September 13, 2011, 11:35 am
By Cody Switzer
In small cities nationwide, a rush of projects started soon after the 2001 attacks to build memorials have sputtered as costs have ballooned and the economic downturn has depressed government and private support, according to the Associated Press.
Hundreds of small memorials have sprouted in the past 10 years, but numerous communities have scaled back or abandoned such projects, and many monuments remain unfinished, the news service says.
Meanwhile, even ambitious efforts like the national memorial in Shanksville, Pa., to mark the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 have struggled. It still needs $10-million.
Memorials started to grow popular in the 1980s as way to commemorate key events, says Erika Doss, a University of Notre Dame professor. “People think if they can make a memorial, they can come to terms with what happened.”
September 13, 2011, 11:23 am
By Andy Markowitz
As the U.S. arms of major international Islamic charities have been closed or subjected to heightened scrutiny in the past decade, giving by Muslims in America is increasingly going to U.S. charities, Marketplace reports.
American Muslims observing zakat are directing funds that once flowed to Islamic relief groups to aid Afghan refugees or Gaza children into building mosques locally and supporting clinics and soup kitchens in their communities, according to the public radio program.
The shift in priorities has provided a boost to local Muslim charities such as Chicago’s Inner-City Muslim Action Network, which has seen its annual budget grow from $200,000 to $2-million in the past decade.
September 7, 2011, 11:11 am
By Andy Markowitz
Curators at the 9/11 Memorial Museum set to open next year at the former World Trade Center site must walk a fine line in presenting the grislier details of the 2001 terrorist attacks, says Reuters.
Some of the more potentially disturbing displays, such as photos of people plummeting from the burning towers or a recording of a flight-attendant’s voice just before she died, will be placed in special alcoves away from the main exhibition, with warnings as to their content so museumgoers will not be confronted by them unawares.
“We’re not here to traumatize our visitors,” said Alice Greenwald, director of the museum slated to open on Sept. 11, 2012. But she added, with regard to the pictures of falling victims, “It is one of the aspects of the 9/11 story that if you didn’t include it, you’re not telling the story.”
September 7, 2011, 10:57 am
By Andy Markowitz
A Michigan museum devoted to Arab-Americans is staging numerous activities this week to show the impact of the Sept. 11 attacks on the nation’s Arab and Muslim communities, says the Associated Press.
The Arab American National Museum, in Dearborn–home to one of the largest Arab communities outside the Middle East–will host panel discussions and conferences and record oral histories about post-9/11 life. Admission will be free on Sunday’s Sept. 11 anniversary.
Museum head Anan Ameri said the events will highlight both positive and negative influences, including increased harassment of American Muslims and enhanced support and cooperation with other faith and ethnic communities.
“I believe that the Arab-American community and the Muslim community realized after 9/11 how little people knew about them,” Mr. Ameri said. “It made us reflect … that we should maybe have done…
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September 1, 2011, 4:49 pm
By Cody Switzer
The 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks will be marked by the opening of a national memorial—but its companion museum will have to wait another year to open, reports Crain’s New York Business.
The September 11 museum, which will be 80,000 square feet and seven stories under the memorial, has raised $57-million of the $79-million it needs to finish construction and pay for its initial operating costs.
The museum will include exhibits about what happened on the day of the attacks and feature artifacts like a fire engine from a New York Fire Department crew that lost 11 members.
The museum isn’t without controversy, though. Plans to store 9,000 bone fragments and other remains in the museum have met resistance from family members who would like those remains to be buried at the monument.
The museum has also attracted complaints about a possible $25 admission fee that …
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September 1, 2011, 4:16 pm
By Cody Switzer
Save the Children, the international children’s aid charity, says that a decade after the September 11 terrorist attacks, most states are unprepared to protect children in an emergency, lacking plans for evacuating day care facilities and schools, reunifying families, or protecting children with special needs.
The study found that 34 states lack plans to take care of youngsters of any age. Twenty-one states don’t require child-care facilities to draft an evacuation plan. Twenty-two don’t require the facilities to outline how they will reunite families. Nine states don’t require elementary and high schools to adopt disaster plans.
Only six states have plans that the charity says guarantee children will get the care they need in a disaster.
September 1, 2011, 7:56 am
By Cody Switzer
Government policies enacted after 9/11 hurt Muslim charities in the short term, decreasing donations by 20 percent to 50 percent immediately after the attacks, and continue to cause fund-raising challenges, says a new report released by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a nonpartisan research group that studies Muslim issues.
The report, “Charitable Giving Among Muslim Americans: Ten Years After 9/11” by Zahra Jamal, a fellow at the institute, was based on 200 interviews.
She says government policies designed to deter terrorism have made many donors afraid to give to Muslim charities. Federal regulators and lawmakers pushed for new policies in the wake of the attacks, saying they were concerned that some charities had served as conduits for transferring money to terrorist groups.
“Since September 11, 2001, Muslim nonprofits, charities, and individuals have…
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