September 11 Memorial Debuts In New York
For the first time since the terror attack on the World Trade Center, the general public is being allowed back onto the site.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, members of the city council and some 9/11 victims' family members welcomed the first visitors to the 9/11 memorial plaza that opened on schedule Monday.
"The opening fulfills a promise we made to the families on the 10-year anniversary and keep it open for them and the rest of the world forever to reflect on what happened and to honor the 9/11 victims and heroes," said Bloomberg, who is also the 9/11 Memorial chairman.
Families of victims were able to visit the memorial Sunday during ceremonies honoring those who were killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks that brought down the twin towers.
"We're so proud of this memorial," said Monica Iken, who lost her husband, Michael, in the attacks and was able to visit the memorial, along with other victims' families Sunday. "I can go see Michael. He's home."
Monday's visitors passed through metal detectors and surveillance cameras as they began making their way to the the two huge, square fountains that mark the footprints of the World Trade Center towers.
The fountains' water flows into granite reflecting pools at the center of the eight-acre, tree-lined plaza. Bronze plates surround the fountains and bear the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the 2001 attacks, as well as the six who were killed when a terrorist truck bomb exploded in the parking garage beneath the towers in 1993.
Some of the visitors were visibly emotional as they walked into the plaza Monday. Some rubbed their fingers across the etched names of those who died. One man took out a paper and stenciled over a name and carefully rolled up the paper to take with him.
The names forming the perimeter where the North Tower stood are those who died in the building and the passengers on American Airlines Flight 11, which was crashed into it, as well as the six dead from the 1993 bombing.
The South Tower site includes the names of dead who were in that building and United Flight 175, as well as the names of the first responders who were killed, the dead from the crash of American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, and the dead of United Flight 93, which crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Anthoula Kastimades was there to greet visitors and spoke about seeing her own brother's name on the memorial.
"It was difficult ... obviously, if I could have it any other way his name would not be listed."
Kastimades brother, John, worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, on the 104th floor of the North Tower. His name is listed next to three or four people who worked at the same desk with him, day in and day out.
By design, the placement of the names was given a lot of thought. Architect Michael Arad said the names are staggered, arranged not alphabetically but by something known as "meaningful adjacency."
This way, Arad says, each name connects to another and "beyond a physical place, there is a relationship between one name and another." Input was shared by families of the victims so friends, family members, co-workers or people who commuted to work together were listed side by side. By doing so, more personal meaning was brought into the arrangement.
Kastimades agrees. "It gives me comfort that he's listed with them in peace."
She is also at peace with the memorial. Serving on the 9/11 Memorial board she worked tirelessly to get it right, especially for some 1,100 families, like hers, who have still not received loved ones' remains and consider the memorial to be sacred ground.
"I feel the souls of the victims here," Kastimades said, "and I feel like John is here."
The memorial has created an authentic place of loss; Kastimades says that sets it apart from any other memorial.
"It's a wonderful feeling to know that we are with these beautiful souls."
While the memorial is sacred to loved ones, it also is very important for the country, said Joe Daniels, president of the 9/11 Memorial.
"I look forward to people coming here from around the world and sharing in this experience," he said.
The memorial plaza will be open seven days a week, forever, Daniels said, though access will be restricted due to all the construction on other World Trade Center projects. Visitors must reserve a timed pass, which is free, through the memorial's website. More than 400,000 people from all 50 states and more than 70 countries have received passes at www.911memorial.org since the timed reservation system launched in July.
Daniel said watching construction proceed on WTC 1, formerly known as the Freedom Tower, is part of the experience.
"The tallest building in the United States is being constructed right in front of them," he said, pointing at the structure that eventually will rise to 1,776 feet. Besides marking what happened here, Daniels said, the site reflects the nation's commercial response and strength of will.
"We can build bigger, build higher; that's the American way, and we're doing it."
The memorial's museum is still under construction and is expected to open September 11, 2012. –CNN U.S.
For the first time since the terror attack on the World Trade Center, the general public is being allowed back onto the site.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, members of the city council and some 9/11 victims' family members welcomed the first visitors to the 9/11 memorial plaza that opened on schedule Monday.
"The opening fulfills a promise we made to the families on the 10-year anniversary and keep it open for them and the rest of the world forever to reflect on what happened and to honor the 9/11 victims and heroes," said Bloomberg, who is also the 9/11 Memorial chairman.
Families of victims were able to visit the memorial Sunday during ceremonies honoring those who were killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks that brought down the twin towers.
"We're so proud of this memorial," said Monica Iken, who lost her husband, Michael, in the attacks and was able to visit the memorial, along with other victims' families Sunday. "I can go see Michael. He's home."
Monday's visitors passed through metal detectors and surveillance cameras as they began making their way to the the two huge, square fountains that mark the footprints of the World Trade Center towers.
The fountains' water flows into granite reflecting pools at the center of the eight-acre, tree-lined plaza. Bronze plates surround the fountains and bear the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the 2001 attacks, as well as the six who were killed when a terrorist truck bomb exploded in the parking garage beneath the towers in 1993.
Some of the visitors were visibly emotional as they walked into the plaza Monday. Some rubbed their fingers across the etched names of those who died. One man took out a paper and stenciled over a name and carefully rolled up the paper to take with him.
The names forming the perimeter where the North Tower stood are those who died in the building and the passengers on American Airlines Flight 11, which was crashed into it, as well as the six dead from the 1993 bombing.
The South Tower site includes the names of dead who were in that building and United Flight 175, as well as the names of the first responders who were killed, the dead from the crash of American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, and the dead of United Flight 93, which crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Anthoula Kastimades was there to greet visitors and spoke about seeing her own brother's name on the memorial.
"It was difficult ... obviously, if I could have it any other way his name would not be listed."
Kastimades brother, John, worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, on the 104th floor of the North Tower. His name is listed next to three or four people who worked at the same desk with him, day in and day out.
By design, the placement of the names was given a lot of thought. Architect Michael Arad said the names are staggered, arranged not alphabetically but by something known as "meaningful adjacency."
This way, Arad says, each name connects to another and "beyond a physical place, there is a relationship between one name and another." Input was shared by families of the victims so friends, family members, co-workers or people who commuted to work together were listed side by side. By doing so, more personal meaning was brought into the arrangement.
Kastimades agrees. "It gives me comfort that he's listed with them in peace."
She is also at peace with the memorial. Serving on the 9/11 Memorial board she worked tirelessly to get it right, especially for some 1,100 families, like hers, who have still not received loved ones' remains and consider the memorial to be sacred ground.
"I feel the souls of the victims here," Kastimades said, "and I feel like John is here."
The memorial has created an authentic place of loss; Kastimades says that sets it apart from any other memorial.
"It's a wonderful feeling to know that we are with these beautiful souls."
While the memorial is sacred to loved ones, it also is very important for the country, said Joe Daniels, president of the 9/11 Memorial.
"I look forward to people coming here from around the world and sharing in this experience," he said.
The memorial plaza will be open seven days a week, forever, Daniels said, though access will be restricted due to all the construction on other World Trade Center projects. Visitors must reserve a timed pass, which is free, through the memorial's website. More than 400,000 people from all 50 states and more than 70 countries have received passes at www.911memorial.org since the timed reservation system launched in July.
Daniel said watching construction proceed on WTC 1, formerly known as the Freedom Tower, is part of the experience.
"The tallest building in the United States is being constructed right in front of them," he said, pointing at the structure that eventually will rise to 1,776 feet. Besides marking what happened here, Daniels said, the site reflects the nation's commercial response and strength of will.
"We can build bigger, build higher; that's the American way, and we're doing it."
The memorial's museum is still under construction and is expected to open September 11, 2012. –CNN U.S.
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U.N. Warns On Mutant Strain Of Bird Flu Virus
The United Nations warned Monday of a possible resurgence of the deadly avian flu virus, saying there are indications a mutant strain may be spreading in Asia.
A variant strain of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, which can apparently bypass the defenses of current vaccines with unpredictable risks to humans, has appeared in Vietnam and China, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stated.
Circulation of the virus in Vietnam threatens Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Japan and the Korean peninsula, the FAO said.
The most recent death caused by avian flu occurred this month in Cambodia, where eight people have died after becoming infected this year, the organization added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the virus has infected 565 people since it emerged in 2003, causing 331 deaths.
Avian flu has also directly killed or required the culling of over 400 million poultry and caused economic losses estimated at $20 billion before being eliminated from most of the 63 countries infected at its 2006 peak.
The virus is still present in China, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Egypt, while areas recently affected include Nepal, Mongolia, Romania, Bulgaria, Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
A geographical advance in cases of infected poultry and wild birds since 2008 has apparently been due to the movement of migratory birds, said FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Juan Lubroth.
"Wild birds may introduce the virus, but peoples' actions in poultry production and marketing spread it," he said.
"Preparedness and surveillance remain essential," he warned. –CNN Health
The United Nations warned Monday of a possible resurgence of the deadly avian flu virus, saying there are indications a mutant strain may be spreading in Asia.
A variant strain of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, which can apparently bypass the defenses of current vaccines with unpredictable risks to humans, has appeared in Vietnam and China, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stated.
Circulation of the virus in Vietnam threatens Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Japan and the Korean peninsula, the FAO said.
The most recent death caused by avian flu occurred this month in Cambodia, where eight people have died after becoming infected this year, the organization added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the virus has infected 565 people since it emerged in 2003, causing 331 deaths.
Avian flu has also directly killed or required the culling of over 400 million poultry and caused economic losses estimated at $20 billion before being eliminated from most of the 63 countries infected at its 2006 peak.
The virus is still present in China, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Egypt, while areas recently affected include Nepal, Mongolia, Romania, Bulgaria, Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
A geographical advance in cases of infected poultry and wild birds since 2008 has apparently been due to the movement of migratory birds, said FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Juan Lubroth.
"Wild birds may introduce the virus, but peoples' actions in poultry production and marketing spread it," he said.
"Preparedness and surveillance remain essential," he warned. –CNN Health
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The Death Of The Text Message
The smartphone boom is a mixed blessing for wireless companies. While the devices have boosted data plan sales considerably, they are threatening to kill another revenue stream dead in its tracks: text messaging.
Dozens of smartphone applications offer "free" text messaging services, which allow wireless customers to send and receive texts by piggybacking on their existing data plans. That means people who download those apps -- such as GroupMe, Google Voice, Disco, Beluga, Kik and WhatsApp -- are able to bypass the expensive texting plans offered by wireless companies.
What's more, an increasing number of free text messaging services are being baked into the smartphones themselves. Research In Motion (RIMM) offers BlackBerry Messenger, which allows BlackBerry users to text one another over their data plans. Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) plans to introduce its similar iMessage app in the fall for the iPhone.
And Verizon Wireless embeds Skype onto every one of its smartphones. Skype bought GroupMe on Sunday, in a deal valued at around $80 million, according to several reports. Since Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) deal to buy Skype will likely close in the coming months, GroupMe could soon appear on every Windows Phone device.
Even Facebook got into the game this month with a free messaging service for phones.
These services threaten to derail the roughly $9 billion in text messaging sales that the U.S. wireless industry brought in last year, according to analysis from UBS and data provided by the CTIA wireless industry association.
"As smartphone penetration increases and applications like WhatsApp take off, we believe high-margin texting revenues could be at risk," John Hodulik, telecom research analyst at UBS, said in a recent note sent to investors.
Texting growth has slowed in recent years, according to CTIA, but the trend has grown more dramatic in recent months. The number of texts sent per U.S. subscriber actually fell for the first time ever in the first quarter, said UBS' Hodulik.
That's a concern to Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500), AT&T (T, Fortune 500) and Sprint (S, Fortune 500), which each offer text messaging plans priced at 20 cents per message or up to $20 per month for unlimited messages.
Those plans are incredibly lucrative for wireless companies: Hodulik estimated that texting charges represent 11% of the average wireless consumer's cell phone bill, and up to 25% of the profit mobile providers make off their customers.
Texting may sound cheap, but it's actually an incredibly expensive way for consumers to send data. Text messages max out at just 160 bytes, which means 20-cents-per-message plans cost wireless customers an astounding $1,250 per megabyte.
Would you pay $1,250 per megabyte?
Unlimited plans are also a rip off. If a wireless customer sent one text message every minute of every day of every month (44,640 texts per month), at "just" $20 per month, that still works out to $2.80 per megabyte.
By contrast, AT&T and Verizon offer data plans that give customers 2 gigabytes of monthly Internet usage for $25 and $30 respectively. Those plans both work out to less than 2 cents per megabyte.
AT&T led its peers in an attempt to stave off any significant loss of revenue from a decline in text messaging. Last week, the company discontinued its cheaper texting plans, forcing users to either pay per message or subscribe to a $20 unlimited plan.
That may be a first step toward wireless companies requiring smartphone users to buy text messaging plans as part of their service -- the same way they now do with data plans.
"If pressure mounts on messaging, we believe carriers could begin to bundle it with voice service, similar to how they bundled more minutes in voice plans when texting started to pressure minutes of use," Hodulik wrote.
Wireless companies have also largely done away with unlimited data plans (Sprint remains the lone holdout). The new tiered data model means "free" texting isn't quite free, since sending messages via apps uses up customers' valuable data allotment.
Still, as more texters have found a way not to get gouged by their mobile providers, the wireless companies are scrambling to fight back. –CNN Money
The smartphone boom is a mixed blessing for wireless companies. While the devices have boosted data plan sales considerably, they are threatening to kill another revenue stream dead in its tracks: text messaging.
Dozens of smartphone applications offer "free" text messaging services, which allow wireless customers to send and receive texts by piggybacking on their existing data plans. That means people who download those apps -- such as GroupMe, Google Voice, Disco, Beluga, Kik and WhatsApp -- are able to bypass the expensive texting plans offered by wireless companies.
What's more, an increasing number of free text messaging services are being baked into the smartphones themselves. Research In Motion (RIMM) offers BlackBerry Messenger, which allows BlackBerry users to text one another over their data plans. Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) plans to introduce its similar iMessage app in the fall for the iPhone.
And Verizon Wireless embeds Skype onto every one of its smartphones. Skype bought GroupMe on Sunday, in a deal valued at around $80 million, according to several reports. Since Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) deal to buy Skype will likely close in the coming months, GroupMe could soon appear on every Windows Phone device.
Even Facebook got into the game this month with a free messaging service for phones.
These services threaten to derail the roughly $9 billion in text messaging sales that the U.S. wireless industry brought in last year, according to analysis from UBS and data provided by the CTIA wireless industry association.
"As smartphone penetration increases and applications like WhatsApp take off, we believe high-margin texting revenues could be at risk," John Hodulik, telecom research analyst at UBS, said in a recent note sent to investors.
Texting growth has slowed in recent years, according to CTIA, but the trend has grown more dramatic in recent months. The number of texts sent per U.S. subscriber actually fell for the first time ever in the first quarter, said UBS' Hodulik.
That's a concern to Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500), AT&T (T, Fortune 500) and Sprint (S, Fortune 500), which each offer text messaging plans priced at 20 cents per message or up to $20 per month for unlimited messages.
Those plans are incredibly lucrative for wireless companies: Hodulik estimated that texting charges represent 11% of the average wireless consumer's cell phone bill, and up to 25% of the profit mobile providers make off their customers.
Texting may sound cheap, but it's actually an incredibly expensive way for consumers to send data. Text messages max out at just 160 bytes, which means 20-cents-per-message plans cost wireless customers an astounding $1,250 per megabyte.
Would you pay $1,250 per megabyte?
Unlimited plans are also a rip off. If a wireless customer sent one text message every minute of every day of every month (44,640 texts per month), at "just" $20 per month, that still works out to $2.80 per megabyte.
By contrast, AT&T and Verizon offer data plans that give customers 2 gigabytes of monthly Internet usage for $25 and $30 respectively. Those plans both work out to less than 2 cents per megabyte.
AT&T led its peers in an attempt to stave off any significant loss of revenue from a decline in text messaging. Last week, the company discontinued its cheaper texting plans, forcing users to either pay per message or subscribe to a $20 unlimited plan.
That may be a first step toward wireless companies requiring smartphone users to buy text messaging plans as part of their service -- the same way they now do with data plans.
"If pressure mounts on messaging, we believe carriers could begin to bundle it with voice service, similar to how they bundled more minutes in voice plans when texting started to pressure minutes of use," Hodulik wrote.
Wireless companies have also largely done away with unlimited data plans (Sprint remains the lone holdout). The new tiered data model means "free" texting isn't quite free, since sending messages via apps uses up customers' valuable data allotment.
Still, as more texters have found a way not to get gouged by their mobile providers, the wireless companies are scrambling to fight back. –CNN Money
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