An airline ticket agent who checked in two of the 9/11 hijackers admits he ‘didn’t listen to his gut’ despite their suspicious behavior ahead of the attacks. 

Michael Tuohey was working at Portland International Jetport in Maine on the morning of September 11, 2001, when he helped al-Qaeda terrorists Mohamed Atta and Abdul Aziz al Omari get to their connecting flight in Boston. 

The terrorists made their flight to Boston in the nick of time, Tuohey said, before they hijacked the next aircraft and flew the jet into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. 

Tuohey said he has been left haunted by the thought that he could have prevented the attacks, as he believed the men were suspicious but he did not stop them.

‘If anyone looked like a terrorist, he was a terrorist,’ he said of Atta.  

‘My gut instinct was good, but there were laws, there were laws against profiling people,’ the ticket agent, 80, told RTE. 

‘It’s just that it could have changed something. Not that it would have, but it could have. Who knows?… I didn’t listen to my gut. And it turned out to be an awful thing.’ 

Tuohey said he encountered the two men struggling to find their way through the Maine airport, as they had arrived just half an hour before their flight. 

‘They looked confused,’ he recalled, saying he helped the men through their check-in procedure to make the connecting flight. 

Tuohey recalled a rude interaction with chief hijacker Mohamed Atta (left) and Abdul Aziz al Omari (right), but he helped them make their connecting flight before the hijackings 

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The ticket agent said he was surprised to see the two men had purchased first class seats, and said Atta became frustrated with him when he was slowly checking his flight credentials. 

He recalled Atta barking at him, ‘They told me it would be a one-step check in’, so Tuohey gave him his boarding pass and sent him on his way. 

Tuohey said he told Atta that because he had a first class ticket, he should head to the Admiral Lounge when he got to Boston, where they would ‘set him up’ with a more comfortable experience.

He said Atta responded to his friendly suggestion by bluntly repeating, ‘They told me it would be one-step check in.’

This rude remark caught Tuohey off-guard, he said, and he then warned the terrorist: ‘Mr Atta, if you don’t get upstairs real quick, you’re going to miss your flight altogether.’

He said Atta then gave an ‘order’ to al Omari, and the two men hastily picked up their belongings and headed for their flight. 

Tuohey said he was glad to see the men walk away because of their rude encounter, as he ‘didn’t want to deal with this guy anymore.’

Tuohey, seen during his time working at Portland International Jetport in Maine, said he has been left haunted by the thought that he could have prevented the attacks

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When Tuohey saw the 9/11 attacks unfolding on the news, he said it quickly dawned on him that he may have encountered the hijackers that day 

Some time later, Tuohey said he saw the 9/11 attacks unfolding on the news, and a colleague reminded him that he had helped passengers get onto the flight to Boston.

‘Oh my god, the poor guys, they’re dead,’ Tuohey recalled thinking, unaware at the time that the Atta and al Omari could have been responsible.

‘And then it dawned on me, wait a minute… if anyone looked like a terrorist, he is a terrorist,’ he said.

‘That passed through my mind earlier that day.’ 

Tuohey said even though he had his suspicions about Atta, he understood ‘there are laws against profiling people’, and he believed at the time he would have been accused of racial profiling.

‘I don’t want to get into a pissing contest about that,’ he said. ‘My opinion is, I didn’t listen to my gut, and it turned out to be an awful thing. 

‘It wasn’t that I was right, it’s just that it could have changed something… I followed all the guidelines, I did my job, and 3,000 people ended up paying with their lives.’

Need to know

A massive security operation is underway as the US President lands in Dublin tomorrow.

Here’s everything you need to know about the US President’s trip to Ireland:

• US President Donald Trump is due to fly into Dublin Airport at around 8am on Air Force One.
• It’s expected the US President will have a massive entourage with him, up to 1,000 people including US secret service personnel.
• Over 20 US military aircraft have touched down in Ireland over the past week, bringing personnel and equipment for what will be one of the state’s biggest security operations.
• After landing in Dublin Airport Trump will be ferried straight to the Phoenix Park, where all of his events in the capital will take place.
• He will first meet President Catherine Connolly at Áras an Uachtaráin, with sources close to preparations saying it will be a “brief” courtesy call.
• Here, Trump will be greeted by a guard of honour outside before meeting the President.
• A bilateral meeting between the US President and Taoiseach Micheál Martin will then be held at Farmleigh House.
• President Trump will then meet industry leaders and give a speech at the US Ambassador’s Deerfield Residence.
• Early plans for Trump’s trip included turning the sod at the new US Embassy in Ballsbridge, however, it was decided to keep all Dublin events in the Phoenix Park for security purposes.
• The Phoenix Park is currently on lock-down and will be until 6pm on Saturday.
• After the Phoenix Park President Trump will be brought back to Dublin Airport and will fly on Air Force One to Shannon Airport.
• He will then travel on a Marine One helicopter to his golf course in Doonbeg, arriving at around 3pm to attend the Irish Open.
• Security in Doonbeg is expected to be extremely tight. It will be a massive logistical challenge for gardaí and US secret service personnel, with the event drawing in 75,000 spectators over the week.
• After gracing the golf course on Saturday, Trump will sleep in his five-star luxurious resort.
• He is then expected to present the Irish Open cup on Sunday before flying back to the White House from Shannon Airport that evening.

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.

Pata is the name of the brand new Indian restaurant taking over the former Mangrove on Manchester Road, which closed its doors earlier this year.

Work has been going on behind the scenes to completely transform the restaurant, and after keeping its new identity under wraps, the family behind it have now revealed the name for the first time.

Owner Mohammed Naeem Khan says Pata is getting “very close” to opening – and he believes customers are going to love what they find inside.

He said: “I’m very excited, I’m over the moon. I just can’t wait to open.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s stressful, but it’s going to be worth it at the end of the day.

“The support from the locals has been incredible and I can’t wait to get people down.

“They’re going to love it.”

The Bolton News previously revealed that Mohammed, 24, from Rochdale, was taking over the restaurant alongside his brothers, with the family promising to bring a new style of Indian dining to Westhoughton.

Inside the brand new restaurant (Image: Pata)

The site was previously home to the popular Mangrove Indian Restaurant and Takeaway, which closed earlier this year after serving diners in the town for years.

Since then, Mohammed and his family have been busy carrying out an extensive refurbishment as they prepare to breathe new life into the restaurant.

One thing they had not revealed, however, was its name.

That can now be confirmed as Pata, a name chosen after extensive research by the family.

Mohammed said: “We’re thrilled to share that we have a final name.

“We wanted something that would fit with what we’re doing and the unique experience we want to create.

“We did a lot of research into the name because we wanted something that nobody else had got and something that went well with our logo.”

The brand new name and logo (Image: Pata)

Mohammed said the name was inspired by leaves and the coriander, herbs and spices which play such an important part in Indian cooking.

He said: “Pata means leaf and we use a lot of leaves, coriander, herbs and spices in Indian food.

“Nobody else had got that name around here and we did a lot of research into it.

“It also goes really well with our logo.”

Mohammed previously told The Bolton News that former Mangrove owner Abdul Atique was a long-standing family friend who had grown up with his father.

The brothers had been keen to take over the restaurant for some time before eventually getting their chance when Mangrove closed.

Now months of planning and refurbishment are approaching their end, with Mohammed saying the restaurant is preparing to open “very soon”.

He said: “It’s going to be a great, unique experience that everyone loves.

“We just can’t wait to get people through the doors.”

An exact opening date for Pata has yet to be announced.

Coronation Street fans are worried that Shona Platt will be killed off after a series of “weird” scenes involving her long-lost sister and her estranged dad aired on Friday night

Coronation Street fans are worried that Shona Platt will be killed off after “weird” scenes that aired on Friday night’s episode of the ITV soap.

The café waitress, who has been played by Julia Goulding since 2016, is married to David Platt (Jack P Shepherd) and the couple have already been through a lot this year following the premature birth of their daughter Harper. In February, Shona’s long-lost sister Jodie (Olivia Frances-Brown) turned up as part of the programme’s crossover with Emmerdale.

Despite having never been mentioned before she arrived, it has been established that Jodie and Shona had a frosty relationship in the years before they reunited. Viewers are still none the wiser as to what Jodie’s story is, but there is something mysterious about her.

Over the last six months, she has stolen various items from neighbours, pretended to he Harper’s mum and in the latest episode of the world’s longest-running TV soap, things took yet another turn. When her dad Doug turned up in the café, she bumped into a mum she had been talking to on a parenting website and it became clear that she has been pretending to be Shona.

In emotional scenes, Shona’s estranged dad spoke to her he revealed he had been diagnosed with bipolar, but conversation quickly turned to his lack of parenting skills.

Shona told him: “I wasn’t the only victim of your bad parenting. Our Jodie is certainly damaged too.” He was about address the topic but then Jodie burst in and said: “How you getting on? Has she forgiven you yet?” Jodie then convinced Shona to let their dad stay for the day.

Shona then pressed her dad on what he was going to say earlier, but he claimed it was nothing. Jodie then told him: “We’ve both got what we want, so… let’s not rock the boat.” Doug then left the house and made plans to see his daughters again. As he drove off, Jodie said: “I hope you’re right about letting him back into our lives.”

Just towards the end of the episode, Jodie sat in the living room alone, plucked David and Shona’s wedding photo out of an album and scribbled out her sister’s face.

Reacting to the bizarre scenes, one fan wrote on X: “Is Shona and Jodie’s dad finally going to give us the backstory we’ve all been waiting for to understand why the hell Jodie behaves the way she does??”

Another said: “Jodie pretending to be Shona is so f*****g weird A third predicted that this could ultimately end in Shona’s death if Jodie is not stopped soon. They wrote: “Jodie needs to be stopped. Her vendetta against Shona is so stupid – I hope Shona isn’t going to die or get seriously hurt because of this psycho.”

Coronation Street airs Monday to Friday at 8:30pm on ITV1 and is available to stream from 7am on ITV X.

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Families in Selby who sign up will receive a free book through the post once a month until their child turns five, as part of a Dolly Parton Imagination Library project approved by David Skaith, the elected Mayor of York and North Yorkshire.

The scheme is part of a ‘Cradle to Career’ campaign to support young people across the region and to offer them the best start in life. The £400,000 scheme will fund two pilot projects: a baby box pilot in Scarborough, based on a Finnish model, and the children’s literacy scheme in Selby.​

Speaking at a meeting on Friday, September 11, Mr Skaith said: “The Dolly Parton Imagination Library aims to improve early literacy and school readiness and encourage a love of reading and stronger family bonds.

David Skaith At Selby Library

“I know the opportunity and enjoyment I take from reading to my two young children and the opportunity it has to give children the best start in life.

“The timing of this follows the death of Dolly Parton, who knew what it was like to grow up in abject poverty and the importance that reading and literacy had on her to build a better life for her and her family.

“The Dolly Parton Imagination Library has donated more than 330 million books worldwide, and we are incredibly proud that Selby will be the next home of the chapter of her legacy.”

The country singer from Tennessee died last month after a seven-decade career spanning 10 Grammy awards, the sale of more than 100 million records worldwide, and the writing of over 3,000 songs.

Founded by Ms Parton in 1995, the Imagination Library has become one of the world’s best-known early literacy programmes, helping millions of children develop a lifelong love of reading.

Cabinet, York And North Yorkshire Combined Authority 11.09.26.

The Cradle to Career ambition reflects Mayor David Skaith’s commitment to ensuring children and young people across the region have the support, opportunities and skills they need at every stage of their journey.

Since launching in the UK in 2007, the Imagination Library has provided more than seven million books to over 60,000 children.

Speaking at a meeting of the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority (YNYCA) on Friday, Cllr Mark Crane, the deputy leader of North Yorkshire Council, said: “Of course this project was started before she died and I think she leaves a fantastic legacy in the work she has done.

“We are all indebted to her for the fantastic things she did, and she would have been a billionaire if she hadn’t done all the charity projects she did.”

Cllr Bob Webb.

Cllr Bob Webb, a member of the YNYCA cabinet, highlighted the importance of “fostering a love of reading for children and, importantly, for their families as well”.

He said: “That practice of reading together and for a child to see their parents reading makes such a difference to their lives in terms of developing cognition, speech and language.

“I read recently, following Parton’s death, that it was really close to her heart because she felt her father didn’t reach his full potential because he couldn’t read because they came from an incredibly impoverished background.

“We know that if we can get comprehension right, so the ability to understand the world around them, then young people can access that world around them much more easily because they have that capital and can learn and engage whether in school, their lives, or in their careers.”

The ambition for Cradle to Career will also cover primary, secondary and post-16 education ages, including careers days, career hubs, apprenticeships and internships in areas such as teaching, construction and STEM-based subjects.

The initiative supports the Mayor’s priority of creating Healthy and Resilient Communities by improving outcomes for children and young people, helping them to thrive throughout education and into employment.

A military aircraft entering ‘spurious’ flight data into the UK’s air traffic control system has been blamed for a meltdown which grounded thousands of planes, it emerged tonight.

Some 2,000 flights were grounded to and from the UK after a four-hour technical failure at National Air Traffic Services (NATS) on Tuesday, hitting more than 300,000 travellers with delays or cancellations.

Sources said NATS’ operations director, Kathryn Leahy, told industry bosses during a call that evening that a flight plan submitted by a UK military aircraft triggered the shutdown of Britain’s skies for several hours.

Industry insiders said bosses were ‘shocked’ by the briefing given that a similar meltdown in 2023 was caused by a rare software glitch within NATS’ ‘flight processing system’, which co-ordinates thousands of flight plans daily.

Details of the call were first reported by the Financial Times. 

If found to be the root cause, it will likely lead to growing calls for the sacking of NATS boss Martin Rolfe, as industry sources said they believe air traffic control should be able to nip such incidents in the bud before they explode into a full-blown crisis like on Tuesday.

It came as Labour was ridiculed today as it emerged the aviation minister boasted about giving Britain’s air traffic control ‘increased resilience’ – just a day before it went into meltdown.

Keir Mather said the air traffic control system was ‘well prepared’ after ministers introduced new laws in a bid to prevent a repeat of a previous meltdown in 2023.

He made the comments in response to a written Parliamentary question, unearthed by the Mail, on Monday.

But just 24 hours later the system went into meltdown after a four-hour technical failure at NATS, forcing the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights.

More than 330,000 passengers were hit by cancellations and delays over several days as airlines struggled to recover at major airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted.

Mr Mather was appointed the aviation minister last September despite being aged just 27 – making him the youngest serving minister since William Gladstone in 1834 – and having no background in the sector.

In the Parliamentary question, he was asked what steps had been taken ‘to reduce the risk of widespread flight disruption caused by air traffic control failures’.

Aviation minister Keir Mather said air traffic control was ‘well prepared’ and had ‘increased resilience’ – just a day before Tuesday’s meltdown 

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Thousands of passengers were left stranded or delayed, with many sleeping on airport floors, during the fallout of the meltdown 

He insisted 34 recommendations made in a review by regulator the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) after the 2023 meltdown had all been implemented, adding that the aviation sector – including NATS – was ‘well prepared to respond to incidents when they occur in the future’.

He also boasted about new laws which came into force in December, making it easier for air traffic controllers to be recruited from other countries and the military, adding: ‘This will increase resilience in the UK’s Air Traffic Controllers system and reduce the risk of delays.’

But during Tuesday’s meltdown, NATS appeared to be no better prepared than the previous fiasco three years ago.

Tory shadow transport secretary Richard Holden said: ‘Labour are victims of their own supreme hubris.

‘Hundreds of thousands of passengers have been left on aircraft for hours, or faced cancelled and delayed flights because the supposed resilience Labour ministers talked up failed when it was needed most.

‘Labour ministers can’t have it both ways: if they boast about systems they created when they’re working they should take responsibility when they fail.’

Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman, added: ‘Andy Burnham’s Government is proving just as incompetent as Keir Starmer’s.

‘This meltdown has cost billions of pounds and ruined the travel plans of thousands of passengers.

‘Why isn’t anyone being fired for yet another screw-up?’

NATS boss Martin Rolfe, who received £1.4million in pay and bonuses last year, has come under fire over the latest meltdown 

Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman, said Andy Burnham’s government is ‘proving just as incompetent as Keir Starmer’s’ 

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NATS boss Martin Rolfe, who received £1.4million in pay and bonuses last year, has also come under fire over the latest meltdown.

He has faced growing calls to resign from his post after also presiding over the 2023 meltdown, which affected more than 250,000 passengers.

The August bank holiday failure that year was sparked when a small piece of incorrect data set off a mass system failure lasting just a few hours.

Another incident under Mr Rolfe’s leadership affected hundreds of flights in July last year and was blamed on a radar-related failure.

It was only a 20-minute outage but the knock-on effect caused some 250 flights to be cancelled.

The bosses of Ryanair and Wizz Air have been among those calling for Mr Rolfe to be sacked.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander ‘read him the riot act’, according to sources, after hauling him into Whitehall on Wednesday morning.

But she has dismissed calls for him to be sacked, instead giving him a week to compile a report into the fiasco to hand to her by Wednesday.

NATS, which serves 15 UK airports, has said the fiasco was sparked after its flight-processing system failed.

It has left thousands of travellers and holidaymakers out of pocket because the CAA said that under passenger rights rules, the issue is ‘likely to be considered the result of extraordinary circumstances’.

It added: ‘This means that although passengers should be looked after by airlines, they are unlikely to be entitled to compensation.’

The Department of Transport directed the Mail to comments made by Ms Alexander today while speaking to LBC, in which she said: ‘Earlier this year I was assured that all of those [CAA] recommendations were implemented.

‘The CAA produced reports in March and June of this year which I reviewed carefully but something has gone wrong here clearly.

‘We need to get to the bottom of it and you know I think it’s my responsibility as the Transport Secretary acting on behalf of passengers who will be rightly angry and frustrated, and the airlines, to make sure that I hold NATS and also the Civil Aviation Authority to account.’

NATS is a public-private partnership, with the government holding the controlling stake. The rest is split between a group of UK airlines including BA, easyJet and Virgin Atlantic as well as Heathrow and NATS staff.

A defense lawyer has been held in contempt over a brief containing made-up police testimony and witnesses fabricated by OpenAI‘s ChatGPT, according to New Mexico’s highest court.

The New Mexico Supreme Court fined the attorney, Stephen Aarons, and held him in contempt Wednesday for failing to verify the accuracy of the court filing, which Aarons said he prepared with help from the AI program.

The filing “contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses,” the court said.

The panel also said Aarons had “demonstrated a lack of remorse and a lack of concern for his client.” The justices fined Aarons $5,000 and said they will refer him to an attorney disciplinary board for investigation.

Aarons told Reuters that he had used ChatGPT to summarize the trial proceedings when he agreed to take up the defendant’s appeal last year, and did not understand the degree to which AI could “hallucinate” facts.

“I am remorseful but hopeful that the disciplinary board takes into account it was an honest mistake,” he said. “It is a lesson learned for all professionals who rely upon this powerful but sometimes unstable technology.”

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The court’s sanction is the latest in a growing number of cases in which state and federal judges have disciplined lawyers for submitting court documents generated by AI tools without adequately vetting them. Some judges have also faced scrutiny over the use of AI.

Dozens of lawyers have been sanctioned for filing briefs where AI made up case ​citations or misquoted the law. Aarons’ filing appears to have gone further, containing fabricated witness testimony in a criminal appeal.

Aarons, a private attorney based in Santa Fe, was handling the appeal of Oscar Renee Sandoval, who pleaded not guilty to the murder of the mother of his children before he was convicted and sentenced last year to life in prison.

The appeal is still pending and was assigned on September 2 to Kim Chavez Cook, a New Mexico public defender. Cook declined to comment.

The district attorney’s office for Doña Ana County also declined to comment.

The state supreme court last month ordered Aarons to explain how the fabricated material, which it said appeared to include “fictional statements that the shooter was wearing dark pants and a white shirt,” was included in his primary brief in the appeal.

Aarons told the court at an August 21 hearing that he fed a computer-generated transcript and other case materials to ChatGPT, presuming it would generate “a bulletproof summary.”

The justices sounded incredulous that Aarons was not fully aware of how AI can make mistakes.

“Counsel, do you watch the news? Do you listen to the radio? Do you read anything about what’s going on in the world?” Justice C. Shannon Bacon said at the hearing. “Because the problem with lawyers relying on AI hallucinations is an above-the-fold story every single day.”

Norfolk’s vast sandy beaches are its chief draw for visitors: even on the busiest summer day there is always space for games, kite-flying or a family picnic in the dunes. Boating, crabbing, digging for cockles and wading in creeks provides hours of entertainment for all.

But there’s much more to Norfolk’s coast than its beaches. It’s also a landscape of dense pine forest and large expanses of salt marsh, which flush purple with sea-lavender in August. Birdlife is astonishingly rich, and wildflowers include yellow-horned poppies and lilac-flowering sea pea.

Inland, the undulating countryside and sleepy flint-built villages are perfect for gentle cycling, walking or touring by car. Grand stately homes make enjoyable days out, and almost every village has a sublimely beautiful medieval church at its centre.

Lively Georgian towns such as Burnham Market and Holt offer quirky shopping – and, wherever you are, you’re never far from an atmospheric pamment-floored pub serving local ales, or an excellent delicatessen selling the region’s specialities. Look out for pungent cheeses, smoked fish and salt-marsh flavoured honey.

Trains are disrupted as a result of the incident

A person has died after being hit by a train in Ely. British Transport Police was called to the trainline near Ely just after 11am today (Friday, September 11) due to reports of a casualty on the tracks.

The person was pronounced dead at the scene. A BTP spokesperson said: “Officers were called to the line near Ely at 11.16am today following reports of a casualty on the tracks.

“Paramedics also attended, however sadly a person was pronounced dead at the scene. Enquiries are ongoing into the circumstances leading up to the death.”

Trains continue to be disrupted throughout Cambridgeshire, with disruption expected until 3.45pm. All lines to and from Ely remain closed.

People are advised that their trains may be cancelled, delayed up to 60 minutes or revised. Passengers may be entitled to compensation if their journey is affected.

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