The muted response to Trump 9/11 fantasy is a media failure

Failure to call out Trump on his 9/11 lies

Lisa Needham

Trump snaps at a reporter after Trumpapalooza. (Andrew Harnik/Getty)

When it comes to 9/11, Donald Trump has always had a problem with the truth. Now that he’s increasingly detached from reality and completely surrounded by sycophants, his lies have gotten downright bizarre.

The absolute weirdest of these has to be Trump’s fantasy that he was literally pulled to safety by brave firefighters as he stood … Inside? Near? Under? … the US Steel Building, now One Liberty Plaza.

There was significant fear that the US Steel Building might collapse, fear that turned out to be wrong. But on both September 12, 2001, and September 14, 2001, rescue workers were evacuated and rushed from the building.

Which, apparently, is where Trump comes in: “The United States Steel Building was creaking. Really creaking. And we thought it was going to fall down. The truth is it creaked a lot. It creaked. It still creaks, but it never came down. And I’ll never forget two firemen. We thought it was coming down on top of us. And two firemen, big strong guys, and I’m not the smallest guy in the world. They grabbed me under the arm, said, ‘Got to get out of here.’ And they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I’m big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, ‘Fellas, I can run myself.’ But they were amazing.”

To hear Trump tell it, he’s also some sort of air traffic savant, heavily implying that as he watched the second plane on 9/11, he knew it was going to hit the Twin Towers:

“I saw the second plane hit and you saw that come and you’re watching it and it’s because I watched the air patterns for years and you know where the planes are. They go up right up the Hudson River. This thing was coming right into the second building and I said, ‘Wow.” So I watched that happen and I said, “Wow, we are now in a different time.”

Wow. Wow, we are now in a different time. What soaring and stirring rhetoric, right?

There’s another big problem with this make-believe, which is that Trump Tower is some four miles away from Ground Zero, so the chance Trump was keenly watching the air patterns over the Twin Towers is pretty much zero.

With Trump, it’s always tempting to try to determine whether he knows he’s lying or believes his own lies. Before his second term, that approach still made some sort of sense, because his lies were at least reality-shaped, more about puffery than outright fantasy.

But you could see the outlines of full fabulism starting to ramp up.

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Narragansett's townwide Gansett Days celebration returns September 18–20

Gansett Days Returns With Weekend of Food and History

Jaxon Veridian, Entertainment & Culture

Residents across South County can take advantage of three days of seaside programming, local food competitions, historic walking tours, and free recycling services in Narragansett.

Look, there is something deeply romantic about post-Labor Day South County. The summer rush thins out, the breeze carries that first crisp edge of autumn, and locals reclaim the coastline for a brief, glorious stretch. If you are already mapping out how to spend those golden September afternoons, circle your calendar: the Town of Narragansett announced yesterday that Gansett Days is officially returning from September 18 through September 20.

Now, if you think Gansett Days is just one centralized festival where everyone gathers in a single town square, think again. It operates as an expansive, townwide umbrella celebration — labeled across municipal records as Gansett Days/Endless Summer — pulling together everything from culinary cook-offs and historical architecture walks to hands-on river ecology.

The town’s Parks and Recreation Department organized the broader weekend schedule, following up on a previous edition held in September 2025. While town listings vary slightly on the exact overall morning start time — the municipal calendar lists 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., while a revised special-events calendar notes 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. — the individual marquee events across South County are locked in with specific schedules.

The Food Main Event: Calamari Festival

For anyone whose personal food pyramid includes fried seafood, Saturday, September 19, brings the marquee attraction: the Rhode Island Calamari Festival and Cook-Off at Veterans Park, running from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Organized by the Narragansett Chamber of Commerce, the festival puts Rhode Island's official state appetizer directly in the spotlight.

Local kitchens will compete for the Calamari Trophy, with a lineup of confirmed competitors that includes Coast Guard House, Georges of Galilee, Surf Shack, Sea Craft, Two Ten Oyster Bar, The Haversham Tavern, and Suya Joint. Beyond the fried squid showdown, the park will host raw oysters, food offerings from Celeste’s pop-up, desserts prepared by Job Corps students, craft beer and wine, and live music.

Mice may drive Lyme disease more than deer

Hunting season on mice?

By Amanda Watford, Rhode Island Current

For more than three decades, researchers have been tracking ticks, mice, oak trees and other wildlife in a New York forest to better understand what makes Lyme disease more likely to spread.

Their latest findings challenge some long-held assumptions — including the idea that deer are a major driver of Lyme disease risk.

Researchers at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, a nonprofit environmental research group, found that white-footed mice, not white-tailed deer, are closely linked to the number of young blacklegged ticks, the life stage most likely to infect people with Lyme disease.

A year with a large mouse population was followed by about a 40% increase in nymphal ticks the following year. But more mice don’t necessarily mean a higher percentage of ticks carrying Lyme bacteria. Researchers initially expected the two to rise together because white-footed mice are especially good at transmitting the bacteria to ticks.

The researchers found that other animals, including skunks, squirrels and opossums, also feed larval ticks. Because those animals are less efficient at transmitting the bacteria, the mix of hosts can affect how many ticks become infected.

In other words, mouse populations can help predict how many ticks there will be, but not necessarily how many will carry Lyme bacteria.

The researchers also found that large crops of acorns can set off a chain reaction: More acorns mean more food for mice, which can mean more ticks two years later.

What comes next for the 1 million people who have lost – or will soon lose – Temporary Protected Status

Trump tells Haitians, Somalians to get out

Jean Lantz Reisz, University of Southern California

At the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term, 1.3 million individuals from 17 countries were living and working in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status, or TPS.

TPS is a humanitarian form of protection from deportation for people who cannot return to their home countries because of an armed conflict, environmental disaster or other extraordinary circumstances.

In 2025, the Trump administration began terminating or not renewing TPS for those countries, making its way through 13 of them. As the administration turns its attention to the few remaining nations, most TPS holders have lost or will soon lose their protection from deportation and their authorization to work. Many will be separated from their families and the communities they have lived in for decades. Some will be forced to return to countries like Afghanistan, Haiti and Syria, all of which are on the U.S. State Department’s “Do Not Travel” list due to war, terrorism or other extreme violence.

As a law scholar who studies immigration detention, I can say that most people with TPS never had a path to anything more permanent, which means, as they face deportation, they have little recourse.

Trump EPA Takes ‘Yet Another Sledgehammer’ to Clean Water Act

“This proposal declares open season on the nation’s waterways” 

Jessica Corbett for Common Dreams

Donald Trump’s administration sparked fresh fury on Friday when it proposed a supplemental rule to further gut Clean Water Act protections for streams and wetlands in the wake of a “catastrophic” US Supreme Court ruling three years ago.

The supplemental proposal from the Department of the Army and Environmental Protection Agency builds on their widely criticized proposed rule from November for defining “waters of the United States” (WOTUS)—both of which go further than the high court did with its 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA.

While the American Petroleum Institute and some Republicans in Congress joined Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Adam Telle and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in promoting the new proposal, environmental and public health advocates sounded the alarm.

Trump ends disastrous Irish trip after a nice meeting with the President of Ireland

Not the first time Trump has "stolen valor." Hey Jim - what do you say about Trump posting an image of himself wearing the Congressional Medal of Honor?

The greenest building is the one still standing after a disaster

Build green for lower costs and survival

Fernanda Cruz Rios, Drexel University

Construction choices are often the difference between a house surviving a hurricane or being torn apart. Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images

When Hurricane Michael tore through the Florida Panhandle in 2018, a beach house called the Sand Palace was left standing, while more than half the buildings around it were destroyed.

Its owners had built it to withstand roughly double the wind speed that Florida’s code required, with reinforced concrete walls on 40-foot (12-meter) pilings. The cost was about 15% to 20% more than standard construction, but the owners wanted a house that could survive storms.

The owners of the Sand Palace talk with WJXT4 about why they built the home to survive hurricanes.

Designers usually measure how “green” a building is by its carbon footprint – the greenhouse gases released making, transporting and running everything that goes into it. The Sand Palace’s extra concrete expanded its carbon footprint, making the house appear less environmentally friendly on paper.

But a green building has to last for its intentionally small carbon footprint to make a positive difference. Damage from a flood, a wildfire or a hurricane can require significantly more building materials to repair it, ballooning its carbon footprint over time.

As storms happen more often and with more intensity, considering the full life cycle of a building and its costs over time becomes increasingly important to get an accurate picture of how sustainable that building really is.

As we age, the body appears to sacrifice walking efficiency in exchange for stability.

Scientists reveal why walking gets so much harder with age

Flinders University

New Australian research is shedding light on why walking often becomes slower and more tiring with age. The findings suggest that the body gradually gives up some movement efficiency in favor of staying stable and upright.

Led by researchers at Flinders University and the University of Canberra, the study found that aging is associated with a "safety-first" walking strategy. This approach emphasizes stability instead of speed and energy efficiency, helping explain why older adults may fatigue more quickly and also face a greater risk of falling.

Researchers analyzed movement data from 107 healthy adults between the ages of 26 and 86. They found small but meaningful age-related differences in how the ankle and nearby muscles manage each step.

How the Ankle Changes With Age

Lead author and sport and exercise technology expert Dr. Cody Lindsay says the ankle is essential for maintaining balance while also helping propel the body forward.

The 75 Most Corrupt Things Trump Did in 2026

So far.

A long read but worth it

Ron Filipkowski

Sep 04, 2026

This is a list of the 75 most corrupt things Trump did in 2026. These are not all of the corrupt things. There were many more, all of which I chronicled throughout the year in my daily column ‘Today in Politics.’ I was planning to list 100. However, to get it under the length restrictions for Substack emails, I had to cut the list down to 75.

… These examples are limited to instances where Trump used the presidency to enrich himself, family members and/or wrangle or extort donations to his PAC. It also doesn’t include corruption from his cabinet members or other members of his administration when those things didn’t directly benefit Trump or his family - and there were many of those.

… These are listed in chronological order for the dates when the stories broke which uncovered the corruption. The sheer scope and breadth of these scams and grifts is staggering. It is hard to imagine one family coming up with this many ways to profit off the presidency, but the Trumps have certainly been tireless in finding creative new paths to turn the US presidency into their own personal ATM.

… The other thing that is noteworthy, especially heading into the midterms, is that Republican majorities in Congress have allowed this to happen with zero oversight or investigations. They stood passively by doing nothing, which has only emboldened Trump to be more brazen in his schemes knowing there will be no consequences. Democrats already plan several investigations of many of these specific things as soon as they are able to acquire subpoena power and control of hearings.

… If you aren’t a subscriber or haven’t been in the past, you can read yesterday’s daily Today in Politics column here. My weekly podcast Uncovered is here. Now, on to the specific examples of the most corrupt presidential administration in the history of the US. By far.

Bottom of Form

League of Rhode Island Businesses crashed and burned in Charlestown and across the state

Conservative business group’s multi-PAC strategy flops as General Assembly incumbents prevail

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

In contrast to the stunning primary day upsets in which Democratic challengers dethroned Rhode Island’s governor and the mayors of Providence and Pawtucket, every sitting state lawmaker seeking reelection won Wednesday night.

Incumbents typically hold an advantage, especially in Rhode Island, where the rigor of the job coupled with low pay and a dominant Democratic party suppresses competition. Nearly two-thirds of the 113 General Assembly seats featured a single candidate this election cycle, with just 13 sitting lawmakers — all Democrats — facing primary challengers (excluding open seat contests).

“It’s very hard to go against General Assembly leadership,” said John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. “They put a lot of resources into protecting their members.”

But a new political group with an unconventional campaign finance strategy to unseat progressive lawmakers focused more attention on the few contested races by endorsing conservative-minded candidates. The League of RI Businesses champions gun rights, lower taxes and business-friendly policies, and backed a slate of challengers by circumventing the state law capping political action committee donations at $2,000 per candidate per year.

Yet The League’s 40 PAC strategy — one for every city and town plus a statewide organization — and open solicitation of anonymous donations failed to notch any wins on primary night. 

All seven of the Democratic challengers endorsed by The League in state legislative races lost, some defeated by a 50- or 60-point margin.

“Not only did we not win, we just got clobbered,” said Dave Levesque, co-founder of The League. “It’s an embarrassment.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: Despite their monumental losses in the Primary, LORIB is still running a number of candidates in the November 3 General election. Among their targets: Charlestown's Sen. Victoria Gu, local Reps. Megan Cotter, Carol McEntee, Kathy Fogarty and (oddly) Sam Azzinaro. I say oddly because Sam is at least as conservative as Rep. Leonidas Raptakis who was endorsed by LORIB. Plus, Sam is male and nearly all of LORIB's targets are progressive Democratic women. 

LORIB tried and failed to find challengers to local Democrats Sens. Sue Sosnowski and Bridget Valverde and Rep. Teresa Tanzi. They will all retain their General Assembly seats since they face no opposition on November 3.

LORIB is also endorsing MAGA nut Sen. Elaine Morgan who, in her own way, represents the northern half of Charlestown. She faces a powerful challenger in Samantha "Sam" Wilcox, Richmond Town Council President - Will Collette

Hope voters see it this way