started before he took office or escalate the conflict into a third decade. >> after 20 years, i've learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw u.s. forces. that's why we're still there. we were clear-eyed about the risks. we planned for every contingency, but i promised the american people that i would be straight with you. the truth is this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. >> now, that speed of the taliban takeover is unsettling to local afghan-americans, and the bay area has one of the largest afghan communities anywhere in the western world. tonight community leaders are pleading for help. nbc's sharon katsuda has more from fremont's little kabul. >> they told us it's going to be a peaceful transition, right? and the women's rights, the kids' right, or the media and all those things will be

preserved. what happened to those? >> reporter: ramin sobbed as he described seeing this video. afghans clinging to the u.s. plane to get out. his sister and family still there. >> it's like they are humans or they are animals or what they are? they want to get out of afghanistan. it's a disaster. >> reporter: his wife worries about her female cousin. >> she had to burn her papers, her identity, her badge, her work, her everything. all work documentation, she had to burn it because they're going door to door. they're going door to door as of today, finding out who was working with the u.s. government. >> this war lasted four presidencies, cost trillions of dollars, billions in equipment that was given to the afghan army, and they were not able to fight and defend their country, and that raises the question, are you willing to have your children fight and defend a country and keep peace in this civil conflict? >> reporter: congresswoman eric swalwell says his east bay

district has one of the largest afghan populations in america, and he wants to help refugee families settle in the u.s. >> they will go to various military bases. of course they will -- if they've not fully gone through background checks yet, they would go through background checks. they would receive, you know, a health screening and a health check. >> reporter: heidi kuhn, ceo for the bay area nonprofit roots of peace, says hundreds of her organization's employees in afghanistan need protection. she's heard stories about women and girls. >> not only these young girls are being raped, but they are being branded, branded with hot iron on their arms after being raped. >> to move from afghanistan -- >> reporter: jawid came to the u.s. only five years ago and helped the u.s. as a translator before he left afghanistan. he hopes the u.s. will protect those fleeing today like he's been protected here. >> afghanistan being destroyed by these radical extremist groups.

>> reporter: of course all the families are closely calling their families, checking on all the developments in afghanistan. reporting live in fremont, i'm sharon katsuda, nbc bay area news. >> it is a very difficult and complicated situation. thank you. our reporting on this continues online. head to nbcbayarea.com. we have the latest on the evolving situation there. click on the afghanistan link on our trending bar. let's bring you to the south bay where san jose mayor sam liccardo is calling on santa clara sheriff laurie smith to step down. today liccardo listed a series of issues during her tenure as sheriff, among them multiple use of force incidents at the county jail that resulted in death or serious injury. tens of millions of taxpayer dollars paid out to people involved in lawsuits over civil rights violations and the ongoing criminal investigation into bribery charges, which resulted in three criminal indictments against two of smith's top aides and a campaign fund-raiser. >> the decision to decline to

cooperate with the grand jury investigation of her own staff over bribery charges relating to her own real action and to decline to do so for fear of self-incrimination. that should disqualify anyone from serving in any law enforcement capacity, let alone as the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the county. >> laurie smith has been santa clara county sheriff for more than 20 years now. liccardo is the first elected official to formally call on smith to resign. we did reach out to her office for comment but have not heard back. our investigative unit has been tracking issues with the sheriff's office for years. investigator stephen stock joins us with a look at deeper mismanagement at the sheriff's office tonight at 6:00. in san francisco, more than 50,000 students walked back into campus classrooms today. many of them returning for the first time in more than a year. lots of smiling faces on this first day, but also a day of new rules and new concerns.

here's nbc bay area's scott budman. >> reporter: the kids showed up to applause at dr. george washington carver elementary, and at marina middle school, teachers brought out balloons. students are back. >> yeah, i'm excited for the school and make new friends. >> i get to see all my friends. >> reporter: even if some of their parents are still a little nervous. >> well, oh, my god, we're really anxious. and with, you know, the rising -- the rising coronavirus going on, it's -- it gives us anxiety. >> it's important that kids also have the ability to socialize, the ability to be around other kids, to learn in a classroom because what we don't want to do is continue to see their mental health decline. >> we want them in school. >> reporter: the school district says vaccines or regular testing

are mandatory for staffers, and it's in touch with nearby districts like oakland, which reported 58 covid cases among students and 10 among staff members after one week of classes. >> we're talking to each other about what's going on, and one of the things we know is that there are going to be some cases. our goal is to make sure there isn't transmission. >> reporter: and about that vaccine mandate, the district says all employees have until september 7th to get vaccinated. all students must wear masks, and if you want a covid test, every school in the district has them on site with results due back in 48 hours. scott budman, nbc bay area news. >> thank you, scott. for the last several weeks, we've been telling you about how the cases are surging here. but today a potentially hopeful sign. we want to show you the state's positivity rate, okay? so look at this graph. you see we've been telling you about this surge. it's been going up, going up. then all of a sudden over here,

we see a dip in cases, which is a potential sign that we're back to trending in the right direction, which is down. now, that doesn't mean that we're out of the woods yet. we want to show you a map from the cdc. this is from july 29th, and it shows the transmission rates across the country. a lot of red, which is high transmission. orange and yellow. i mean the map is pretty startling when you look at it. today, look at it, right? let's change it. a lot more red. you thought it couldn't get worse, but look, it has. a lot more red all over the country. in fact, nationwide, cases are up by 64%. now, it's also a back to school day in south san francisco. much like san francisco, all the teachers and the staff will have to prove they're vaccinated or take a covid test every week. the district will provide free testing to employees who need or want it. masks are also required for everyone on campus. tonight we're also one step closer to a third vaccination shot. pfizer says it has formally

submitted data to the fda supporting boosters for all eligible groups. participants in the phase one trial received the third dose eight to nine months after they got their second shot. the company's data shows the third dose did trigger a much higher immune response than what was actually seen after the second shot. the data also shows no major increase in side effects. so pfizer is expecting results from a phase three trial soon. the fda and the cdc, as you know, we told you last week, authorized a third shot for people already who have compromised immune systems. all right. let's switch gears here. no relief on the fire lines for crews battling the dixie fire. today they faced critical fire weather, including triple-digit temperatures. also strong weekend winds pushed the massive fire closer to the town of janesville, which is near greenville, a town already leveled by flames. four people in the fire zone still missing, three from greenville and one from chester. the dixie fire is now the second

largest fire in california history, and it's burned nearly 600,000 acres and hundreds of holmes. and at this point crews have it just contained to 31%. three bay area counties are among 16 total that could have power shut off by pg&e starting tomorrow. we're talking about napa, solano, sonoma county residents could be impacted by the utility's public safety power shutoff beginning tuesday night. the issue, strong winds, extremely dry conditions. that may trigger those shutoffs. pg&e says roughly 40,000 customers could lose power with most of them in butte and shasta counties. a small number of customers are in napa, sonoma, solano. they could also be impacted. overall a better day when it comes to the smoke. let's bring in chief meteorologist jeff ranieri with a look at the winds. a lot on the table including those potential power shutoffs because of the conditions.

the smoke at least has dissipated but that fire still only 31% contained. we were there last week in the same position. >> the smoke is going to be an on and off issue for us. anytime we get a northerly wind or winds coming out of the east, we're going to see that smoke move back down to the bay area. look, this is the last thing we need with our drought in place, but we've been through this before. so i want to give you that needed information so you have everything that you need here as we head through the next couple of days. we are under a fire weather watch. this is from tuesday at 5:00 p.m. until wednesday at 10:00 a.m. for the mountains, wind gusts on and off, 30 to 55. for the valleys, much less, only 10 to 25 miles per hour. i think the lower elevations will be okay. it's when you go to those mountains, we'll see isolated wind gusts. that's for the north bay, east bay and for some of the south bay. 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, no big deal for us. 10 to 19 miles per hour at the lower elevations. once we hit tomorrow night, you can see that wind does start to begin to ramp up over parts of the east bay.

now, we're going to take you through this entire wind forecast, and we'll also get a closer look at the smoke because check this out. by wednesday morning, we'll likely see more smoke push down towards the bay area. the full update in about eight minutes. jessica. >> thank you very much, jeff. of course we're going to follow the potential for those power shutoffs. you can download our nbc bay area app. we have what you need to keep you covered and in the know and move you forward as those outages potentially begin. the california gubernatorial recall election officially starts today. that's because ballots started arriving in local mailboxes. election day is september 14th, but early voting means you can actually start voting now. nbc bay area's damian trujillo explains the ballot and the battle over the state's top office. >> reporter: the ballot is not like any other ballot you've received in recent years. there are only two questions this time. yes or no? some voters say they didn't want to waste any time waiting for election day, so they came to

cast their ballots as soon as the doors opened at the office of the registrar of voters. this voter says she's ready to leave town, so she came here first. >> i'm not going to get my ballot in time, so i came down, made sure that i wanted to vote. >> reporter: the ballot looks like this. you can vote yes if you want to recall governor gavin newsom. then you can go to part two and vote for a replacement out of a long list of 46 candidates, or you can vote no on the recall and you're done. that keeps the governor in office, unless you still want to select a possible replacement from part two. >> we have over 100 drop boxes already out in the community. you can drop it off today if you find a drop box. they're all located on our website. >> reporter: in the south bay, community drop boxes are usually located at libraries. this morning the governor arrived in san jose to continue his campaign to defeat the recall, greeting phone bankers who are calling potential voters. >> so if we turn out, we're going to win handily. but it's all about turnout at this stage. >> reporter: volunteers say today they're targeting

registered voters who don't regularly go to the polls, and they're liking the results so far. >> you have to call, and you have to talk to people. you have to remind them. you have to verify they vote. it's all about turnout. >> reporter: opponents say the governor has mismanaged almost everything from the pandemic to the budget. but for the next 29 days, the fight isn't over policy but over who can get their supporters to vote. damian trujillo, nbc bay area news. still ahead, he's terrorized businesses in san francisco. police say they got him. why he's now facing hate crime charges as well. and how did it happen? a car plunging into a contra costa county home.

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definitely not where you want to end up. check out this video. skyranger captured it this afternoon in walnut creek. yes, that is an suv in a swimming pool. we're being told that that car went through a fence, landed in the pool. now, police have just told us that the driver suffered a medical emergency, which then led to that accident. officers were able to pull the driver out of the car, administered cpr. at this point we don't know anything about the person's condition. a man in this video terrorized dozens of asian businesses, shattering windows with a slingshot, then riding off on a scooter. police say they caught him. he now faces a long list of charges including hate crime allegations. he's accused of shooting out the windows of nearly 30 san francisco businesses between the time period of april and august. 20 of the owners are chinese. a $90 million lawsuit against the san francisco school district has been thrown out by a federal judge. board member alison collins filed that lawsuit claiming the

school district and her co-workers violated her free speech rights when she was stripped her vice presidentsy position because of tweets she posted five years ago about asian-americans. a federal judge ruled that the lawsuit has no merit and does not need to be argued in court. there is outrage in oakland today over a recent move by the mayor and governor newsom. the anti-police terror project along with other community groups are protesting after governor newsom granted a request by mayor libby schaaf to send chp officers to monitor traffic laws in oakland. the family of erik salgado joined them today at the corner where he was shot. salgado was shot and killed by a chp officer a year ago. the protesters say traffic stops did not reduce crime. >> what they do do is increase unnecessary contact between people of color and law enforcement. traffic stops are the primary way, the first way that people make their way into the criminal injustice system. and we know that for black and

brown and indigenous bodies, once you are in that system, getting out of it is nearly impossible. >> oakland chamber of commerce has been begging for law enforcement following multiple attacks on asian-americans, including an armed robbery. two weeks after a south bay study of airborne lead pollution, the facility announced it is now selling unleaded fuel. community and airport partnership made today's announcement in front of an unleaded fuel truck. this comes as protesters have been calling for an early closure at the airport. the study found children who live near the airport in san jose had lead levels in their blood on par with the children of flint, michigan. unleaded fuel costs more, but pilots predict it will be the preferred fuel. >> as soon as people are able, they will because the unleaded fuel lowers your maintenance costs, extends your maintenance intervals on the airplane. it burns cleaner, and it's also

the right thing to do. >> now, the issue is that some planes can't use unleaded fuel, so reed hill will continue to carry leaded fuel as well. issues with tesla's autopilot system have led to a formal federal investigation. the ntsb announcing it's looking into tesla's partially automated driving system. the investigation covers model y, x, s, and 3. the agency identified 11 crashes since 2018 where tesla's cars on autopilot or cruise control hit cars with flashing lights, flares, or cones warning of hazards. let's bring jeff back. let's talk about what the forecast looks for the rest of the weekend. >> it is warm. we're going to see temperatures cool off tomorrow, so that will be a little good news here. but we are also tracking those gusty winds in the mountains and even more smoke this week. let's take you into that microclimate forecast. a lot happening. i know if you're like me, anytime we get that smoke in here, it just kinds of sets your nerves on edge.

it was hard to breathe through parts of the bay area this weekend. so i wanted to show you that if you're headed out right now, at least after our show or later on tonight, we do have good to moderate air quality. that's what the yellow to green dots are indicating. so all good again if you're head the out tonight. but we are looking at smoke in the forecast in that wind as i mentioned. this storm system off to the north is going to move right over oregon, also there over portions of nevada, and the counterclockwise circulation around that, that's what's going to kick up the wind, also bring us down here some smoke. so let's take you into that wind forecast. the big thing i want to stress on this is this is isolated wind up for the highest mountain peaks. a lot of the lower elevations really aren't expected to get extremely gusty. but you can see here that fire weather watch. that's tomorrow night, 5:00 p.m. until 10:00 a.m. wednesday. mountain wind gusts out of the northeast 20 to 50. here it is. tomorrow evening, 8:00 p.m., you

can see the wind. some of this red over the north bay mountains, also east bay mountains, that's wind gusts of 40, even 50-mile-per-hour potential. at the lower elevations the same time, it's only 10 to 24. as we roll through wednesday morning, that's when it looks like it would be the gustiest, especially over the north bay mountains right there at 8:00 in the morning. but, again, notice at the lower elevations, it's not as gusty here at the same time. then as we roll through wednesday afternoon, we'll begin to see that wind come down through the higher elevations. again, tuesday night into wednesday morning, we'll see that mountain wind. we'll have more updates as we get closer to that. as we get you into tomorrow morning's forecast, a lot of your kids heading back to school. we're going to start it off in the upper 50s and low 60s. some of that fog near the bay and also the coast. if you're out there in san francisco, it will be the chilliest start here with 58 degrees. daytime highs going to cool us off three to six degrees. that's going to make it more enjoyable to be outside. 83 in napa.

87 in concord. 80 in san jose. 75 in palo alto. air quality looks excellent through tomorrow. once we hit the late, late evening hours on tuesday into wednesday, we'll see that smoke return. check it out. as you can see as we roll through wednesday's forecast, that smoke comes back here throughout the bay. so on my seven-day forecast here in san francisco, we have 60s over the next seven days. we stay steady on those temps. across the inland valleys, it was warm. we had some 90s inland but all week long we're looking at those 80s as we move through the next several days. we've just got to get through tuesday night and wednesday and then i think we've got a decent week coming our way. >> we can celebrate 80s, right? >> exactly. >> thank you, jeff. coming up, it is a battle of the billionaires. jeff bezos now sing nasa over something it gave elon musk. we'll tell you all about it next.

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well, the pandemic has made it a little easier for many local homeowners to make it in the bay. that's because the equity in their home soared as housing prices increased. the biggest jumps in homes in san mateo and santa clara counties. real estate analytics found that more than 7 in 10 homeowners in both counties now have more than 50% equity in their homes. well, drama in space. jeff bezos' space company blue origin is now suing nasa. it comes after nasa awarded a moon landing contract to elon musk's spacex. originally nasa had planned to award contracts to several companies. bezos said nasa unfairly awarded the contract to musk. nasa says it will review the details. a major stretch of the san francisco highway was reopened to vehicles. much of the pandemic, the highway was pedestrian and

cyclists only all the way from lincoln to sloat. vehicles are now allowed during the week but it will continue to stay closed during weekends and holidays. city leaders say the new rules make it easier on families because school is back in session and as people continue heading back into the office as well. several groups critical of the decision to reopen. the city says it will be working out a long-term plan. we'll be back with a new wine from a bay area --

. a bay area hip-hop legend expanding his wine empire. e-40 first got into business and launched a wine. i know you are a huge e-40 fan. >> he has wine, tequila, all sorts of things, and he raps on the side. and he goes to 49ers and warriors games all the time. world history is unfolding right before our eyes. the fall of afghanistan. the u.s. withdraws, and

taliban takes over. president biden says he is not second guessing himself. >> i stand squarely behind my decision. >> so what happens now? we've got the political fallout and more. plus, voting already under way, the governor makes a campaign stop in san jose, trying to stave off that recall. >> but it's all about turnout at this stage. >> our political analyst, larry gerston breaks down why the governor has a tough month ahead of him. health insurance issues for long haulers, and what you can do to fight back. thanks for joining us, i'm jessica aguirre. >> i'm raj mathai. there are chilling images in kabul. people are so desperate they