KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban vowed Tuesday to respect women’s rights, forgive those who fought them and ensure Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists as part of a publicity blitz aimed at reassuring world powers and a fearful population.

Following a lightning offensive across Afghanistan that saw many cities fall to the insurgents without a fight, the Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they imposed a strict form of Islamic rule in the late 1990s. But many Afghans remain skeptical — and thousands have raced to the airport, desperate to flee the country.

Older generations remember the Taliban’s previous rule, when they largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music, and held public executions. A U.S.-led invasion drove them from power months after the 9/11 attacks, which al-Qaida had orchestrated from Afghanistan while being sheltered by the Taliban.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s longtime spokesman, emerged from the shadows Tuesday in his first-ever public appearance to address those concerns at a news conference.

He promised the Taliban would honor women’s rights within the norms of Islamic law, without elaborating. The Taliban have encouraged women to return to work and have allowed girls to return to school, handing out Islamic headscarves at the door. A female news anchor interviewed a Taliban official Monday in a TV studio.

The treatment of women varies widely across the Muslim world and sometimes even within the same country, with rural areas tending to be far more conservative. Some Muslim countries, including neighboring Pakistan, have had female prime ministers, while ultraconservative Saudi Arabia only recently allowed women to drive.

Mujahid also said the Taliban would not allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for attacking other countries, as it was in the years before 9/11. That assurance was part of a 2020 peace deal reached between the Taliban and the Trump administration that paved the way for the American withdrawal.

The Pentagon said U.S. commanders are communicating with the Taliban as they work to evacuate thousands of people through Kabul’s international airport. It said the Taliban have taken no hostile actions there.

Mujahid reiterated that the Taliban have offered full amnesty to Afghans who worked for the U.S. and the Western-backed government, saying “nobody will go to their doors to ask why they helped.” He said private media should “remain independent” but that journalists “should not work against national values.”

Kabul, the capital, has remained calm as the Taliban patrol its streets. But many remain fearful after prisons and armories emptied out during the insurgents’ sweep across the country.

Kabul residents say groups of armed men have been going door-to-door seeking out individuals who worked with the ousted government and security forces, but it was unclear if the gunmen were Taliban or criminals posing as militants. Mujahid blamed the security breakdown on the former government, saying the Taliban only entered Kabul in order to restore law and order after the police melted away.

A broadcaster in Afghanistan said she was hiding at a relative’s house, too frightened to return home much less go to work. She said she and other women do not believe the Taliban have changed their ways. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety.

A group of women wearing Islamic headscarves demonstrated briefly in Kabul, holding signs demanding the Taliban not “eliminate women” from public life.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. and other governments will not simply take the Taliban at their word when it comes to women’s rights.

“Like I’ve said all along, this is not about trust. This is about verify,” Sullivan said at a White House briefing. “And we’ll see what the Taliban end up doing in the days and weeks ahead, and when I say we, I mean the entire international community.”

Whatever their true intentions, the Taliban have an interest in projecting moderation to prevent the international community from isolating their government, as it did in the 1990s.

The European Union said it was suspending development assistance to Afghanistan until the political situation is more clear but that it would consider boosting humanitarian aid.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the Taliban must respect U.N. Security Council resolutions and human rights to earn access to some 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in development funds earmarked through 2024.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain might provide up to 10% more humanitarian aid, but the the Taliban would not get any money previously earmarked for security.

Evacuation flights resumed after being suspended on Monday, when thousands of people rushed the airport. In shocking scenes captured on video, some clung to a plane as it took off and then fell to their deaths. At least seven people died in the airport chaos, U.S. officials said.

On Tuesday, the Taliban entered the civilian half of the airport, firing into the air to drive out around 500 people there, said an Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief journalists.

The Taliban appeared to be trying to control the crowd rather than prevent people from leaving. A video circulating online showed the Taliban supervising the orderly departure of dozens of foreigners.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul, now operating from the military side of the airport, urged Americans to register online for evacuation but not to come to the airport before being contacted.

The German Foreign Ministry said a first German military transport plane landed in Kabul but took off with only seven people on board due to the chaos. Another left later with 125 people.

U.S. President Joe Biden has defended his decision to end America’s longest war, blaming the rapid Taliban takeover on Afghanistan’s Western-backed government and security forces. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg echoed that assessment, while saying the alliance must investigate the flaws in its efforts to train the Afghan military.

Talks continued Tuesday between the Taliban and several Afghan politicians, including former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who once headed the country’s negotiating council. The Taliban have said they want to form an “inclusive, Islamic government.”

The talks focused on how a Taliban-dominated government would operate given the changes in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, rather than just dividing up ministries, officials with knowledge of the negotiations said on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks.

A top Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, arrived in Kandahar on Tuesday night from Qatar, potentially signaling a deal is close at hand.

The vice president of the ousted government, meanwhile, tweeted that he was the country’s “legitimate” caretaker president. Amrullah Saleh said that under the constitution, he should be in charge because President Ashraf Ghani has fled the country.

___

Faiez reported from Istanbul, Gannon from Guelph, Canada, and Krauss from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Tameem Akhgar in Istanbul, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, Pan Pylas in London, and Aya Batrawy in Dubai contributed to this report.

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Listening to the Cubs on WSCR was once a nightly ritual for me, along with drinking a can of Old Style. I gave up on the Cubs during the team’s 11-game losing streak earlier this summer (although I continue to drink Old Style). It was too dismaying, especially when they lost to the Brewers. As the smaller of two Lake Michigan metropolises with Algonquin names, Milwaukee should never be able to claim superiority over Chicago in anything.

I started listening to the Cubs again last weekend, just to hear how bad the post-purge team is. At first, they sounded promising. On Saturday, against the Marlins, the Cubs were on the brink of breaking their latest losing streak. In the top of the 8th inning, some guy I’d never heard of (Frank Schwindel) hit a three-run double, putting the Cubs up 4-3. Then, in the bottom of the 8th, another guy I’d never heard of (Sergio Alcantara) committed two errors at shortstop, allowing the Marlins to take a 5-4 lead.

“That’s… not what you want to see,” announcer Pat Hughes remarked. Hughes works for the Cubs, so understatement is the only way to express his dismay at the horrors he’s been witnessing on the diamond.

On paper, the 2021 Cubs will not go down in history as one of the worst teams in baseball history. Even if they lose all 41 of their remaining games, they would finish with a record of 52-110. That’s not as bad as the 2003 Tigers (43-119), the 1962 Mets (40-120), or the 2018 Orioles (47-115). Fangraphs projects them to go 17-24 the rest of the way, a .409 winning percentage, to finish at 63-93.

Even that would be a remarkable collapse for a team tied for first place in the National League Central as late as June 24. But those were the Cubs of Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Craig Kimbrel. The Cubs of August—the Cubs of Alcantara, Michael Rucker, Matt Duffy, Ryan Meisinger, and a bunch of other spare parts who started this season in the minor leagues, and will probably be headed back there, if they don’t end up in the Korean Baseball Organization—may, in fact, be the worst team ever fielded by a major league franchise.

One of the beauties of baseball is that if you can’t find a statistic to back up an assertion, you can always invent one. Here’s what makes me think these Cubs are the worst ever. Since the July 30 trade deadline, the Cubs have been outscored 126-63. In those 15 games, the Cubs have generated 33.5 percent of the total runs, during which time the Cubs are 2-14. None of the abovementioned losers even approached that level of incompetence at the basic functions of a baseball team: scoring runs and preventing them. The Tigers scored 39 percent of the runs in their games, the Mets 39 percent, and the Orioles 41 percent. I had to go all the way back to 1899 to find a team outscored as badly as the current Cubs: the legendary 20-134 Cleveland Spiders, who recorded a deficit of 1252-529, for a 29.7 percentage.

The pitching staff’s Earned Run Average since the trade deadline is 7.79. That’s more than a run higher than the all-time record of 6.71 set by the 1930 Philadelphia Phillies, and nearly a run-and-a-half higher than the second worst, the 1996 Detroit Tigers, at 6.38.

The historically bad team these Cubs most resemble is the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, a squad Sports Illustrated called “the worst team in the history of major U.S. pro sports.” The Athletics went from the World Series to a 36-117 record in just two seasons, after owner/manager Connie Mack got rid of five future Hall of Famers—Eddie Plank, Chief Bender, Home Run Baker, Herb Pennock and Eddie Collins. Attendance was down at Shibe Park, and the newly-formed Federal League was offering big salaries, so Mack could no longer afford to pay his superstars. (Even the losers who replaced them did better than the current Cubs, scoring 36.5 percent of the runs in their games.)

In the words of SI’s Jon Wertheim, “Mack trafficked in the let-’em-down-easy talk that will ring familiar to sports fans a century later. In order for the franchise to move forward, it’s time to embrace a youth movement…. It would be fiscally irresponsible for us to match your competing offers…. It isn’t personal; it’s just business. Mack offered a familiar trope to the media and the A’s fans too, reassuring them that the team was building for the future, that any short-term pain would be to the long-term benefit of the franchise.”

That sounds a lot like what Cubs owner Tom Ricketts told his fans after the team’s 2021 fire sale: “[W]e are building a new championship team and the fact is everything that happened last week really has accelerated that process.”

It took Mack a dozen years to fulfill his promise. From 1929 to 1931, the Athletics won three straight pennants, with Hall of Famers Lefty Grove, Mickey Cochrane and Jimmie Foxx beating out the Yankees of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig every time. They won two consecutive World Series, one at the expense of the Cubs. We can only hope such a mini-dynasty is in the Cubs’ future. In the meantime, anyone who jumped on the Cubs’ bandwagon in 2016 had better be prepared to suffer as much as Cub fans suffered in the century before that World Series championship. Or more.

If you can stand to listen, Pat Hughes is trying to put the best spin on this rebuilding summer. On Monday night, he awarded left fielder Patrick Wisdom the “Catch of the Day” for chasing down a flyball to end an 8-run seventh inning by the Reds, which led to a 14-5 defeat—their 12th in a row, surpassing the losing streak that initiated this fiasco. (All the relief pitchers in that game— Rucker, Meisinger, Dan Winkler, and Jake Jewell—have a negative Wins Above Replacement rating this season per Baseball Reference. Most were in Iowa before the trade deadline, and weren’t prepared to take the places of the real major leaguers the Cubs dealt away.)

“Nice to see guys playing hard no matter what the scoreboard says,” Hughes attaboy’d the losing team whose fortunes he is contractually obligated to narrate.

That’s the saddest thing about these Cubs. No matter how hard they play, they still can’t win.

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Facing rising coronavirus case numbers, Chicago public health officials did an about-face on Tuesday and announced a return to an indoor mask mandate some three months after lifting it.

Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said starting Friday face coverings will be required in Chicago stores, restaurants and other public spaces — for all people over the age of 2, regardless of the person’s vaccination status.

“There is a lot going on in COVID,” she said.

“With Chicago passing 400 cases per day we have save seen that metric pass into higher risk,” Arwady announced at a city hall news conference. “We are today announcing a new mandate … now as we cross 400, masks are required for all indoor settings.”

Arwady said she does not foresee further restrictions or business limits.

“Our goal is remain open but careful. Chicago now is at an average of 419 cases per day, and being consistently above 400 means that “masks are now required in indoor public settings in Chicago.”

Also at the news conference were the health department’s medical director, Dr. Geraldine Luna, and Kenneth J. Meyer, acting commissioner of the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection.

Just days before the Lollapalooza music festival in Grant Park, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is saying she would not hesitate to return to a mask mandate if Chicago’s daily rate of coronavirus cases was “consistently going over” 200.

Chicago’s numbers highlights a concerning statewide trend as all but four of the state’s 102 counties are in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “high transmission” category. Three of the other four checked in one level below that, the “substantial transmission” category.

High transmission is defined as more than 100 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days or a test positivity rate exceeding 10% over that period.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday had warned “we are going to be in this a little while longer.”

“I’m talking about COVID-19 and the challenge that it brings to all of us,” Pritzker said. “We’re going to be dealing with this for some time, it’s clear because there are many people who aren’t yet vaccinated — and we want them to go get vaccinated as soon as possible — but the variants are also alive, well and moving across the world.”

Earlier this month, Pritzker issued a statewide mask requirement for schools. The Democratic governor hasn’t provided an end date for when students, teachers and staff would be able to ditch the face coverings, saying “this virus tends to have cycles to it and variants” and the face coverings are one way to keep people “safe and healthy in our schools.”

Chicagoans can request an in-home shot by calling (312) 746-4835. For help finding a dose in suburban Cook County, visit cookcountypublichealth.org or call (833) 308-1988. To find other Illinois providers, visit coronavirus.illinois.gov or call (833) 621-1284.

Contributing: Rachel Hinton

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Pat Fitzgerald insisted things will be different for Northwestern this time.

The All-America linebacker who led the Wildcats on a fairytale run to the Rose Bowl in the 1990s and is the program’s winningest coach by a wide margin enters his 16th season confident there won’t be another first-to-worst crash.

From winning the Big Ten West in 2018 to finishing last in 2019, it was quite a decline. Just as dramatic was the turnaround that followed last year in the pandemic-shortened season. Northwestern jumped back to the top of the division, gave Ohio State a scare in the conference championship game, beat Auburn in the Citrus Bowl and finished 7-2 overall after going 3-9.

“I think the seniors, especially, are guys that learned through ’19,” said Fitzgerald, 106-81 since taking over in 2006. “In a year like ’20, everything was abnormal. I thought we handled it really well, and we executed what you have to do to be a championship level team. To continue that momentum on is more of our focus than what went wrong in ’19.”

When it came to keeping opponents out of the end zone, few teams were as effective as Northwestern. The Wildcats ranked fifth in the nation and led the Big Ten in scoring defense.

On offense, Northwestern ranked ninth in the league in yards per game and 10th in scoring.

The season opens with a Friday night home game against Michigan State on Sept. 3.

PRODUCTION LOST

Peyton Ramsey, who helped steady the quarterback spot last season as a graduate transfer from Indiana, is gone. So are the top two tacklers — linebackers Blake Gallagher and Paddy Fisher. Junior cornerback Greg Newsome II was drafted in the first round by Cleveland.

“We did a lose a lot of production last year,” All-American safety Brandon Joseph said. “I was blessed to have the opportunity to play with those guys last year, a lot of whom are on an NFL team or working to be on an NFL team right now. But we also have a lot of young talent that people haven’t seen.”

Joseph is back after a dominant freshman season.

ON THE RUN

Northwestern had planned to rely heavily on running back Cam Porter, after he led the team in rushing as a freshman. But the Wildcats got bad news when what the school called a lower-body injury sidelined Porter for the season. Last year he ran for 333 yards — 4.1 per carry — and five touchdowns.

CALLING ON DEFENSE

Northwestern has a new defensive coordinator after hiring Raiders defensive backs coach Jim O’Neil to replace the retired Mike Hankwitz. O’Neil spent three seasons on Jon Gruden’s staff in Oakland and Las Vegas and was previously defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns (2014-15) and the San Francisco 49ers (2016).

TAKE ME OUT TO …

The Wildcats are scheduled again to play at Wrigley Field, this time against Purdue on Nov. 20 after last year’s game against Wisconsin got moved to Ryan Field because of the pandemic. It will be Northwestern’s first game at the Friendly Confines since losing to Illinois there in 2010.

The matchup with Illinois had an unusual twist. Because of safety concerns, offensive plays ran only toward the west end zone near the third-base dugout. The east end zone in right field came within a foot or so of a heavily padded brick wall.

That shouldn’t be an issue this time following a massive renovation to the ballpark in recent years.

The rest of the schedule includes visits to Michigan and Wisconsin and the Illini.

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MILWAUKEE — The family of one of the two men fatally shot during a demonstration against police violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has filed a federal civil lawsuit against local law enforcement, accusing officers of facilitating Kyle Rittenhouse’s attacks.

Anthony Huber was participating in an Aug. 25 protest sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake two days earlier. The Black man was left partially paralyzed after he was shot in the back by police during a domestic disturbance call.

Rittenhouse, who is white, was 17 at the time and traveled from his home in Antioch and joined other armed individuals in Kenosha who answered a call from local militia to protect businesses from protesters. The protests turned chaotic that night.

According to prosecutors, Rittenhouse opened fire on Huber, 26, and Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, killing them. Gaige Grosskreutz was also shot, but survived his injuries. The three men are white.

Rosenbaum was shot in the parking lot of an auto dealership and as Rittenhouse ran from the scene he stumbled and fell. Huber was shot in the chest as he tried to disarm Rittenhouse by wrestling his rifle away.

“After he had killed and maimed multiple individuals, Kyle Rittenhouse walked up to a dozen Kenosha police officers, assault rifle in hand, with crowds yelling that he had just killed innocent people. What did the police do? They spoke to him and let him walk away,” said Huber family attorney Anand Swaminathan.

Rittenhouse maintains he fired in self-defense, but prosecutors have charged him with a litany of counts, including reckless homicide, recklessly endangering safety, attempted first-degree intentional homicide and being a minor in possession of a dangerous weapon.

The federal lawsuit seeks unspecified damages against Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth; Daniel Miskinis, the former City of Kenosha police chief; Eric Larsen, the city’s acting police chief; and unnamed officers and deputies.

The plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Eastern District of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, that the defendants “deputized these armed individuals, conspired with them, and ratified their actions by letting them patrol the streets armed with deadly weapons to mete out justice as they saw fit. “

“The police are supposed to serve and protect,” Anthony’s father, John Huber, said in a statement. “But that’s not what the Kenosha police did. They walked away from their duties and turned over the streets of Kenosha to Kyle Rittenhouse and other armed vigilantes. If they had done their job, my son would still be alive today.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the officers’ decision to treat demonstrators and militia members differently was motivated by racial discrimination and was in retaliation for protests critical of police violence.

The plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit that while police allowed armed militia members who were white to roam the streets illegally with weapons, they strictly enforced a curfew against peaceful protestors, who were a diverse group speaking out against police violence.

That discriminatory and retaliatory conduct violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of a right to free speech and peaceful assembly and to equal protection of the law, the lawsuit said.

Anthony Huber’s mother, Karen Bloom, said the lawsuit is about justice for her son, and his legacy.

“After Anthony’s death, there will always be a hole in my heart,” Bloom said. “But his memory lives on, and I will never stop telling his story.”

Kenosha’s police chief or Kenosha County sheriff’s officials did not immediately return calls for comment on the lawsuit.

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KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban vowed Tuesday to respect women’s rights, forgive those who fought them and ensure Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists as part of a publicity blitz aimed at reassuring world powers and a fearful population.

Following a lightning offensive across Afghanistan that saw many cities fall to the insurgents without a fight, the Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they imposed a strict form of Islamic rule in the late 1990s. But many Afghans remain skeptical — and thousands have raced to the airport, desperate to flee the country.

Older generations remember the Taliban’s previous rule, when they largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music, and held public executions. A U.S.-led invasion drove them from power months after the 9/11 attacks, which al-Qaida had orchestrated from Afghanistan while being sheltered by the Taliban.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s longtime spokesman, emerged from the shadows Tuesday in his first-ever public appearance to address those concerns at a news conference.

He promised the Taliban would honor women’s rights within the norms of Islamic law, without elaborating. The Taliban have encouraged women to return to work and have allowed girls to return to school, handing out Islamic headscarves at the door. A female anchorwoman interviewed a Taliban official Monday in a TV studio.

The treatment of women varies widely across the Muslim world and sometimes even within the same country, with rural areas tending to be far more conservative. Some Muslim countries, including neighboring Pakistan, have had female prime ministers, while ultraconservative Saudi Arabia only recently allowed women to drive.

Mujahid also said the Taliban would not allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for attacking other countries, as it was in the years before 9/11. That assurance was part of a 2020 peace deal reached between the Taliban and the Trump administration that paved the way for the American withdrawal.

The Pentagon said U.S. commanders are communicating with the Taliban as they work to evacuate thousands of people through Kabul’s international airport. It said the Taliban have taken no hostile actions there.

Mujahid reiterated that the Taliban have offered full amnesty to Afghans who worked for the U.S. and the Western-backed government, saying “nobody will go to their doors to ask why they helped.” He said private media should “remain independent” but that journalists “should not work against national values.”

Kabul, the capital, has remained calm as the Taliban patrol its streets. But many remain fearful after prisons and armories emptied out during the insurgents’ sweep across the country.

Kabul residents say groups of armed men have been going door-to-door seeking out individuals who worked with the ousted government and security forces, but it was unclear if the gunmen were Taliban or criminals posing as militants. Mujahid blamed the security breakdown on the former government, saying the Taliban only entered Kabul in order to restore law and order after the police melted away.

A broadcaster in Afghanistan said she was hiding at a relative’s house, too frightened to return home much less go to work. She said she and other women do not believe the Taliban have changed their ways. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety.

A group of women wearing Islamic headscarves demonstrated briefly in Kabul, holding signs demanding the Taliban not “eliminate women” from public life.

Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, noted both the Taliban’s vows and the fears of everyday Afghans.

“Such promises will need to be honored, and for the time being — again understandably, given past history — these declarations have been greeted with some skepticism,” he said.

Whatever their true intentions, the Taliban have an interest in projecting moderation to prevent the international community from isolating their government, as it did in the 1990s.

The European Union said it was suspending development assistance to Afghanistan until the political situation is more clear but that it would consider boosting humanitarian aid.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the Taliban must respect U.N. Security Council resolutions and human rights to earn access to some 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in development funds earmarked through 2024.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain might provide up to 10% more humanitarian aid. He said the aid budget would be reconfigured for development and humanitarian purposes and that the Taliban would not get any money previously earmarked for security.

Evacuation flights resumed after being suspended on Monday, when thousands of people rushed the airport. In shocking scenes captured on video, some clung to a plane as it took off and then fell to their deaths. At least seven people died in the airport chaos, U.S. officials said.

On Tuesday, the Taliban entered the civilian half of the airport, firing into the air to drive out around 500 people there, said an Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief journalists.

The Taliban appeared to be trying to control the crowd rather than prevent people from leaving. A video circulating online showed the Taliban supervising the orderly departure of dozens of foreigners.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul, now operating from the military side of the airport, urged Americans to register online for evacuation but not to come to the airport before being contacted.

The German Foreign Ministry said a first German military transport plane landed in Kabul but took off with only seven people on board due to the chaos. Another left later with 125 people.

U.S. President Joe Biden has defended his decision to end America’s longest war, blaming the rapid Taliban takeover on Afghanistan’s Western-backed government and security forces. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg echoed that assessment, while saying the alliance must investigate the flaws in its efforts to train the Afghan military.

Talks continued Tuesday between the Taliban and several Afghan politicians, including former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who once headed the country’s negotiating council. The Taliban have said they want to form an “inclusive, Islamic government.”

The talks focused on how a Taliban-dominated government would operate given the changes in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, rather than just dividing up ministries, officials with knowledge of the negotiations said on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks.

A top Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, arrived in Kandahar on Tuesday night from Qatar, potentially signaling a deal is close at hand.

The vice president of the ousted government, meanwhile, tweeted that he was the country’s “legitimate” caretaker president. Amrullah Saleh said that under the constitution, he should be in charge because President Ashraf Ghani has fled the country.

___

Faiez reported from Istanbul, Gannon from Guelph, Canada, and Krauss from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Tameem Akhgar in Istanbul, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, Pan Pylas in London, and Aya Batrawy in Dubai contributed to this report.

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“Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah,” by Kathy Iandoli (Atria Books)

R&B singer Aaliyah is best known for two events that bookended her career: becoming involved with infamous singer R. Kelly as a teen, and the tragic plane crash that ended her life at age 22, just days before 9/11.

“Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah,” by veteran music journalist Kathy Iandoli, aims to fill in the story between those two events, for Aaliyah fans new and old. The book traces Aaliyah’s musical development and collaboration with many different R&B producers and artists, her burgeoning film career, and indelible imprint on fashion. But 20 years after her death, a sense of Aaliyah’s personality still remains elusive.

This cover image released by Atria shows “Baby Girl: Better known as Aaliyah” by Kathy Iandoli.AP

With a silky smooth voice, Aaliyah Haughton was signed for a record deal with her uncle in Detroit when she was just 12. Two years later, she teamed with R. Kelly to make her first record “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number.” She became involved with R. Kelly and the two were secretly married when Aaliyah was just 15. Her parents discovered this and quickly annulled the marriage.

But the scandal tarnished Aaliyah’s reputation more than R. Kelly, who is currently on trial for sex trafficking charges stemming more than two decades. She was portrayed as a teen seductress rather than one of the first of R. Kelly’s many victims.

The scandal led to Aaliyah becoming extremely private in ensuing years, but she kept recording hit records. She teamed with then-unknowns Timbaland and Missy Elliot for her second record “One in a Million,” which has sold 8 million copies worldwide.

Meanwhile, she was making her mark in the fashion and movie industries. Her signature style of a crop top or bandeau top paired with baggy jeans, with long hair partially covering her left eye, is emblematic of her “sweet but street” style and still emulated today. She had roles in the movies “Romeo Must Die” and “Queen of the Damned” and was set to act in the “Matrix” sequels before she died.

Aaliyah’s “Try Again” beat out Britney Spears’ “Oops!… I Did It Again” video and Christina Aguilera’s “What a Girl Wants” to win best female video at the MTV video awards in 2000, another sign she was poised for superstardom.

But that was not to be. On August 25, 2001, Aaliyah died in a plane crash in the Bahamas, where she was shooting a music video for her third and final self-titled album, “Aaliyah.” The plane was found to be badly overloaded.

For years, Aaliyah’s music has been unavailable on streaming platforms, with the exception of her first album, “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number.”

But following a fan campaign on social media with the hashtag #FreeAaliyahMusic, Blackground Records said it plans to release the albums to streaming services on Aug. 20, in time for the 20th anniversary of Aaliyah’s death. The move is not without controversy. Aaliyah’s family estate does not support the release.

But it will give a new generation of fans an easier way to hear more of Aaliyah’s body of work. And “Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah” should serve as a useful companion to those discovering Aaliyah’s music for the first time via these platforms.

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Pro Football Hall of Famer Brett Favre was known as the ultimate ironman in the NFL, having a streak of 297 consecutive starts over his career.

Now, Favre is warning parents about the dangers of playing football.

Favre, appearing in a new public service announcement, urges parents not to let children under 14 play tackle football, saying it would dramatically reduce the risk of being diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

CTE currently can only be diagnosed post-mortem.

“Having kids play before high school is just not worth the risk,” Favre said in a statement. “CTE is a terrible disease, and we need to do everything we can to prevent it for the next generation of football players.”

Favre is partnering with the Concussion Legacy Foundation to “support athletes, veterans, and all affected by concussions and CTE; achieve smarter sports and safer athletes through education and innovation; and to end CTE through prevention and research.”

“I don’t know what normal feels like. Do I have CTE? I really don’t know,” Favre said on NBC’s “Today” on Tuesday. “Concussions are a very, very serious thing, and we’re just scraping the surface of how severe they are.”

“[There is] no telling how many concussions I’ve had, and what are the repercussions of that, there’s no answer,” Favre added.

Comparing tackle football to flag football, a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said those who participate in tackle football are 15 times more likely to suffer a head injury in a game or practice.

Read more at usatoday.com

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Facing rising coronavirus case numbers, Chicago officials on Friday plan to impose an indoor mask mandate, sources told the Sun-Times Tuesday.

No other details about the mandate were available. A news conference is planned for 2:30 p.m. at City Hall with Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, as well as the department’s medical director, Dr. Geraldine Luna, and Kenneth J. Meyer, acting commissioner of the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection.

In announcing the news conference, city officials noted that Chicago’s average daily case count was now at 400. Just days before the Lollapalooza music festival in Grant Park, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is saying she would not hesitate to return to a mask mandate if Chicago’s daily rate of coronavirus cases was “consistently going over” 200.

Chicago’s numbers highlights a concerning statewide trend as all but four to the state’s 102 counties are in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “high transmission” category. Three of the other four checked in one level below that, the “substantial transmission” category.

High transmission is defined as more than 100 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days or a test positivity rate exceeding 10% over that period.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday had warned “we are going to be in this a little while longer.”

“I’m talking about COVID-19 and the challenge that it brings to all of us,” Pritzker said. “We’re going to be dealing with this for some time, it’s clear because there are many people who aren’t yet vaccinated — and we want them to go get vaccinated as soon as possible — but the variants are also alive, well and moving across the world.”

Earlier this month, Pritzker issued a statewide mask requirement for schools. The Democratic governor hasn’t provided an end date for when students, teachers and staff would be able to ditch the face coverings, saying “this virus tends to have cycles to it and variants” and the face coverings are one way to keep people “safe and healthy in our schools.”

Chicagoans can request an in-home shot by calling (312) 746-4835. For help finding a dose in suburban Cook County, visit cookcountypublichealth.org or call (833) 308-1988. To find other Illinois providers, visit coronavirus.illinois.gov or call (833) 621-1284.

Contributing: Rachel Hinton

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