Oscar Winner Is 9/11 Doubter

Group of experts still points to controlled demolition

(NEWSER) - Experts probing the collapse of a third World Trade Center tower are expected to announce that fires brought it down, the BBC reports. The tower, known as WTC7, fell hours after the Twin Towers came down. No steel-framed skyscraper has ever collapsed due to fire, and a group of scientists, engineers, and architects maintain that a controlled demolition destroyed it. More»

Damages determined for 9/11 attacks

(NEWSER) - Somebody tell al-Qaeda to get out its checkbook. A federal judge yesterday ruled that the terrorist organization owes $9.3 billion for the damage caused to businesses and properties in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, reports the AP . Several insurance companies started their suit in 2003 versus a variety of defendants, seeking compensation for the attack on the World Trade Center. The judge determined actual damages, then tripled them for punitive compensation. More»

Fires kept burning long after terror attacks

(NEWSER) - Though you've no doubt read plenty of stories related to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, here's one that's likely to surprise. Yahoo UK lists nine facts you probably didn’t know about the tragic day:

• Twenty survivors were pulled out of the rubble: One was a secretary rescued after 27 hours.
• One survivor escaped from the South Tower as it collapsed: Ron DiFrancesco was one of just four people who escaped from above the 81st floor. He was on his way out when the second plane hit; it collapsed just after he exited.

What happened after the attacks was unforgivable: Paul Krugman

(NEWSER) - For many Americans, the 10th anniversary of September 11 comes shrouded in feelings of grief and loss, but the overwhelming emotion for Paul Krugman is shame. The "atrocity should have been a unifying event," but instead "fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror," blogs the New York Times columnist. "What happened after 9/11—and I think even people on the right know this—was deeply shameful." More»

Won Oscar for Charly , but never made top of Hollywood A-list

(NEWSER) - Cliff Robertson, the Oscar-winner for 1968's Charly who is best-known to today's generation as uncle Ben Parker in the Spider-Man movies, died yesterday at age 88, reports the LA Times . Described by Look magazine in 1963 as "one of the finest young actors in America today," Robertson won many plaudits for his theater and television work, and appeared in more than 50 movies—including Gidget, Three Days of the Condor, and Brainstorm—but never made the leap to the Hollywood A-list. More»