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- [Rob Lorei] Coming up next, the terror attack in Afghanistan as the US evacuation nears an end.

There will be a runoff in November to see who will be St. Petersburg's next mayor.

More school boards around the state resist the governor and mandate masks, and the latest on what the Rays want in order to stay in the Tampa Bay area.

Political insights next, on Florida This Week.

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

The US suffered the first military deaths in more than a year on Thursday in Afghanistan.

A suicide bomber, reportedly a member of ISIS-K, killed 13 American service members and wounded 14 others near Karzai International Airport.

In addition, more than 79 Afghans were killed in the attack.

Western officials had warned of a major attack, urging people to leave the airport, but that advice went largely unheeded by Afghans, who are desperate to escape the country.

They crowded around the airport in the last few days before the US officially ends its 20-year presence this coming Tuesday.

General Frank McKenzie of Centcom made this announcement about the attack.

- As you know, two suicide bombers, assessed to have been ISIS fighters, detonated in the vicinity of the Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport and in the vicinity of the Baron Hotel, which is immediately adjacent.

The attack on the Abbey Gate was followed by a number of ISIS gunman who opened fire on civilians and military forces.

At this time, we know that 12 US service members have been killed in the attack and 15 more service members have been injured.

- [Rob Lorei] Meantime, here at home, more people in Florida are now catching the Corona virus, being hospitalized or dying of COVID-19 than at any previous point in the pandemic.

A record 901 deaths in Florida were recorded on one day on Thursday.

The situation is so dire that many Florida hospitals are experiencing major oxygen shortages.

The Florida Hospital Association is sounding the alarm saying a survey shows 68 hospitals have less than a 48-hour supply of oxygen left.

Oxygen is stored in liquid form for hospital use.

Liquid oxygen is also used for water purification and Tampa Bay water is suggesting that everyone in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties conserve water so more liquid oxygen is available for the COVID patients who are in hospitals.

More than 17,000 patients are hospitalized statewide with COVID-19.

With COVID cases and deaths rising at an alarming rate in Florida, more school districts, especially the largest ones, are bucking the governor and imposing mask requirements on students, staff, and teachers.

Two new polls out show Floridians are very concerned about the dangers of COVID.

A majority of people in Florida, 60 to 36%, say they support requiring students, teachers, and staff to wear masks in schools.

That's according to a new Quinnipiac University poll of Florida adults.

There are sharp political divides on that question.

As Democrats support school mask requirements 98 to 1%.

Independents support them 63 to 32% and Republicans oppose them 72 to 24%.

A new Political Matrix Listener Group survey also shows DeSantis is trailing either Democrat, Charlie Crist or Nikki Fried in a potential matchup for governor.

Asked to rate DeSantis's handling of the pandemic, nearly 54% of voters have an unfavorable or very unfavorable view of the governor's performance.

Crist, the democratic congressmen and former Republican governor now running for his old job leads 57% to DeSantis's 43%.

DeSantis would do better against agriculture commissioner, Nikki Fried, the other major Democrat running for governor, but he's still losing according to the poll.

She leads with 54% to DeSantis's 46% and most Florida voters don't want governor DeSantis to run for president in 2024 according to the new Quinnipiac University poll.

59% of those surveyed say they want their current governor to sit out the next presidential contest, including 61% of Independents.

Well, this coming Tuesday is the deadline for US troops and their allies to evacuate from Afghanistan.

With the terror attacks this week, and the giant crowds pressing to get on airplanes the chaotic withdrawal has been criticized across the political spectrum.

Dr. Chris Mason is an assistant professor of national security at the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College.

He's trained tens of thousands of military personnel and has written extensively on Afghanistan and Pakistan for a decade and he joins us now.

Dr. Mason, welcome to the program.

- Thank you for having me.

- You wrote in 2015, a book, "The Strategic Lessons Unlearned from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan," and you predicted the collapse of the Afghan army.

This was six years ago.

Were you surprised how quickly the end came in Afghanistan?

- No, I wasn't.

The phenomenon that we saw is known to analysts as the Afghan snowball effect.

Once the flood gates opened, pretty much everything is swept away, you know, in terms of opposition.

So I, in fact, predicted what was going to happen some years ago.

- The deaths this week of US servicemen have been politicized.

What do you make of that?

What's your take on that?

- Well, you know, as a former Navy officer who has lost friends in Afghanistan, I think the politicization of American casualties going on today is despicable.

- Was there a way that this project could have been saved?

I mean, in Vietnam, there was that term hearts and minds, that America never won the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese population.

Was Afghan much different than Vietnam?

Was there a way to save the project?

- I don't think so and I've written that I think that there were strong analogies between the two cases.

I think Afghanistan was always going to end like this.

I think the President was right about that.

And I think generations of American military men and women who served in Afghanistan recognized that the success of Afghan governments were just utterly corrupt, incompetent, and illegitimate.

In both Vietnam and in Afghanistan, there was just no dare there.

In terms of a legitimate government for the people to support and in both cases, the enemy had a better story to sell.

- With this attack by ISIS-K this week, I'm wondering, you know, does the Taliban look towards the US as maybe a better partner?

I mean, the US has already negotiated.

We know General McKenzie has negotiated a bit with the Taliban.

Are they a group to be trusted?

And I guess what I'm getting at is, are the Taliban from 2021 different than the Taliban from 2001?

- Well, yeah, a lot to unpack there.

First of all, I don't think the Taliban can be trusted as far as you can throw them.

And I wouldn't believe anything they say.

I think they're very good at insurgency, but they have no experience at all in counterinsurgency.

And they're going to run into serious problems now with resistance from inside their own country, as well as opposition from ISIS-K, which is even more radical than the Taliban.

- So if ISIS-K is a thorn in the side to the Taliban and the Taliban are not quite as radical as ISIS-K, I'm wondering, does that show some movement?

I mean, a lot of the Taliban leadership spent time in Doha, which is a modern country.

Could they have looked at modern life and say, "We want this?"

- Well, that's a good question.

I think as many Talibans spent time in Guantanamo Bay as spent time in Doha and Guantanamo was a finishing school for jihadists.

You know, if you didn't go in a hardened believer when you got there, you certainly came out that way.

We have to remember that the Taliban is a creation of the Pakistani Intelligence Services.

Pakistan was in fact created by ISI, the Pakistani intelligence arm in 1992.

There's a strong evidence of that.

So their own origin story, I think, is a myth.

And, you know, a lot of what the Taliban does is going to be heavily influenced by the Pakistani government and the Pakistani Intelligence Services.

There's also China to consider.

China has economic interests in Afghanistan, both in terms of putting pipelines and so on through Afghanistan, but also in terms of extracting mineral resources inside the country.

So the Taliban may not need the United States economically.

- Well, Dr. Mason, thanks a lot.

Thanks for spending the time and I hope you'll come back.

There's a whole lot more to find out.

- Any time, glad to do it.

- Well, a judge in Tallahassee has dealt a setback to the governor over the issue of mask mandates, and we'll cover that next.

(upbeat music) Florida hit another record high in numbers of COVID-19 deaths and cases this week as the delta variant continues to surge in the state.

A judge in Leon county ruled on Friday, that governor DeSantis had overstepped his authority by issuing an executive order banning mask mandates.

The judge said that individual rights are limited when they impact the health rights of others.

Dr. Donna Petersen is a professor of public health at USF and Dean of the College of Public Health.

Dr. Petersen, welcome back, nice to see you.

- Rob, it's good to see you, thank you.

- From a public health perspective, the judge in Leon County who ruled that school boards do have a right to issue temporary mask mandates, from a public health perspective, where does that put us?

How does that help us?

- Well, I think the science is pretty clear that masks do help prevent the transmission of the virus most effectively when everyone is wearing them.

So they protect the wearer who is less likely to be exposed to the COVID-19 virus.

People wearing masks are less likely to spread.

So if both parties are masked, then it is less likely that that virus will be able to jump from one person to the other person.

They're not fullproof.

They're not 100% protective, but they certainly are more protective than one person not wearing them or neither person wearing them.

So I think having more people wearing masks, especially when indoors, should help drive down the numbers of cases.

- I want to play some video now.

Two videos, actually.

The first part is from the Lincoln Project.

They have some video of people around the state testifying against mask mandates.

The second video is from Tampa General Hospital.

It shows frontline healthcare workers describing the stress that they're feeling after treating COVID-19 patients.

Let's roll the tape.

- How many vaccines have you had?

Have you been a good little Nazi?

Hail Fauci, hail Fauci.

- There's no virus.

The media is the virus.

Politicians, Hollywood are all involved.

- You know, you go from being sad to just then being angry.

I'm angry that that there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there.

- Most people don't live on YouTube and they don't live on Facebook.

Ask your pharmacist, ask your doctor.

Know we're here.

Sorry, but I don't want to see you get sick.

If we could just remember to just be kind to one another.

That would be great.

- Dr. Petersen, what kind of toll is there on healthcare workers who are on the front lines, seeing these COVID patients, some of whom are intubated in hospitals.

What kind of toll are you hearing about on our healthcare workers around the state?

- Well, we are very concerned about our health professional colleagues who have been hopeful that there would be an end in sight.

All of us have been hoping for that moment and to have had a little bit of a breather in May and June, when things calmed down to now be experiencing the worst surge that we've seen since this pandemic began.

There are more cases now.

There are more hospitalizations now than when we started and many of them did not have to happen.

So for people who devote their lives to keeping people well and treating them when they're sick and preventing them from having severe illness and death, this is very, very discouraging.

It's very disheartening.

And we're seeing a lot of burnout.

We're seeing a lot of depression.

We're seeing people leave the field.

We're seeing people question their decision to become healthcare providers in the first place.

And we're now looking to our incoming students, the students that we have at USF Health at all of our colleges and having conversations with them about those choices and why we choose to join a healing profession and what it means when the larger society doesn't seem to appreciate that.

It's very, very challenging right now.

And I'm sad to see some of my good friends and colleagues just get very, very discouraged.

- Well, Dr. Petersen, let's hope things turn around soon.

Thank you for coming on the program.

- Thank you, Rob.

- Well, two candidates will face off to become St. Petersburg's next mayor and we'll tell you about them next.

(upbeat music) Two candidates for St. Petersburg's next mayor, Ken Welch and Robert Blackmon are still standing after this week's primary election.

They're headed to a runoff election on November 2nd and Colleen Wright has been covering the race for the Tampa Bay Times.

Colleen, welcome to Florida This Week.

- Hi, thanks for having me.

- Was this a surprise to see Robert Blackmon come in second over Darden Rice in the St. Pete mayoral primary?

- I think it's fair to say it wasn't a surprise.

A lot of folks had mentioned how the race results are in line with the polling that was done.

I think a lot of people, even though it's a non-partisan race that we have here in the city of St. Petersburg, I think it often falls against partisan lines.

We've seen this in past elections, like in 2017 with Rick Kriseman a Democrat, Rick Baker, a Republican.

And I think some of that is still playing out here.

You have Ken Welch who was a delegate for President Joe Biden, and you've got Robert Blackmon who is a Republican.

So I do think even though there might've been some other theories here, I really do feel like it, you know, fell with party lines.

- Is there a path for Blackmon, I mean, it's well-known in St. Petersburg, Ken Welch is a Democrat, Robert Blackmon is a Republican and St. Pete leans Democratic.

Is there a path for Blackmon to win?

Republicans have won the mayor's race in the past, but is there a path for Blackmon?

- It'll be an uphill battle for him, for sure.

I mean, I would say, "Never say never."

I'm sure, you know, there is a path.

He's going to have to go after a lot of voters.

He says so himself.

He'll have to go after Darden Rice's voters.

She came in third.

Also Wengay Newton, the former state representative, his voters as well as Pete Boland, he's a local restaurateur who also leans conservative, who is a Republican.

So he'll have to go after every single vote, including Ken Welch, he would say.

I think the biggest battle for both candidates is honestly going to be turnout.

This was a very low turnout election.

And I think that if they drum up support, if they drum up enthusiasm, because enthusiasm was clearly lacking in this election, then they'll do better.

The more people that turn out, I think his chances get better and better.

- So if Ken Welch wins the mayor's race in November, that would be historic.

He would be the first black person to be mayor of St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg wasn't exactly a sundown town, but there was a heavy amount of racial discrimination, especially in the 60s and 70s in St. Petersburg, in our lifetimes, or my lifetime.

So this would be historic for Welch to win.

- It would be huge, it would be huge.

And, you know, Ken Welch was born and raised in the Gas Plant District.

His community, his church was bulldozed to make way for Tropicana Field, you know, where the Rays play today.

Ken Welch's father was also the first black, male member on city council.

It would be historic and I think it would mean a lot to a lot of people.

So yes, history would be made.

You know, we haven't seen that being mentioned, at least in the primary.

It'll probably come up, you know, as we head toward the general election on November 2nd.

So we'll see what happens.

But yeah, it would absolutely make history.

- I just want to ask you about one city council race.

There is a democratic socialist who's running for city council and as a result of the primary will run city-wide.

Tell me about this person.

- Yes, Richie Floyd.

He won with 51% for Amy Foster's seat, district eight.

She was term-limited.

He run, he beat a former city council member, Jeff Danner, with 51%.

If he was running for mayor, he wouldn't have to go to a general, but because of the way the systems are set up in St. Petersburg, he'll have to go to a general and he'll have to be elected city-wide.

So, it'll be interesting to see just how he can carry that momentum to a city-wide race.

It'll be interesting.

- He's an activist, supports Medicare for all, and pretty progressive.

- Yes, I believe he's a former teacher, so he's gotten a lot of donations.

I know he's got a lot of money and of course this is a movement that we've seen and honestly, I'm interested in seeing how this, kind of national movement into democratic socialism kind of plays out here in St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay.

- Well, Colleen Wright thanks a lot.

Thanks for coming on the program.

- All right.

Thank you.

- Well, the Rays are the talk of baseball.

We'll have an update on the stadium talks next.

(upbeat music) The Tampa Bay Rays currently have the best record in the American League.

Despite this, attendance continues to be low at the Trop with reports that Tampa may be having new talks with the owners about a new stadium in Hillsborough county.

John Romano is a sports reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, and he joins us right now.

John, good to see you.

- Hi, Rob, it's good to see you.

- So, what's your take?

Do the Rays want to stay in St. Petersburg?

Do they want to move to Hillsborough County or do they want to be out of here altogether?

What's your reporting on this?

- From all indications, the Rays are not closing the door on St. Petersburg, but from all indications, they do want to move to Hillsborough county.

They want to pursue this sister city concept with Montreal.

Where they play the first half of the season in Florida and then the second half in Montreal.

The idea behind that is that they can have open air stadiums in both places to sort of get the best of the weather situations in both markets where it's before the rainy season in Tampa Bay, before or after the cold season in Montreal.

And at this point, you know, they're not even talking about St. Pete that much anymore, and it's hard to defend St. Pete these days.

From what I'm hearing, that they've got a four-game series coming up with the Red Sox this week or the coming week and I don't think they're going to draw much more than 10,000 people for any of those games and we're talking about a team that is in the middle of a pennant race in September against one of the sport's biggest names, against one of their best rivals and you can't draw more than 10,000 people.

And I know it's during a pandemic and I know school is back in, but these are the kind of excuses that we've been hearing for 25 years and frankly St. Petersburg just doesn't have a whole lot in its defense right now.

- I guess the big question is, if the Rays would prefer Hillsborough County in Tampa over St. Petersburg, will the politicians in Hillsborough County in Tampa, will they put up any money for a half-time stadium?

- Well, that is the big question.

Tampa mayor Jane Castor has been on record, been very vocal about saying she wants the Rays over there.

She's amenable to talking about a partial season stadium over there, but they're not just going to, you know, open up their checkbook to the Rays and then it becomes this sort of tug-of-war over what a half-year team is worth and how much you're willing to invest for that.

It's never been done in Major League Baseball or much across any major league sport.

So you are going to save, the idea for a partial season team, you don't have to build a roof.

So that's going to save you $200-$300 million that you would normally spend on a stadium.

But, it's still going to cost, you know, $700-$800 million to build a stadium in Hillsborough and another $800 million that they're going to have to talk to people in Montreal about spending over there.

So you're talking about finding $1.5 billion or more to build these two stadiums.

Yes, I think Hillsborough will put up some money, but I think they're expecting the Rays to foot at least half that bill.

- So, John, this is unfair to ask you in the minute and 10 seconds we have left, but with the Rays being, I think, 26th in payroll, they're near the bottom, why are they doing so well again?

- They're the smartest team in baseball.

That's the short answer.

Their front office continually comes up with ideas.

They're one step ahead of everybody else and they continue to astonish everybody, including me, year after year, with the way they win on such a shoestring budget.

- How's their pitching this year?

I mean, can they go the distance do you think?

- I was very skeptical of their pitching in the off season.

I'm actually writing a column about that right now that I was absolutely wrong in the off season.

I didn't think they had enough starting pitching.

They clearly did.

They have the best record in the American League.

Now I'm going to question whether they have enough starting pitching to survive in October.

They don't do it traditionally.

They use a lot more pitchers than other teams do.

They use them for short bursts, three, four innings out of their starters and then a string of relievers, but it works for them and, you know, they got to within two games of winning the World Series last year.

I don't see why they can't do it again this year, even though it doesn't look the way we normally think of a World Series team looking.

- Well, John Romano, thanks for coming back.

I hope you're wrong about the Red Sox attendance.

- I do too, but I don't see a lot of big crowds coming up in the next few days.

- John, thanks a lot.

- Take care, Rob.

(upbeat music) - Thanks for joining us.

You can view this and past shows online at wedu.org or on the PBS app.

Florida This Week is now available as a podcast.

You can subscribe to it on our website or wherever you get your podcasts.

Finally, the world lost three of the best musicians of the last few years this week.

Don Everly, the last surviving member of the harmonizing duo, the Everly Brothers, died at age 84.

He and his younger brother, Phil, were the first group inaugurated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts, regarded as one of the coolest and best dressed men in rock and one of the best rock drummers of all time, died this week at the age of 80.

And singer-songwriter, Nancy Griffith, who was loved by her fellow musicians and who kept one foot in folk and another in country, passed away at the age of 68.

Here she sings a Julie Gold song on Austin City Limits.

Stay safe, take care of each other.

We'll see you next week.

♪ From a distance the world looks blue and green ♪ ♪ And the snow capped mountains white ♪ ♪ And from a distance the ocean meets the stream ♪ ♪ And the eagle takes to flight ♪ ♪ From a distance there is harmony ♪ ♪ And it echoes thru the land ♪ ♪ And it's the voice of hope ♪ ♪ It's the voice of peace ♪ ♪ It's the voice of every man ♪ ♪ From a distance we all have enough ♪ ♪ And no one is in need ♪ ♪ And there are no guns, no bombs, no diseases ♪ ♪ No hungry mouths to feed ♪ - [Announcer] Florida This Week is a production of WEDU who is solely responsible for its content.