America looks back on 25 years since 9/11

descriptions off, selected

captions settings, opens captions settings dialog

captions off, selected

This is a modal window.

Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.

End of dialog window.

The Hill's Headlines (PM) - September 10, 2026

The Hill's Headlines (PM) - September 10, 2026

▪ A somber anniversary 

▪ Conclusion of the RNC midterm convention 

▪ Supreme Court rejects Missouri GOP map 

▪ Kimmel accuses FCC of threat 

Thank you for signing up!

Subscribe to more newsletters here

Americans all around the country today are commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that changed the course of the 21st century. 

President Trump will mark the occasion at the Pentagon rather than in New York City, just as he did last year. Vice President Vance will attend New York City’s ceremony at Ground Zero, where the twin towers stood, as will all four living former presidents — Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. 

In Washington, D.C., all trains and buses will reportedly stop moving for one minute as part of a moment of silence at 9:37 a.m., the minute that the Pentagon was hit by the third hijacked plane. 

The attacks, which claimed nearly 3,000 lives as a result of the planes striking the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pa., dawned a new era that launched the war on terror and transformed the country’s approach to national security and foreign policy.  

Thousands more died in the years that followed, suffering from cancer and various respiratory illnesses linked to the toxic air thrown up by the rubble. Controversy surrounding the number of people whose health has been affected — which well exceeds the number that died on Sept. 11, 2001 — resurfaced earlier this week. 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) released 170,000 pages of records on Tuesday concerning the city government’s response to worsened air quality after the attacks, accusing city leaders of having “lied” about the safety risks. 

“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air,” Mamdani said at a press conference. 

The 9/11 Memorial and Museum estimates more than 400,000 people were exposed to toxic substances from the attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan. 

Two of those people were Sarah, one of your Morning Report authors,and her twin brother, Jacob. Just shy of four years old, they lived across the street from the twin towers when they collapsed 25 years ago.  

In the time since then, their mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and Jacob developed asthma. They believe their conditions are tied to the toxins in the dust from the center. 

Sarah recounts her experiences in a personal narrative about her memories of that day, when her family’s home was destroyed and they fled Ground Zero. 

“My memories from that day — some of the earliest I have — are spotty,” she writes. “But an almost-four-year-old’s memories are different from an adult’s — a truth I have come to understand as both a blessing and a curse.” 

The Hill’s Bill Sammon, who was present at the Florida elementary school where Bush was reading to schoolchildren when he was told of the attacks, reflects for Insider on how the day transformed Bush from a “sort of caretaker president” into a wartime commander in chief — and his own complicated feelings about the legacy of the wars that followed.  

“As the father of a combat Marine who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I have mixed feelings about how things turned out,” he writes. “Am I pleased that Saddam’s regime is no more? Absolutely. Am I dismayed that the Taliban is back in power? You bet.” 

Much has changed since the worst attack on U.S. soil in history. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are now key parts of the government defending the U.S’s national security. They are also routinely closed down in shutdown fights, forcing TSA workers in particular to go to work for weeks at a time without pay, though a move earlier this year to fund DHS through the end of the Trump administration takes that chip off the table for the time being. 

Airport security measures were quickly strengthened with metal detectors, bans on bringing liquids over a certain size on planes and a requirement to remove one’s shoes as they passed through lengthy security lines. Those latter two restrictions were added after new attempts were made to take planes down. 

As The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch reports, some of those measures are starting to be pulled back under the second Trump administration. Beitsch notes that while these security measures may have helped prevent another 9/11-like attack, the security constraints have been to the annoyance of millions of travelers. Some of the reforms have been popular, though they have also raised security concerns. 

The move from former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to eliminate shoe removal set off alarms from the Justice Department’s Office........

© The Hill