Beltway Insider: September 11, 2001 25 Years Later, Ceremonies, News Coverage, Gloria Steinem
- Details
- Category: Haute This Issue
- Published on Saturday, 05 September 2026 14:31
- Written by Janet Walker
President Donald Trump will not be among the former presidents and dignitaries attending the annual New York City September 11, 2001 memorial service but has announced he will be attending the remembrance service at the Pentagon.
The President's job approval rating, according to The New York Times for the period ending September 6, 2026, of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President increased by 1% to 38% and those who disapprove of his effectiveness as president decreased by 1% to 58%. A slight 3% of the population polled have no opinion. Ratings are calculated weekly.
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New York City Remembers September 11, 2001
New York City will hold the annual World Trade Center remembrance ceremony at the World Trade Center Museum, on September 11, 2025. In attendance for the 25th anniversary ceremony are each of the four living Presidents including Biden, Obama, Bush, and Clinton. Also in attendance, will be former First Ladies Dr. Jill Biden, Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton, and Laura Bush. Former First Lady Michelle Obama has not been confirmed. Vice-President J.D. Vance will attend the New York City ceremony.
"Unlike his fellow living presidents, Trump will attend a ceremony at the Pentagon on Sept. 11. White House spokesperson Olivia Wales told Fox News Digital on Wednesday the president also plans to honor 9/11 first responders and New York Fire Department officials at the White House on Sept. 8, ahead of the 25th anniversary," The Hill reported.
The ceremony at the World Trade Center site will begin at 8:00 AM.
The National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial outside the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, will host the 25th Anniversary ceremony, scheduled to begin at 9:00 AM EST. President Trump is schedule to attend and speak.
The Flight 93 Museum, in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, will honor the passengers and crew of United Flight 93, with two ceremonies, beginning at 8:30 AM and again at 1:30 PM. The ceremony will be held at the Wall of Names.
For many the passengers and crew of United Flight 93 seemed to be the forgotten and yet the bravery and heroism shown by these individuals saved America from suffering even greater loss.
As they are remembered the passengers, after making 37 phone calls, understood what was at stake, decided to stage a revolt, and three men, Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick, and Todd Beamer, with limited training and improvised weapons, along with crew member Sandra Bradshaw who prepared pots of boiling water, and with the now famous battle cry of "Let's Roll," rushed the cockpit. Six minutes later, the terrorist pilot who understood the Americans on board would rather die than passively allow him to drive the plane into The White House or the Capitol building, rolled the plane and drove it into a field, killing everyone on board.
Twenty Years: 9/11 Attacks – A Date That Will Live in Infamy*
Awakened to Terror
After the 9/11 Terrorists Attacks in New York City and Washington, a housemate notified me of the attacks. It seemed impossible, even with her increasing decibels with every detail.
The first few hours after the attacks, I sat glued to shocking and unfathomable images showing on the 12-inch television set, shouting at people long dead, as the news coverage continued to show, in replay, the horrors happening just a few miles away. The men and women, who had just started their workday suddenly deciding whether to jump, in what was a sure death or stand their ground hoping for a rescue.
Suddenly two states were in lockdown. Power antennas, subways, trains, all transportation, banks all shut down. Soon, I gathered with many on the New Jersey side of the Hudson, watching the plumes of smoke billowing like giant grey cumulus clouds rising and drifting, staining the azure, blue sky, and even after watching the close-ups, of the now piles of twisted steel, rock and metal, on the small television set, I had to find a way into the city. I had to see, with my own eyes, what had happened.
The next day, the New Jersey/New York Port Authority had opened the ferry, and after walking about three miles, as buses and subways were still closed, I ended up on the West Side highway.
I realized, once I arrived, that I was not alone in the need and the feeling of seeing what had happened, and seeing it with my own eyes, as the streets were lined with Manhattanites, cheering as dump trucks drove by, loaded with twisted metal remnants of what was once the majestic twin towers. I also saw the common citizens, ones that on any other day might pass by a stranger in need, on this day, they arrived with donations, wanting to do something, but not knowing what to do. Not knowing if the small gesture could or would help anyone.
Recently, 25 years later, I unpacked the coverage from September 12, 2001. Then, I bought each of the New York City dailies, and all the major magazines, I didn't know when I would unpack them from the plastic casing.
What struck me as I read, and I think it was for the first time, the actual coverage by the reporters from The New York Times, The New York Daily News, and The New York Post, and realized the depth of fortitude it must have taken to separate themselves from the realities of the tragedy and concentrate, without losing focus, and present evocative coverage that still, 25 years later, resonates with descriptive emotion.
With tears streaming, the emotion of that days and those that would follow, bubbled again to the surface, as the heroism, bravery, and loss, not simply the buildings, and yes the buildings also, but for the men and women, all those whose lives were altered on that day.
I have often said we lost our innocence as a nation that day, at least for those who had not lived through World War II and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which is the majority of us. Our shores had always been safe from the global onslaught of terror, and even as the World Trade Center had been the target in 1993, and yes even as it had cost civilians their lives, and even as the burgeoning Middle Eastern terror network claimed responsibility, it had little impact on the daily life.
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New York Daily Newspapers Coverage September 12, 2001
The New York Times, in bold war font "U.S. ATTACKED" and a sub-headline that read, "HIJACKED JETS DESTROY TWIN TOWERS AND HIT PENTAGON IN DAY OF TERROR," with the picture of the bursting explosion of brilliant, vivid orange, tinged with deep black, staining the sky, in what only minutes before was a perfect early autumn day.
The New York Times writer, Serge Schmemann wrote, "But the real carnage was concealed for now by the twisted, smoking, ash-chocked carcasses of the twin towers, in which thousands pf people work on a weekday."
N. R. Kleinfield, also of The New York Times, wrote, "It kept getting worse. The horror arrived in episodic bursts of chilling disbelief, signified first by trembling floors, sharp eruptions, cracked windows. There was the actual unfathomable realization of a gaping, flaming hole in the first one of the tall towers, and then the same thing all over again in its twin. There was the merciless sight of bodies helplessly tumbling out, some of them in flames."
The New York Daily News began its coverage on September 13, 2001, an image of the gaping hole in and smoking World Trade Center North Tower , and the approaching hijacked airliner approaching the South Tower.
The New York Daily News writer Dave Saltonstall wrote, "On a day of unspeakable horror for New York and the nation terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon yesterday in the deadliest assault on the U.S. in its history.[. . .] Crushed in the debris were an estimated 300 city police officers, firefighters and emergency workers who rushed to the scene to help, only to be buried in the rubble of a complex long regarded as indestructible. "Freedom itself was attacked this morning," a somber [President George] Bush said. [. . .] As hundreds of sirens wailed through the city to the burning tower, some of the center's 50,000 workers could be seen falling like rag dolls from the windows. They included a man and a women holding hands."
The New York Post began its coverage on September 13, 2001 with what has now become a famous photo titled "Raising the Flag at Ground Zero," taken by Thomas E. Franklin of The Record and included New York Firefighters, Dan McWilliams, George Johnson, and Billy Eisengrein raising the American flag.
Even in its traditional sensational style, The New York Post provided pages of the human side of this fresh tragedy that would continue to claim lives far into the future. For this day, an editorial read, "America digs its dead and wounded from Lower Manhattan and in Washington. Osama Bin Laden exults in the Afghan desert. Mobs cheer in Cairo and on the West Bank, and Saddam doubtless dances a jig in Baghdad. America bleeds. This is war. It needs to be prosecuted as such. The men behind the men who raised havoc on New York and Washington need to be called to account. The heavens need to fall on their heads. They need to bleed. Not next month. Not next week. Now."
Wanting to keep the magazines and newspapers as pristine as possible, I didn't even look through them. Now, on this anniversary, I looked at all coverage, the daily newspapers, the magazine, Time, Newsweek and Vanity Fair, all which devoted precious space to coverage that does more than record history; it marked a moment, a shift.
For many these images are met with an incredulous disregard, a jaded A.I. disbelief that marks every horrific moment in history that occurred before their birth.
The photographers who resisted the reverberating message to escape the unfolding horror, captured images of the worst of those two hours, and later the best in humanity.
What is stunning that it was only 106 minutes, less than two hours, from 8:46 AM, when the first plane flies into the North Tower and 9:16 AM when the second tower is hit, and by 10:28 AM, both towers had fallen. In those 106 minutes, the images of heroism, death, and those filled with a fear fueled panic who believed controlling their own death was better. In those 106 minutes, so many who entered their offices, got on a plane, or answered the call of duty were killed.
For those 2,753 who died at the World Trade Center attack, the 246 passengers and crew members on each of the four planes, the 343 New York Firefighters, 125 civilians and military inside the Pentagon, and the 4,300 first responders and survivors who died from 9/11 exposure, even now, 25 years later you are not forgotten. America remembers; I remember.
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Coronavirus Total
At the order of the President of the United States, the U.S. no longer recognizes the value of The World Health Organization. The CDC has recommended every person from age six months, including senior citizens should receive at least one shot of an updated COVID-19 vaccine, annually. The death toll from Covid-19 has dramatically decreased, as has transmission of the virus. Even as confirmed new cases continue each week, fewer are dying from each new variants.
For the 7 days ending September 5, 2026, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases reported by the World Health Organization remained constant at 779,313,005. The total worldwide death toll did not increase over the past seven days has increased by 166 to 7,116,300 deaths. The United States has stopped providing Covid data to the World Health Organization. (Data updated August 9, 2026, from the World Health Organization).
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Gloria Steinem, Writer, Women's Activist, Dies
Gloria Steinem, who founded Ms. Magazine, and became the de facto leader of the Women's Movement throughout the last fifty years, died this week she was 92.
Growing up in Toledo, Ohio, Ms. Steinem arrived in New York City, in 1962, with the loft ambition of making it as a freelance writer. The beginnings were challenging and she wrote stories for Esquire, Vogue and other simply hoping to earn enough to pay her $62.50 monthly rent. The mystique of Manhattan wasn't lost on the young Steinem, and soon she began to fight against the sexism, and discrimination that was so prevalent at the time that talented women were routinely dismissed, as a pretty face, a nice piece of ass, or other inflammatory comments.
Gloria Steinem embraced the freedom of the 1960s in New York City, she refused to change her style and adopt a more demure look to appease the decision makers of the day. Her work would pay off.
"Through her insistence, Ms. Steinem overcame professional prejudices that limited most female journalists to covering topics such as fashion and courtship. Her ease around celebrities — she dated men including filmmaker Mike Nichols, profiled John Lennon, and spent a week with Lee Radziwill for an article on the jet-setting sister of Jacqueline Kennedy — made Ms. Steinem a sought-after celebrity in her own right. By the late 1960s, her name was mentioned in the same breath with writers Tom Wolfe and Susan Sontag," The Washington Post reported.
By 1971, the women's movement was picking up steam and in Manhattan, women were arriving to become a part of the freedom large cities can offer. Partnering with other female intellectuals, namely Betty Friedan, Steinem became a recognizable, admired and vocal member of a group of women who demanded equality, equal work, equal pay.
Over the decades, she continued to be the voice of equality, and while strides have been made according the Bureau of Labor Statistic, women earn about 0.81 to 0.83 cents per every dollar their male counterpart earns, we need to pass the baton to the next generation of writers, intellectuals and scholars, those who can demand change and have the fortitude to withstand the push back that comes from exercising the rights the Constitution has endowed each citizen not only males, but every citizen.
Ms. Steinem is survived by a great body of work, a magazine that has influenced and challenged a generations of women, and by those who have benefitted from her determined effort. She leaves an example of a life well lived.
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For more information on President Donald Trump: Whitehouse.gov.
Sources: Various © Articles covered by Copyright protection.
Janet Walker is the publisher, founder, and sole owner of Haute-Lifestyle.com. A graduate of New York University, she has been covering international news through the Beltway Insider, a weekly review of the nation's top stories, for more than a decade. A general beat writer/reporter and entertainment/film critic, she is also an accomplished news/investigative news/crime reporter and submitted for Pulitzer Prize consideration "Cops Conspire to Deep Six Sex Assaults" in the Breaking News Category and was persuaded to withdraw the submission. Ms. Walker has completed five award-winning screenplays "The Six Sides of Truth," "The Assassins of Fifth Avenue," "The Wednesday Killer," "The Manhattan Project," and the sci-fi thriller "Project 13: The Last Day." She has also published "Unholy Alliances: A True Crime Story," a non-fiction narrative, "Days, Times, Seasons, and Events: A Collection of Poetry & Prose," and "Songs of Freedom: A Collection of Biblical Teachings," which can be purchased here. She is a member of the Authors Guild, the Los Angeles Press Club, the National Writers Union, and a member of the International Federation of Journalists.
