The last evacuation planes and troops have left Afghanistan ending the longest war America has been involved in. There are still some Americans and Afghans that remain there, but their evacuation will no longer be a Pentagon mission, it is now a diplomatic mission. In the end, after 20 years, the U.S. failed to defeat the Taliban, establish a functioning democracy, and stop ISIS extremists. What happens next is still unclear as we need to resettle thousands of Afghans and see what kind of government is formed by the Taliban. Ishaan Tharoor, foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post, joins us for the end of America’s presence in Afghanistan.

Next, a look inside Pfizer’s Pearl River research center, where the vaccine was created with their partner BioNTech. The team there is in a never-ending effort to stay ahead of the pandemic. The lab has “variant hunters” that continue to track the effectiveness of the vaccine on new variants, a “virus farmer” that grows the latest variants for testing, and scientists developing the next formulation of the vaccine if needed. Olivia Goldhill, investigative reporter at STAT News, joins us for a look inside Pfizer’s labs.

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