s legacy
In addition to giving William and Harry a normal life, Diana also made sure to introduce them to those who were going through difficult times in hospitals and homeless shelters.
“I want my boys to have an understanding of people’s emotions, their insecurities, people’s distress and their hopes and dreams,” Diana once said.
Diana’s legacy lives on in her sons who have followed closely in her footsteps, shining a spotlight on the issues that mattered most to her, including homelessness, HIV/AIDS and helping children and young people. They are also patrons of Diana’s many former charities.
Both William and Harry have made issues of mental health a special priority. In 2017, William campaigned for mental health awareness and told British GQ how it had taken him 20 years to process his mother’s death.
“I am in a better place about it than I have been for a long time, where I can talk about her more openly, talk about her more honestly and I can remember her better and publicly talk about her better,” he said at the time.
Harry, who last year became the chief impact officer for BetterUp, a Silicon Valley startup focused on coaching and mental health, has sought to downplay the stigma surrounding the issue, opening up about his own mental health struggles and how therapy has helped him.
Together, William and Harry are continuing their mother’s work by awarding young people around the world with the Diana Award, an annual honor bestowed on those working to change society for the better.
“My mother instilled in me and in all of us a drive to speak up and fight for a better world,” Harry said in a video last month honoring the 180 2022 Diana Award recipients. “Now as a husband and a parent, my mother’s voice is even stronger in my life. All of you have kept her voice alive by showing the world how each small action counts, how kindness is still valued, and how our world can be better if we choose to make it so.”
(NEW YORK) — When he was away in the U.K. studying international development and economics, Khalis Noori always envisioned returning home to Afghanistan and using his education to better his country.
But as he was setting up his new office in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Finance, Taliban fighters were encircling Kabul. Before he could put his degrees to work, he was forced to burn them along with his laptop and photographs from his wedding — a desperate bid to destroy any material he feared could be used to brand him as a traitor.
“We were told not to leave the house,” Noori said of the frantic hours following the Taliban’s takeover and the American military’s hasty withdrawal. “We were so worried that I didn’t sleep for two nights.”
Still, Noori says he was one of the lucky ones. A friend from his time working as a cultural adviser for the U.S. armed forces was soon able to secure safe passage out of Afghanistan for him and his wife.
After a chaotic evacuation through Kabul’s airport, they journeyed on to Qatar, then Germany, and then a military base in central Virginia before landing in the Washington area where for most of the past year, they’ve been attempting to build a new home in place that bears little resemblance to the one they had to leave.
Many are still waiting for that evacuation.
Despite the Biden administration promising to prioritize their protection, thousands of Afghans vulnerable to retribution from the Taliban for working alongside American troops are caught in a bureaucratic pipeline.
As of last month, State Department officials say nearly 75,000 applicants were still waiting to learn if they would qualify for a special immigrant visa (SIV), meant to be a direct pathway to green card for Afghans who were employed by the U.S. government. More than 10,000 had cleared the onerous vetting process, but had yet to be relocated.
The State Department does not track SIV applicants’ whereabouts and while many have fled to other countries, multiple nongovernmental organizations estimate the majority are still stranded in Afghanistan.
Afghan refugees in the U.S. also face a complicated path forward.
Since the end of last August, 94,000 people who fled Afghanistan have made their way to American soil, according to the Department of Homeland Security. For the vast majority, it’s only a temporary haven. Admitted on a two-year humanitarian parole and provided with relocation services for a period of between 30 and 90 days, these newcomers are tasked with the expensive and daunting task of applying for permanent status while rebuilding their lives under a cloud of uncertainty.
Noori wasted no time in adjusting. Instead of pursuing international development, he now helps other new arrivals from Afghanistan get on their feet as the director of field operations for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS), which he describes as “challenging, but rewarding.”
While his enthusiasm for his new country and new work is apparent, Noori says he and many of the people he is trying to help are still mourning what they lost.
“I prepared myself — equipped myself — to go back to Afghanistan and be a part of that dream world leaders and the international community promised Afghans — democracy, rule of law, human rights, women’s rights. We were encouraged to stand for those values, and that’s what we did,” he said. “Losing your country, losing your loved ones, losing your career — everything you have worked for all your life. Myself, I see how that has changed me.”
Mohammad Nabi says he saw that dream turn to dust over the duration of a layover in Doha, Qatar. After working for the U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan for 15 years, he had begun to fear that the Taliban’s renewed strength posed a threat to him and his family. He made arrangements to leave Afghanistan with his wife and children, and together they boarded what would be the last commercial flight out of the country as he knew it. (ABC News is not using his real name at his request because he fears family members in Afghanistan could face retribution.)
“I saw on the news what happened in Kabul and it really shocked me because I had my family there — my parents are still there, my brothers and my sisters,” Nabi said.
He called home to say he planned to turn around to be with them, but they convinced him to travel on.
“That flight from Doha to D.C., I think those 13 or 14 hours were the most challenging hours of my life,” he said. “It was a very tough reality to deal with it. Everything that we worked hard for the last 20 years — everything a generation worked really, really hard to establish for themselves–it just vanished overnight.”
As a case manager for LIRS, Nabi says his most difficult work is trying reunite other fractured families, now a world apart.
“There are kids that are separated from their parents. There are wives that left their husbands and children back there. There are parents that left their kids,” he said. “The evacuation separated families so badly.”
“I had so many friends that they stayed back and didn’t get a chance to come that worked with the American government in Afghanistan. Some of them already had their visas, but they never got a chance to travel because everything happened overnight,” Nabi added. “They deserve to be here.”
Rasheed (who also asked that his real name not be used for fear of retribution), who worked as a U.S. Army contractor beginning in 2005, did make it out. But his wife and three children did not.
After receiving threats from the Taliban, Rasheed said he fled, thinking his family would be close behind — and they were. On Aug. 14, 2021, they completed their SIV interviews at the U.S. embassy in Kabul, the final step in the lengthy process. The next day, the embassy shuttered.
Rasheed says he feels powerless. So far, even direct appeals to the State Department have been fruitless.
“They’re telling we are in the process, they’ll get the evacuation. But nothing is happening,” he said.
ABC News reached out to the State Department for comment. A spokesperson declined to comment on Rasheed’s family’s case due to privacy concerns, but said the department’s goal is to “issue visas to every eligible SIV applicant as quickly as possible, while maintaining national security as our highest priority.”
“We cannot estimate how long it will take to process all remaining SIV cases, partly because certain steps of the application process are applicant-controlled, as is certain action even within steps that are government-controlled,” they added.
For Afghans in the U.S. on humanitarian parole, congressional attempts to streamline their path to permanent residency have sputtered. Last Spring, Senate Republicans rejected legislation, citing security concerns. Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a similar bill in both chambers of Congress, but it also faces an uphill climb.
Despite the legal limbo, life for Afghan refugees moves on, conforming to the unfamiliar rhythms of American society. As the new school year begins, Zakia Safi, another LIRS case manager, is primarily focused on helping Afghan children adapt to the classroom.
She says they learn quickly, taking to English and their new studies quickly, and that the high schoolers especially enjoy the camaraderie that comes from sharing a classroom.
“But it’s never going to be the same if your mom or sister isn’t here,” she adds.
Safi tries to fill the gaps, even accompanying pregnant mothers to the hospital so they don’t have to go through delivery alone.
“I’ve cut a couple of umbilical cords,” she laughs.
Beyond those newborns, Safi says she has seen other fresh starts that fill her with pride in the past year: refugees starting businesses, earning promotions and enrolling in college.
But many, wistful for the land they were forced to leave behind, say Afghanistan will always be home.
“If I ever get a chance to have my previous life back, I would love to take it,” said Nabi.
