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From the Los Angeles Times

U.S. seeks suspects in alleged 9/11 anniversary plot

Two or three men, possibly including a U.S. citizen, with close ties to Al Qaeda are sought in a suspected plan to bomb bridges or tunnels. Al Qaeda's chief is believed to have signed off on the plot.

by Brian Bennett, Washington Bureau

September 9, 2011

Reporting from Washington

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials scrambled Friday to identify and find as many as three men who supposedly planned to travel from Afghanistan to detonate car bombs on bridges or in tunnels this weekend in New York and Washington.

Officials said they obtained specific but uncorroborated intelligence this week that two or three individuals with close ties to Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan had entered the United States in a plot to disrupt events planned to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Vice President Joe Biden told morning TV shows that the intelligence came from a "credible source."

"We cannot confirm it. We are doing everything in our power. All hands are on deck," Biden told NBC's "Today."

The men — possibly including a U.S. citizen — were said to have crossed by land from Pakistan to Afghanistan and then to have boarded a series of flights bound for the United States, possibly connecting through Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates, according to a source who has read the intelligence and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.

Al Qaeda's new leader and Osama bin Laden's former top aide, Ayman Zawahiri, is believed to have personally signed off on the plans, the source said.

If true, several senior U.S. counter-terrorism officials may have erred in recent weeks when they asserted that Zawahiri's influence was in doubt and that the direct threat from Al Qaeda's central leadership in Pakistan was largely eliminated. The latest intelligence suggests that the core group remains a force.

The FBI set up a round-the-clock unit in its Washington headquarters to coordinate the investigation.

The warning came from a single trusted source who has given correct information in the past, said a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak to the media. Intelligence officials do not have specific names or fragments of names of any suspects, the official added.

Traffic backed up at Manhattan's bridges and tunnels Friday as the New York Police Department set up vehicle checkpoints on nearby streets. Police searched parking garages and stepped up towing of illegally parked cars, and some officers wore portable monitors set to vibrate in the presence of unusual radiation. National Guard troops carrying assault rifles patrolled at Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station, the city's railroad hubs, and police officers increased checks of subway riders' bags.

In Washington, police and federal law enforcement increased security around government buildings and monuments.

Extra air marshals will fly on domestic flights this weekend, and foreign air carriers have been asked to step up screening of passengers bound for the U.S. In addition, the Transportation Security Administration will deploy more than 600 teams of bomb-sniffing dogs and bag inspectors on train platforms and subway systems around the country.

U.S. officials have warned of a possible attack timed to the Sept. 11 anniversary ever since Navy SEALs killed Bin Laden in Pakistan in early May. Thumb drives, computer files and other data collected during the raid on the Al Qaeda leader's compound indicated that he was determined to launch another high-casualty strike, but did not detail a specific plot.

The intelligence obtained this week was explicit enough to upgrade assessments of a general threat.

For the anniversary attacks, Bin Laden wanted to use well-trained Al Qaeda operatives, the source said, rather than amateurs, several of whom have botched terrorist attempts in recent years.

An Afghan immigrant, Najibullah Zazi, planned to detonate a homemade bomb in New York subways on the 8th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks two years ago, but he aborted the operation when he realized he was under FBI surveillance. He was arrested and pleaded guilty.

On May 1, 2010, Faisal Shahzad, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, attempted to set off a large car bomb in Times Square, but it failed to explode and authorities quickly disarmed it. He was arrested two days later and has been sentenced to life in prison.

Bin Laden "was clearly not happy" with the failed attacks, said the source, who is familiar with the documents recovered at Bin Laden's compound. The Al Qaeda founder wanted the next attack to be executed by seasoned operatives and closely managed by leaders of the organization.

Some of the increased security for this weekend was planned long ago in anticipation of an elevated threat during the anniversary, said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

"We were concerned about this time period anyway because of the intelligence in the [Bin Laden] compound and also because of the iconic date," said the official. The new intelligence "may have been a new threat stream, but it wasn't a technique or a tactic we weren't prepared for," he added.

U.S. officials urged Americans to be extra vigilant in reporting suspicious activities to authorities.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in an interview with CNBC from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, said that by making the threat public, "you enlist literally millions of people to be your eyes and ears."

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement, "Our security posture includes a number of measures both seen and unseen, and we will continue to respond appropriately to protect the American people from an evolving threat picture both in the coming days and beyond."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror-threat-20110910,0,7102179,print.story

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This Sept. 11 is a weekend to remember across America

New Yorkers, especially, will carve out time to ponder the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

by Geraldine Baum, Los Angeles Times

September 9, 2011

Reporting from New York

For a while, the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks seemed to slowly shrink. A little less each year. But the passing of a decade is galvanizing people.

President Obama is observing Sunday at all three sites — New York, Washington, and Shanksville, Pa., where United flight 93 crashed. Members of Congress and other dignitaries will be alongside him. Governors and mayors are leading candlelighting ceremonies and service projects in their cities and states. In the media, commemoration will be omnipresent — with some Sunday newspapers thickened by special sections and television networks airing tributes and documentaries as well as replaying the horrifying scenes of that day over and over again.

But while this weekend will be marked by moments of official grandeur, many more memorials will play out on street corners and inside small churches from one end of the country to the other.

A Manhattan mother has invited her married son and his family for Sunday dinner "to be together on 9/11." University students in Dayton, Ohio, are selling baked goods to raise scholarship money for the children of Sept. 11 victims. In Joplin, Mo., where a tornado tore the city apart last May, hundreds of young people are painting wooden stars and planting them on street corners. In Freeport, Maine, three women who have waved flags on the same corner every Tuesday for a decade have organized a weekend of vigils, concerts, a laser light show and a parade.

In Los Angeles on Saturday, groups of people from different faiths will gather on the steps of City Hall, where congregants will light 500 glass lanterns. Afterward, each congregation, including Christians, Muslims and Jews, will take one lantern for services later at their houses of worship.

The experience of the attacks belongs to the entire country. More than half of Americans surveyed by Gallup recently say the events of that day changed their lives. Still, it is felt nowhere the way it is here, where two 110-story buildings collapsed after they were struck by hijacked airplanes.

This anniversary has so saturated New York culture that hardly a public institution, museum, media outlet, academic office or religious or ethnic group is ignoring it. This weekend the city is blanketed with American flags. They hang all along Park Avenue and along Queens Boulevard. At Battery Park, in a special tribute to those who died, a field is covered with 2,976 "flags of honor."

With free public concerts and special prayer services, by painting murals on formerly derelict piers and holding hands in silence on the banks of the Hudson River, many New Yorkers are intending an ample pause in their lives this weekend. The purpose is to recall the shock and horror of the day but also to take pride in all that has been rebuilt since.

The New York Philharmonic programmed Mahler's Second Symphony for a free "Concert for New York" Saturday night at Lincoln Center because of the piece's spirit of resurrection, said Eric Latzky, the philharmonic spokesman.

New York's official public observance will be, as it has been since 2002, at the site in Lower Manhattan where the attacks occurred. This year it will be adjacent to the plaza of the new National September 11 Memorial. Only family members will be invited in on Sunday; the official opening for the public is Monday.

Obama and former President George W. Bush will be at the ceremony, but neither will deliver speeches. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has maintained that this remembrance should never be political. "No speeches whatsoever," he said a few weeks ago. "It's not an appropriate thing." The program will focus on reading aloud the names of the victims by their family members.

In Washington, among dozens of events on Sunday, there will be "A Concert for Hope" at the Kennedy Center featuring speeches, including one by the president. Even the Redskins pro football team is noting the anniversary at its season opener Sunday by inviting Pentagon families and first responders to join the players in holding an American flag during the singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Many Americans will engage this weekend by walking to a nearby church or driving to an iconic place in town. At the base of the Space Needle in Seattle, for example, there will be a silent vigil Sunday morning and flowers strewn the way they were in the days after the attacks.

Cherrydale United Methodist Church in Arlington, Va., is starting its Sunday morning service at 8:46, the moment the first plane hit. The city has a tree for every person who died at the Pentagon, including one planted on the church grounds. Sunday's service will be near that tree, weather permitting.

Why on this anniversary, a decade later, so many small and large events are occurring is not exactly clear.

Angela Loiseur, an architect from Long Island, said she has been weighing this question as well as where to be Sunday. "Maybe it's just the way we do things — an even 10 years — or maybe it's the way America feels today about 9/11," said Loiseur, who is 49 and was in New York, though not nearby, when the buildings fell.

She said she laughed this week when she heard radio personality Don Imus mention that there was so much build-up to this anniversary he was expecting a "9/11 special at Macy's." But she is also concerned that this weekend's memorials will move past tragedy and memory into just another variation on "the media event."

"I'll probably stay away from the television and go to church Sunday like I always do," Loiseur said. "But with a fuller heart."

Congress expands Fast and Furious probe to White House

by Richard A. Serrano

September 9, 2011

Congressional investigators reviewing the failed gun-tracking program Operation Fast and Furious have formally asked the Obama administration to turn over copies of "all records" involving three key White House national security officials and the program, other ATF gun cases in Phoenix, and all communications between the White House and the ATF field office in Arizona.

The letter signed Friday by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, was sent to National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon, a top aide to President Obama.

It marks a significant step in the committee's investigation into the failed gun-tracking operation, as the committee begins to broaden its investigation from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and targets White House and Department of Justice officials.

This material, Issa and Grassley said, "will enable us to determine the extent of the involvement of White House staff in Operation Fast and Furious."

White House officials, along with those at the Justice Department, said they have been cooperating in the widening probe, begun earlier this year when several ATF whistleblowers alerted Congress that Fast and Furious weapons were found at the scene of the slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

A White House official said that "no one at the White House knew about the investigative tactics being used in the operation, let alone any decision to let guns walk."

The official, who asked not to be identified Friday because the case is continuing, also said White House staffers and some members of Congress, including Issa, were given Fast and Furious briefings as early as April of 2010, but not about the investigative tactics of the operation.

"These e-mail exchanges show nothing more than an effort to give local color to a policy initiative that was designed to give more resources to help with the border problem," the official added.

Under the program, ATF agents allowed illegal gun purchases and hoped to track the weapons to Mexican cartel leaders. But most of the more than 2,000 firearms were lost. Hundreds have reportedly turned up in Mexican crime scenes, two at the shooting where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed, and a semi-automatic was used in an altercation and assault with police in Maricopa, Ariz.

The congressional letter comes after a series of emails surfaced last week showing that William D. Newell, the ATF field supervisor in Phoenix during Fast and Furious, was in routine contact with Kevin O'Reilly, then the White House director of North American Affairs for the National Security Council. The emails discussed a broad range of gun-trafficking investigations on the Southwest Border, and White House officials have since acknowledged that the cases were part of Fast and Furious.

The White House has said that O'Reilly forwarded the emails to two other White House officials – Dan Restrepo, special assistant to the president and senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the NSC, and Greg Gatjanis, director for Terrorist Finance and Counternarcotics, Counterterrorism Policy, also on the NSC.

In their letter, Issa and Grassley discussed a new email in which Newell told O'Reilly about a specific case that ATF agents had been aware of for three months involving a 22-year-old illegal gun purchaser whom the ATF allowed to buy nearly 700 firearms.

The purchaser was on food stamps and, Newell said in a follow-up email to O'Reilly, "when a 22-year-old kid on State financial assistance walks into a gun store and plops down $12,000 in cash to buy a tripod mounted .50 caliber rifle that's a clue (even for us) that he's involved in trafficking firearms for a Mexican DTO [cartel].'

According to Issa and Grassley, that exchange of information makes it "clear that the case Mr. Newell and Mr. O'Reilly were communicating about was Fast and Furious."

The letter requests all emails, documents, briefing papers and handwritten notes involving O'Reilly, Restrepo and Gatjanis during the Fast and Furious period, which ran for 15 months between fall 2009 and January 2011. The committee also wants to personally interview O'Reilly by the end of this month.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-white-house-atf-20110909,0,5477610,print.story

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Cyber-attack in Europe highlights Internet risks

The assault, apparently launched from Iran, focused on the digital security systems used to authenticate websites for banking, email and e-commerce around the world.

by Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times

September 9, 2011

Reporting from Washington

A major cyber-attack in Europe that apparently was launched from Iran has revealed significant vulnerabilities in the Internet security systems used to authenticate websites for banking, email and e-commerce around the world.

The attack this summer wreaked havoc in the Netherlands, where the justice minister on Sunday warned the public that the only secure way to communicate with the Dutch government was with pen, paper and fax machine.

The digital assault compromised a Dutch company called DigiNotar, which issues digital certificates, computer code that assures browsers that a website is what it appears to be. The certificates also encrypt communications between the user and the site so they can't be intercepted.

The attackers produced 531 fake DigiNotar certificates for heavily used websites, including Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook, as well as the public websites for the CIA and the spy services for Britain and Israel, according to an interim audit by Fox-IT, a Dutch security company.

The rogue certificates would have allowed the attacker to intercept communications with the legitimate sites, or steer users to counterfeit versions of the sites, provided it was able to redirect Internet traffic, something governments easily can do.

A hacker who said he was a 21-year-old Iranian acting alone posted comments claiming responsibility for the attack.

But experts who examined the evidence believe the Iranian government sent users to counterfeit versions of the websites in an effort to ferret out political dissidents. In this scenario, the government would have been able to watch web browsing and email.

It is unclear whether that actually happened. But the audit showed that nearly all the 300,000 IP addresses using the bogus certificates to visit Google in a single day originated in Iran. On Thursday, Google instructed Iranians to change their gmail passwords.

In addition to the prospect of a government spying on its Internet users, experts said that if the companies that verify transactions can be compromised, secure transactions on the Internet may not be as safe as people think they are.

In April, the same hacker claimed responsibility for an attack on Comodo, an Internet security company based in Jersey City, N.J. In that case, nine certificates were forged, the company said.

The company said the perpetrator had "executed its attacks with clinical accuracy," and that "circumstantial evidence" suggests the attack originated in Iran and probably was "a state-driven attack."

Communications, rather than financial domains, were targeted in both the April attack and the latest cyber-invasion, said Roel Schouwenberg, a security specialist with Kaspersky Lab, a Russian-based computer security firm with regional offices in Woburn, Mass.

"It's all very clearly aimed towards intelligence, and this has all the hallmarks of a government operation," he said.

Whatever the motivation, the Dutch government, which uses DigiNotar certificates, announced last week that it could no longer trust the security of its own websites, a move that threw communications in the Netherlands into chaos.

The Dutch government has seized control of DigiNotar, which was recently purchased by Vasco Data Security, a Chicago-based company that specializes in web authentication. Vasco said in a statement that it had not integrated DigiNotar's products with its own. The Fox-IT audit accused DigiNotar of lax security procedures.

"What somebody has figured out — and if it's the Iranians, that means the Chinese and the Russians have figured it out too — is that if you can compromise this infrastructure, you immediately get access to all sorts of cool things and people don't necessarily know about it," said James Lewis, a cyber-security expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Iran's uranium enrichment program was targeted in 2009 by Stuxnet, a cyber-weapon that sent nuclear centrifuges spinning out of control. Outside experts who have studied the case believe U.S. and Israeli engineers designed the worm to derail Iran's nuclear program, but neither government has acknowledged responsibility.

DigiNotar's certificates were not widely used in the U.S. But experts worry that some of the 500 other providers of certificates also may be compromised.

A Belgium-based company, GlobalSign, suspended production of new certificates Monday after the hacker claimed to have penetrated it as well. The company said it plans to restore service Monday, saying it had been the victim of "an industrywide attack."

VeriSign, which is the largest certificate provider in the U.S. and is owned by security software giant Symantec Corp., based in Mountain View, Calif., says it is confident it can withstand a cyber-attack.

"Not all certificate authorities are created equal," said Michael Lin, senior director of product management at Symantec. "We've invested heavily in what we feel is a very secure, very robust infrastructure that protects us from these types of attacks."

But hackers have broken into some of the most trusted names in computer security.

In March, the company RSA was the victim of a attack that stole information related to its SecurID, which adds an extra layer of protection to a log-in process by requiring users to enter a secret code number displayed on a key fob.

Attacks against three major U.S. defense contractors that used the compromised technology — Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, and Northrop Grumman — were later discovered and traced to servers in China.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-cyber-attack-20110910,0,7313791,print.story

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From Google News

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Decade after September 11, New Yorkers ready to move on

by Mark Egan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The attacks of September 11, 2001 changed life in the United States forever, but 10 years after the devastating hit, New Yorkers have learned to live in a more dangerous world and are ready to move on.

Police heightened security in New York on Friday in response to a credible but unconfirmed threat of an al Qaeda plot to attack the city again on the anniversary of the downing of the World Trade Center towers by hijaked airplanes.

In Manhattan, police set up impromptu check points and searched vehicles, but New Yorkers took the security alerts in their stride as a normal part of their life.

Ahead of Sunday's commerative ceremonies at Ground Zero, there are signs that some New Yorkers are tired of it all.

Don't call it Ground Zero, don't use the term 9/11 widow and don't read the names of the dead, they say.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants people to stop calling the place where the Twin Towers once stood "Ground Zero," a term which implies violence on a nuclear scale.

Progress helps that argument. The new One World Trade Center skyscraper towers more than 80 stories above ground as it inches to its planned 1,776 foot height -- symbolic of the date of America's independence.

The memorial plaza is ready and the neighborhood has enjoyed a revival making it a trendy Manhattan place to live.

Some of those most devastated by the attacks no longer wish to be defined by it. Among them is Kristen Breitweiser, who became a widow, activist and author after her husband died when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center.

"I don't identify myself as a widow anymore. I'm a single mom," Breitweiser, author of the 2006 book "Wake-Up Call: The Political Education of a 9/11 Widow," told Reuters.

Sunday's ceremony includes moments of silence marking when hijacked passenger planes hit the Twin Towers as well as when they collapsed. There will also be moments of silence marking when hijacked planes crashed into the Pentagon in Washington and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush will be among dignitaries joining victims' families to hear the reading of the names of those who died on September 11.

MORE DANGEROUS WORLD

Research shows that Americans accept a more dangerous world with plots such as the one being investigated on Friday.

Over the past decade there have been many New York plots -- some aspirational, such as one to blow up subways and another to explode a pipeline near John F. Kennedy International Airport and others more visible near-misses such as the failed car bomb attempt in Times Square in 2010.

Some 58 percent of New Yorkers and 49 percent of Americans believe "another terrorist attack in New York City, causing large numbers of lives to be lost," is likely, a new poll by Quinnipiac University revealed.

But highlighting how the expectation of attack has practically become background noise to many Americans, New York is the top U.S. domestic vacation choice, the poll revealed.

Some people such as Gennaro Esposito, a Manhattan butcher, say they are tired of ceremonies such as Sunday's.

"Every year it's the same thing. They just don't seem to let it rest," said Esposito, 47. "Let the dead rest and let it be done. They are constantly reminding us so it's hard to move on. Let the dead rest and let New Yorkers move on."

People are busy with today, not with 2001, said Judith Richman, a University of Illinois at Chicago epidemiologist who has studied the impact of September 11 on mental health.

"With the recession, unemployment, underemployment and people's fear of losing their jobs, 10 years after 9/11 will bring back a lot of memories briefly," she said. "But then, people will return to their everyday lives."

Also pushing Americans forward is the death of bin Laden, long seen as a devil for leading al Qaeda which perpetrated the attacks. After his execution by U.S. troops in a raid in Pakistan, many people displayed a visceral hatred with celebrations outside the White House and at Ground Zero.

As the Pentagon draws down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, those wars don't dominate media coverage as much as they did.

And much has happened in the decade since the attacks, from Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans to the election of America's first black president.

As the 2012 presidential campaign warms up, the economy and high unemployment are the top issues, sending the war on terror and security lower on voters' priorities.

Some argue that the weak state of the U.S. economy can be traced to the attacks of September 11, after which the United States spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of lives on wars launched by the Bush administration.

"What 9/11 did was distract the United States significantly, causing it to put focus on things that were not in America's long-term interest," world-renowned development economist Jeffrey Sachs told Reuters. "This very militarized approach ... cost trillions of dollars and, I believe, weakened the United States."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/09/us-sept-idUSTRE78866G20110909

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New York

Community policing would make city safer

Unfortunately, true community policing has been abandoned by police agencies all over the country since the advent of the statistics-driven style of policing debuted by the Rudy Giuliani administration in the mid-1990s. Under the New York City Police Department's much imitated CompStat program, statistics and computer crime maps drive deployment of police manpower and resources. The limitations of this tactic are becoming appallingly evident. Years of relentless pressure on precinct commanders to produce steadily downward trending crime statistics on the threat of having their careers dead-ended is having a variety of predictably negative results.

A community policing movement is slowly growing in New York. I date its inception to a series of Albany homicides beginning five years ago involving perpetrators as young as 15 and victims as young as 10. This galvanized questions about police's insistent invocation of declining crime statistics to indicate that things could not be better. What the department didn't get was that the decline in reported crime was being offset by a decline in public satisfaction with police response.

Five years of intense community discussion and a search for new leadership for the Albany police department have resulted in a historic turnaround. The evolution of our police force is finally in sync with the evolution of the community's needs and expectations. Public satisfaction with the Albany PD is at an all-time high.

This is only the beginning. Last year, in response to the most shocking crime of violence in memory and the inability of the Buffalo police department to get any of more than 100 witnesses to come forward, the Common Council created a commission to recommend reorganizing the department and bring community policing to Buffalo. I have the honor of serving on that commission.

You have an amazing resource in Binghamton that Mayor Matthew T. Ryan, Chief Joe Zikuski and everyone else committed to the future your city should consult. That would be the Binghamton Neighborhood Project at http://bnp. binghamton.edu. Dr. David Sloane Wilson, an evolutionary biologist at Binghamton University, is developing creative ways of looking at the city and its strengths and problems.

What we need is community policing, not cops chasing dots on computer crime maps. We live in communities, not video games. That will create an environment in which people will want to live, visit and invest.

O'Neill is the director of The Constantine Institute, based in Albany. Learn more online at www.constantine-institute.org.

http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20110910/VIEWPOINTS02/109100309/Community-policing-would-make-city-safer

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DSP receive COPS funding for ‘Secure Our Schools' program

Delaware's Congressional Delegation announces over $260,000 in COPS grant funding to the Delaware State Police for the “Secure Our Schools” program. The program helps law enforcement agencies work with schools to help protect children and prevent school-related violence in their communities.

NEWS RELEASE: Carper, Coons, Carney announce more than $260,000 for school safety Grant to Delaware State Police will provide funding to reduce school violence

WILMINGTON, Del. – U.S. Senators Tom Carper and Chris Coons, and Representative John Carney (all D-Del.) today announced a total of $260,473 for the Delaware State Police from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). This funding, which was awarded on Thursday, is part of COPS' Secure Our Schools grant program to help local law enforcement agencies work with schools in responding to growing safety and security concerns.

“Parents trust that their children will be safe while they are at school,” Senator Carper said. “This grant will not only help to ensure students will be safe at school so they are free to concentrate on learning, but also forge key ties between parents, students, community members and the police. It takes a combination of factors in the community working together to keep our children out of harm's way and on the right path, and this grant works to bring those factors together for the greater good of our students.”

“Every day, Delaware parents send their children to school trusting that school officials are providing their children with a safe, nurturing learning environment,” Senator Coons said. “This program encourages Delaware's law enforcement agencies to work in collaboration with our educators, parents, and students to increase school safety. As a senator and a father of three young children, I am always looking for ways to keep kids safe and I firmly believe that our children are best served when our community works together.”

“Keeping our children and educators safe in our schools is a top priority,” Congressman Carney said. “The COPS program gives law enforcement agencies the tools they need to collaborate with local educators and parents to implement best practices that protect our children and ensure they are learning in a safe, positive environment.”

The Securing Our Schools grants are awarded to state and local governments that work in close partnership with public schools to improve school safety. Successful programs are based on a comprehensive safety assessment that identifies the individual needs of the schools, and law enforcement agencies receiving funding will collaborate with school administrators, teachers, students, and parents to implement solutions to school safety challenges. By supporting these community policing partnerships, the Secure Our Schools program helps protect children and prevent school-related violence in their communities.

http://www.wgmd.com/?p=34488

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Pregnant 9/11 survivors transmitted trauma to their children

The emerging field of epigenetics shows how traumatic experiences can be transmitted from one generation to the next

For New Yorkers, the events that transpired on the morning of 11 September, 2001 must have seemed like a nightmare. Immediately after the attack on the World Trade Centre that day, psychologists predicted that a wave of trauma would sweep across the country. Although this prediction turned out to be wrong, it is estimated that some 530,000 New York City residents suffered from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the months following the attack.

Among the tens of thousands of people directly exposed to the World Trade Centre attack were approximately 1,700 pregnant women. Some of these women went on to develop symptoms of PTSD, and some of the children have inherited the nightmare that their mothers experienced on that day.

Within weeks of the attack, researchers at the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at the Mount Sinai Medical Centre in New York were inundated with telephone calls from people who had been traumatised by the event, including pregnant women. Rachel Yehuda, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience in charge of the division, set out to investigate how these women's experiences might affect their children.

To do so, Yehuda and her colleagues performed a longitudinal study. They recruited 38 women who were pregnant on 9/11 and were either at or near the World Trade Centre at the time of the attack, some of whom went on to develop PTSD. The researchers took samples of saliva from them and measured levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

They found that those women who had developed PTSD following exposure to the attacks had significantly lower cortisol levels in their saliva than those who were similarly exposed but did not develop PTSD. About a year later, the researchers measured cortisol levels in the children, and found that those born to the women who had developed PTSD had lower levels of the hormone than the others. Intriguingly, reduced cortisol levels were most apparent in those children whose mothers were in the third trimester of pregnancy when they were exposed to the attack.

Following up these findings, Yehuda and her colleagues have also shown that the children of women who were traumatised as a result of 9/11 subsequently exhibit an increased distress response when shown novel stimuli. Again, this was related to the stage of pregnancy – those with the largest distress response were the ones born to mothers who were in their second or third trimester when exposed to the World Trade Centre attacks.

How might the traumatic experiences of a pregnant woman be transmitted to her unborn children? Research published over the past 10 years or so suggests that this probably occurs by epigenetic mechanisms. Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene activity that are not due to changes in DNA sequence. Epigenetics reveals how genes interact with environmental factors, and has been implicated in many normal and abnormal brain functions.

A key study in this emerging field, published in 2004, showed that the quality of a rat mother's care significantly affects how its offspring behave in adulthood. Michael Meaney of McGill University and his colleagues found that rat pups that had been repeatedly groomed and licked by their mothers during the first week of life were subsequently better at coping with stressful and fearful situations than pups who received little or no contact.

They further showed that these effects are mediated by epigenetic mechanisms that alter expression of the glucocorticoid receptor, which plays a key role in the body's response to stress. Analysis of the pups' brains at one week old revealed differences in DNA methylation, a process by which DNA is chemically modified. Methylation involves the addition of small molecules called methyl groups, consisting of one carbon and three hydrogen atoms, to specific sites in the DNA sequence encoding a gene.

Specifically, pups that received high levels of grooming and licking had higher levels of methylation within regions of DNA that regulate the activity of the glucocorticoid gene. These modifications open up the chromosomal region containing these regulatory regions, so that the molecular machinery that synthesises proteins can gain access to the receptor gene sequence. By contrast, these epigenetic markers, as they are known, were not seen in the "low maternal care" pups, and consequently gluocorticoid receptor levels were reduced in these animals' brains.

Similar mechanisms probably account for the transmission of trauma from mother to unborn child. More recently, Yehuda and her colleagues examined gene expression patterns in 40 individuals who were similarly exposed to the World Trade Centre attacks, and identified 16 genes that are differentially expressed between those with and those without PTSD.

Several of these genes regulate the function of the glucocorticoid receptor and two – FKBP5 and STAT5B – directly inhibit its activity. Expression of both these genes is reduced in individuals with PTSD, and this may contribute to the high levels of glucocorticoid receptor activity that is consistently observed in the condition. Others have shown that variations in FKBP5 are associated with the severity of PTSD symptoms in individuals who suffered child abuse.

Yehuda has obtained similar results in the adult offspring of Nazi holocaust survivors, and is currently trying to identify genetic variations and epigenetic markers associated with PTSD in combat veterans. The precise mechanism by which traumatic experiences are transmitted from one generation to the next is still not known, but a picture is beginning to emerge.

Yehuda's work establishes low cortisol levels as a risk factor for developing PTSD and, when taken together with the animal studies, suggests that traumatic experiences can leave epigenetic marks that alter the stress response in offspring. Epigenetic factors combined with genetic variations could also explain why some people are more susceptible to stress than others, and why some of those exposed to the World Trade Centre attacks went on to develop PTSD while others did not.

In the animal study led by Meaney, the epigenetic modifications and the changes in glucocorticoid receptor expression associated with them were observed in the hippocampus, a brain region that is essential for learning and memory formation. It is, therefore, possible that epigenetic markers are laid down during the formation of traumatic memories.

Last month, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania reported that epigenetic markers can be transmitted through two generations of mice, suggesting that children who inherited the nightmare of the World Trade Centre attack from their mothers while in the womb may in turn pass it on to their own children.

References:

Yehuda, R et al (2005). Transgenerational Effects of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Babies of Mothers Exposed to the World Trade Center Attacks during Pregnancy. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism , DOI: 10.1210/jc.2005-0550

Yehuda, R et al (2009). Gene Expression Patterns Associated with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Following Exposure to the World Trade Center Attacks. Biological Psychiatry , DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.02.03

Sarapas, C et al (2011). Genetic markers for PTSD risk and resilience among survivors of the World Trade Center attacks. Disease Markers , DOI: 10.3233/DMA20110764

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/neurophilosophy/2011/sep/09/pregnant-911-survivors-transmitted-trauma/print

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From the White House

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WEEKLY ADDRESS: Remembering September 11th

WASHINGTON— In this week's address, President Obama marked the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks and paid tribute to the first responders, those serving our nation in the military, and those who lost their lives on that tragic day. In the difficult decade since 9/11, our nation has stayed strong in the face of threat, and we have strengthened our homeland security, enhanced our partnerships, and put al Qaeda on the path to defeat. As we look to the future, we will continue to prove that the terrorists who attacked us are no match for the courage, resilience, and endurance of the American people.

Remarks of President Barack Obama

This weekend, we're coming together, as one nation, to mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. We're remembering the lives we lost—nearly 3,000 innocent men, women and children. We're reaffirming our commitment to always keep faith with their families.

We're honoring the heroism of first responders who risked their lives—and gave their lives—to save others. And we're giving thanks to all who serve on our behalf, especially our troops and military families—our extraordinary 9/11 Generation.

At the same time, even as we reflect on a difficult decade, we must look forward, to the future we will build together. That includes staying strong and confident in the face of any threat. And thanks to the tireless efforts of our military personnel and our intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security professionals—there should be no doubt. Today, America is stronger and al Qaeda is on the path to defeat.

We've taken the fight to al Qaeda like never before. Over the past two and a half years, more senior al Qaeda leaders have been eliminated than at any time since 9/11. And thanks to the remarkable courage and precision of our forces, we finally delivered justice to Osama bin Laden.

We've strengthened the partnerships and tools we need to prevail in this war against al Qaeda—working closer with allies and partners; reforming intelligence to better detect and disrupt plots; investing in our Special Forces so terrorists have no safe haven.

We're constantly working to improve the security of our homeland as well—at our airports, ports and borders; enhancing aviation security and screening; increasing support for our first responders; and working closer than ever with states, cities and communities.

A decade after 9/11, it's clear for all the world to see—the terrorists who attacked us that September morning are no match for the character of our people, the resilience of our nation, or the endurance of our values.

They wanted to terrorize us, but, as Americans, we refuse to live in fear. Yes we face a determined foe, and make no mistake—they will keep trying to hit us again. But as we are showing again this weekend, we remain vigilant. We're doing everything in our power to protect our people. And no matter what comes our way, as a resilient nation, we will carry on.

They wanted to draw us in to endless wars, sapping our strength and confidence as a nation. But even as we put relentless pressure on al Qaeda, we're ending the war in Iraq and beginning to bring our troops home from Afghanistan. Because after a hard decade of war, it is time for nation building here at home.

They wanted to deprive us of the unity that defines us as a people. But we will not succumb to division or suspicion. We are Americans, and we are stronger and safer when we stay true to the values, freedoms and diversity that make us unique among nations.

And they wanted to undermine our place in the world. But a decade later, we've shown that America doesn't hunker down and hide behind walls of mistrust. We've forged new partnerships with nations around the world to meet the global challenges that no nation can face alone. And across the Middle East and North Africa a new generation of citizens is showing that the future belongs to those that want to build, not destroy.

Ten years ago, ordinary Americans showed us the true meaning of courage when they rushed up those stairwells, into those flames, into that cockpit. In the decade since, a new generation has stepped forward to serve and keep us safe. In their memory, in their name, we will never waver. We will protect the country we love and pass it safer, stronger and more prosperous to the next generation.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/10/weekly-address-remembering-september-11th

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Statement by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano Urging Public Vigilance

Release Date: September 9, 2011

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

“As we head into the 9/11 anniversary weekend, we continue to urge the American public to be vigilant and report any suspicious activity to law enforcement authorities. Simply put, if you see something, say something. We take all threat reporting, including the recent specific, credible but unconfirmed threat information, seriously. We continue to be in close contact with our federal, state and local law enforcement partners to ensure that all steps necessary to mitigate any threats are taken. Our security posture includes a number of measures both seen and unseen and we will continue to respond appropriately to protect the American people from an evolving threat picture both in the coming days and beyond. Homeland security is a shared responsibility, and everyone plays an important role in helping to keep our communities safe and secure.”

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/20110909-napolitano-urging-public-vigilance.shtm

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