this is the cbs "overnight news." good evening. thanks for joining us. it's been a weekend of somber remembrances as america marked 20 years since the 9/11 attack. more on that in a moment. but we begin with the country still reeling from the effects of the pandemic. tonight, new daily infections are still high. but trending down over the last two weeks. deaths are up 30% over the same time period. meanwhile, joe biden is doubling down on efforts to turn the tide against the virus. we begin with lilia luciano with more on that. good evening. >> reporter: good evening to s nd phbacover

emandate. affected companies like costco. it requires companies that have 100 employees or more to make sure workers are vaccinated or face weekly testing for covid. joe biden's sweeping new vaccine mandate appears to be deepening america's political divide. several republican governors, including nebraska's governor pete rickets are vowing to fight it, in court. >> somebody shouldn't have to make the choice between keeping their job and getting a jab in the arm. >> reporter: the mandate requires federal workers and the military get their shots. but some private businesses, too. former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb. >> i don't think the federal government should be dictating this. i don't think governors should be preventing businesses from making these determinations on their own. >> reporter: about 80 million private sector workers are impacted. >> i think putting the onus on each employer is a lot of effort for companies to make those decisions and to try to enforce it. so i think having a consistent

policy is a good thing. >> reporter: only half of all of states have at least half their population fully vaccinated. nationwide, deaths are up, with hospitalizations in cases trending down. >> how are parents okay with that? how are they just okay with that, over a mask? >> reporter: for the kids sickest with covid, hospitalization rates spiked almost tenfold since late june. >> the reality is, we may be headed to another peak or to another valley if we all pull together. >> reporter: the vaccines that are available are for people 12 and older. but a vaccine for children between the ages of 5 and 11 may become available by halloween. jericka? >> lilia luciano, thank you. we turn now to our medical contributor dr. david agus. you just heard these mandates going into effect. how quickly do you think we'll see a difference? will these mandates work? >> they have to work. they're the most aggressive step yet mandating that every federal

employer, contractor and health care worker are vaccinated. and 80 million people will have to have a vaccine or have a test that work for companies with more than 100 people. there was no other way to get above that low 50% which is where we are in terms of vaccinated in the country. we are the lowest of the g7 countries. japan has passed the united states in terms of vaccines. so we have to take drastic measures to get the vaccination up in the united states. >> dr. agus, we appreciate the information. an explosion tore through an apartment complex in georgia today about 20 miles north of atlanta. police arrived to find heavy damage to the building and the smell of heavy gas fumes. several people were trapped. at least one person was rushed to the hospital with injuries. today, a fallen marine killed in a bombing at afghanistan's kabul airport returned to his indiana hometown. thousands lined the streets of

logansport in honor of 22-year-old corporal huberto sanchez. he was among 13 servicemen and women killed in the attack in the final days of the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan. the fbi released the first of what are expected to be several documents whether the saudi government supported the 9/11 hijacker's plot. at the same time, joe biden is defending his afghanistan withdrawal. cbs' christina ruffini is at the white house tonight with more. >> reporter: good evening. last night, the fbi released a declassified document from 2016. the report shows a closer than previously known link between two saudi citizens living in the u.s. and the 9/11 hijackers, including meetings and phone calls. but the report does not prove a definitive link between the hijackers and higher echelons of the saudi government. >> can al qaeda come back? yeah. but guess what? it's already back in other places. [ inaudible ] every place where al qaeda is, we're going to invade?

come on. >> reporter: speaking to reporters in shanksville, pennsylvania, the crash site of one of the plane's hijacked on 9/11, joe biden defended the u.s. withdrawal from the place that once harbored the terrorists. >> 70% of american people wanted to get out. but the palestinian of it is, they didn't like the way we got out. >> reporter: a cbs news poll finds the majority of americans oppose using the u.s. military to create democracies. and want the u.s. to intervene less overseas. but former acting cia director michael morrell says not having a presence in afghanistan puts america at greater risk. >> you have safe haven in afghanistan that you can't have anywhere else, because you're being harbored now by the taliban, and afghanistan is a big place. it's tough to get to. >> and tomorrow, secretary of state antony blinken will field what will surely be some pointed questions from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. jericka? >> christina ruffini at the white house, thank you.

20 years into the war on terror, the fight continues in countries far from afghanistan. cbs' holly williams joined yemen's military on their frontlines. a civil war is under way and al qaeda is using the country as a base for attacks. >> reporter: yemeni soldiers talk us to the front line where they're fighting a deadly war for control of this barren desert. these are government forces battling rebels who have seized the capital and swaths of land. they're saying that their enemy is about 500 yards in that direction. the saudi arabian government invited us to witness this conflict. they're backing the yemeni government. the u.s. accuses iran of arming the rebels. both sides have been accused of possible war crimes. the conflicts killed nearly 250,000 people, according to the u.n.

some victims of starvation. and in the anarchy, al qaeda has thrived here. the group's most dangerous affiliate according to some, despite years of u.s. drone strikes. al qaeda's yemen branch trained the man who attempted to down a u.s. airliner on christmas day in 2009, with explosives sewn into his underpants and claimed responsibility for a 2015 shooting in paris that killed 12. and an attack in pensacola in 2019 that left three dead. this is the governor of yemen's northern province. what would it take to get rid of al qaeda in yemen? "we need a state," he told us. "if we had a functioning government, we could clean them out." more than 4 million yemenese have pled their homes, many ending up in dusty camps like this one. 12-year-old abdullah told us he wants to be a doctor when he grows up.

but as long as the war rages, there's little hope for these children's future. just the desperation that al qaeda feeds off. holly williams, cb do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. call coventry direct to learn more. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. our friends sold their policy to help pay for their medical bills and that got me thinking. maybe selling our policy could help with our retirement. i'm skeptical, so i did some research and called coventry direct. they explained life insurance is a valuable asset that can be sold. we learned that we can sell all of our policy or keep part of it with no future payments, who knew? we sold our policy. now we can relax and enjoy our retirement as we had planned. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out

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this is the cbs "overnight news." i'm jericka duncan in new york. thanks for staying with us. it's been more than 20 years now since the terror attacks of 9/11, and we're still hearing new stories of courage from that fateful day. norah o'donnell spoke with two fighter pilots who took off to protect the u.s. capitol, all while knowing it could be a suicide mission. >> it was a normal tuesday morning. >> reporter: lieutenant general mark sasville and heather p flew for thel ga 11, 2001 they

watched two planes hit the world trade center. >> we knew immediately that we needed to protect and defend. >> reporter: protect and defend the nation's capitol, as commercial airliners had become weapons of war. what did you understand about the rules of engagement the >> we understood what the threat was. we were looking for a rogue airliner flying low, that was not communicating with air traffic control. >> reporter: the pilots had no time to spare. the country was under attack. they knew of at least one plane still in the sky, flying low. it was united flight 93. >> reporter: they didn't even have time to load missiles. so you're flying f-16s that weren't armed with missiles. how were you going to take down flight 93? >> we were going to have to hit the airplane. >> a ckamikaze mission?

>> sir, i remember you would take the cockpit to aim at the terrorists, and i would take the tail. >> that's not something you survive. >> no. as the military, we don't send our service members on suicide missions. but it was clear what needed to be done that morning. it was not an order through the chain of command, it was your call to ram the plane. >> we didn't have any other choice. we weren't going to be caught on the ground watching america get hit again. >> reporter: what they didn't know is that the passengers and crew of flight 93 fought back and drove the plane into a field in shanksville. 20 years later, how often do you think about that day, 9/11? >> i think about it every day. those on flight 93 that paid the

rehe real heroes. >> we owe our lives to them. that's also why, when i think of 9/11, instead of being overcome by the trauma and the horror and the tragedy, i'm actually overcome by hope, that the best ofho demonstrated on that day. so in some ways, living my life as normally as possible is the biggest way that we can say that the terrorists did not win. >> that again was norah o'donnell reporting. other unsung heroes of that day were the rescue dogs. they combed the wreckage of the twin towers searching for signs of life, and stayed on the pile for months. sniffing out remains of the victims. luke burbank has that story. >> reporter: 9/11 was undoubtedly one of the darkest moments in our nation's history. but the attacks and the days hf

gs.kinds. >> c't them. that smoke you see over there, they can smell through that, and we can't. >> reporter: among them was anna. a dog trained to find humans in the tangled rubble. all at the direction of her handler, rick lee, a firefighter from sacramento. >> overall, kind of reminded me of world war ii films of london being bombed, because everything had no color, it's all gray, everything is destroyed. >> reporter: 20 years later, lee stilt vividly remembers searching what had been building seven of the world grade center. >> there had been heavy equipment working there for several hours and they asked if we could search the area. we got up on a pile. you could hear a pin drop. we searched the area and the dogs didn't detect any live

hum human scent. >> reporter: which was important because it allowed them to move on to other sections. lee and his dog knew what they were doing, due in no smart part to wilma, a retired gym teacher in central califoria. >> i wanted to learn to train a dog to do something special. showing a poodle is not to me particularly special. but learning to train a dog to find a person who might be alive after a disaster, that's special. >> reporter: well into her 50s, melville and her beloved dog, murphy, learned the art of search and rescue. and their first deployment was oklahoma city. >> we have had an explosion. we need help. >> 168 people died in oklahoma city. that got landed on my heart. >> reporter: while searching the

rubble, melville noticed something. >> i could see first hand that although we have many really terrific civilian dog handlers, i saw that for the first two days, the firefighters, meaning the task force, stood back and wondered what are we going to do with these civilians? >> reporter: and so she returned home to california with a plan. start a non-profit, the national disaster search dog foundation that would do something that hadn't been done before. train firefighters and dogs together. free of charge. the kicker -- she'd get most of the kids from rescue shelters. >> looking for a dog that has high drive that doesn't make a good pet. they're going to run on the rubble, they're going to everything just to get that

reward. >> reporter: jason vasquez is a fire captain. he says search dogs use their keen noses and outsized enthusiasm to find humans and human remains in disasters. >> they use 100% smell. their nose is 100% working and that's how they find somebody. >> there are a number of folks out here, how does a dog know to look for the one guy that's h hiding in a barrel? >> the person is out and they can see them, you're not the one i'm looking for. >> reporter: the foundation's headquarters in california are a sort of search dog disneyland. >> where are they, bud? >> reporter: with simulated collapsed freeways, leaning

buildings and many pilt piles o wrecked cars. it's the only facility of its kind in the u.s., build specifically for dogs to learn search and rescue. >> i had an ambition, once the search dog foundation got going, to create 168 fema certified teams, one for each person that died in oklahoma city. and just last year, this agency made it to the 168th mark. >> reporter: an incredible accomplishment for an organization that survives solely on donations and love for these animals. i find it interesting, because it seems like you possess the characteristics that you're looking for in these dogs. >> i suspect that's exactly true. and so does any person who is a

success in whatever they venture to do. you can't be stopped by one or two or three or four hurdles. you can't be stopped because it's difficult. you can't be stopped because people say why are you doing that? you can't be stopped by anything. >> and that was luke burbank reporting. you're watching the cbs "overnight news." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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the site of september attacks was once known as ground zero. well, that neighbor had has undergone a transformation. lee cowan gives us a tour. >> reporter: healing. it never happens as fast as the hurt. that smouldering bramble of concrete and steel at ground zero took only minutes to amass. it took years to decide just what to put in its place. do you leave it empty out of respect? rebuild as an act of defins? >> i think they should do something that preserves the other towers, like the memory of them. >> reporter: the stakes to stitch up ground zero's gaping wound were monumental. >> there's been no project in our lifetimes that's had the combination of an emotional

component like ground zero, and the physical size of it. >> reporter: paul goldberger won a pulitzer prize for his criticism in "the new york times" and kept an eye as a host of different plans were proposed. land that was as hallow as it was valuable. >> to have just rebuilt would have been callous and cruel and stupid. >> reporter: which is why at its heart sits the calm of the 9/11 memorial and museum. the sound of falling water browns out the chaos of the city. the names of those lost encircle foot prints seemingly made by the ghosts that once stood there. the public space around it is open and bright. and living. the rail station that once lurked beneath all of this was replaced with an above ground

cathedral of sorts. a soaring structure known as the oculus. >> it sames higher. it strives higher. it's trying to uplift all of us, and that's what great architecture should be doing. >> reporter: but like anything that makes a grand statement, there are those that don't like what the oculus' pointy spikes have to say. the skyscrapers that sprouted from ground zero haven't always risen above criticism, either. >> it's too modern. i would have appreciated itting to somewhat it looked like originally. >> reporter: still, for all the competing interests, what we're left with, well, not perfect, has succeeded where the terrorists failed. the souls lost on september 11 won't be back.

but the city that so many of them called home has risen anew. >> and that again

europe's first major auto show is going on in munich, germany. the cars are on display and most won't be running on gas. >> reporter: car shows like to tease the future of what we could be driving next. and bmw says it won't just be electric but recycled, too. >> it is designed to reuse it again, so let's say we can use the same material of this car to produce a new car. >> reporter: at munich's auto show, car companies generate a buzz about their new electric vehicles. >> ladies and gentlemen, the ideal life. >> reporter: volkswagen wants to overtake tesla with their new electric car and opens to corner the ev market by 2025.

german leader angela merkel says these cleaner cars are part of the solution to the climate emergency. but activists believe it's all a bit disingenuous, saying carmaker also still get rich off of gas guzzling suvs. although some vehicle are getting electric makeovers, and companies say the smartest cars will charge the fastest. >> we will offering a d.c. charging from 5% to 80%, which is less than 30 minutes. >> reporter: making it a quicker ride into a greener future. ian lee, cbs news. and that is the "overnight news" for this monday. for some of you, the news continues. for others, check back with us later for "cbs morning." gayle, tony and nate will be coming to you from the studios in times square. reporting to you from the broadcast center in new york city, i'm jericka duncan.

good morning. this is cbs news flash. for the first time in 18 months, nearly 1 million new york city public school students return to the classroom today. students, teachers, and staff of the nation's largest school district are all required to wear masks. vaccine mandates are in place for all students. north korea says it ccessfu missiles which can hit targets more than900 miles away. this comes as the nation vowed to develop its nuclear weapons amid u.s. sanctions. for the second weekend in a row, "shan chi" topped the box office. marvel's first-ever asian superhero brought in $35.8

million in ticket sales. for more news, download the cbs news app on your cell phone or connect to tv. it's monday, september 13th, 2021. this is the "cbs morning news." back to school. new york city is welcoming back roughly one million students today. meantime, a new prediction on how soon covid vaccine shots could be approved for younger children. breaking overnight, north korea says it tested new long-range cruise missiles hitting targets more than 900 miles away. recall countdown. governor gavin newsom is fighting to stay in office. what the latest polls suggest about his future. ♪ good morning, good to be with you. i'm anne-marie green. as the debate r