Stosur family numbed by daughter's U.S. Open success

(Reuters) - The father of Australia's Samantha Stosur was unable to contain his delight after his daughter upset Serena Williams in an ill-tempered U.S. Open final to win her maiden major singles title on Sunday.

Despite her lower ranking after a year of injury woes, Williams was a hot favorite to lift a fourth U.S. Open title but ninth seeded Stosur ripped up the script with a brilliant 6-2 6-3 victory over her American opponent.

"It all hasn't sunk in yet but it's an incredible achievement for her to go through a grand slam," Stosur's father Tony told Australia's ABC Radio from his Gold Coast home on Monday.

"She's been wanting to do this for many, many years of course but to do it in America against an in-form Serena Williams is quite numbing really," he added after Stosur became the first Australian woman to win the U.S. Open in 38 years.

"She was awesome, she owned it, there was no doubt about it, she was absolutely fantastic."

In a match played on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York, Williams let her frustration get the better of her in the second set and picked up a code violation for screaming at the umpire as her title hopes slipped away.

"I was concerned the complexion of the match would change because of the distraction, and it did to some degree," Tony Stosur added.

"The crowd was absolutely behind Serena and the pressure must have been enormous on Sam to keep it together, because those sort of things can turn the match around, but she kept it together to her credit.

Stosur said his 27-year-old daughter was still coming to terms with her win when she called her family after the match.

"We put her on speaker phone with everyone who was here watching the match," he said.

"I think she's a bit numb, she's obviously delighted but like we all are, it hasn't really sunk in yet."

Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard believes the win will encourage more of her compatriots to take up tennis in a bid to emulate the success as she congratulated Stosur.

"She has shown great determination and skill to win the U.S. Open and everyone involved with tennis in Australia will be celebrating with her today," Gillard said.

"This is a great achievement and shows the future of Australian tennis is on the rise."

(Writing by John O'Brien in Singapore)

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In Shanksville, New Memorial Draws Visitors

By JAMES R. HAGERTY

SHANKSVILLE, Pa.—People began arriving before dawn at the new Flight 93 National Memorial near this Pennsylvania village, where a United Airlines flight crashed after passengers fought with terrorists onboard.

As the morning sun banished swirls of fog from the Laurel Highlands, about 75 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, several thousand people gathered on a hillside for a memorial service. Surrounded by wild flowers and dozens of television satellite trucks, the scene looked almost festive. But the mood turned somber as relatives of the 40 deceased passengers and crew members lined up to state the names of the dead, punctuated by the tolling of bells.

"Alan Anthony Beaven, my father…"

"Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas and unborn child…"

"Toshiya Kuge, my son…"

Politicians who spoke at the service stressed the defiance of the passengers, whose clash with the hijackers is believed to have prevented a suicide attack by the jet on Washington. "This is the place where America said, 'No,' " said U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, a Pennsylvania Republican whose district includes Shanksville. "They weren't going to stand for what was happening."

President Barack Obama arrived by helicopter around noon to lay a wreath of 40 white roses. He and his wife, Michelle, then mingled with relatives of the people killed here, hugged many of them and posed for pictures.

Mr. Obama briefly greeted the rest of the throng. "Obama!" shouted Jacob Harris, a 10-year-old who lives near Shanksville. "We don't call him Obama, we call him Mr. President," corrected Jacob's grandfather, David Harris, a retired building contractor, who said he comes to the crash site on every anniversary of Sept. 11.

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Standing Side by Side at Ground Zero, Bush and Obama Mark Crucial Moment

On Sunday, for the first time, President Obama and former President George W. Bush stood together at the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, listening as family members read the names of lost love ones and bowing their heads in silence to mark the moment the planes hit.

In May, Mr. Bush declined Mr. Obama’s invitation to join him at ground zero after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. But on this morning, they stood shoulder to shoulder — commanders in chief whose terms in office are bookends for exploring how the United States has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, particularly in its response to terrorism.

The tableau was striking: the president who spent years hunting Bin Laden next to the one who finally got him. The president defined by his response to Sept. 11 standing alongside the one who has tried to take America beyond the lingering, complicated legacy of that day.

Mr. Obama read from Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength,” which an aide said he chose because it spoke of perseverance. Mr. Bush, the wartime leader, read a letter from Abraham Lincoln to a widow who was believed to have lost sons in the Civil War.

Unlike Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush drew a cheer from those who remembered him shouting through a bullhorn atop the smoldering rubble. For Mr. Obama, Sept. 11 is perhaps a less wrenching experience, though it underpins what has become one of the great paradoxes of his presidency.

He is a Democratic leader who opposed the Iraq war and is pulling troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan but has, at the same time, notched up a record as a lethal, relentless hunter of terrorists.

He is a president who banned torture in the interrogation of suspected terrorists and pledged — unsuccessfully, so far — to close the military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but carried out more drone strikes in Pakistan in his first year in office than Mr. Bush did in his eight years.

In the process, the White House said, it has killed more officials of Al Qaeda in the last two and a half years than were eliminated during the entire Bush administration. Among the big names: two top Qaeda managers, Sheik Saeed al-Masri and Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, and one of its most feared field commanders, Ilyas Kashmiri.

“We have taken the fight to Al Qaeda like never before,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly address.

On Sunday, Mr. Obama moved quietly through the rituals of remembrance, laying a wreath at a memorial in Shanksville, Pa., where a United Airlines plane crashed after passengers fought with the hijackers, and later another wreath at the 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon.

There is no question that in his intense use of drones and his laser focus on Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups, Mr. Obama departed from the Bush administration’s broader “global war on terrorism.”

But there has been as much continuity as change in the Obama method, according to terrorism experts. Mr. Obama, for example, has continued the full government response to terrorism that the Bush administration eventually adopted. This approach — with the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation working more collaboratively with agencies like the Treasury and State Departments, especially in the field — culminated in the raid that killed Bin Laden.

“What you’ve seen from the Obama administration is fundamental continuity in the counterterrorism policies handed over in 2009, while sharpening the campaign to eliminate core Al Qaeda leadership and disrupt safe havens in western Pakistan and Yemen,” said Juan Zarate, a top counterterrorism adviser in the Bush administration who has nevertheless criticized the Obama White House for its muddled detention policies.

To be sure, Mr. Obama made important refinements and changes. Most notably, he has significantly increased the use of covert and clandestine operations by C.I.A. paramilitary and Special Operations forces from the United States military.

In Mr. Obama’s first year in office, the C.I.A. carried out 53 drone strikes in Pakistan. The next year, it more than doubled that figure, to 117, according to The Long War Journal, a Web site that follows the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The pace is off a bit this year — 49 through late August — but the drone campaign is spreading to other countries.

The C.I.A. now plans to carry out armed drone missions against Qaeda operatives in Yemen, and the military has conducted drone strikes to kill insurgents in Somalia. “Stepping up the drone strikes has been a game changer,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. “It is frustrating Al Qaeda’s movements enormously.”

Still, while Mr. Hoffman said that Al Qaeda’s core network had been crippled, its offshoots in Yemen and North Africa continued to put down roots, posing a potentially greater threat to the United States than Bin Laden’s surviving lieutenants.

“We can say we turned a corner with Al Qaeda,” he said, “but we can’t say we turned a corner in the war on terrorism.”

For all its achievements, the administration has also been lucky. A Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, almost blew up a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day in 2009 with explosives sewn into his underwear. Six months later, a Pakistani-American, Faisal Shahzad, parked an S.U.V. loaded with a bomb that failed to detonate in Times Square.

“Obama is rightly proud of his counterterrorism record, but had Umar Abdulmutallab not lost his cool on that plane, he wouldn’t have had much of a record to point to,” said Bruce O. Riedel, a former intelligence officer who has advised the White House. “His presidency would have been transformed that Christmas.”

Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting.

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N.Y.C.: Moments of silence at ground zero

(CBS News)

Last Updated 11:34 a.m. ET

Moments of silence were observed in New York City Sunday on the tenth anniversary of the terror attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and killed nearly 3,000 people.

"Ten years have passed since a perfect blue sky morning turned into the blackest of nights. Since then, we have lived in sunshine, and in shadow," said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, just minutes after members of the Brooklyn Youth Choir performed the National Anthem.

"And although we can never 'unsee' what happened here ... we can also see that children who lost their parents have grown into young adults, grandchildren have been born, and good works and public service have taken root to honor those we loved and lost."

Sixty bagpipe players and drummers led the World Trade flag through the memorial, where the flag was unfolded and held aloft by the Honor Guard.

Noting that the words of writers and poets have been used to express what is in our hearts, Bloomberg recalled Shakespeare in saying, "Let us not measure our sorrow by their worth, for then it will have no end."

Noting that the words of writers and poets have been used to express what is in our hearts, Bloomberg recalled Shakespeare in saying, "Let us not measure our sorrow by their worth, for then it will have no end."

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Obama hails American resilience post-9/11

By NANCY BENAC

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Sunday that the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks shows that America does not give in to fear, and never succumbed to suspicion and mistrust.

"These past 10 years tell a story of resilience," the president declared at the end of a long day of memories and reflection that took him to all three sites where hijacked planes struck on that frightening day.

Speaking at a memorial concert at the Kennedy Center, the president spoke of remembering the past, and of honoring the sacrifices of those who died in the attacks and the two long wars they spawned. But he also looked to a future when 9/11 will be seen through the eyes of generations that never witnessed the attacks themselves, and instead learned of them through memorials.

To them, the president said, the legacy of 9/11 will be the soldiers who signed up to serve, the citizens who withstood fear, the workers who built new towers to replace the old, and the children who lived out their parents' dreams.

"They will remember that we have overcome slavery and civil war, bread lines and fascism, recession and riots, Communism and, yes, terrorism," Obama said.

"It will be said of us that we kept that faith; that we took a painful blow, and emerged stronger

September 11, 2011 08:26 PM EDT

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City Marks Tenth Anniversary Of 9/11 Attacks Under Heavy Guard

Security was tight across the five boroughs as the nearly 3,000 lives lost in the September 11th terror attacks were remembered today at the 10th anniversary ceremony on the site of the World Trade Center.The event marked the opening of the National September 11th Memorial, a pair of pools in the footprint of the Twin Towers surrounded by bronze panels etched with the names of 9/11 victims.

The unveiling of the memorial after five years of construction allowed family members to see the names of the their loved ones permanently inscribed at the site, and scores of mourners lined up to pay their respects.

The memorial officially opens to the general public on Monday.

The ceremony took place under heightened security following reports earlier in the week of a possible terror plot designed to disrupt the anniversary. However, the event took place without incident.

As in past anniversaries, family members read the name of each victim of the World Trade Center attacks, with the addition this year of victims of the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa., attacks. Over the course of nearly four hours, pairs of family members read each set of names, adding personal statements at the end of each group.

"We miss you and we love you," said the daughter of Juanita Lee, who worked in the Twin Towers. "You are in our hearts forever."

"We love you and miss you so much," said the wife of Roy Michael Wallace, one of 658 Cantor Fitzgerald staff members who perished in 1 World Trade Center.

"I hope in heaven there's always cold beer and the Yankees always win the World Series," said the son of the Patrick Waters, an FDNY captain who died in the North Tower.

The nearly five-hour long ceremony concluded with the playing of taps, performed by members of the city's police and fire departments, the Port Authority and the U.S. military.

The event began at 8:35 a.m. with Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered the opening remarks, followed by a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. to mark the time the first plane hijacked hit the North Tower.

Moments of silence were also observed at 9:03 a.m. when the second plane struck the South Tower; 9:37 a.m. when a plane hit the Pentagon; 9:59 a.m. when the South Tower fell; 10:03 a.m. when Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, and 10:28 a.m. when the North Tower fell.

President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush were in attendance, and all four walked around the reflecting pools and observed a private moment of silence before the ceremony.

At the start of the ceremony President Obama read Psalm 46 while former President Bush read a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to a mother who lost all five of her sons in the Civil War.

The ceremony also featured performances by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and singers James Taylor and Paul Simon.

Other politicians in attendance included former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, former Governor George Pataki and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan and his predecessor Edward Cardinal Egan attended a Port Authority remembrance service immediately following the World Trade Center ceremony.

The Roman Catholic Mass was held at nearby St. Peter's Church, which was damaged in the terror attacks.

Missing Van Found As Terror Probe, Security Measures Continue

Security throughout the city was at its peak in the hours leading up to the ceremony at the World Trade Center site, but Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that these extra measures will remain through this week.

In Lower Manhattan, trash cans were removed and checkpoints were set up for traffic headed downtown.

Police rapid response teams also blanketed the city with thousands of officers throughout the night.

The NYPD was monitoring the entire city for any suspicious activity from its new Joint Operations Center. City, state, and federal agencies sit side-by-side inside the $49 million center, which uses the latest technology in an effort to protect the city from any possible terrorist threat.

Counterterrorism officials spent the week chasing a tip that al-Qaida was sending three men to the United States to detonate a car bomb.

However, no additional intelligence has supported that information, leading some officials to question the validity of that tip.

Police have not yet been able to link the stealing of two vans stolen from a Queens construction company that was working near the World Trade Center site to any terror plot, according to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The Queens company's other van and another van stolen from Jersey City have not been found.

Kelly said there is no proof yet that the Queens theft and the Jersey City theft are linked.

The Queens van that was located had about $70,000 worth of tools stolen, according to Kelly.

Senior U.S. officials said prior to the ceremony that intelligence agencies had found no evidence that anyone linked to al-Qaida had entered the country to carry out an attack to coincide with today's anniversary.

Authorities, though, remain on high alert as investigators continued to look for proof of a plot to possibly disrupt events planned in New York or Washington.

In addition to security measures being taken in and around the World Trade center site, police set up checkpoints at major transit hubs, bridges, tunnels, landmarks, and houses of worship.

Police were also checking bags in the subways, and bomb sniffing dogs and National Guard soldiers were on duty.

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