Remains of three 9/11 victims identified more than 20 years after attacks
Officials announced on Thursday that they have identified the remains of Ryan D. Fitzgerald, a 26-year-old currency trader, Barbara A Keating, a 72-year-old retired non-profit executive, and another woman, whose name is being kept private at her family's request.
They were identified through now-improved DNA testing of remains found in the wreckage after the attack on 11 September 2001, New York's medical examiner's office said.
The remains of Keating and the woman were recovered in 2001, and Fitzgerald's remains were recovered the following year.
Chief medical examiner Dr Jason Graham said in a statement: "Each new identification testifies to the promise of science and sustained outreach to families despite the passage of time."
"We continue this work as our way of honouring the lost."
Ms Keating was on her way home to California on American Airlines Flight 11 when it was hijacked by al Qaeda terrorists and deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower.
Her son, Paul Keating, told US media that genetic material from his mother's hairbrush was matched to DNA samples from relatives.
Part of his mother's ATM card was the only other trace of her ever recovered from the debris, he said.
The 9//11 attacks saw two planes destroy the twin towers in New York, while a third crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth came down in Pennsylvania.
A total of 2,977 people were killed, 2,753 of whom were in New York. Around 1,100 victims remain unidentified, the medical examiner's office said.
It has steadily identified more remains in the 24 years since 9/11 by retesting fragments as techniques have advanced.
New York Mayor Eric Adams said: "We hope the families receiving answers from the Office of Chief Medical Examiner can take solace in the city's tireless dedication to this mission."
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The Independent
26 minutes ago
- The Independent
As civil rights books are pulled from school shelves, one Alabama town is refusing to forget its story
The small city of Scottsboro in Northeastern Alabama is home to a store selling unclaimed luggage, a pretty park filled with geese, and a classic American diner serving some of the best grilled cheeses and soda floats in the South. It was also the location of one of the most significant events in civil rights history – an event that directly impacted the Movement of the 1950s and 60s and had ramifications that are still felt in the United States today. In 1931, nine African American young men and boys were travelling on a Southern Railroad freight train when they became involved in an altercation with a group of white men who were then thrown off the train. When the train pulled into the town of Paint Rock, the Black men were arrested for assault and taken to Scottsboro, Jackson County, where they were jailed. The situation escalated when Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, two white women from Huntsville who were riding the same train and were facing charges of vagrancy and illegal sexual activity, falsely accused the nine African American men and boys of rape. That night a mob gathered at the steps of the jailhouse in Scottsboro baying for blood and threatening to lynch the men. It was only after Sheriff Man Watt stood in front of the crowd and insisted he would kill the first person to come through the door that they backed off. The 'Scottsboro Boys', the youngest of whom was just 13, were tried by the State of Alabama in a series of four trials at the Jackson County Courthouse between April 6 and April 9, resulting in nine convictions and eight death sentences – for a crime that never happened. This was a time when Jim Crow laws were deeply entrenched in the South; when African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens, and segregation was both legally and socially enforced. Jackson County was severely impoverished, and many Black residents had moved to the more industrialised cities to seek employment, while those who stayed faced discrimination and disenfranchisement. Following the trial, protests erupted in the north of the United States, and in 1932 the Supreme Court overturned the convictions based on the fact that the men had not received adequate legal representation. Over the following seven years, the State of Alabama repeatedly retried and convicted the nine Scottsboro Boys with the Supreme Court once again overturning the convictions. In total, the men and teens spent 102 combined years in prison (one man was behind bars for nearly 20 years), despite being completely innocent. The first trial occurred more than two decades before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus leading to the famous Bus Boycott. It would be another 30 years before Dr Martin Luther King gave his 'I Have a Dream' speech during the March on Washington in 1963, with President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act into law the following year. Yet these events in the 1930s paved the way for a Civil Rights Movement that changed America – and the world. In an unassuming white brick church just out of the town centre stands the Scottsboro Boys Museum. It was founded in 2010 by local activist Shelia Washington after she uncovered the story of the nine teenagers and became determined that this miscarriage of justice would never be forgotten. But Sheila found herself grappling with a community that would, if fact, rather this dark episode of their history was forgotten. Historian Thomas Reidy, who now serves as executive director of the museum, explains to The Independent that the city feared that it would look bad by being known for a case that exposed the ugly core of racial discrimination in the American South. Thomas, who hails from New York state but now lives in Huntsville, Alabama, adds: 'People who grew up in the 70s, 80s, 90s, they weren't taught this story. Sheila wanted to correct that.' In the face of death threats, hostility from the community and no money – one councilman vowed that the museum would 'never see a penny' of funding from the city – Sheila forged onwards, determined that the Scottsdale Boys' story be told. Thomas said: 'It would have been easy for her to quit. But it became her reason for being, her passion. She had this stubbornness and single mindedness. She persisted.' Sheila dreamed not only of opening the museum, but also of having the men pardoned – of the nine, only one had received a pardon from the State of Alabama before he died. But there was a serious barrier: in 2010, the State did not pardon dead people. Sheila refused to accept this and set about calling congresspeople in order to change the law. This was an almost impossible feat for one person to achieve, yet less than a year after Sheila was told a firm 'no' by the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles, the governor Robert Bentley signed the Scottsboro Boys Act into law. In 2013, the nine Scottsboro Boys – Haywood Patterson, Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Willie Roberson, Andy Wright, Ozzie Powell, Eugene Williams, Charley Weems and Roy Wright – received posthumous pardons. The Scottsboro Boys Museum now strives to work with educational facilities to ensure that civil rights stories like this one are not erased from history. Thomas explained that most people think of the Civil Rights Movement as starting with Rosa Parks or Emmett Till (the 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955), but many historians consider it began with the passing of the 14th amendment. He says: 'You can't draw a true line from 14th amendment to Martin Luther King without going through Scottsboro. It's as central to the story of civil rights as any other moment.' School groups have visited from across the States – from South Carolina to Chicago – but such was the resistance from the community that it wasn't until 2023, a full 13 years after the museum opened, that the first schoolchildren from Scottsboro itself visited. While the Scottsboro Boys story shows some of the ugliest parts of humanity, Thomas points out that it is also filled with heroes – from the sheriff who stood on the jailhouse steps and refused to let the mob in, to the New York lawyer who fought the Scottsboro Boys case, and the many African Americans who quietly persisted at a grassroots level to stand up against racial discrimination. This is something he tries to convey to the schoolchildren who visit. He said: 'We talk about what it takes to stand above the crowd.' Sheila died in 2021, but the team at the museum have continued with her goal to make Scottsboro known, not for racial hatred, but for reconciliation, healing, and promoting civil rights. This is a theme that is emerging in the state of Alabama, with tourism starting to focus on key locations of the Civil Rights Movement. Visitors are now encouraged to visit places such as Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, site of the brutal Bloody Sunday beatings of civil rights marchers; the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that was bombed in 1963, resulting in the deaths of four young African American girls; and the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church where mass meetings were held to organise the Montgomery Bus Boycott. issues of censorship that are afflicting the United States right now. He adds: 'When schools are forced to pull books off library shelves, museums like this are more important than ever.'
The Independent
26 minutes ago
- The Independent
Hero fisherman pulls woman to safety after she jumped from Louisiana bridge
A recreational fisherman has managed to pull a woman to safety after she reportedly jumped off a bridge railing in Louisiana. The incident unfolded Thursday morning when a woman stopped along the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway – a long, parallel bridge that stretches 24 miles across the lake. It is one of the longest bridges in the world and is connected by seven crossover points. Causeway general manager Carlton Dufrechou told The Independent Friday that the woman, 31, parked her white SUV four miles from the north shore along the bridge, at around 10 a.m., before she jumped off the railings. Traffic came to a sudden halt on the southbound lane as emergency vehicles dashed to the water rescue. A commuter, who witnessed the jump, called the bridge operator to alert them about the incident. The drop from the bridge is roughly 25 feet to the water below. Fortunately, local fisherman Christopher Baughman, 36, from Ponchatoula, Louisiana, was fishing below when he heard the commotion and leapt into action to save the woman. Baughman managed to retrieve her from the water successfully. She was then rushed to a local hospital in the St. Tammany Parish area. 'He may not have caught many fish yesterday, but he certainly made a terrific save helping this lady – a terrific catch,' Dufrechou said. 'She went over, and from what I understand, the man fishing heard her and got to her in a matter of minutes," Dufrechou said. He stressed that the incident was a case of being in the right place at the right time, and added that officials were still waiting on a health update regarding the woman. Conditions on the lake, at the time she jumped, had been slightly breezy and choppy, he added. If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988 or visit to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to to find a helpline near you. In the UK, people having mental health crises can contact the Samaritans at 116 123 or jo@
BBC News
27 minutes ago
- BBC News
Four dead in New York City outbreak of Legionnaires' disease
Four people in New York City's Harlem neighbourhood have died from an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease, an aggressive and potentially deadly form of pneumonia. The city has seen 99 confirmed cases with 17 people in hospital with the infection, according to the New York City Department of Health. Officials have traced the outbreak back to 12 cooling towers on 10 buildings where bacteria was growing, including at a hospital and a health of the 12 cooling towers have undergone remediation efforts, and the final one is expected to be fixed on Friday, according to New York Mayor Eric Adams. Legionnaires' disease is relatively rare, with less than 18,000 people hospitalised in the US every year, according to medical research centre Cleveland Clinic. Transmission does not happen from person-to-person contact, but rather by mist in the air. The Legionella bacteria grows in stagnant, warm water, like the water that collects at the bottom of building cooling risk of serious complications from the disease, including lung failure and death, is highest for people aged 50 over as well as for smokers. 'Situation is under control' At a news conference on Thursday, Adams insisted that the "situation is under control". "I want to reassure everyone the air is safe to breathe and there is no risk to our drinking water or our water supply," he said. The towers are located all over Harlem, which is located in Upper Manhattan, including at the City University of New York building and Harlem Hospital officials in the city are urging anyone experiencing symptoms to seek medical attention. "This is not the time to say, 'let me just go to the grocery store and get some ginger ale and let me lay up somewhere,'" Harlem City Councilmember Yusef Salaam said at a press conference last week. "This is the time for you to actually go and seek medical attention. That's how serious this is."
