>> many times when folks have made these allegations, they have also been promoting a book. >> reporter: republicans today either tepidly backed the president. >> i don't. i didn't -- i haven't seen that or read that. i know the president said it's not true. >> reporter:.or avoided the issue altogether. the president says this latest accuser is not his type. is that an appropriate response to an allegation of rape? >> i don't have any comment about that. >> reporter: in her book, carroll also accuses les moonves, the former chairman and c.e.o. of cbs, of groping her in an elevator after an interview. like the president, he denies it. moonves was forced out of cbs last summer after a series of sexual misconduct allegations. maurice? >> nancy cordes at the capital tonight. thank you.

alvarez could not make it to washington today but he was there in spirit. >> we're going leave here and louis alvarez is going to die. in that meeting we gave senate majority leader mitch mcconnell louis alvarez's badge. we want the senate majority leader to be reminded of people like lou alvarez. >> reporter: lou alvarez joined jon stewart to demand lawmakers pass a new september 11th compensation bill to help first responders. alvarez, whose stage 4 cancer was linked to his work at ground zero was placed in hospice care last week. i sat down with him at his be

bedside. going forward, when people say the name lou alvarez, what do you want them to think about? >> i want the money to be there, the help they need to be there. i had a small part in helping to get that accomplished. >> the house is expected to vote on its version of a funding bill next month. the head of instagram told cbs this morning's gayle king the social media platform is working hard to prevent foreign interference in the upcoming presidential election. adam took the helm at instagram in october. >> you had some issues with that news feed. >> yes. that was kindly put.

thank you. >> 2020 is right around the corner. what lessons have you learned to make sure it doesn't happen in 2020? are you ready for that? >> i worry about this a lot because the actors that we are working against. >> are very skilled. >> very sophisticated, very motivated, very quick to adapt their methodologies. when we close one loophole or one opportunity, they often find another. we're so focused on connecting people with what they love, we were under-focused on the risks that came from it. that was the biggest thing. but around elections, specifically right now, we are trying to understand the details of the risks. maybe the misinformation is coming from the government, and not coming from the media in a certain country. or maybe one country is a specific target from neighboring countries because of a local dispute. we need to understand those nuances. so for us, there is a bunch of different areas, identifying bad actors, getting rid of fake accounts. getting more effective at identifying misinformation to make sure it doesn't go viral, empowering readers with more information about what they read so they can make more informed

decisions about what to trust and what to share. up next, the search for politicians who have gone into hiding to avoid a vote. and later another state joins the legal pot movement.

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for hard-to-reach places, duster makes it easy to clean. it captures dust in one swipe. ha! gotcha! and sweeper heavy duty cloths lock away twice as much dirt and dust. it gets stuff deep in the grooves other tools can miss. y'know what? my place... is a lot cleaner now. stop cleaning. start swiffering. >> republican state senators in oregon have not shown up for work since last thursday. they've gone into hiding, some of them out of state, to block democrats from voting on a climate bill. carter evans is in salem tonight. >> reporter: as lively as oregon's state capitol appears on the outside, it is dead silent inside the state senate chamber. >> that's what you're paid for. so they should be back to work doing their job. >> reporter: 11 republican state senators walked out six days ago.

state democrats even made a wanted poster, harkening the days of the wild west, but one outlaw senator took it to the extreme, telling a portland television station. >> send bachelors and come heavily armed. i'm not going to be a political prisoner in the state of oregon. >> reporter: at the heart of the political standoff is a bill that would drastically reduce carbon emissions. the democrat supported law would raise a variety of taxes. democrats hold 18 senate seats, but they need 20 senators in order to conduct business. >> this is no longer about climate change. this is about ensuring that the legislative branch can operate. >> reporter: so oregon governor kate brown said she had no choice but to send out a posse. >> reporter: you sent the state police after them. >> yes, the state police are still looking for members within the state of oregon. >> reporter: some have now fled the state. we video conferenced with republican senator tim knopp, now in hiding. we're at the state capitol right now. where are you?

>> i am in idaho in a cabin by a lake. >> reporter: i just talked to the governor. and she wonders, what are you afraid of? are you afraid of democracy? >> this is democracy. this is defending our constituents. >> oregonians should be furious. it's unacceptable. in oregon, this is not how we solve problems. >> reporter: with just five days left in the legislative session, the senate president now says there simply aren't enough votes to pass this climate bill, so he's urging senate republicans to return home, but they seem skeptical and don't appear ready to come out of hiding just yet. maurice. >> okay, carter evans, chasing tonight, thank you. still ahead, michael jackson's complicated legacy a decade after his death.

>> tonight more than 700 firefighters are trying to contain a wildfire near superior, arizona. more than 115,000 acres have burned in just over two weeks. and in the florida everglades, a wildfire sparked by lightning on sunday is has burned more than 30,000 acres. health officials are warning of potential breathing problems from all the smoke.

illinois today became the 11th state along with washington, d.c., to legalize recreational marijuana. next year state residents will be able to buy and possess up to an ounce of weed, and more than 700,000 people may have prior arrests for marijuana erased from their criminal records. and ten years ago today, michael jackson died from an anesthetic overdose. he was remembered today at his mausoleum in california and at his star on the hollywood walk of fame. jackson's legacy is tarnished. most recently by a documentary in which he was accused of molesting children, but his music remains popular. last week it was streamed 15.5-million times, about the same as before the documentary. up next, the army sergeant who faced down his fears and saved his entire squad.

>> president trump today awarded the medal of honor to army staff sergeant david bellavia. he put his life on the line to save his squad in the bloodiest battle of the iraq war in fallujah in 2004. david martin on an american hero. >> reporter: staff sergeant david bellavia and his ten-man squad were going house to house searching for terrorists. >> we're going to leave shortly. >> reporter: it was his 29th birthday 15 years ago. >> we walked into a house, and on the second door inside the home, bullets started flying. >> reporter: a deafening maelstrom of tracer rounds flying in every direction, captured on camera by journalist michael ware.

bellavia fired a machine gun to cover his squad's retreat. >> nobody's hit! >> reporter:.but he felt he had failed his men. >> i ran out because i was out of plans and i was scared to death. >> reporter: and failed the infantryman's code of battle. >> we fight until you don't fight anymore and we take you out, but we don't break contact. >> reporter: but you just did. >> and that really was insulting to me. >> reporter: in his documentary, michael ware described what happened next. >> someone had to go back in there. someone had to kill them. >> i want to go in there and go after him. >> reporter: it was staff sergeant bellavia. >> reporter: followed by ware and one other soldier, he went back into the pitch-black house. he killed three of the enemy and injured a fourth. >> he rolled and tore up the stairs. >> reporter: so now you have to go up the stairs after him? >> this guy's hurt, and i like my chances with a guy that's hit repeatedly and he's bleeding.

i can see the blood. he's mine. >> reporter: the official army account says bellavia "silenced" the wounded fighter. so, how did you silence him? >> i hit him with my helmet. i hit him with everything i could. >> reporter: just took your helmet and. >> all i could think of is if i can just hit the guy enough times with my helmet. >> reporter: the rest is as savage as combat gets, and bellavia put it all in his book. if this was a movie, it would be x-rated because the violence is so graphic. >> if it's truly war, that's what it should be rated. >> reporter: today bellavia became the first living soldier to receive the medal of honor. [ applause ] >> for his actions in iraq. >> my reward has always been that i'm alive and i'm home. that's the greatest thing in the world to have. >> reporter: and here is something even greater. every man in his squad came home alie with him. david martin, cbs news,

lyndonville, new york. >> and that is the overnight news for this wednesday. for some of you the news continues. for others, check back in for the morning news. welcome to the "overnight news." crisis along the southern border has claimed another casualty. the acting head of customs and border protection will soon be acting no more.

>> reporter: as the federal government remains under fire for its treatment of migrant children, acting customs and border protection commissioner john sanders announced his resignation today just two months after taking the job. every major homeland security agency that handles immigration is currently without a permanent leader. today president trump said he had not forced sanders out. >> i didn't speak to him. i don't think i've ever spoken to him actually. no, we have some very good people running it. >> reporter: and he said he was concerned about reports of unsanitary conditions in border facilities. >> it's in much better shape than it ever was. a lot of these young children come from places that you don't even want to know about. >> reporter: lawyers who have visited an overcrowded facility in clint, texas, disagree. >> many of the children had not had access to a single shower or bath. they were wearing the same dirty clothing that they crossed the border with. >> reporter: in response, c.b.p. moved more than 300 children out of the facility, but then abruptly announced today that over 100 children would be going

back. one official told reporters, "i personally don't believe these allegations." current acting head of ice, mark morgan, will be taking over at c.b.p. he told us he also disagrees with similar reports about egregious conditions at ice facilities. >> i just don't agree that it's egregious conditions like a systemic problem. >> reporter: what word would you use? >> i would say that there are always challenges. we should always try to get better, but to say it's a systemic and egregious problem across the board, that's just not true. and the facts don't support that. >> reporter: morgan, like president trump, placed much of the blame on congress for inaction. >> we've been asking congress for a very, very long time. border patrol is not a place for the kids. i think every american can agree with that. >> reporter: well, today democrats in the house pledged to pass a $4.5 billion aid package to address the surge of migrants at the border as well as the conditions in the detention facilities. the republicans in the senate say that they will pass their

own legislation, but it's unclear whether the two bills, maurice, can be reconciled. chip reed has more. >> reporter: president trump today took the rhetoric with iran from hot to incendiary in a tweet stating, "any attack by iran on anything american will be met with great and overwhelming force. in some areas overwhelming will mean obliteration." later in the oval office he was asked if he has an exit strategy if war does break out with iran. >> you're not going to need an exit strategy. i don't need exit strategies. >> reporter: after that cryptic answer, he was asked if iran takes his threats seriously? >> i think everybody does. i think you do, too.

good-bye. >> reporter: earlier it was iranian president hassan rouhani who ratcheted up the rhetoric, calling new u.s. sanctions "outrageous and idiotic" and accusing the white house of being "afflicted by mental retardation." strong comments from a man who is considered a moderate voice in a regime of hardliners. the u.s. sanctions were in retaliation for the shooting down by iran of a u.s. drone last week. rouhani today called that a great thing to do. iran says the new sanctions make future negotiations impossible. president trump, though, did suggest that the door to diplomacy is still open. >> when they're ready, they'll let us know. very simple. >> reporter: but democratic senator bob menendez said the white house has no plan to get to the negotiating table. >> and what he's doing is building pressure. and when you have a pressure cooker that has no escape valve, all it does is explode.

>> reporter: and cbs news has confirmed that in the days after that drone was shot down by iran last week, the u.s. military launched a major cyber attack against an iranian-backed terrorist group. however, it is not clear if that cyber attack was successful. maurice? president trump continues to deny he raped a woman in a department store dressing room. the president insists he never met her and in his words, "she's not my type. >> it was against my will, and it hurt and it was a fight. >> reporter: magazine columnist e. jean carroll says president trump attacked her in a bergdorf goodman dressing room in the mid-'90s. >> he shut the door and pushed me up against the wall and banged my head on the wall and kissed me. i just. it was so shocking. >> reporter: but in a new interview with "the hill" newspaper, president trump insists carroll is totally lying. "i don't know anything about

her," adding, "she's not my type." >> i am so glad i am not his type. >> reporter: it's not the first time mr. trump has tried to use his accuser's looks as a defense. >> she's a liar. she is a liar. >> reporter: here's what he said about a woman who claimed he groped her on a plane. >> she would not be my first choice, that i can tell you. >> reporter: and here's what he said about a reporter who claimed he forcibly kissed her at mar-a-lago. >> look at her. look at her words. you tell me what you think. i don't think so. i don't think so. >> reporter: he's denied all 15 women who have come forward. >> reporter: carroll, seen here, meeting mr. trump in 1987, first made the accusation in a new book called "what do we need men for?" >> many times when folks have made these allegations, they have also been promoting a book. >> reporter: republicans today either tepidly backed the president. >> i don't. i didn't -- i haven't seen that or read that. i know the president said it's not true. >> reporter:.or avoided the

issue altogether. the president says his latest accuser is not his type. is that an appropriate response to an allegation of rape? >> i don't have any comment about that. >> reporter: in her book, carroll also accuses les moonves, the former chairman and c.e.o. of cbs, of groping her in an elevator after an interview. like the president, he denies it. moonves was forced out of cbs last summer after a series of sexual misconduct allegations. we'll be right back.

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this is the "cbs overnight news." the falcon heavy rocket is carrying two dozen research satellites, a deep space atomic clock and a solar sail. that sail could be instrumental in a mission to mars, which is the dream of more than one adventurer. >> reporter: we've always been intrigued by mars. we've composed music about it. we've made paintings of it and

we've made so many movies about i it. but what no person has ever done before is go there. mars in the public zeitgeist is very hot today. adam is the chief engineer for a new unmanned nasa mission to mars launching next year called mars 2020. >> so mars is smaller than earth. it's colder. it has a very sand atmosphere so you couldn't breathe it. it's a very inhospitable environment. >> reporter: of course, this isn't nasa's first mission to mars. we put the viking on mars in 1976. the sojourner rover in 1977.

in 2012 the curiosity rover. >> curiosity told us abothe anct wet environment of mars was, in fact, habitable for life. still the question hangs in front of us, if it was alive and our mission 2020 is here to hopefully sort of untangle that question and provide an answer. >> reporter: the star of mars 2020 is this rover. its cameras, lasers and sensors will analyze the surface of mars, looking for signs of ancient life. and it will put rock samples into air tight canisters for a later mission to bring back to earth. this rover will also be carrying a stow-away, a fell hoe row robt will detach once the rover is

safely on mars. >> this is the rotor system. >> reporter: nasa has built a mars helicopter. >> this helicopter is designed to fly up to 90 seconds. >> reporter: 90 seconds? $23 million for a drone that can fly 90 seconds. doesn't sound like very much. >> this is the first time ever we're flying on another planet. >> reporter: meanwhile at nasa headquarters in washington, d.c., plans are afoot to send an even more delicate cargo to mars. has nasa thought about an overall timeline of putting a person on mars? >> we're thinking maybe the mid 2030s as a timeline, just visionary. >> reporter: kim is the nasa add administrator, the top dog. a key element of his mars plan

is creating a sort of rehearsal stage on the moon. >> the moon can be a great proving ground for our first mission to mars. if something doesn't go right, there's still an opportunity to get home. >> reporter: is part of the mars push to literally create a planet b? are people thinking that science fiction-y. >> not ruling it out but it's not my objective right now. the main objective is we want to discover life. >> reporter: some people argue that we need another option in case we make the earth uninhabitable. >> you want a backup planet, you want a backup strategy, maybe a couple. the moon could be one, mars could be one. >> reporter: the president and chief operating officer of spacex whose business is launching cargo, satellites and soon people into space for its customers,governments, mmunications companies and nasa. her boss is tesla billionaire

elon musk. >> it's important that we try to expand life beyond earth. >> reporter: unlike nasa, spacex reuses its rockets instead of just letting them burn up. it's astonishing to see them return to the pad and land perfectly on their tails by themselves. still, spacex and nasa need each other. >> i want to be clear. we are working with nasa. >> reporter: you're not competitors? >> not competitors to nasa, no. they're a customer as well as a partner. >> reporter: shotwell does think that spacex will put people on mars first. >> we would love to be in a position to send a ship to mars in 2022. hopefully if we did a good job in 2022, we would be able to send people in 2024. >> reporter: do people say you're crazy? >> people have said we're crazy since we started. >> reporter: this is the enormous rocket that spacex is

building for mars. it's called the super heavy. it's not quite as big as the saturn booster, the biggest of all time, but spacex says it's six times as powerful. so why mars now? >> the characteristics of the planet were close enough to earth that we could see a path to putting humans on mars and having them survive. but it is a fixer-upper planet. life is not going to be easy on mars for the first few decades for sure. >> we're in the middle of a lava flow. hawaii space exploration simulation. >> reporter: kim is a professor after the university of hawaii and the master mind behind this isolated habitat perched on the side of a hawaiian volcano. it feels as much like mars as you can find on earth. >> this gives us a chance to run long duration simulations of exploring the surface of mars,

4-12 months or even longer. >> reporter: you mean people live in that dome for a year? >> a year, yes. >> reporter: wow. can they call home? >> nope. they're under a 20 minutes each way communications delay. that's to simulate the amount of time it takes for a signal to get to earth from mars. >> can i try it? >> sure. >> do you have it in a 40 long? >> reporter: the high seas habitat can't simulate the hostile conditions on mars, but it can simulate being cooped up with fellow astronauts during a months long mission. >> if the human part fails, it's just as catastrophic as if the rocket blows up. >> reporter: she says the key is choosing the right kind of people. >> it can be summarized as a thick skin, a long fuse and an optimistic outlook. if you took people off the street and put them in this habitat, they would probably be

at each others throats' within a day or two. >> reporter: probably because inside it feels like a 1 1/2 story camping tent. >> this is a bedroom. you can see it's not very big, but you do have a bed. >> reporter: about what you would get on a cheap cruise ship. >> if you can imagine going on a family holiday in a catcher van for a year, this is kind of the situation we're talking about here. our crews have all emerged alive. >> reporter: space travel is massively expensive. i had to ask the big taxpayer question. why should we send money on going to other planets when we have so many problems here at home? >> i think that's a very short-sighted discussi short-sighted suggestion. space has transformed all our lives, the way we communicate, the way we produce food, the way we predict weather, disaster

relief, provide national security and defense. and the only reason all of these technologies are available to us is because of the trail that nasa has blazed doing exmore ration. >> reporter: plus tang. >> plus tang, sure. >> tang. have a blast. have some tang. >> reporter: here's where we stand. nasa is completing construction of its new mars rover in readiness for its launch in july 2020. in texas, spacex is firing prototypes of its mars rocket engines twice a week, getting ready for short test flights in late 2020. >> i think we'll get to mars. i think we'll do it in the next decade for sure. >> reporter: adam is watching forward to watching his baby lift off to mars, from a distance. would you ever want to go to mars? >> no. >> reporter: why not? >> i have children and a

beautiful garden and this is a warm, wet kiss compared to the surface of mars. i'd like to just hang out here. ♪

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they'll be taking part in the 24th world scout jam bobore. the boy scouts have been welcoming girls recently and even changed the name of the program. how are the boys and girls getting along? carter evans has one family's story. >> reporter: whether they're playing music or a board game, 13-year-old twins sofia and brandon are almost always together. but that changed when brandon entered the boy scouts. >> when he was gone on his campouts, it was weird. like i can't go with him? i wanted to go to the gun ranges and bow and arrow. >> reporter: the girl scouts don't do that? >> the gl tscan.'soption. >> reporter: it's not a regular thing? >> no.

>> welcome to our first all girl troop meeting. >> reporter: this winter sofia and thousands of other girls joined the boy scouts pracogram. you're getting more of the rough and tumble type of stuff? >> yeah. >> reporter: the decision to allow girls is a response to demands from busy parents who wanted one program for the whole family. her brother supports the move. >> i think it's kind of cool actually. >> reporter: girls and boys will still be in their own troops. the twins' mom is scout master. >> they deserve to have the opportunity to both enjoy that scouting experience as it was meant to be and it was meant to be single gender. >> reporter: girls can now earn the same merit badges and ranks as boys. sofia is eager to earn the prestigious eagle scout award. that's a lot of work. >> yeah.

i'm ready. >> reporter: what do you hope other girls take away from this?

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high school graduations are coming to a close from coast to coast and millions of young people are preparing to head off to college. but what about the youngsters who have decided to enlist in the u.s. armed forces? there's an organization that's making those graduates feel special. >> our community salute is that organization and it's brought a brand of celebration to students who are typically unheralded for choosing the military over college. we were at the latest ceremony last night in central new york where students from 45 school districts were represented. >> it's about a week before

graduation at new york's windsor central high school. but this pomp and circumstance is solely intended to highlight students set on careers in the military. >> i think it's great for the ceremony to happen because there's not a lot of representation in the schools but here this is what it's all about. it's completely for us. >> we're recognizing you for what you're about to do. >> reporter: erin will graduate second in her class but instead of heading to college, she enlisted in the army and plans to become a veterinarian. >> you get hands-on job training in the army and afterwards you can pay with your school with the g.i. bill and i can end up being a vet. >> college and all that school work doesn't really fit me. i have to be out somewhere, doing something, getting my hands dirty. >> i chose the marines. i wanted the challenge. i just felt like i wanted to serve something bigger than

myself. >> young graduates going into the military should be honored. >> reporter: gene clark. >> i hear from veterans all the time. they never did this for me when i went in the service. my response is, no, they didn't do it when i went in the service either. wouldn't it have been wonderful if they had? >> reporter: jenna murdoch represents the fourth generation of her family to join the navy and the first to be celebrated by her community for doing so. >> it's kind of a family legacy lm almost. it kind of made sense to join the navy. >> wonderful to see them honored too. that is the overnight news for this wednesday. for some of you the news continues. for others, check back in later for the morning news. and you don't want to miss "cbs this morning."

captioning funded by cbs it's wednesday, june 26th, 2019. this is the "cbs morning news." former counsel robert mueller agrees to face counsel about his russian investigation. how president trump reacted to the news. immigration shakeup. as the trump administration scrambles to fill team leadership roles, congress wrestles with how to work with the border. ahead of round one of tonight's democratic debate. >> i'm laura podesta in miami

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