To look at the front page of the New York Times of Tuesday, September 11th, 2001 is to reach back into another era – an era, in many ways, which doesn’t look very different to that of today.
The president was under pressure over the economy, there was violence in the Middle East and the New York Giants had lost to the Denver Broncos.
But even before many New Yorkers would have opened their newspaper on that clear, sunny September morning, America and the world had been changed forever.
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What is the legacy of 9/11?
At 8.46am and 9.03am, two hijacked airliners were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Another jet was crashed into the Pentagon near Washington DC and a fourth was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania.
What had seemed unimaginable – an unprecedented terrorist attack on American soil, striking at the very heart of society and witnessed on television screens around the world – was a shock the country has still not absorbed.
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The results of a recent USA Today/Gallup poll are astonishing. Some 60% of Americans say the attacks permanently changed the way the country lives, more than the number who felt that way on the tenth anniversary.
The youngest, and those who weren’t even born on September 11th, felt that impact the strongest of all.
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Twenty years on, the debate continues about how much America and the world was altered by the events of September 11th but in myriad ways, big and small, the scars of that day are still evident.
Image: It has been 20 years since the 9/11 attacks. Pic: AP
Endless War
Who would have thought that when the US launched airstrikes on Afghanistan within a month of September 11th that it would be almost 20 years before the last American troops would finally leave the country?
The initial aim of the invasion, ordered by US president George W Bush, was to crush al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, the terrorist group and its leader blamed for planning and carrying out the attacks, and deny them the base from which they had operated. Prime Minister Tony Blair was a key ally of the US in offering military support.
But Mr Bush had already told the US Congress and the American people that the country was engaged in a new type of military action that went far beyond a few targeted strikes against a single enemy.
The “war on terror” was born and it would not end, he said, “until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated”.
The war in Afghanistan became the longest in US history. Some 800,000 served there and nearly 2,500 died. More than 20,000 are listed as wounded – the true cost of psychological wounds is far higher.
Image: George W Bush in 2003 at the end of major operations in Iraq
The more than 400 UK service personnel who died in Afghanistan add to thousands of Afghan civilians, police and military personnel, aid workers and contractors over the 20 years.
While the war in Afghanistan enjoyed public support initially, that waned over the years, especially after the killing of bin Laden in 2011.
That the “war on terror” encompassed the far more controversial invasion of Iraq – in the supposed hunt for stocks of weapons of mass destruction that were never found – would cost a further 4,500 American military lives, some 179 British and 100,000 Iraqi. A million Americans served in Iraq.
Everywhere you look are remnants of the war. The prison camp at Guantanamo Bay just one we almost forget these days.
The pursuit of the “war on terror” would define American foreign policy and arguments rage about whether it was won or lost.
It is undeniable that the spectre of a repeat of September 11th, the fear of an attack on the homeland, has driven American actions abroad for far longer than anyone expected.
Air travel
Anyone who has flown into, out of or around the US in recent years will be familiar with those blue-uniformed custodians of the body scanner, the TSA.
Before September 11th, not only did the Transportation Security Administration not exist but airport security was a pale shadow of the operation we see today. Fewer than 10% of checked bags were screened back then.
The TSA was built from scratch within months and in direct response to the September 11th attacks. It is now a behemoth with a budget of $8bn and has undoubtedly made air travel safer.
The law that created it also mandated that all bags be screened, cockpit doors be reinforced and air marshals be put on planes.
If you can remember flying pre-2001, or if you watch an old film with an airport scene, it was a time of no lines at security, no need for a boarding pass to get to the departure gate and far less stress.
But as previously-unseen threats manifest, so too have security measures. Things that could be used as a weapon, like blades, were banned. Shoes had to be removed, a move that followed the failed shoe bomb attack in 2001, and electronics received extra screening.
Image: The TSA has become an ever-present part of air travel in the United States
The limit on liquids which could be used to make a bomb have been accepted, sometimes grudgingly, by passengers along with those growing queues and the need to arrive earlier at the airport.
While some success is obvious – 3,200 guns seized at airports last year, almost all loaded – much of the security infrastructure is hidden from view with vetting and background checks and behavioural analysis part of the system. This has also led to suspicions and complaints of racial profiling.
And like the booming business in trusted-traveller programmes – where passengers pay fees and disclose background information to bypass the checks – it has come at the cost of another big aspect of change in our post-September 11th world: privacy.
Surveillance and privacy
Just 45 days after the September 11th attacks, the Patriot Act was signed into law with the stated aim of tightening US national security.
It expanded the surveillance reach of law enforcement including permitting the tapping of international and domestic telephone lines. In essence, it made it easier for the US government to monitor US citizens.
Opponents say it was the birth of a “mass surveillance regime”, expanding powers to carry out electronic searches without court orders and property searches without someone’s consent or even knowledge.
In the years that followed, those programmes were expanded and supported by the Bush and Obama administrations and Congress.
The revelations of whistle-blower Edward Snowden in 2013 reverberated around the world, his allegations of the broad extent of the US National Security Agency’s efforts to gather data on a massive scale revealed the expansion of the power granted to the intelligence services.
Image: The revelations of Edward Snowden showed the extent of the US surveillance state. Pic: AP
Civil liberties groups began a fight against the scope of the laws arguing they undermined privacy rights and are, in some cases, unconstitutional.
But, as Congress quietly renewed many of the powers, public opinion remained broadly supportive of the intelligence services right to snoop in the name of national security.
A quarter of Americans, though, did say they had changed the way they used technology in the wake of the Snowden revelations.
Congress has now acted to rein in some of those powers and the more controversial data collection techniques have been abandoned.
But in an era when data is exploding, and with a greater awareness of transparency and privacy, the tension between civil liberties and national security is alive and well.
Anti-Muslim sentiment
In 2000, 12 anti-Muslim assaults were reported to the FBI in the US. In 2001, the number had leapt to 93. It has never returned to pre-2001 levels.
A decade and a half after September 11th, half of Muslims in the US said they found it more difficult to live in the country as a result of the attacks.
But it initially appeared the backlash against the Muslim community that everyone had feared could be averted.
Six days after the attack, President Bush visited a mosque in Washington and condemned harassment of the Muslim community. “The face of terror is not the truth faith of Islam,” he said. “That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.”
Image: Roughly half of the US believes Islam is not part of ‘mainstream American society’. Pic: AP
Polls taken two months after September 11th showed 59% of Americans had a favourable view of Muslim Americans, up from the number before September 11th.
But in the years that followed, polls showed a growing suspicion of people of Middle Eastern descent and a growing number of Americans who associated Islam with violence.
Even though the Muslim population has grown in the years since September 11th, researchers say many Americans know little about Islam and that views about the Muslim community have divided along political lines.
A survey by Pew Research in 2007 found that half of Americans believe that Islam is “not part of mainstream American society”, but that view was held by 68% of Republicans and just 37% of Democrats.
American psyche and patriotism
It is one very visible testament to the impact of September 11th on every street in America
The flags that fly on porches and front lawns, the protocol of never leaving them there unlit after dark, gained an added meaning for many. There is also a greater suspicion of those who don’t fly the flag, who don’t wear their patriotism proudly in post September 11th America.
Millions of words have been written about the surge in patriotism after September 11th. President Bush harnessed the spirit, with a bullhorn in one hand and his arm around a firefighter at Ground Zero, to rally Americans around the flag.
It has often been said that the US military saw a surge in enlistment after September 11th. In fact, despite a surge in calls to recruiting centres, the increase in the number who actually signed up was negligible. In 2005, the US fell short of its annual recruitment goal.
But there is no doubt many of those who did enlist in 2001 and 2002 were motivated by a desire to seek revenge. And, after all, the US had not been actively engaged in an official war until the invasion of Afghanistan.
Bush’s exhortation that “you are either with us or against us” struck a chord.
Image: Patriotism soared after the attacks and has stayed around – as seen here on September 11th 2011. Pic: AP
In the immediate aftermath of September 11th, there was a surge in the number of people looking to volunteer for charities and donate blood. A similar rise in attendance was seen at churches.
When researchers looked at all of those numbers again nine months after September 11th, only the levels of patriotism remained as high.
This took root in American culture as even Hollywood focused on patriotism rather than violence.
And the overt reverence for the military and first responders and their service is an undoubted legacy of what Americans witnessed on September 11th.
Changed the world
While the ways in which September 11th changed America are unmistakable, the impact of those attacks around the globe is a varied picture of the subtle and brutal.
For the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, years of war and its terrible costs are a living embodiment of America’s reaction to the attack on home soil. The repercussions have been felt throughout their neighbours and beyond.
The loss of life of British military personnel, and those of other allied nations in those wars, are scars with which hundreds of families still live.
If few people in the broader population paid attention to the names of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden before September 11th, many countries have seen first-hand in the years since the devastation of the sort of attacks they inspire.
The world has also drawn lessons from the withdrawal from Afghanistan and whether the “war on terror” succeeded. Wherever we are in the world, even if it is something as minor as taking our belt off at airport security, the impacts of September 11th are with us.
Twenty years on
One third of all Americans alive today were children or hadn’t been born on September 11th 2001. Everyone else, as they always say, knows exactly where they were when it happened.
At the time many feared it was the beginning of a wave of such attacks but, for whatever combination of reasons, it hasn’t been. Americans have been protected, even if it has come at a cost.
But 9/11 shook the confidence of the world’s superpower and not even the passing of twenty years has fully restored that.
Three people are in critical condition after a vehicle drove into a crowd in Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Fire Department’s (LAFD) public information officer Captain Adam Van Gerpen told Sky’s US partner NBC News the vehicle hit a taco cart before colliding with a large number of people outside a nightclub.
“Apparently there was a vehicle that had somebody who lost consciousness,” he said. “We have reports that there was a gunshot wound in one of the patients.”
Pictures from the scene in Santa Monica Boulevard, in East Hollywood, show a damaged grey vehicle which has mounted the pavement with debris strewn across the ground.
Sergeant Travis Ward, central traffic division watch commander at the Los Angeles Police Department, said it was too early to say if the incident was intentional and that an investigation was ongoing.
The LAFD said three people are in critical condition, six in serious condition and 19 in fair condition.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch, two Wall Street Journal reporters and the publication’s owner, News Corp.
The US president has accused the named individuals of defamation, claiming they acted with malicious intent and caused him overwhelming financial and reputational harm.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Miami, seeks at least $10bn (£7.5bn) in damages.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump called the lawsuit “historic legal action” which was filed on behalf of himself and all Americans who he said will “no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media”.
“I hope Rupert and his ‘friends’ are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case,” he wrote.
It comes afterMr Trump claimed that a letter he allegedly wrote to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was “fake” and said he would sue the “ass off” Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which first published the story.
The publication had said Mr Trump wrote the letter as part of a collection Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, planned to give him as a 50th birthday present in 2003.
It claimed the message, allegedly from Mr Trump, featured several lines of typewritten text, concluding with: “May every day be another wonderful secret.”
The text was framed by what appeared to be a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman, the WSJ claimed. The letter is also said to have featured the signature “Donald”.
Mr Trump immediately denied writing the letter when the WSJ report was published on Thursday night.
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2:28
Memes of Epstein undermine victims, says lawyer
“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper.”
Mr Trump ignored questions about Epstein as he signed a cryptocurrency bill at the White House earlier on Friday.
The president’s lawsuit comes as the US government filed a motion to unseal grand jury transcripts related to Epstein, who took his own life while awaiting trial in 2019.
In a Manhattan federal court filing, the Department of Justice said the criminal cases against Epstein and Maxwell are a matter of public interest, justifying the release of associated grand jury transcripts.
Earlier on Friday, Mr Trump said attorney general Pam Bondi had been asked to release the transcripts because of “the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein”.
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The president has faced increased scrutiny over his alleged friendship with Epstein since his administration’s U-turn on the so-called ‘Epstein files’.
Mr Trump pledged to release files on Epstein during his presidential campaign, as his MAGA movement accused the Biden administration of suppressing the extent of Epstein’s paedophilia, predatory behaviour and his so-called “client list” – thought to contain names of the rich and famous who conspired with him in his child sex trafficking operation.
But after a review of the evidence the US government has, the Justice Department recently determined that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted”.
Venezuela releases jailed Americans in prisoner swap
The Trump administration said on Friday that it had negotiated an exchange with Venezuela, resulting in the release of 10 jailed Americans.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the prisoners, who had been held in the South American country, were “on their way to freedom”.
Image: Men in the CECOT jail in EL Salvador. Pic: Reuters
In return, 252 Venezuelan migrants being held in El Salvador have been freed, the Venezuelan government said.
They had been held in the notorious maximum security CECOT prison after being deported by the US.
Donald Trump has called an alleged letter he wrote to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein “fake” and said he will sue the “ass off” Rupert Murdoch, who owns the paper that first published the claim.
In multiple posts on Truth Social, the US president accused The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) of fabricating the letter that it claimed was written by Mr Trump as part of a collection of letters addressed to Epstein that his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell planned to give him as a birthday present in 2003.
According to documents seen by the WSJ, Mr Trump’s letter featured several lines of typewritten text framed by what appeared to be a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman.
The paper said the letter concludes “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret”, and featured the signature “Donald”, allegedly drawn across the woman’s waist, meant to mimic the appearance of pubic hair.
Image: Epstein took his own life in prison in 2019. Pic: AP
Responding to the WSJ’s claims, Mr Trump wrote: “The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein. These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures.
“I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DJT.”
He said earlier he would also sue the WSJ and News Corp, which Mr Murdoch owns. The WSJ is published by News Corp subsidiary company, Dow Jones & Co.
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1:47
From 16 July: Trump: Epstein case is ‘a boring story’
The Justice Department has not responded to the WSJ and the FBI declined to comment.
In a separate post, Mr Trump said he has asked the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to release “any and all pertinent grand jury testimony” in the case of the paedophile financier who was found dead in his Manhattan cell in August 2019, shortly after he was arrested on sex trafficking charges.
Analysis: The credibility of the Epstein-Trump letter rests on the word of the WSJ – until an actual document is produced
Classy, it’s not.
The alleged letter sent to Jeffrey Epstein by Donald Trump has a typewritten note inside the hand-drawn outline of a woman. There’s a squiggly signature – “Donald” – below the waist.
It shows friendship, certainly – the dialogue from “Donald” to “Jeffrey” reads: “Happy birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
However, it doesn’t quite produce definitive proof of impropriety.
The Wall Street Journal hasn’t produced the document and, until it does, the story’s credibility rests on its word.
Whether it rests easy will be tested by Team Trump – it was clear last night that prominent MAGA figures were rallying to the president’s cause and turning their anger towards the Wall Street Journal – circling the wagons and shooting the messenger.
Trump has threatened to sue the Wall Street Journal and has targeted its owner, old friend Rupert Murdoch. “I’ll sue his ass off,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
It’s a billionaires’ struggle symptomatic of the wider acrimony. Trump can pursue Rupert Murdoch through the courts, but the MAGA millions will be more difficult to pin down.
Trump supporters who stood behind him as he screamed “cover-up” by the so-called “deep state”. They stand before him now, let down.
Donald Trump has authorised his attorney-general Pam Bondi to release grand jury testimony in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation – it’s something, but it’s far short of everything.
He is the man who did more than most to bake conspiracy theory into US political culture, so he can hardly complain it turns on him.
It has, and how.
The release of any documents, Mr Trump said, would be subject to approval by a court.
The justice department has previously said it had around 200 documents relating to Epstein and that the FBI had thousands more. It is unknown how much of this is grand jury testimony – which is typically kept secret under US law.
Ms Bondi responded to the president on X, writing: “President Trump-we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”
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“It really doesn’t sound like something Trump would say tbh,” the tech billionaire wrote on X, before going on to ask where the evidence against Epstein allegedly held by the FBI had gone.
The Trump administration has come under criticism after the president appeared to U-turn on his own promise to release more information about the Epstein case publicly.
In the run-up to the US election last year, Mr Trump drew on rumours and conspiracy theories that appeared to accuse the Biden administration of suppressing the extent of Epstein’s paedophilia, predatory behaviour and his so-called “client list” – thought to contain names of the rich and famous who conspired with him in a child sex trafficking operation.
Ms Bondi fuelled these rumours in February by telling Fox News that the alleged Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review”.
In the same month, the justice department released some government documents regarding the case, but there were no new revelations.
After a months-long review of additional evidence, the department earlier this month released a video meant to prove that Epstein killed himself, but said no other files related to the case would be made public.
The decision was criticised by many in Mr Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, who Mr Trump later called “weaklings”.
Sky News has contacted the White House for further comment.