USA
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said more than 4,700 people have been reported missing, among them at least 300 firefighters and 60 police officers, since two hijacked aircraft demolished the World Trade Center Tuesday. In addition, the Defense Department said in a preliminary estimate that 190 people died when a third hijacked plane hit the Pentagon, counting its passengers.
President Bush planned to tour the devastation in New York today and meet with Giuliani and other city officials. Meanwhile, the president spoke via telephone with more world leaders, including Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson to accept support and condolences. The White House said all leaders told Bush "they stand united with the people of the United States." Officials cautioned no military action was imminent, but drafts of a measure circulated in Congress authorizing military action under the War Powers Act.
Airports, including those in metropolitan New York, were to resume limited commercial service after all flights had been grounded for more than two days. Attorney General Ashcroft sent federal marshals and other agents to usher in stricter security requirements, such as a ban on curbside check-ins.
Bond trading resumed, but New York's stock exchanges remained closed in the longest suspension of trading since 1933. Officials hoped to reopen the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ Monday. Displaced Wall Street brokerages were setting up operations in emergency backup facilities. Meanwhile, seeking to stabilize the global economy, the Federal Reserve said it was making $50 billion available to stabilize European banking systems.
Up to 50 people were involved in the New York and Washington attacks, the Justice Department said, with at least four hijackers trained at US flight schools. Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden remained a top suspect. The department said 40 "infiltrators" had been accounted for, including those who died in the suicide attacks, and 10 were at large. But despite an intensive investigation and police raids on hotels in the Boston area, Ashcroft said no arrests had been made to date.
Arab-Americans and Muslims became targets of sporadic vandalism, assaults, and the like. A crowd marching on a mosque in suburban Chicago was stopped by police. Gunshots shattered windows in a Texas mosque, and bomb threats shut down several Arab-American charter schools near Detroit. Bush and members of Congress called on Americans to refrain from bigotry and called the gestures misplaced. Above, Muslim Lena Beck joins a candlelight vigil at McKenzie Park in Panama City, Fla., to remember those who died in the attacks.
