September 9, 2021 - PBS NewsHour full episode

In our news wrap Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department sued Texas over its law banning most abortions. A federal judge in Florida struck down a Republican-backed law targeting violent protests. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are asking the supreme court to reject proxy voting during the pandemic. Hot, dry conditions have mostly returned to California, raising new wildfires risks.

An international commercial flight took off from the Kabul airport Thursday for the first since the Taliban seized the country. On the evacuation flight were 200 foreigners, among them Americans. But they leave behind a country in a humanitarian crisis. Ali Rogin has the story.

Power is now restored to most of New Orleans, but several hundred thousand people in southeast Louisiana are still without amid a rising death toll. Local officials say 9 more people in New Orleans have died of excessive heat, bringing the overall death toll in Louisiana to 26. Community correspondent Roby Chavez joins Judy Woodruff to discuss difficult living conditions in some of these parishes.

Back in April, the president nominated David Chipman to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). After retiring from the agency, Chipman advised gun control advocacy groups like Everytown and Giffords — a problem for Senate republicans and some moderate democrats. Now, President Biden must find a new candidate. William Brangham discusses with Alain Stephens of The Trace.

President Joe Biden's plan to get the country vaccinated would essentially require two-thirds of American workers to get vaccinated or face weekly testing. The Department of Labor will draft new rules requiring the same for all businesses with 100 workers or more. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss that and more.

For our endeavor to mark the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, John Yang spoke to first responders and medical workers who have lived and worked through both the attacks and have also more recently seen the mass trauma from COVID-19 in the city that was the epicenter of both: New York.

PBS NewsHour's broadcast studio is just a few miles from the Pentagon here in Washington. On 9/11, that iconic structure designed to project American military might was struck clear out of the blue, just like the twin towers. 184 people died both in the building and on American Flight 77, excluding the hijackers. But many more escaped. We hear from Robert Hogue, one of the people who made it out.

For their first assignment of the school year, high school journalists from our network of Student Reporting Labs asked educators in their schools about the significance of teaching 9/11, what the events meant to them, and why it’s important to study the history before and after that day.