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(CNN) -- Even by MIT standards, says Tom Leighton, Danny Lewin was special. "He was really exceptionally smart. MIT has a lot of really smart people, and Danny stood out even among that rarified environment," says Leighton, who was then one of Lewin's professors at the Massachusetts school's computer science laboratory. That kind of determination drove Lewin throughout his short life. He was an American who joined the Israeli army and served in an elite unit, though he could have avoided the military altogether. He was a mathematician who could have had a stellar academic career but decided to jump...

Take a few minutes to listen to the last phone call of Betty Ong, a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11 before it hit the World Trade Center, eight years ago today on September 11, 2001. Ong is calm and matter-of-fact as she describes what was occuring within minutes of the hijacking to skeptical airline personnel on the ground. She was forced to repeat the same basic details again and again: "Ok. Our Number 1 got stabbed. Our purser is stabbed. Nobody knows who stabbed who, and we can’t even get up to business class right now cause nobody...

On Friday, just outside of Dallas/Ft Worth International Airport, the first national memorial to 9/11 heroes was dedicated. Shirley Hall, who is a Flight Attendant and the Vice President of the 9/11 Flight Crew Memorial Foundation, explained the memorial sculpture's symbolism during the memorial's July 4, 2008, dedication ceremony: As volunteers on this project, we have each spent time describing this statue in our attempts to raise funds to turn Valerie’s dream into a reality. From Bryce Cameron Liston’s original interpretation to the final magnificent piece of art you see here today, each of us has shared our ideas on...

GROTON, Conn., June 18, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ ----General Dynamics Electric Boat will christen New Hampshire (SSN-778), the U.S. Navy's newest and most advanced nuclear attack submarine, at a ceremony at its shipyard here on Saturday, June 21, at 11 a.m. Cheryl McGuinness of Portsmouth, N.H., is the ship's sponsor. Mrs. McGuinness lost her husband, Tom McGuinness, on September 11, 2001, in the World Trade Center attacks. He was the co-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, which was flown into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

NEW YORK - New DNA testing of bone fragments found at the World Trade Center site has identified the remains of a Framingham woman who was on American Airlines Flight 11 when it was crashed into the north tower on Sept. 11, 2001. Laura Lee Morabito was working as a national sales manager for Qantas Airways and had lived for about a year in Framingham when she was killed when terrorists commandeered the airliner and crashed it into the World Trade Center. The remains of the 34-year-old woman were found in the initial recovery effort but could not be linked...

I didn't know if there was a west coast version of this thread. It didn't make sense to post on thread for the show that was almost over on the East Coast.

The day dawns bright and clear as the first rays of an Atlantic Ocean sunrise glint off incoming jets at Boston's Logan International Airport.Across the Charles River, in the city, traffic builds, then crawls. On the radio, announcers predict the perfect end-of-summer day, then quickly segue into an eyebrow-raising news story about a sudden spate of shark attacks along the Eastern seaboard.It's Sept. 10, 2001, and the routine of Monday is well under way.Inland, in Westborough, Mass., Linda George, 27, arrives at her job at the headquarters of discount retailers TJ Maxx and Marshall's.The tall, auburn-haired sportswear buyer is in...

Anyone else see it, and need to talk?

Posted on Thu, Jan. 12, 2006 Unraveling the crash of Flight 11 BY ANDREA LORENZ Knight Ridder Newspapers KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Forty-three years ago a Boeing 707 passenger jet exploded in the air above the Missouri-Iowa border. The disaster took away 45 lives. In the aftermath it became clear those men and women died in an act of what might be called domestic terrorism. Although long forgotten in the community's memory, the tragedy of Continental Airlines Flight 11, bound for Kansas City from Chicago, left a significant legacy. For one thing, it led eventually to increased air travel security....

The latest World Trade Center victim to be identified is Daniel Lewin, an Israeli soldier who became a Massachusetts computer tycoon. The married father of two kids was reportedly the first 9/11 casualty. A passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 11 — the first of two hijacked planes to crash into the Twin Towers — Lewin is believed to have been the businessman stabbed to death by terrorists.

<p>Washington, Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The FBI is investigating whether terrorists plotted to seize more than the four jetliners commandeered last week for deadly attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said.</p> <p>The U.S. is broadening the largest criminal investigation in FBI history and is concerned about further attacks, he said. Authorities have detained 75 people on immigration charges, up from 49 as of yesterday, and investigators believe associates of the 19 hijackers may still be in the U.S. The FBI has received more than 96,000 tips, including many that are redundant or contradictory, Ashcroft said.</p>

WASHINGTON — "Is this real-world or exercise?" That was the incredulous response from NORAD on a sunny September day three years ago, when the duty officer got an unthinkable call: "We have a hijacked aircraft headed toward New York and we need you guys to scramble some F-16s or something up there." A few seconds later, realizing that even exercises had not prepared them for reality, they scrambled the jets. "The air defense of America began with this call," said a 9/11 commission report released yesterday. The report paints the government's response to the terrible Al Qaeda onslaught as a...

June 18, 2004 -- Air Force jet fighters could have intercepted hijacked airliners roaring toward the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11 if only air-traffic controllers had asked for help 13 minutes sooner, the head of U.S. air defenses said yesterday. The never-heard-before declaration by Gen. Ralph Eberhart stunned the hearings on the terror attacks — with startled 9/11 commission members questioning if it was really possible, as horrified family survivors shook their heads in disbelief. "If the FAA told us as soon as they knew, then, yes, we could have shot down the planes," said Eberhart. The earliest...

WASHINGTON - Chilling radio transmissions by the Sept. 11 hijackers from the planes they commandeered were played for the first time Thursday, providing a vivid and horrifying portrait as they unfolded on that fateful day before confused air traffic controllers and military personnel. "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be O.K. We are returning to the airport," a hijacker, believed to be Mohamed Atta, the alleged ringleader of the 19 hijackers, told the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11. The tape was played for the audience at the commission's hearing. That transmission was the first inkling federal...

NASHUA — President Bush staunchly defended his administration’s anti-terrorism planning yesterday, saying he would have used “every resource, every asset, every power of this government” to protect the country had he known the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were coming. His answer to charges leveled by former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke came after the wife of a Sept. 11 attack victim greeted him on the Manchester Airport tarmac as he arrived for a three-hour visit. “I think he’s doing an outstanding job leading our country,” said Cheryl McGuinness of Portsmouth, whose husband, Tom, co-piloted American Air Lines Flight 11, which crashed...

Official: Kerry failed to act on pre-9/11 tip 3rd agent to say he warned security lapses made Boston airport ripe for 'jihad' attack WASHINGTON - A third federal aviation-security agent, one still with the government, has stepped forward to say he also warned Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry about security lapses at Boston's Logan International Airport before the 9/11 hijackings there. Earlier this week, two former FAA agents said the Democratic presidential hopeful failed to take effective action after they gave him a prophetic warning that his home airport was vulnerable to multiple hijackings. Brian Sullivan, a retired special agent from...

Hearing the taped voice of a courageous flight attendant as she calmly narrated the doomed course of American Airlines Flight 11 brought it all back. The frozen horror of that September morning two and a half years ago. The unanswered questions. Betty Ong narrated that first hijacking right up to the moment that Mohamed Atta drove the Boeing 767 into the north tower of the World Trade Center.Twenty-three minutes into her blow-by-blow account, Ong’s voice abruptly ceased. "What’s going on, Betty?" asked her ground contact, Nydia Gonzalez. "Betty, talk to me. I think we might have lost her."Emotional catharsis, yes....

New 9/11 audio is being released today played at the 9/11 Commission hearing. Flight attendant Betty Ong calling the American Airlines reservation desk regarding the hijackers taking over American Airlines Flight 11 Boeing 767, before it struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

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<p>HURRICANE Isabel is giving the FBI a chance to avoid an injustice.</p> <p>By forcing a delay in the bureau's annual award ceremony (originally set for today), the storm gives Directer Robert Mueller a chance to rescind the award he's set to give to a terror apologist - at the same time he's to honor a 9/11 heroine.</p>