The first of several moments of silence at New York’s annual September 11 ceremony was rife with emotion Monday – as Americans mark 22 years since the attacks took thousands of lives in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Arlington, Virginia.

Moments before, in a taste of the ceremonies set to take place nationwide, officials in Virginia unfurled US flag on the west side of the Pentagon – the same site where one of the hijacked planes struck.

The attacks happened quickly – claiming nearly 3,000 lives and counting as illnesses to this day continue to affect first responders. The North Tower was hit at 8:46 am, then 17 minutes later the South. A third hijacked plane ripped a hole into the western side of the Pentagon at 9:37 am – leaving another 184 lives lost.

A flag has been unfurled at the site each year since – celebrating the bravery that was on display from first responders as well as countless Good Samaritans who jumped into action that day. There, Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were among those participated in a moment of silence at Monday morning’s ceremony.

Other commemorations currently being held stretch from the other attack sites, and to Alaska and beyond. Joe Biden is due at a ceremony on a military base in Anchorage, and Kamala Harris – in a rare public appearance – is currently at the procession at Ground Zero. 

Others in attendance included Ron DeSantis and Michael Bloomberg – the successor to the mayor at the time of the tragedy, Rudy Giuliani. Despite recent legal woes, the man known as America’s Mayor made the time to attend, as did Mayor Eric Adams.

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Also spotted in the crowd was New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who joined Harris in the crowd for the traditional name reading and the tolling of the bells. 

In total, six moments of silence will be observed – commemorating when each of the towers was struck and collapsed, as well as the times corresponding to the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of United Flight 93. 

The first was held after the tolling of the bells at 8:46am, which marks the beginning of the attacks – when hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into floors 93 through 99 of the North Tower. The impact killed all 92 on board.

At 9:03am, a second moment of silence was held – marking when hijackers deliberately crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into floors 77 through 85 of the South Tower – leaving no doubt in any New Yorkers’ mind at the time that the attacks were planned and malicious in nature.

The next was at 9:37am, when another group of terrorists deliberately crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, just outside the nation’s capital.

A fourth was then held at 9:59am to mark the moment the South Tower, the second structure to be hit, collapsed, with another slated for four minutes later – to mark the moment passengers on United 93 heroically stormed the cockpit in a bid to retake the plane from their attackers.

In response, the hijackers crashed the plane into an empty field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania – likely saving many lives, as many theorized the plane’s target was either the White House or the Capitol. 

The final moment of silent mourning, meanwhile, is slated for 10:28 am – the time that The North Tower collapsed, leaving the 16-acre World Trade Center site in ruins and the collective US consciousness in tatters. 

However, across the country, the rescue effort commenced immediately – a taste of the resilience present in the heart of countless Americans in the centuries before, and after, the senseless tragedy.

The president’s visit, en route to Washington, D.C., from a politically driven trip to India and Vietnam, is a reminder that the impact of 9/11 was felt in every corner of the nation, however remote it may be. 

On that day, ‘we were one country, one nation, one people, just like it should be. That was the feeling – that everyone came together and did what we could, where we were at, to try to help,’ said Eddie Ferguson, the fire-rescue chief in Virginia’s Goochland County.

More than 100 miles from the Pentagon and more than three times as far from New York, the site – like dozens of others across the US – share a sense of connection is enshrined in a local memorial incorporating steel from the World Trade Center´s destroyed twin towers.

The predominantly rural county of 25,000 people holds not just one but two anniversary commemorations: a morning service focused on first responders and an evening ceremony honoring all the victims.

Other communities across the country pay tribute with moments of silence, tolling bells, candlelight vigils and other activities. 

In Shanksville, volunteers at the Flight 93 National Memorial were seen placing a wreath at the entrance of the memorial plaza early Monday, to honor the passengers who heroically stormed the cockpit forcing hijackers to crash in a field only a few miles from Washington, DC.

In Arlington, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin participated in a wreath laying ceremony to honor the 184 people killed at the Pentagon – the last of the tree crash sites. 

In Columbus, Indiana, 911 dispatchers broadcast a remembrance message to police, fire and EMS radios throughout the 50,000-person city, which also holds a public memorial ceremony.

Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts raise and lower the flag at a commemoration in Fenton, Missouri, where a ‘Heroes Memorial’ includes a piece of World Trade Center steel and a plaque honoring 9/11 victim Jessica Leigh Sachs. Some of her relatives live in the St. Louis suburb of 4,000 residents.

‘We´re just a little bitty community,’ said Mayor Joe Maurath, but ‘it´s important for us to continue to remember these events. Not just 9/11, but all of the events that make us free.’

New Jersey’s Monmouth County, which was home to some 9/11 victims, made Sept. 11 a holiday this year for county employees so they could attend commemorations.

As another way of marking the anniversary, many Americans do volunteer work on what Congress has designated both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.

At ground zero, Harris – after facing criticism for a lack of public appearances for the past three years – joined famous faces in Giuliani, DeSantis, Hochul, and Bloomberg in the ceremony on the National September 11 Memorial and Museum plaza. 

The event will not feature remarks from political figures, instead giving the podium to victims’ relatives for an hourslong reading of the names of the dead.

James Giaccone signed up to read again this year in memory of his brother, Joseph Giaccone, 43. The family attends the ceremony every year to hear Joseph’s name.

‘If their name is spoken out loud, they don’t disappear,’ James Giaccone said in a recent interview.

The commemoration is crucial to him.

‘I hope I never see the day when they minimize this,’ he said. ‘It’s a day that changed history.’

Biden, meanwhile, will be the first president to commemorate September 11 in Alaska, or anywhere in the western U.S. 

Havin attended last year’s memorial in Arlington, he’s already facing criticism for the unprecedented decision not to mark the anniversary of 9/11 at one of the three crash sites.

Instead he will spend just two hours at Joint Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska with service members and first responders on his way home from a 24-hour trip to Vietnam dominated by a shambolic and rambling press conference.

He and his predecessors have gone to one or another of the attack sites in most years, though Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama each marked the anniversary on the White House lawn at times. Obama followed one of those observances by recognizing the military with a visit to Fort Meade in Maryland.

First lady Jill Biden is due to lay a wreath at the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon.

In Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked jets crashed after passengers tried to storm the cockpit, a remembrance and wreath-laying is scheduled at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Stoystown operated by the National Park Service. Harris´ husband, Doug Emhoff, is expected to attend the ceremony.

The memorial site will offer a new educational video, virtual tour and other materials for teachers to use in classrooms. Educators with a total of more than 10,000 students have registered for access to the free ‘National Day of Learning’ program, which will be available through the fall, organizers say.

‘We need to get the word out to the next generation,’ said memorial spokesperson Katherine Hostetler, a National Park Service ranger.

Donald Trump would beat both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in respective hypothetical match-ups if the 2024 election were held today, a new poll reported on Tuesday suggests. 

The Republican former president leads Biden by a six-point margin in the latest Harvard CAPS-Harris survey exclusively obtained by The Hill, yet another dire poll for a White House that’s been plagued by sinking approval ratings and multiple crises.

Forty-seven percent of survey respondents would back Trump in 2024, compared to 41 percent who support Biden. Twelve percent said they were undecided. 

Harris fares even worse than her boss, trailing Trump by 11 percentage points. 

The vice president received 38 percent of the hypothetical vote, while Trump had 49 percent — two points higher than he’d score against Biden. 

While Biden has made his intention to run for a second term known, Trump has repeatedly teased a 2024 bid but has yet to say for sure if he’ll mount a third presidential campaign. 

And when Biden selected Harris as his running mate, making history in the process, she was widely thought to be the one to take up his mantle when the 79-year-old commander-in-chief was finished.

But her deep unpopularity — which is even greater than Biden’s — has left left-wing operatives concerned about who to put up in the next presidential election cycle. 

In perhaps good news for Harris, she does come out on top in a hypothetical match-up against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The GOP governor scored 38 percent of support in the Harvard survey, with Harris coming in slightly higher at 40 percent. 

The former House Republican who was elected to lead the Sunshine State with Trump’s support has been a rising star within the GOP, particularly with his vocal criticism of the Biden administration and resistance to its COVID-19 public health guidelines. 

He’s come second to Trump in multiple GOP voter polls about 2024, though the former president is still widely seen as the favorite candidate so far. 

Although the presidential election is still a long way away, Biden’s unpopularity still a bad sign for Congressional Democrats looking to hold onto their slim majority in November’s midterm elections. 

A recent NBC survey released on Sunday shows Republicans with a slight edge over Democrats in the upcoming races. Forty-six percent of voters said they would prefer Republicans to control Congress in 2023, compared to 44 percent who support Democrats staying in power.

NBC’s last poll in January had Democrats with a slight edge over the GOP for a 47 to 46 percent margin. 

The same poll shows Biden’s approval rating at 40 percent, the lowest number recorded by NBC so far in the Democrat’s presidency. 

They’re also contending with pervasive supply chain issues and 40-year record-high inflation, both of which are sending the cost of living skyrocketing for millions of everyday Americans. 

Russia’s war in Ukraine is also taking a toll on Biden’s White House tenure. Aside from forcing prices at the pump to skyrocket, multiple polls show US voters both fearing an imminent war with Moscow and having little faith in their president to navigate the international crisis.  

Sunday’s survey saw respondents asked ‘how much confidence’ they have in Biden’s ability to navigate Russia’s brutal attack. 

The largest share — 44 percent — said they have ‘very little’ faith in the president, while 27 percent have ‘just some’ confidence in him, for a combined 71 percent.

Only 28 percent of Americans polled said they share ‘a great deal’ or ‘quite a bit’ of support for Biden’s handling of Ukraine — a far cry from the confidence the president has sought to project through decades of foreign policy experience in the Senate.

And a majority of people seem to believe Biden’s actions so far have put the country on a path toward direct conflict with Russia, despite the US’s stated preferred policy of de-escalation through diplomacy.  

Sixteen percent of Americans said they believe their nation is already at war with Russia based on Biden and his officials’ handling of the crisis. A whopping 44 percent said the devastating conflict ‘will be within the next year.’

Just 34 percent were confident the US would not be embroiled in a war with Moscow.   

And 56 percent of respondents to a Monday Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey said Biden is ‘not tough enough’ and six percent believe he is being ‘too tough’ on Russia.

Thirty-six percent of those polled said the president’s response to Putin has been ‘about right.’

A ‘sex slave’ has reportedly escaped from a Russian ‘dungeon’ where she was held captive for 14 years by a ‘maniac’ who allegedly raped her more than a thousand times and chopped up and boiled a second victim.   

The woman, named as Ekaterina B, was held in the kidnapper’s home from when she was 19 in 2009, she claims.

She told police that she was subjected to repeated rapes, local reports say. She is now 33 and her identity has not been disclosed.

Vladimir Cheskidov, 51, is currently under armed guard in a psychiatric hospital, facing a criminal investigation into murder, rape and kidnapping.

Another woman, in her 30s and named Oksana, was allegedly killed and dismembered by Cheskidov in 2011, the Russian Investigative Committee said. He allegedly boiled the remains, some of which were found in a cellar.

The man’s mother Valentina lived in the same timber village house in Smolina, Chelyabinsk region, and was aware of the kidnapping of his victims, according to reports.

She was under interrogation today, and taken to the home she shared with her son by detectives.

Ekaterina managed to flee after the man got drunk and his mother called an ambulance for him, cops say.

Incapacitated, he failed for once to padlock her into her ‘dungeon’, with some reports saying this was in a basement.

She escaped and found her sister Elena, who she had not been in touch with for 14 years, and then called police.

The kidnapped woman told her sister Elena that she was permanently threatened.

‘He walked everywhere with me holding a knife, he always had a knife in his hand,’ she said.

They had met when she was 19 and offered her a drink at a railway station, she told her sister.

‘Then he invited me home,’ she said. ‘And it all started there.’

When Vladimir went out he tied her up, fastened her to a beam and taped her mouth shut with duct tape, it is reported.

He freed her to do housework, and she was expected to clean, cook, and look after his mother – as well as provide him with sex.

The room where the woman was kept was equipped with various muzzles, according to local reports.

Laptops and discs with pornographic content, were confiscated from the house. Sex toys used during the alleged torture sessions were also seized by police.

He forced her to drink vodka with him, and ‘severely beat’ her.

She had been from a ‘troubled family’ and while she had a sister, no other relatives were looking for her.

Ekaterina finally escaped by convincing the man’s mother that Cheskidov would kill both of them.

This made the mother summon an ambulance when the man became drunk.

A report from Press Khata said ‘bones and a crushed skull with traces of rust’ were the only remains of the other woman.

There are also investigations into the fate of his father, and an earlier wife, according to reports.

Allegedly his wife had died after falling out of a window, while the father slipped and fell resulting in his fatality.

Some reports suggested remains had been buried in the garden of the village house.

Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda branded the alleged kidnapper, rapist and murderer as ‘subhuman’.

He ‘used to have friends and then he became a recluse’ said the media outlet, citing locals.

His mother, Valentina, at one time worked in a local psychiatric hospital.

Later she sold spectacles from her side of the divided house.

Ekaterina had been reported missing in 2009 but police were unable to trace her – or the other girl who was kidnapped.

Local reports say a sledgehammer is suspected to have been used to kill the other woman.

Baza media outlet reported: ‘In 2009, she met at the Chelyabinsk railway station with a 37-year-old [at the time] Vladimir [Cheskidov].

‘He invited her to his home in the village of Smolino, where he threatened her with a knife and told her that she had been kidnapped.

‘He then locked her in a separate room of his house. He put bars on the windows of the room and locked the room with a padlock.

‘According to preliminary data, all these 14 years Ekaterina lived in this room.

‘According to the woman, Vladimir periodically raped her under threat of murder.’

A criminal case initially for kidnapping has been opened against the man.

Reports say the house was divided into two inside, and the mother lived separate from her son and his kidnapped woman.

The Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement: ‘During the investigation of the criminal case, the involvement of the suspect [Vladimir Cheskidov] in the murder of a local resident in 2011 was established.

‘On this fact, the investigating authorities of the Russian Investigative Committee for the Chelyabinsk region initiated a criminal case under Part 1 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation [murder].

‘After committing the murder, the suspect dismembered the woman’s body and buried the remains in the cellar of the house.

‘Currently, the man is under the supervision of law enforcement officers in a medical facility.

‘Investigators and forensic investigators of the Russian Investigative Committee are working at the scene.’

Earlier a kidnapping case was opened, and he is also suspected of raping her throughout the 14 years of her captivity.

The pain in Spain falls badly for his plane: Passenger who held up flight by being late falls from boarding gangway onto the runway in bizarre bid to board jet

• Man filmed pleading with airport workers after getting to end of the gangway 
• He plunged several feet to tarmac as astonished plane passengers looked on
• It was unclear if he was allowed to board the flight after his desperate plunge

By Natalia Penza

Published: 06:30 EDT, 16 June 2023 | Updated: 09:52 EDT, 16 June 2023