9/11 Remembered

I think everyone is keeping their eyes & ears open. It's something I always keep in my prayers, too.

 

Unexpected legacy left by hero of Flight 93

Unexpected legacy left by hero of Flight 93

http://news.yahoo.com/unexpected-legacy-left-by-hero-of-flight-93.html

Mark Bingham died Sept. 11, 2001, while saving countless lives. Just how many will never be known.

The openly gay rugby player was one of the heroic passengers who led a revolt against the terrorists on United Airlines Flight 93. The hijackers planned to slam the plane into the White House or the U.S. Capitol, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. Instead, the plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pa., killing the terrorists and passengers – but nobody else.

The most visible torchbearer of Bingham’s legacy is Alice Hoagland, his mother. After losing Bingham -- her only child -- Hoagland became a tireless advocate for issues that were important to her son. Now 61, the retired United flight attendant is a proponent of aviation safety, a spokesperson for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, and an avid supporter of rugby.

Flight 93 passengers learned from cell phone conversations that the World Trade Center and Pentagon had already been attacked. Bingham – along with Todd Beamer, Tom Burnett, and Jeremy Glick – formulated a game plan of sorts to overtake the hijackers, according to accounts from the phone calls. All four men were athletes.

Bingham stood 6-foot-4, weighed roughly 225 lbs., and played rugby. Beamer was 6-foot-2 and was a former basketball player. Burnett, 6-foot-3, played quarterback in high school and college. And Glick, also 6-foot-3, was a national collegiate judo champ. Hoagland is convinced that their ability to think quickly, coupled with their physical strength, made a difference in stopping the plane from hitting one of its targets.

“Competitive sports and athletic ability really made a difference for America on that day,” she says.


That’s one of the reasons Hoagland has become the spiritual force behind the Bingham Cup -- a rugby tournament that’s become the “World Cup of gay rugby,” as she describes it. Hoagland feels the sport helped shape her son into the person he became, and she wants others to enjoy the sport as much as Bingham did. The cup started in 2002 with less than 10 teams. Now, 40 to 50 teams participate in the biennial event, which alternates between happening in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Members of the San Francisco Fog, a club that Bingham helped found in 2001, gave Hoagland a team jacket bearing the nickname “Mom” embroidered across the front.

“I may have lost a son but I’ve gained a very huge family and it makes me feel good every time I see them,” she says.

 

9/11 Turns an Average Family into a Military Family

9/11 Turns an Average Family into a Military Family

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 hit a country unaccustomed to foreign attacks, changing how a nation's citizens thought and behaved. We no longer took our safety for granted, and we were willing to fight to get it back. To draw on a commonly used parallel, 9/11 was very much like Pearl Harbor.

Entire families were thrown into war. My family was no exception.

The effects of 9/11 for my family were not immediate. Most of us were living on the South Shore in Massachusetts at the time. None of us was living in the States where the attacks took place. We sat together in shock, mentioning the attacks in hushed whispers that eventually grew to angry shouts in the following weeks.

As individuals, we donated money; we voted. Basically, we did everything we thought we could to help. Then, it became apparent that helping was going to mean sending members of our close-knit family to a war half a world away.


The first to sign up in my family were two men whom I did not realize were going to be a part of my family -- my brother-in-law Devin, 27, and my husband Garrett, 30. My brother-in-law signed up for the National Guard and was out in no time without deploying. My husband signed up for active duty in the U.S. Army, went straight to boot camp and off to get ready for a war. Then, my younger sister Mindy, now 27, joined.

The gravity of the situation did not hit me until I saw my husband at my parents' house talking to my little sister about their shared recruiter. I loved him, even then, but I wanted to wring his thick neck at the moment. My mind screamed, "Don't encourage her, you idiot! She's half your size, a vegetarian and not made for the U.S. Army!"

My sister disagreed with my mind, which is typical. Within two months, she had graduated from high school and shipped off to boot camp.

Next was my uncle David, 30. He joined the U.S. Army, went straight to boot camp and got ready for deployment. Like most members of the U.S. Army, he did full-year deployments, which are two to four tours for most other branches. My husband, whom I married by the time he deployed, did the same.

My sister caught mono while in boot camp and was given a medical discharge. Did I ever say I told you so? In any other circumstance, with Mindy, I would have. However, my family dodged a bullet with that one, so I leave well enough alone.

Having so many family members in the military has made me proud to be part of such a patriotic bunch. However, it has not come without its consequences. There are no fireworks at family parties, and loud noises have made us all wary of PTSD symptoms. Whether that will be a problem for the rest of their lives is a source of worry for me, but it has done nothing to shake my pride in them. I know they did the right thing, and I know they do not regret it.

Every one of our family and extended family came home to us. Two of them have mental injuries that may not heal, but they are here. What more could we ask after the brutality of the 9/11 attacks? Sometimes it feels like we got a bad deal, but most of the time, we all know how lucky we are.

 

9/11 firefighters have higher cancer risk: study


CHICAGO (Reuters) - Male firefighters who were exposed to toxic dust and smoke from the 9/11 attacks on New York's World Trade Center have a 19 percent higher risk of getting cancer of all kinds than colleagues who were not exposed, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

The study is the first to look at cancer rates among the all of the exposed firefighters, and the findings may help pave the way for federal health benefits for rescue workers now suffering from cancer nearly a decade after the attacks.

"This study clearly shows World Trade Center exposure in these firefighters led to an increase in cancer," said Dr. David Prezant of the Fire Department of the City of New York, whose study was published in The Lancet medical journal.

Studies so far have not found an increased risk of lung cancer, which takes many years to develop, and this study was no exception, finding no increased risk of lung cancer for exposed firefighters versus those not exposed.

Firefighters working in the rubble of the World Trade Center after two planes hit its twin towers on September 11, 2001, were exposed to a several known cancer-causing agents, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxins.

Prior studies have shown increased rates of post traumatic stress disorder, asthma and other respiratory illnesses among rescue workers. To date, only a handful of smaller studies have shown increased rates of cancer, which can take five to 20 years to develop.

In July, a report released by Dr. John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, concluded that there was not yet enough evidence to support a link between the 9/11 attacks and cancer.

Without that evidence, firefighters and other rescue workers can not receive payments for cancer treatments under the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which covers illnesses like asthma and other respiratory diseases, but not cancer.

Prezant told reporters he was not sure whether his report would be enough to make the case for federal health benefits for firefighters who developed cancer after the 9/11 attacks, but said Dr. Howard, who is tasked with making the decision, is aware of his study.

ENTIRE POPULATION

Prezant said the study had several strengths, including the fact that it looked at nearly 10,000 male firefighters.

The team only looked at cancers that developed in the first seven years after the World Trade Center attacks, comparing rates among exposed and non-exposed firefighters.

And they made several adjustments to the overall groups to exclude information that might skew the results.

For example, they excluded data on 576 firefighters who were over age 60 on September 11, 2001, because the small number of men in that age group would have made the results statistically unstable. They also excluded data on 32 women, 13 Asians and 8 native Americans for the same reason.

And they excluded data on 85 men who had a prior cancer diagnosis. After adjusting for these factors, they found the exposed firefighters had a 19 percent higher rate of having any type of cancer.

"This shows an increase in all cancers," Prezant said, adding the study was not designed to show increases in a particular type of cancer.

The study did not look at the health impacts on other types of rescue workers, which will be covered in a separate study.

Dr James Melius of the New York State Laborers' Health Fund said the study supports addition of cancer to other federally funded medical disorders offered to 9/11 rescue workers.

Waiting until definitive studies have been completed "would be unfair and would pose a hardship for workers who willingly risked their health by responding without hesitation to the WTC crisis," he said.

For firefighters and others who were exposed and have not yet developed cancer, Prezant advised lifestyle changes that can cut cancer risk -- quitting smoking, limiting alcohol use, getting regular exercise and maintaining a healthy weight.

And he recommends regular cancer screening tests.

"For those who were down there and do not have cancer, this is not an epidemic, but it is an increased risk," Melius said. "So the most important thing to do is enroll in an active cancer prevention and screening program."

 

How 9/11 led banker to his true love

http://vitality.yahoo.com/video-second-act-ney-melo-26504189

 

‘Ground Zero’ is a term that no longer applies, according to NYC mayor


Ten years after the terrorist attacks, and less than a week from the ribbon-cutting at the new World Trade Center, the New York City mayor says it's time to retire Ground Zero.

In a speech delivered this morning on Wall Street, Michael Bloomberg said the new construction and memorial on the site has made the name no longer fitting, news site DNAinfo.com reports.

"We will never forget the devastation of the area that came to be known as 'Ground Zero' -- never," Bloomberg told the Association for a Better New York at a breakfast appearance, adding that the "the time has come for us to call those 16 acres what they are: The World Trade Center and the National September 11th Memorial and Museum." (Read more and see photos of the memorial at DNAinfo.com)

His call for the name change isn't the first: For years Downtown residents have asked officials to stop calling the two rising skyscrapers and eight-acre memorial "Ground Zero," according to the article, saying that moniker recognizes only the past destruction rather than the promise of recovery.

The largest tower at the new World Trade Center will reach 1,776 feet, becoming the tallest building in the country when completed, while towers two, three, and four will each be successively shorter.

Despite the years of construction delays and cost overruns, Bloomberg says the half-finished office complex on the site of the former twin towers is the center of a growing and vibrant neighborhood, which boasts its highest population since the 1920s.

Bloomberg pointed out that Lower Manhattan gained 4,000 new school seats, 19 new hotels, $260 million in new parks, and more new residents in the past decade than Atlanta, Dallas, and Philadelphia combined, DNAinfo.com reports.

"New York has come roaring back faster than anyone thought possible," Bloomberg told his audience of community leaders.

In addition to the skyscrapers, the site's eight-acre memorial consists of two sunken foundations at the exact spots where the towers used to stand. Inside the foundations are reflecting pools, and bronze protective walls atop the pools are etched with victims' names. The memorial and the museum are set to open Sunday, on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

"I believe the rebirth and revitalization of Lower Manhattan will be remembered as one of the greatest comeback stories in American history," Bloomberg told the group. "And I believe it will stand as our greatest monument to those we lost on 9/11."

 

Video: Little girl of 9/11 grows up, discusses life without hero mom

http://news.yahoo.com/video-little-girl-of-9-11-grows-up-discusses-life-without-hero-mom.html

 

Astronaut in space during attacks shares unique footage of 9/11

Astronaut in space during attacks shares unique footage of 9/11

http://news.yahoo.com/astronaut-in-space-during-attacks-shares-unique-footage-of-9-11.html

Whenever he sees a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, Frank Culberston is reminded of where he was on Sept. 11, 2001. An encounter earlier this year is a good example. On a trip to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia to watch the re-enactment of British occupation, he met a young veteran who had lost both legs while serving as an explosive ordinance device technician in Afghanistan.

As he helped the soldier, who had two artificial legs, navigate the unpaved grounds, Culbertson mentioned he had witnessed the invasion of Afghanistan from above."From where, a C-130?" the soldier asked. A C-130 is a low-flying military aircraft used mainly to deliver troops and supplies to ground forces.

"No, higher," Culbertson replied.

"Oh, a U-2?" the soldier guessed, referring to the high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft.

"Higher than that."

From Aug. 12 to Dec. 15, 2001, astronaut Frank Culbertson was aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Two hundred fifty miles above the Earth's surface, Culbertson was the only American not on the planet at the time of the terrorist attacks. He -- along with two Russian cosmonauts -- witnessed the horrific events of Sept. 11, as well as the invasion of Afghanistan a month later, from space.


View of New York from space. Photo courtesy of NASA.
"I could always spot Afghanistan at night because it's basically dark," said Culbertson, who explained that surrounding countries, with their oil money, were pretty well lit at night. Some were even "grossly lit up," he said.

"One night, I looked down on Afghanistan and I saw these big, bright explosions ... I was witnessing the invasion of Afghanistan in pursuit of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban," he said. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a former test pilot for the Navy, Culbertson was able to identify what he saw as explosions from cruise missiles and bombs being dropped from B-52s. "After the attacks on 9/11, I knew the world had changed."

A month earlier, on the morning of Sept. 11, Culbertson, who had been in space for 30 days, had called down to mission control for a routine medical check-in.

"I asked the doctor how things were going. He responded: 'We're not having a very good day on Earth,'" Culbertson recalled.

Amid the chaos on the ground, mission control briefed Culbertson on what limited information they had: Two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center towers, and one plane had crashed into the Pentagon; all three were deliberate attacks by terrorists.

"My immediate reaction was very visceral: My country was wounded, and it was hurting," Culbertson said.

As he listened to mission control, struggling to make sense of the tragedy unfolding hundreds of miles below, he looked up at the map of the world flashing on the computer screen in front of him. In a few minutes, he would be directly over New York. He quickly left the radio, grabbed a video camera and raced to the cabin window that would have the best view of the city.


"It was a very good weather day, and I could look down and see the entire northeastern U.S. very clearly. I saw a big column of black smoke rising over New York City, over Long Island, and out over the Atlantic. I zoomed the camera in, and as I did, I saw this big gray glob start to envelop the southern half of the city." He found out two days later that he was witnessing the collapse of the South Tower.

Because the International Space Station travels at a speed of about 5 miles per second (it completes its orbit of Earth in only 90 minutes), the views of New York came and went very quickly. Due to the planet's rotation, the next time Culbertson and his crewmates passed over the U.S., they had a view of the Midwest and the Southwest, which was important to Culbertson. A married father of five, he wanted to make sure his family was out of harm's way.

"I had a daughter studying at Purdue University at the time, so as we crossed over the Midwest, I'm looking throughout that area to make sure everything's all right over there. Most of the family was in Houston, and I could see all the way down to Texas," he said.

As the ISS crossed the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic region came into view, Culbertson and his crewmates were ready with cameras and binoculars.

"We flew directly over Washington, D.C., and I could look straight down and see the Pentagon with basically a gash in its side, and the smoke and the lights of the rescue vehicles," he said. "We could tell it was a terrible event."

The tragedy at the Pentagon soon became much more personal for Culbertson. The next morning, he found out that a former Naval Academy classmate and good friend, Charles Burlingame, was the captain of American Airlines Flight 77, which had crashed into the building the day before.


"Tears don't flow the same in space," said Culbertson in a letter he wrote to the public on Sept. 12. "It's difficult to describe how it feels to be the only American completely off the planet at a time such as this. The feeling that I should be there with all of you, dealing with this, helping in some way, is overwhelming."

Culbertson's and Burlingame's 30th college reunion was scheduled to take place at the end of September, and originally Culbertson had planned to send a video message down to his class with joyful greetings and news of his adventures in space. Instead, he played taps on his trumpet in honor of Burlingame, a man who had, decades earlier, played trumpet alongside him in the Navy's Drum and Bugle Corps.

Though sorrow tinged his remaining days in space, Culbertson remembers the care poured over him by people from various countries. On a close level, he felt the love and encouragement of his two Russian counterparts, who not only shared their sympathy -- as well as their outrage toward the attackers -- and made Culbertson's favorite dinner (borscht), but also gave him the time he needed to think and to grieve. On a wider scale, Culbertson felt the support of nations around the world.

Frank Culbertson playing trumpet on September 16, 2001. Photo courtesy of NASA.
"Over the next few weeks, I spoke to many different people from different countries: Russian mission control, prime ministers, royalty," he said. "They all started their conversations [by] extending their condolences to me and to the rest of the country. There were a lot of sympathetic connections going around the world through the International Space Station, which I thought was a very interesting phenomenon."

Now that the U.S. has ended its space shuttle program, 62-year-old Culbertson, who retired from NASA in 2002, has joined the private sector in hopes of continuing the legacy of manned space flight. He currently serves as senior vice president of Orbital Sciences, where he is responsible for the company's human space flight programs. After witnessing the goodwill and the cooperation that took place on a multinational level during his time on the ISS, Culbertson believes that manned space flight projects are important for international diplomacy because they allow nations to work together toward a greater goal.

"It's important to continue to use the space program as an example of what can be accomplished on a multinational basis. ... Even though we're 10 years away from 9/11, we haven't resolved the issues; the threat is still very real. We still have to take off our shoes going through airport security. We still have young men and women fighting to maintain our freedom here in this country," he said.

Culbertson enjoys talking to young military veterans about Sept. 11, learning about their experiences and discussing the unique vantage point he had from space. Meeting the soldier in Colonial Williamsburg earlier this year was no different. But Culbertson said he was particularly impressed by the young man's maturity and perspective.

"He had a very positive outlook for someone who had trouble walking. He told me, 'We've got to work on an international basis to solve all these problems and ring in some peaceful resolutions.' ... I couldn't have agreed more."

 

Woman from iconic 9/11 photo overcomes decade of hardship

Woman from iconic 9/11 photo overcomes decade of hardship



The attacks on 9/11 changed the lives of billions -- and few more so than Marcy Borders. Soon after the World Trade Center attacks, Borders was photographed covered in dust and ash from the fallout. The photo, taken by Stan Honda of AFP, was one of the iconic images from that terrible day.

Borders has been through a lot in the 10 years since. There have been problems with depression and substance abuse, as well as lingering nightmares about Sept. 11. She recently spoke with the New York Post about her life's ups and downs over the past decade.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Borders had been working at her new bank job for just a month. The planes hit the World Trade Center, and a panicked Borders left her desk on the 81st floor of the north tower to go out into the street to see what was happening.

Just as she got to the street, the south tower fell, and Borders couldn't see much of anything. "I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. The world went silent," she remarked. Eventually, someone pulled her into a building's lobby, where a photographer captured the haunting photo of her surrounded by harsh yellowish dust. According to the U.K.'s Telegraph, Borders still has the clothes she wore that day, "still unwashed and coated in the dust of the twin towers."


Marcy Borders with son Zay-den (Photo: Coleman-Rayner)
In her talk with the Post, Borders details some of the difficulties she's faced since then: "My life spiraled out of control. I didn't do a day's work in nearly 10 years, and by 2011 I was a complete mess. Every time I saw an aircraft, I panicked. If I saw a man on a building, I was convinced he was going to shoot me."

This past April, she checked herself into rehab, after realizing that she would die if she stayed on her current path. A little more than a week later, she got the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed by American forces. The news, along with her new clean and sober lifestyle, did a lot to help silence her inner demons. "I used to lose sleep over him, have bad dreams about bin Laden bombing my house, but now I have peace of mind."

 

Newly released tapes reveal full 9/11 air horror

Newly released tapes reveal full 9/11 air horror

http://news.yahoo.com/newly-released-tapes-reveal-full-9-11-air-142027846.html

Visitors to the World Trade Center site look at a memorial to firemen and police on September 7, in New York City. The stunned reactions by authorities to first reports about 9/11, in the full exchanges between ground control, pilots and military authorities during the hijacking chaos of 10 years ago were made public Thursday

Visitors to the World Trade Center site look at a memorial to firemen and police …
A man looks out at construction at the World Trade Center site on September 7, in New York City. Recordings of the full exchanges between ground control, pilots and military authorities during the terrifying chaos of the 9/11 hijackings were made public for the first time Thursday

A man looks out at construction at the World Trade Center site on September 7, in …

"Did you just say somethin' hit the World Trade Center?" an incredulous military official asked shortly after the beginning of America's terrorism nightmare on September 11, 2001.

Minutes later, with air traffic authorities warning that another commercial jet was off course and just six miles (10 kilometers) from the White House, Washington ground control sounded in denial, saying it was "probably just a rumor."

Moments later American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon.

The stunned reactions by authorities to first reports about 9/11, in the full exchanges between ground control, pilots and military authorities during the hijacking chaos of 10 years ago were made public Thursday. They illustrate just how unprepared the United States was for the audacious plot.

While portions of the audio recordings have circulated before, the document published by the Rutgers Law Review allows an unprecedented blow-by-blow recreation of the brief period on September 11, 2001, when four airliners were hijacked and slammed into New York, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.


The raw recordings released in the run-up to the 10th anniversary of the tragedy show air controllers desperately trying to understand what happened to the planes, where they were, and where they were going.

In one exchange, a controller at New York Center says that there were reports of a fire at the Twin Towers. "And that's, ah, that's the area where we lost the airplane," the controller says.

At the same time, an unidentified pilot is asking over the airwaves: "Anybody know what that smoke is in lower Manhattan?"

At Boston Center control, a worker says: "We have, ah, a problem here, we have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New, New York and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there to help us out."

The answer, revealing the astonishment at what was happening, is: "Is, is this real world or exercise?"

Even at 8:43, a full 19 minutes after suspected American Airlines Flight 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta broadcast to air traffic control that "We have some planes," and nine minutes after Boston Center notifies controllers of the flight's hijacking, Major James Fox, leader of the Northeast Air Defense Sector who is patched in to the breaking developments, expresses disbelief.

"I've never seen so much real-world stuff happen during an exercise," Fox said, according to the transcript.

As millions of Americans tuning in to news broadcasts watched the second jet hitting the World Trade Center, New York air traffic controllers sounded dumbfounded at the events.

"Another one just hit, just hit the building," a controller said, according to the transcript.

New York Center: "Wow."

New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON): "Oh my god."

New York Center: "Another one just hit the World Trade."

New York TRACON: "The whole building just, ah, came apart."

New York TRACON: "Oh my god."

New York Center: "Holy smokes. Alright. I guess you guys are going to be busy."

Even at 9:38, 35 minutes after the second plane hit the Twin Towers, controllers in Washington sounded skeptical about hijacked Flight 77 bearing down on the US capital.

When asked whether they knew anything about controller reports that a rogue jet was near the White House, Washington Center responded: "No, we do not and it's probably just a rumor.

"But ah, you might want to call ah, ah, National (airport) or Andrews somebody (Andrews Air Force base) somewhere like that and find out, but we don't (know) any thing about that."

The recordings, which also include tragic exchanges with flight attendants on Flight 11 about how two of their colleagues had been knifed and hijackers were in the cockpit, were first reported by The New York Times on Thursday.

The full Rutgers report and audio can be accessed at: wwww.rutgerslawreview.com/2011/a-new-type-of-war/

The 9/11 Commission tasked Rutgers Law Review with piecing together the critical communications on that fateful morning, and the Review said in its preface that "the raw material that went into our reconstruction of the day was not obtained easily."

"If we had not pushed as hard as we did -- ultimately persuading the commission to use its subpoena power to obtain the records -- many of the critical conversations from that morning may have been lost to history."

 

NFL will let players wear special 9/11 tribute apparel this Sunday

NFL will let players wear special 9/11 tribute apparel this Sunday
By Doug Farrar

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/sh...rs-wear-special-9-11-tribute-a?urn=nfl-wp6834

The story we reported Friday morning, about the likelihood that NFL players might be fined for wearing special Reebok apparel paying tribute to the 9/11 fallen, now has a happy ending.

The league that once threatened to fine Peyton Manning(notes) $25,000 for wearing high-top cleats in memory of the late Johnny Unitas has now decided that the specter of disallowing shoes and gloves that help memorialize the 10th anniversary of 9/11 would cause the kind of public relations nightmare that even the NFL itself couldn't quite get its arms around.

Thus, this Friday afternoon tweet from NFL spokesman Michael Signora:

NFL will let players wear special 9/11 tribute apparel this Sunday

Of course, the players' fear that they would be fined for wearing unauthorized apparel was not unfounded. Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs(notes) put this series of messages out on Friday morning after Reebok sent Briggs his gear for Sunday:

NFL will let players wear special 9/11 tribute apparel this SundayReebok great job on these gloves and shoes..looks like I'm getting fined this week. Lol! By far the best fine I will ever have to pay. Thanks…Fines for gloves could be as much as 5k..the shoes 8-10k I think. not 100% on the shoe fine.

Other players, like Tennessee Titans quarterback Matt Hasselbeck(notes), Washington Redskins tight Chris Cooley(notes) and Kansas City Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles(notes), added their public support to the idea.

And, at least one unnamed San Diego Chargers player told Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune that he expected to see a $5,000 fine for wearing the specific clothing — a fine he seemed happy to pay.

So, while the NFL could have jumped on this story with a bit more urgency to insure that players wouldn't assume a fine, we send kudos for not sticking to the league uniform code in a situation where an exception clearly had to be made.

The NFL is already planning a series of 9/11 remembrances, and the league and NFLPA are combining to donate $1 million to various charities and memorials. To let a simple uniform issue get in the way of issues infinitely more important would have been a real shame.

 

Officials chase unconfirmed al-Qaida bomb threat

http://news.yahoo.com/officials-cha...N0fGV2ZW50cwRwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2UEdGVzdAM-;_ylv=3

A police officer stands guard in New York's Times Square as the ABC news ticker displays news of an al-Qaida terror threat, Friday, Sept. 9, 2011. Just days before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. counterterrorism officials are chasing a credible but unconfirmed al-Qaida threat to use a car bomb on bridges or tunnels in New York City or Washington. It is the first "active plot" timed to coincide with the somber commemoration of the terror group's 9/11 attacks a decade ago that killed nearly 3,000 people. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Counterterrorism officials are chasing a credible but unconfirmed tip that al-Qaida has plans to set off a car bomb in New York City or Washington around the Sept. 11 anniversary, with bridges or tunnels as potential targets. It was the first word of a possible "active plot" timed to coincide with commemoration of the terror group's attacks a decade ago.

Police in New York and Washington increased their already stepped-up staffing levels. In New York City, authorities were stopping vehicles at the 59th Street bridge Friday, causing a major traffic backup. National Guard troops and transit police carrying assault rifles watched the crowds at Penn Station.

White House officials said President Barack Obama had no plans to change his scheduled trips to New York's ground zero, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa., on Sunday to mark the anniversary.

This latest threat "should not surprise any of us," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said during a speech in New York. Telling the public "is intended to enlist the millions and millions of New Yorkers and Americans to be the eyes and the ears of vigilance," she said.

Law enforcement officials were pursuing three people who may be traveling to the U.S. or who have recently entered the country, based on the detailed information received by the U.S. intelligence community late Wednesday, officials said.

Senior U.S. counterterrorism officials said Friday that authorities have a general sense of who is behind the plot and who may be tasked to carry it out, but they don't have exact identities yet. They said there is at least one U.S. citizen among the three people.

The intelligence suggested that al-Qaida planned to car bomb one of the two cities that were hit 10 years ago, in coordinated attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Vice President Joe Biden said Friday that there was no confirmation that anyone had traveled into the U.S. for such a plot although the tip came from a credible source. "There's no certitude," he said.

"The thing we are all most worried about is what they call a 'lone ranger,' a lone actor, not some extremely complicated plan like it took to take down the World Trade towers," said Biden, who appeared on the trio of network morning TV shows Friday.

U.S. officials said the source of the terror tip indicated that al-Qaida's new leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, was involved in planning the plot. But the official also said that many in the intelligence community question that and other aspects of the source's information.

The nation's terror alert level has not changed, although raising it was under consideration Thursday night.

At the Pentagon, officials said there have been no changes to military base security levels since they were upgraded earlier in the week, before the threat information came in. And there have been no changes to the schedules of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who will be attending 9/11 commemoration events throughout the weekend.

The officials described the threat to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss sensitive security matters.


Security has been enhanced around the country in the weeks leading up to the 10th anniversary, a date officials have long known could draw an attack. Law enforcement officials have been particularly wary after information gleaned from Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan indicated that al-Qaida had considered attacking the U.S. on this anniversary and other important American dates. Officials have also been concerned that terrorists would see the anniversary as an opportunity to retaliate against the U.S. for killing bin Laden in a military raid in May.

Officials said that so far they have no reason to believe that there is a direct connection between this new threat and the information found in the compound laying out al-Qaida's aspirational goals.

The FBI and Homeland Security Department issued a joint intelligence bulletin Thursday night to law enforcement around the country urging authorities to maintain increased security and be on the lookout for suspicious activity.

The threat came in a single piece of information and was so specific — and came at such a time of already heightened alert — that it could not be ignored, officials said.

"There is specific, credible but unconfirmed threat information," the head of the FBI's New York division, Janice Fedarcyk, said. "As we always do before important dates like the anniversary of 9/11, we will undoubtedly get more reporting in the coming days."

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters that police there were deploying additional resources around the city but that New Yorkers should go about their business as usual, and the city's observance of the attacks will go on as planned.

In Washington, law enforcement officials said they were working 12-hour days indefinitely, and Police Chief Cathy Lanier said unattended cars parked in unusual locations risked being towed.

Law enforcement officials are checking out all of the details included in the threat, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said.

"No need to panic," King said. "They have not been able to confirm it yet."

Intelligence officials had not seen any specific or credible threats regarding an attack around the anniversary before Wednesday.

 

F-16 pilot was ready to ram hijacked plane on 9/11

F-16 pilot was ready to ram hijacked plane on 9/11


A factfile on US F-16 fighter jets. A F-16 pilot scrambled on 9/11 to prevent another attack on the US capital says she was prepared to ram her plane into a hijacked aircraft -- as there was no time to arm her plane with missiles

A factfile on US F-16 fighter jets. A F-16 pilot scrambled on 9/11 to prevent another …
A F-16 fight jet escorts Air Force One on September 11, 2001. Heather Penney, a F-16 pilot scrambled on 9/11 to prevent another attack on the US capital, says she was prepared to ram her plane into a hijacked aircraft -- as there was no time to arm her plane with missiles.


An F-16 pilot who scrambled on 9/11 to prevent another attack on the US capital says she was prepared to ram her plane into a hijacked aircraft -- as there was no time to arm her plane with missiles.

Amid fears another hijacked airliner was barreling towards Washington, Heather Penney, then a lieutenant in the Washington DC National Guard, was one of two pilots ordered to take off without delay, she said in a recent interview.

The threat of an attack on US soil was seen as such a remote possibility at the time that the 121st fighter squadron at Andrews Air Force base outside Washington had no fully-armed fighter jets on standby.

With only 105 lead-nosed bullets on board, Penney and Colonel Marc Sasseville took to the skies, while two other F-16s waited to be armed with heat-seeking AIM-9 missiles, Penney told C-SPAN television this week.

The pilots had orders from the White House to take out any plane that refused to heed warnings and land, so the two pilots agreed on their plan.

"We wouldn't be shooting it down. We would be ramming the aircraft because we didn't have weapons on board to be able to shoot the airplane down," Penney said.

As they were putting on their flight gear, "Sass looked at me and said, 'I'll ram the cockpit.'

"And I had made the decision that I would take the tail off the aircraft," she said.

Penney said she "knew if I took off the tail of the aircraft, that it would essentially go straight down and so the pattern of debris would be minimized."

She said she thought about possibly ejecting just before impact.

"I would essentially be a kamikaze and ram my aircraft into the tail of the aircraft. I gave some thought to, you know, would I have time to eject?"

But the young pilot was concerned about failing to hit the target.

"I mean you only got one chance, you don't want to eject and have missed, right? "

When she took the plane down the runway, she said she believed it be the last take-off of her life.

In the end, Flight 93 never reached Washington, as passengers assaulted the hijackers in the cockpit and the plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

But the F-16 pilots did not learn of the aircraft's fate until later that day, said Penney, now a major.

"The people on Flight 93 were heroes, but they were going to die no matter what," she said. "My concern was how do I minimize collateral damage on the ground."

Later that afternoon, Penney helped escort Air Force One, with former president George W. Bush on board, back to Andrews Air Force base.

A few years later, she flew missions in the Iraq war, hunting for SCUD missiles and backing up special operations forces.

Penney was among the first wave of female fighter pilots and she has since stopped flying full-time. The mother of two girls, she now works as a corporate executive, according to the Washington Post.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Penney said she was absorbed with the urgent job at hand and had no time for emotions.

"It wasn't so much that I kept my emotions in check. It was that they didn't even exist," she said.

"There was significant adrelaine. It was really just, dear God please don't let me screw up."

 

9/11: The 25 Most Powerful Photos

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/9-11-t...25-most-powerful-photos-photo-1315610950.html

 

Tributes to the 9/11 attacks

Tributes were held around the country for the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/tribut...1kYzI4LTExZTAtOTQzMC1jZmE1M2U4YmIyNWY-;_ylv=3

 

Dedication of the Flight 93 National Memorial

People gather at the dedication ceremony for phase I of the permanent Flight 93 National Memorial near the crash site of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pa. Saturday Sept. 10, 2011.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/dedication-of-the-flight-93-national-memorial-1315676200-slideshow/

 

Sports after 9/11

In the days following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, sports teams and fans joined together to pay tribute to the victims and display a unifying sense of patriotism.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/sports-after-9-11-1315695337-slideshow/

 

Unanswered Questions of 9/11

Ten years have passed since the September 11 terrorist attacks and yet there are still several mysteries that remain around the events of that fateful day.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/unanswered-questions-of-9-11-1315595874-slideshow/

 

Bill Clinton makes big gesture at Shanksville memorial

Bill Clinton makes big gesture at Shanksville memorial

Donors have contributed $52 million to build the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pa., but $10 million is still needed. Former President Bill Clinton declared Saturday that he and Speaker of the House John Boehner are going to do something about that.

“Since I am no longer in office, I can do unpopular things,” Clinton declared at the end of his remarks at Saturday’s dedication ceremony.

“I told the Secretary of the Interior, the head of your development program, that I was aghast to find out we still need to raise $10 million to finish this place. And Speaker Boehner and I have already volunteered to do a bipartisan event in Washington and let’s get this show on the road. Let’s roll.”

“Are you guys ready? OK. Let's roll!" was the last thing Todd Beamer, one of the passengers resisting hijackers aboard Flight 93, said, overheard by a telephone operator. He and others were preparing to charge the cockpit.


Former U.S. president Bill Clinton speaks at the ceremony marking the opening of the Flight 93 National Memorial, …
“Let’s roll” became a battle cry that resonated with Americans in the days after 9/11. The terrorists who hijacked Flight 93 planned to crash it into the White House or the U.S. Capitol, the 9/11 Commission later concluded. But passengers aboard the plane learned of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks via cell phone calls and formed a plan to fight back.

About 4,000 people gathered Saturday for the somber ceremony to honor the valor and dedication of the 40 people who died when the 757 slammed into the ground at 500 mph.

The $62 million plan includes 2,200 acres. Future plans call for a memorial wall by 2014, a grove of 40 trees and, in time, a 93-foot "tower of voices" comprising 40 wind chimes.

"It looks great now, but we still have $10 million more to raise," said Ed Rendell, governor of Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2011, the period when the idea of a lasting memorial took hold.

Former President George W. Bush, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Boehner also attended the ceremony.

Bush declared in his remarks that the passengers’ heroism was the “first counteroffensive in the war on terror.”