Submitted by Fox First at Ten on September 11th
Dry Northwest burns as fire season in West extends
WENATCHEE, Wash. (AP) - A haze of thick smoke formed Tuesday over vast swaths of the West as wildfires forced more residents to flee their homes in several states. Fire officials reported seven homes were destroyed and hundreds of people were evacuated near Casper, Wyo., where a wildfire has burned across almost 24 square miles. In western Montana, fire crews said there was no containment in sight for a blaze that has prompted an evacuation order for 400 houses west of Hamilton.
Smaller memorials on 11th anniversary of 9/11
NEW YORK (AP) - There were still the tearful messages to loved ones, clutches of photos and flowers, and moments of silence. But 11 years after Sept. 11, Americans appeared to enter a new, scaled-back chapter of collective mourning for the worst terror attack in U.S history. Crowds gathered, as always, at the World Trade Center site in New York, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania memorial Tuesday to mourn the nearly 3,000 victims of the 2001 terror attacks, reciting their names and remembering with music, tolling bells and prayer. But they came in fewer numbers, ceremonies were less elaborate and some cities canceled their remembrances altogether. A year after the milestone 10th anniversary, some said the memorials may have reached an emotional turning point.
US-Israel divisions over Iran boil over
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel is sounding increasingly agitated over what it views as American dithering with economic sanctions too weak to force Iran to end its suspected drive toward nuclear weapons. In a clear message aimed at the White House, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday criticized what he said was the world's failure to spell out what would provoke a U.S.-led military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The comments came in response to U.S. refusals in recent days to set "red lines" for Tehran.
Is America safer? Presidential candidates disagree
WASHINGTON (AP) - Looking to win voters even as they swore off negative attacks, the presidential candidates clashed over whether the country is a safer place on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. President Barack Obama pointed to gains in the war on terror under his time as commander in chief to make the case that Americans are better protected. "Al-Qaida's leadership has been devastated and Osama bin Laden will never threaten us again. Our country is safer and our people are resilient," the president said at a Pentagon memorial service.
Lack of Southerners on US presidential tickets
ATLANTA (AP) - For decades, Southerners put a firm imprint on national politics from both sides of the aisle, holding the White House for 25 of the past 50 years and producing a legion of Capitol Hill giants during the 20th century. But that kind of obvious power has waned as Democrats and Republicans in the region navigate the consequences of tidal shifts in demographics, migration and party identity. This is the second consecutive presidential election without a Southerner on either major party ticket. That has happened in back-to-back elections only once, 1968 and 1972, since Franklin Roosevelt, a New Yorker, won four consecutive elections with overwhelming support across what was then Democrats' solid South. (The 2008 candidates were Democrats Barack Obama of Illinois and Joe Biden of Delaware, and Republicans John McCain of Arizona and Sarah Palin of Alaska. This year, it's Obama and Biden, and Republicans Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.)
WHY IT MATTERS: Afghanistan
The issue: U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan, nearly 11 years after they invaded. Why? The answer boils down to one word: al-Qaida. The goal is to damage the terrorist group enough to prevent a repeat of the 9/11 attacks.
Egyptian protesters scale US Embassy wall in Cairo
CAIRO (AP) - Mainly ultraconservative Islamist protesters climbed the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Egypt's capital Tuesday and brought down the American flag, replacing it with a black flag with an Islamic inscription to protest a video attacking Islam's prophet, Muhammad. Hundreds of protesters marched to the embassy in downtown Cairo, gathering outside its walls and chanting against the movie, which was reportedly produced in the United States.
Guantanamo prisoner who died battled confinement
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The latest prisoner to die at the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba, was identified Tuesday as a Yemeni man with a history of mental illness who battled guards inside the prison and challenged his confinement all the way to the Supreme Court. Adnan Latif spent a more than decade at Guantanamo, where he repeatedly went on hunger strike and once slashed his wrist and hurled the blood at his visiting lawyer. He also received some mental health treatment at the detainee hospital, according to his lawyers and court records.
Wounded flood hospitals in Syria's largest city
ALEPPO, Syria (AP) - It had been a calm day in Aleppo's Shifa Hospital, said Dr. Osman al-Haj Osman, his face etched with exhaustion from just three hours of sleep. Then, a man burst in bearing the shrieking bundle of a 6-year-old girl who'd had a machine-gun bullet rip through both her knees. Two months into the battle for Syria's largest city, civilians are still bearing the brunt of the daily assaults of helicopter gunships, roaring jets and troops fighting in the streets.
Yemen: Bomb misses defense minister, kills 13
SANAA, Yemen (AP) - A powerful car bomb struck the Yemeni defense minister's motorcade as he was driving through the nation's capital Tuesday, killing at least 13 people but leaving the minister unharmed, security officials said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast but al-Qaida's Yemeni branch has carried out several failed assassination attempts against the minister, Maj. Gen. Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, in the past. The attack comes a day after Yemeni authorities announced the death of the No. 2 leader of the network's Yemeni branch in an apparent U.S. airstrike.
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