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BOSTON, Sept. 12 — While it is illegal to carry cans of hairspray, sparklers and rat poison onto passenger jets, Federal Aviation Administration regulations have for many years allowed passengers to carry knives with blades up to four inches long on commercial flights. That changed today, as the agency announced new, far stricter security guidelines for airports nationwide. The measures were part of the first broad regulatory response to the hijackings Tuesday by terrorists, at least some of whom wielded knives and box cutters. Airports were closed for a second day today. The F.A.A. said that once flights resumed, ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Armstrong WilliamsQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comArmstrong Williams (back to story)September 13, 2001A lesson in terrorTwo hijacked planes had just smashed into the World Trade Center. The gruesome scene: smoke billowing from the World Trade Center, both towers broken apart like toy models. Below, twisted fragments of the 110-story building were strewn across the ground. Huge clouds of smoke enveloping Manhattan Island. On live television, we witnessed the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. The images seemed so foreign. An hour after the first attack, plumes of smoke ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Cal ThomasQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comCal Thomas (back to story)September 13, 2001The death of moral equivalencySomething else died on Tuesday, in addition to thousands of innocent people. It was the doctrine of moral equivalency - the idea that people everywhere are just like us, or can be made so by meeting their demands. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that the United States will now go after terrorism wherever it is found in the world. That's a nice change from the State Department's criticism of Israel ...

Klamath Basin water protesters dismantle camp in wake of East Coast terrorist attacksGRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) Protesters withdrew from the headgates of the Klamath Project irrigation system on Wednesday, saying they did not want to cause more problems for the federal government in the wake of terrorist attacks on the East Coast. "We made an agreement with them that in light of our national emergency, we'd call a truce on this thing for right now," said Bill Ransom, a local businessman and member of the protest group known as the Klamath Relief Fund. The government first shut off the flow ...

expressing the sense of the Senate and House of Representatives regarding the terrorist attacks launched against the United States on September 11, 2001 The Senate just passed. The vote is being official now.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 — White House officials said today that President Bush would visit New York City "at the first opportunity," but that he did not want to hamper rescue operations under way in Lower Manhattan. "We don't look at it as delaying it," said Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary. "We are discussing when it would be appropriate to go. The president has made it clear that he will go when he has the least impact on the rescue effort." Presidential trips almost always create traffic havoc in New York, even under normal circumstances. "Any time the ...

I live in Greenwich Village, within sight of where the Towers used to stand and--tonight at least--under an foul-smelling cloud of ash and plaster, drifting up Manhattan island from the crater downtown. I wanted to tell you about what I saw tonight on the streets just north of the site of the attack. My girlfriend and I just left an enormous group of people--well over 150--who had gathered along the West Side Highway with homemade signs and flags, to greet the firemen, police, doctors, nurses, and volunteers who are trying to dig our fellow Americans out of the rubble of ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Suzanne FieldsQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comSuzanne Fields (back to story)September 13, 2001Another date to live in infamy - and resolveThe great exercise in self-abuse ended with a whimper, not a bang. The bang was previewed in the Middle East on "Bloody Sunday" in Israel and then played out Tuesday in Washington and New York. The sputtering, stuttering, hissing and spewing of invective in one session after another against Israel (and America) at the United Nations Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance reflected rather than ...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Western diplomats assisting eight foreign aid workers detained for preaching Christianity will leave Afghanistan on Thursday after appointing an Islamic scholar as defence counsel, the Australian foreign ministry said. The Afghan Supreme Court had indicated that the counsel should be allowed "regular access" to the detainees, the ministry said. Afghanistan-based Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden is a key suspect in Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington and the prospect of U.S. retaliation has raised tensions in Kabul. Washington denied involvement when Kabul's airport was rocked by blasts ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Debra SaundersQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comDebra Saunders (back to story)September 13, 2001Enter terror They ravaged the New York skyline as a bitter show of their force. They hijacked planes filled with unwitting passengers to prove that they are as ruthless as they are organized. They invaded the heart of the U.S. military and showed Americans that we are vulnerable to terror. Terror. Whoever they are, they want America to be frozen in terror. Even people not involved in the attack want America to suffer. Those toothless Palestinians ...

I have a question for those with deeper knowledge of terrorists/terrorist activity, and specifically, knowledge of the Bin Laden supporters. Despite the fact that horrendous damage was done yesterday, the capacity for something much worse to have happened is quite real. Whoever perpetrated the attacks yesterday had to know that the United States would not allow this attack to go completely unpunished, with no retribution at all. That being said, as we, the US are capable of pretty much annihalating their whole country in very short manner, and these attackers know this, it would seem to me that they would ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Jonah GoldbergQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comJonah Goldberg (back to story)September 13, 2001Profiles in cowardiceMark Bingham phoned his mother. "I want you to know that I love you very much, in case I don't see you again." A short while later, Bingham's plane crashed in the woods outside Pittsburgh. Peter Hanson was traveling with his wife and young daughter. He called his parents, too, perhaps in an effort to be together with them one last time. The Hansons' plane was the second to smash into the World Trade ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Bill O'ReillyQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comBill O'Reilly (back to story)September 13, 2001Evil on displayThe dictionary defines the story for us – evil, adjective: morally bad or wrong. Causing ruin, injury or pain. So now we know the true nature of anybody who had anything to do with the terrorist attacks on America. Now we know. So what do we do about it? Well, we punish them, of course. And in this case, there will be few if any who raise questions about insanity, or disease, or trot ...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 — The controllers assigned to United Airlines Flight 175 on Tuesday suspected that it had been hijacked as it flew off its assigned route. But they did not learn that another plane had been hijacked and had hit the World Trade Center until a minute or two before Flight 175 struck the center, people involved in the air traffic system said. In contrast, controllers at the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center had much more warning that something was wrong. Those controllers, who handled American Airlines Flight 77, which dived into the Pentagon, knew about the ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Amity ShlaesQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comAmity Shlaes (back to story)September 13, 2001War against terrorism will rise from the ashesAll over the world this morning, eyes are turning to America to see what policy it will pursue in the wake of this attack. Although it is early, the outline of some of the opinion is forming. Many US and European observers, and some in the Middle East, are sending America their condolences. But they are also saying that America, through its arrogance, and the Bush administration, through its ...

TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Robert NovakQUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEWtownhall.comRobert Novak (back to story)September 13, 2001This is no pearl harbor WASHINGTON -- Security experts and airline officials agree privately that the simultaneous hijacking of four jetliners was an "inside job," probably indicating complicity beyond malfeasance. This makes all the more ominous Tuesday's national catastrophe and its dismal consequences. Nobody was more vigorous Tuesday in demanding tough military reprisal against the terrorists than former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. However, he was virtually alone in directing his rage not only at the ...

By Dan WhitcombLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comic Paula Poundstone (news - web sites), saying that the ``truth prevailed,'' pleaded no contest to child endangerment Wednesday after prosecutors dropped sex charges against her in a plea deal expected to spare her prison time.The 41-year-old comic pleaded no contest to one felony count of child endangerment and one misdemeanor count of inflicting injury on a child, Los Angeles County District Attorney's spokeswoman Jane Robison said.Prosecutors dropped three counts that accused Poundstone, who was arrested in June and has been in an alcohol rehabilitation center ever since, of committing a lewd act on ...

GM corn set to stop man spreading his seed Special report: GM crops debate Robin McKie, science editor Observer Sunday September 9, 2001 Scientists have created the ultimate GM crop: contraceptive corn. Waiving fields of maize may one day save the world from overpopulation. The pregnancy prevention plants are the handiwork of the San Diego biotechnology company Epicyte, where researchers have discovered a rare class of human antibodies that attack sperm. By isolating the genes that regulate the manufacture of these antibodies, and by putting them in corn plants, the company has created tiny horticultural factories that make contraceptives. 'We ...

September 12, 2001 The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States The White House Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: On behalf of the 21-million strong Sikh Nation and especially on behalf of more than 500,000 Sikh Americans, I would like to express our sadness and our sympathies to the people of the United States for the terrible attack on the United States yesterday and for the loss of life it entails. This is a terrible tragedy and we know that you will take appropriate action. Like all Americans and all decent people everywhere, we condemn this brutal ...

Fellow FReepers: Today I heard Hildebeast on TV 'feeling' her "fellow" New Yorkers' pain. After I hurled a couple of times I began to think about some excellent articles I have read today about SCUMBAG's responsibility for dumbing down our intelligence community during his time in office.So here's a collection of info... Let's start with the statement from Hildebeast's web page. If you don't have a strong stomach you may want to skip this.The Hildebrast sez: Dear Friends: At this moment of tragedy in New York and America, we are joined in prayer for the many thousands of victims and ...