The Earlybird: Today's Headlines

Yesterday's terrorist attack and its aftermath:

• Yesterday's terrorist attack on the United States' East Coast, which included four highjacked planes, the destruction of New York's World Trade Center and damage to part of the Pentagon, is "being ranked the worst and most audacious terror attack in American history," the New York Times reports.
• U.S. intelligence officials did not have any warning about the attack, AP reports.
• The attack is being compared "to the 'day of infamy' of the last century, Japan's Dec. 7, 1941, sneak attack on Pearl Harbor," the Washington Times reports.

• In a prime-time address to the nation, President Bush "said on Tuesday he would 'make no distinction' between terrorists and their hosts in the hunt for those responsible for killing thousands in attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon," Reuters reports.
• Bush spent Tuesday being flown to different military bases across the country in an effort to keep his whereabouts unknown, Salon.com reports.
• The United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania "was believed to have been intended to strike Camp David," the London Times reports. "The Pentagon swiftly denied rumours that the plane had been brought down by U.S. fighter jets."
• Some military officers said "they hoped Mr. Bush would break with past practices of handling terrorists attacks as drawn-out criminal homicide investigations rather than what they really are -- acts of war that demand swift reprisals," the Washington Times reports.
• Bush's presidency "changed indelibly" yesterday, and he now "faces a test of leadership only few presidents have ever known," the Washington Post reports.

• NationalJournal.com has the full text of Bush's evening address.
• AP has the official statements from American Airlines and United Airlines
• USA Today provides a timeline of Tuesday's events.
• The Washington Post lists the companies that occupied the World Trade Center.
• AP has a tally of confirmed casualties and a partial victims list.
• USA Today has a list of the precautions taken in each state in reaction to Tuesday's attack.
• AP details the number of passengers aboard each of the four hijacked flights, their flight numbers and their scheduled routes.
• The Washington Post illustrates the flight paths of each of the hijacked aircraft.
• Newsday also maps the flight paths, as well as the route taken Tuesday by President Bush.

• Secretary of State Colin Powell said on ABC's "Good Morning America" today that the attacks "were an act of war and promised the United States would respond 'as if it is a war,'" Reuters reports.
• "Authorities in Massachusetts identified at least five Arab men as suspects in yesterday's terror attacks launched from Logan International Airport, seizing in the central parking garage a car laden with Arabic-language flight training manuals," the Boston Herald reports.
• The FBI "has obtained search warrants for homes and post office boxes in Florida" and is "focusing on 'South Florida ties to some of the people'" under investigation whose names were obtained from airline passenger lists, CNN.com reports.
• "U.S. officials began piecing together a case linking Osama bin Laden to the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, aided by an interception of communications between his supporters and harrowing cell phone calls from victims aboard the jetliners before they crashed on Tuesday," AP reports.
• A journalist from Abu Dhabi Television's bureau chief in Islamabad said that bin Laden "congratulated the people who carried out the deadly terrorist strikes in the United States," CBSNews.com reports.
• The "attack's so-called 'operational characteristics' point to a group as organized and resource-rich as bin Laden's," UPI reports.
• But bin Laden denied responsibility, Reuters reports.
• There were explosions Tuesday in Afghanistan's capital, Kabal, AP reports. "The United States quickly denied any involvement in the violence in Afghanistan, which has been shielding Osama bin Laden."
• Tuesday's attack "plunged the nation into a warlike struggle against an enemy that will be hard to identify with certainty and hard to punish with precision," the New York Times reports.
• Officials "have begun examining airport security camera tapes, airline voice recorders and passenger lists as part of what they say will be the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history to determine who was behind Tuesday's terrorist attacks," USA Today reports.
• Some aviation security experts said that the terrorists "almost assuredly had help from airline employees or contract workers with access to the planes on the ground," the Houston Chronicle reports.
• "Although the perpetrators of Tuesday's terrorist attacks have yet to be identified, Islamic-Americans in many cities have already begun grappling with an angry backlash," the Wall Street Journal reports.
• "Major American Muslim organizations yesterday forcefully condemned" the terrorism "and called on their communities to donate blood, medical aid and other assistance for the victims," the Washington Post reports. "But they also voiced fears of a backlash if the perpetrators turn out to be Muslim, and urged Islamic institutions to take extra precautions."

• At least 100 people have died in the attack on the Pentagon, the Washington Times reports.
• Thousands are feared dead in and around the World Trade Center, the New York Times reports.
• Rescue workers "pulled six survivors from the rubble of the World Trade Center" this morning, CNN.com reports. They were five firefighters and a policeman.
• "Establishing the death toll could take weeks," CBSNews.com reports. "The four airliners alone had 266 people aboard and there were no known survivors."
• One eyewitness said that shortly after the first attack on the World Trade Center, he "saw bodies coming out of the high floors of the towers, 75th or 80th floors. It was either people leaping as they flew out or they were being sucked out of the building," USA Today reports.
• Barbara Olson, a former congressional investigator and the wife of U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, "was aboard the jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon and called him as the plane was being hijacked," AP reports. Olson reported that the hijackers "were using knife-like instruments."
• Thousands of people lined up to donate blood yesterday, and lines were so long that "many volunteers were thanked and asked to return today," the New York Post reports.
• New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) "was among those who had to flee for his life yesterday," the New York Post reports. "The mayor and his top aides had established a makeshift outpost" in buildings near the World Trade Center, and he told reporters they "were trapped in the building for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, trying to get out different exits."

• Today Bush "will meet with the Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress at the White House at 11:30 a.m., Reuters reports.
• Members of Congress return to work today, "facing bolstered security and vowing to escalate the war on terrorism and remedy deadly intelligence failures," Reuters reports.
• The federal government is open today, but it "is unlikely to be business as usual for thousands of federal employees," the Washington Post reports. "Yesterday's terrorist attack on the Pentagon was a grim reminder that all of them -- whether civilian or in uniform -- are potential targets of terrorism."

• "Those who orchestrated yesterday's attacks discovered and exploited a huge vulnerability in the nation's defenses, in a way that no one in either the Clinton or Bush administrations quite foresaw," the Washington Post reports.
• "The decision to put U.S. military forces worldwide on high alert following Tuesday's attacks has been followed by similar moves by national governments around the globe," CNN.com reports.
• Officials in Afghanistan's Taliban government "braced for possible U.S. retaliation," UPI reports.

• Former President Bill Clinton "urged Americans to rally behind President Bush in the aftermath of Tuesday's terrorist attacks," AP reports.
• Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., "called for immediate increases in the intelligence budget," and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he supports spending more money on intelligence even if it "means dipping into money that would otherwise pay down the national debt or dip into the Social Security trust fund," Scripps Howard News Service reports.
• British Prime Minister Tony Blair "declared that Britain stood 'shoulder to shoulder' with the American people against the 'new evil of mass terrorism,'" the London Guardian reports.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin "expressed sympathy and anger over attacks," the Moscow Times reports. Putin called "for a coordinated international response to terrorism."
• In Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared Wednesday a "day of mourning," the Jerusalem Post reports. Israeli authorities also closed most air and ground passages to Israel and tightened the blockades around Palestinian cities.
• Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat also condemned the attacks, the BBC reports.
• Libya and Iran also condemned the terrorist attacks, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, Iraq stated that "the United States deserved Tuesday's attacks... as the fruits 'of its crimes against humanity.'"

• Massachusetts Port Authority Aviation Director Thomas Kinton said that at Logan Airport, where two of the hijacked jets started their flights, "there will probably be 'very significant' security changes, including no more curbside luggage check-in and a ban on anyone except registered passengers passing checkpoints," the Boston Globe reports.
• Most buildings in the Chicago area that closed Tuesday, including the Sears Tower, plan to reopen Wednesday, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. But the Dirksen Federal Building, "where the U.S. attorney's office, the FBI and other criminal justice agencies and courtrooms are located, was expected to remain closed."
• California Gov. Gray Davis (D) "and other top California officials closed their offices" yesterday, and "Davis ordered all state buildings closed and sent state workers home," AP reports.
• Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt (R) "pledged Tuesday" that the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City "will go forward as planned." But he said "planners must now seriously evaluate -- in addition to innumerable other scenarios -- the prospect of a commercial airliner being hijacked and aimed at Salt Lake during the Games," the Los Angeles Times reports.

• U.S. exchanges will remain closed on Wednesday, the Financial Times reports. But "Bank of America, First Citizens Bank and Wachovia and First Union said they would operate as normal outside of areas directly affected by the attacks."
• Even though U.S. businesses hope to return to business as usual today, that may be "easier said than done," AP reports.
• Investors across the world snapped up traditional safe assets like gold and bonds on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

• "Despite rumors, gasoline prices didn't soar" in Kansas yesterday, the Wichita Eagle reports. But "fear of rising gasoline prices and shortages resulting from Tuesday's attacks triggered long lines and short tempers at Wichita gasoline pumps."
• Exxon and Chevron said Tuesday they had frozen wholesale fuel prices, USA Today reports.
• "The price of crude oil surged yesterday" amidst "fears that a U.S. military retaliation in the Middle East could disrupt oil supplies," the London Times reports.

• Americans watched the attack and its aftermath on television Tuesday, as regular television programs were cancelled and the networks "began to share all video and satellite footage, an admirable decision that ABC's Jeffrey Schneider said might be unprecedented," USA Today reports.
• "The Emmys and Latin Grammys have been canceled, movie studios emptied, and nearly the entire entertainment industry shut down in the wake of" Tuesday's attacks, E! Online reports.
• The cable channel MTV carried CBS News coverage of the attacks Tuesday, while MTV.com steered readers to CBSNews.com for updates.

• A poll conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post last night found that 94 percent of respondents "supported taking military action against the groups or nations responsible for the attacks."
• And 86 percent of respondents to a CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll "described the terrorist attacks as acts of war against the United States."

• New York Gov. George Pataki (R) "ordered primary elections across the state postponed indefinitely yesterday as city officials struggled to cope with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center," the New York Times reports. Pataki's "assistants said they had no idea when the election might be rescheduled."
• The four Democratic candidates for New York City mayor "declared a moratorium on all campaigning and planned to issue a joint statement today, saying they would stay off the campaign trail until a new primary date is set," the New York Post reports.

• Massachusetts state Sen. Stephen Lynch (D), "a conservative former ironworker from a working-class Boston neighborhood, won the Democratic primary" yesterday in the 9th District special election, AP reports. He held a "40 percent to 28 percent lead over fellow state Sen. Cheryl Jacques" (D), while state Sen. Brian Joyce (D) took 16 percent and state Sen. Marc Pacheco (D) received 14 percent of the vote.
• "There was little celebration of the victory for Lynch, however." He "thanked his supporters privately," and outside a union hall he "delivered a short address" that "focused more on the lives lost in the tragedy than on the sometimes acrimonious election," the Boston Globe reports. Despite the attacks in New York and Washington, "turnout was as high as had been projected -- about 25 percent."
• Tuesday morning, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin (D) "began taking steps to seek a court order to suspend the balloting," the Boston Globe reports. But acting Gov. Jane Swift (R) and state Attorney General Thomas Reilly (D) "put the brakes on Galvin, declaring from the state's underground emergency bunker in Framingham that Massachusetts would not yield to terrorists and voting would continue."

• "Amid news of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington," Elizabeth Dole cancelled a 1 p.m. news conference at her North Carolina home "to declare herself a candidate for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Jesse Helms," the Raleigh News & Observer reports reports. A spokesman said the announcement was "postponed to an unspecified date."
• State Rep. Dan Blue (D) delayed his filing of papers with the Federal Elections Commission for a North Carolina Senate bid, while attorney Jim Snyder (R) "took a step toward candidacy by announcing formation of an exploratory committee," the Charlotte Observer reports.