Five months after pulling back from most of its Los Angeles soundstage business, production services company Quixote is selling much of its equipment operation.
Equipment rental house Cinelease recently announced that it had acquired Quixote’s grip and lighting and production supplies assets in Los Angeles and New York. The transaction resulted in roughly 60 layoffs, Quixote said. Most of the affected employees were based in L.A. with a few in New York.
The production supplies business will operate as Cinelease Pro Supplies.
“Our sales team is reaching out directly to clients with active or upcoming rentals from these businesses and will work with Cinelease to help ensure a smooth transition,” the company said in an email on Sept. 15 to its clients. “It has been our privilege to serve you, and we look forward to continuing to be your source for production and events transportation.”
Quixote has also closed its production services operation in Atlanta, following earlier closures in New Orleans and Albuquerque. Quixote’s Griffith Park studio will remain open.
Cinelease, a Los Angeles lighting and grip rental company founded in 1977, has been expanding in recent months. It has added rigging and fencing businesses and is pursuing work in live events and sports alongside film and TV.
Quixote was founded in 1995. Los Angeles-based real estate company Hudson Pacific Properties Inc. bought it in 2022 for $360 million, saying at the time that the acquisition would help address growing demand for soundstage space.
Quixote’s retreat comes amid a major slowdown in Hollywood production, as many productions leave California in pursuit of tax incentives around the world. The downturn has hit studio real estate hard. Radford Studio Center, which sold for $1.85 billion in 2021, was seized by lenders after its previous owner defaulted on its debt. Netflix agreed to buy the lot for between $330 million and $400 million. The Television City lot is also up for sale.
On Thursday, a bipartisan group of congressional leaders introduced a bill to create a federal film and television tax credit, the Motion Picture, Television and Entertainment Revitalization Act. It would establish a 20% tax credit on U.S. labor for eligible film and TV productions. Its path is uncertain, however. The House is in recess until after the midterm elections, and supporters hope to pass the bill at the end of the year.
“As we enter this next chapter, our Fleet team remains committed to providing the service, expertise and support our clients have come to expect from Quixote,” the company wrote in an email. “We look forward to continuing to work with you to make your visions a reality.”
Times staff writer Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — For the third time this month, the Supreme Court has rejected Missouri’s bid for one more Republican-leaning congressional district.
With no dissents, the justices upheld a state court order requiring the use of a 2022 election map, which favors Republicans in six of the eight districts.
“At this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos,” the justices wrote.
The GOP, with the backing of conservative federal judges, wanted to use a new 2025 election map that redrew the district in Kansas City that had elected a Black Democrat.
That would have given Republicans a 7-1 advantage, but the Supreme Court stood in the way.
“As a matter of state law, the 2022 map — not the 2025 map — must be used in the 2026 congressional election,” the justices said in an unsigned opinion. “This Court has repeatedly cautioned that lower federal courts should not ‘alter the election rules of a state on the eve of an election.”
Each side in this messy dispute accused the other of seeking to change the voting districts on the eve of the election.
On Tuesday, the opponents of the newly drawn GOP-friendly map appealed to the Supreme Court for the third time. They said it is too late to switch the districts because ballots had gone out based on the existing map.
They said the Republicans “demand a new map after votes have already been cast. Ballots using the 2022 map have been printed and mailed, and absentee voting, both by mail and in-person, began today.”
But the state’s Republican attorneys said the primary elections took place under the new 2025 map, and that argues for keeping those districts in place for the general election in November.
Last September, the Missouri General Assembly, following President Trump’s lead, voted to redraw its eight congressional districts. In recent years, the state had sent six Republicans and two Democrats to Congress.
The Legislature’s goal was to flip one more seat in favor of Republicans. The new map would do that by breaking up the Kansas City district that had elected Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Black Democrat, with a new district that favored a Republican.
But a group called People Not Politicians and its executive director, Richard von Glahn, gathered more than 300,000 signatures for a referendum to challenge the new law before it took effect.
After waiting nine months to respond, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, denied the referendum in early August on the same day the primary elections got underway.
Von Glahn and his group of voters sued and won a unanimous decision from the Missouri Supreme Court on Sept. 3. Its judges said the state Constitution authorizes such a referendum and a new election map cannot take effect until the voters have spoken.
Hoskins filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court and cited the “chaotic fallout” from the state court “irresponsible decision.”
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who oversees appeals from the 8th Circuit Court based in St. Louis, denied the appeal without comment on Sept. 8.
But shortly after his decision was issued, U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark, a Trump appointee, issued a temporary restraining order that prohibited the state from using the any voting map other than the new one.
People not Politicians appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.
On Sept. 10, Kavanaugh and the full court granted the appeal and blocked the judge’s order from taking effect.
The justices did not explain their reasoning, but the meaning of the order was clear. The state Supreme Court ruling meant the new map could not be used for this year’s election.
But that did not stop the 8th Circuit Court from ruling the state must use the new map.
Siding with several Republican candidates, a 2-1 majority said the use of 2022 map was unconstitutional because the primary elections were held under the new map. Its decision ordered the elections to be held using the new map.
This was a surprising ruling, since the Supreme Court’s order on Sept. 10 barred judges in Missouri from intervening further in the dispute over the voting maps.
But after a third trip to the court, the justices said the state must use the 2022 map.
The Queen of Country is being honored with a special day on Californians’ calendars.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Sunday that establishes Sept. 25 as Dolly Parton Day. The date’s significance may be obvious to fans of the late country legend: 9-2-5 references Parton’s hit single “9 to 5” from the soundtrack of the 1980 comedy film of the same name that starred Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.
“Dolly Parton was an icon,” Newsom said in a video accompanied by his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, announcing the bill’s passage. “Dolly was larger than life with big hair and a bigger heart. People around the world have been touched by her music, by her philanthropy, and by her humor.”
Parton died Aug. 25 at 80 years old following a battle with cancer. The beloved songwriter, recording artist, actor and businesswoman was an honored musician, earning 10 Grammy Awards and 10 Country Music Assn. Awards, as well as two Academy Award nominations and a Primetime Emmy. She was the recipient of the National Medal of the Arts in 2005 and the Kennedy Center for the Arts Award in 2006. Parton was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
“Her legacy goes well beyond her music,” Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), who co-authored the bill with Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), said in a statement. “Through the Imagination Library, she put books into the hands of millions of children, and throughout her life she led with kindness, acceptance, and a belief that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. She was also no stranger to the Central Coast, where she performed for packed crowds and spent time over the years. Now, every 9-2-5, California gets to celebrate Dolly and the remarkable legacy she shared with all of us.”
Chris Brown is speaking out after lawmakers honored him during his concert in Arlington, Texas, then apologized for the honor.
On Sept. 12, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) and Democratic Texas Rep. Venton Jones appeared at AT&T Stadium for Brown and Usher’s R&B Tour, where they honored both singers for their contributions to music. The politicians presented them with a Congressional Record recognition and state proclamation.
“Right now, we are experiencing Black joy to the highest level,” Crockett said on stage. “And I wanted to make sure we document that in the Congressional Record.”
Usher was not on stage when either honor was presented.
The incident sparked public backlash because of Brown’s history of domestic violence. In June 2009, the “Forever” singer pleaded guilty to one count of felony assault for physically attacking Rihanna.
On Monday, the 37-year-old singer and dancer took to social media to apologize to Crockett for the criticism she received following the recognition, uploading a photo of the two to his Instagram story with text that read: “I apologize for any backlash you have to deal with for awarding for me. I’m not political but I move off of frequency and energy and I’m so grateful. Once again, thank you.”
But by Tuesday, Jones released a statement apologizing to his constituents for his role in presenting Brown with a state resolution.
“Over the past few days, I have listened closely to the conversations, concerns, and heartfelt feedback shared across our community following my presentation honoring Chris Brown with a state resolution,” Jones said.
Jones, who first assumed his role in 2023, said that the presentation was an attempt to reach voters ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election.
“First and foremost, I want to acknowledge the women, the Black women, whom my actions have hurt. In moments like these, I think it’s important to be specific and just as loud with an apology as our original actions were,” Jones added in his statement. “I apologize.”
After Jones’ statement, Brown called out the representative.
“I didn’t ask to be honored because I knew some s— like this would happen and [Venton Jones] immediately started tap dancing and apologizing because he didn’t wanna lose voters and support,” Brown wrote on Sept. 15 on his Instagram. “I have a great idea.. how about [y’all] leave me the f— alone and let me focus on the fans that spent their money to actually see and support me.”
Outside of the most widely recognized incident involving Rihanna — which occurred hours before the couple was set to appear at the 2009 Grammy Awards — there have been multiple domestic violence allegations against Brown, including by his ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran. She was granted a restraining order against the singer in 2017.
Brown has been accused in several other cases of violence against women from 2018 to 2022, either dismissed, settled out of court, or the investigation dropped.
This summer, the singer pleaded guilty to beating up a man in a London nightclub with a glass bottle in 2023. There is an active $50-million suit against Brown and members of his entourage by four male concertgoers who allege they faced a “brutal, violent assault” backstage following a Fort Worth, Texas, show in 2024.
Boxer Fernando Vargas Jr. was arrested on suspicion of DUI following a multi-vehicle collision at a Universal Studios Hollywood parking lot, according to law enforcement and multiple media outlets.
California Highway Patrol responded to the incident on Thursday after receiving a call at 7:51 p.m.
CHP confirmed to The Times that one arrest was made at the scene for “suspicion of DUI.” No other injuries were reported at the scene.
Reports by KTLA confirmed that the 29-year-old was the individual arrested after officers observed “signs of alcohol impairment from Vargas” and conducted a DUI investigation.
Officers took him to the CHP Central Los Angeles Area office. The case will be submitted to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office for possible charges.
Hours before the arrest, Vargas posted a video to Instagram of himself and a woman inside a vehicle, who appeared to be in the passenger seat, TMZ reported.
The super welterweight boxer is the oldest son of two-time middleweight world champion Fernando Vargas. The famed Mexican American fighter from Oxnard — who at one point was the youngest U.S. national amateur champion — also faced legal troubles of his own for his role in a 1999 assault case.
Since fighting his first professional match in 2020, Vargas Jr. himself has built a steady record in the ring with 15 knockouts in 17 wins. His last bout was during the Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford card in September 2025, where he lost to Irish boxer Callum Walsh.
Several dozen presidential briefing documents declassified Friday, the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, detail intelligence government officials had gathered about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda leading up to the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people and upended American national security.
The documents illustrate security analysts’ tracking of Bin Laden’s movements and support system, as well as concerns about possible threats to U.S. targets.
Proclaiming “an act of exceptional transparency,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the documents were the agency’s single largest release of declassified presidential daily briefs — the highly classified briefing prepared by the nation’s intelligence community for the government’s most senior leaders.
The documents range from a February 1998 file — prepared for then-President Clinton — titled “Terrorists seeking WMD capability” and mentioning “bin Ladin and other Islamic extremists” to a Sept. 12, 2001, report in which a source indicated the attacks had been planned for two years and had also targeted the U.S. Capitol.
Another, from just weeks before the attacks, details how Al Qaeda’s “flexible operational decision making and broad definition of acceptable targets enable the group to adjust plans to changing conditions.”
Asked for comment on the release, the White House noted the release of another batch of documents by the National Archives, also Friday. That batch, including interviews with national security officials in the Clinton and Bush administrations, was a product of the commission that probed the attacks from 2002 to 2004.
NEW YORK — Americans commemorated the 25th anniversary of 9/11 on Friday, remembering the shock, the dead and the sweeping consequences of the al Qaeda attacks on symbols of U.S. might and prosperity.
The milestone anniversary brought memorial rituals — wreath-laying, flag-flying, moments of silence, vigils and readings of victims’ names — and volunteer projects in tribute to a day that about half of U.S. adults remember as the most historic event of their lifetime, according to a new poll. On Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda extremists hijacked four commercial jets and crashed them into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Elsie Caldwell carried a photograph of her son Kenny Caldwell to the trade center to hear his name and all the others read aloud Friday morning. She last spoke to him that morning a quarter-century ago.
“Mom, I just want to let you know that I love you,” Caldwell said he told her in a final phone call. His remains, like those of many other victims, have never been recovered.
Trump attends Pentagon observance
The attacks brought down the World Trade Center’s twin towers — icons of U.S. economic power, and among the tallest buildings on Earth — and blew a hole in the Pentagon, the U.S. military’s fortress-like headquarters near Washington. The fourth plane was headed for Washington, officials concluded, but the aircraft went down in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew members stormed the cockpit and fought the hijackers.
“Sept. 11 reminded us of the terrible power of hate,” President Trump said Friday at the Pentagon’s anniversary ceremony Friday.
“The 25 years since have shown us the even greater power of the American spirit to endure and prevail, and to win,” added the Republican, who was in his native New York on 9/11.
Former President George W. Bush, who was in office on 9/11, and ex-Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden and current Vice President JD Vance convened for the observance at the National Sept. 11 Memorial in New York. Other administration officials went to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania.
At ground zero, a new tribute to those who fell ill
For Angilic Casalduc, attending the New York commemoration “helps to show you’re not alone.” She lost her mother, Vivian Casalduc.
“There’s no timeline for grief, and unfortunately, no one can say how can you can grieve, but coming here once a year makes it feel just a little bit better,” she said.
Traditionally, there are no political speeches at the ground zero commemoration, where victims’ relatives read aloud the long list of names and added personal messages. They thanked first responders and the military, invoked religious faith, appealed for national unity and touched on the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. The kingdom was the homeland of most of the hijackers but denied any involvement in the attacks.
Mostly, relatives spoke of, and to, loved ones — who some were too young to remember.
“You dreamed my whole life for me, and you only got eight months of it,” said Trisha Pakka, who lost her mother, Deepa Pakkala.
The ceremony has long been punctuated with moments of silence at key points in the attack timeline and this year organizers added another moment to honor people who were exposed to the clouds of toxic dust released by the twin towers’ fiery collapse and have since died of cancer and other illnesses. Questions remain about how many people developed health problems linked to the dust.
The impact of 9/11 endures
It’s a reminder of how the attacks’ long shadow has reached into many corners of life in the U.S. and beyond.
The U.S.-led global war on terrorism included invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan — the latter Washington’s longest war — and detentions and harsh interrogation of terror suspects in an international network of secret CIA prisons. The U.S. found and killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, but accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed still awaits a trial 23 years after his capture.
The attacks changed U.S. air travel, led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, prompted new federal surveillance and intelligence-gathering powers and banking regulations and generated ongoing debate over the balance between security and freedom.
Sept. 11 engendered a culture of individual vigilance summed up by the slogan “ if you see something, say something,” while a wave of patriotism propelled some Americans to join the military, fire departments, police forces or other public agencies.
Casey Kloepfer became a New York police officer this June. He was 4 when his father, Officer Ronald Kloepfer, was killed at the trade center.
“It’s big footsteps to fill, but it’s definitely something that I take very seriously and want to continue to honor him and be the best police officer I can,” the 29-year-old, who wears his father’s badge number, said by phone this week.
New York’s mayor comes under scrutiny
Amid the post-9/11 calls to service and appeals for national unity, the attacks also fanned mistrust, prejudice and hate crimes directed at Muslims.
In the quarter-century since, Muslim Americans have played a growing role in public life from statehouses to Congress to New York City Hall, where Zohran Mamdani is the city’s first Muslim mayor. Yet he faced some criticism for attending the anniversary ceremony at ground zero.
Republican ex-Gov. George Pataki and 9/11 victims’ relatives cited, among other things, past remarks that some of Mamdani’s political associates have made about the attacks. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, also inveighed against Mamdani attending the remembrance, though the two shook hands there Friday.
Mamdani, a Democrat, said this week he loves the city and country and that he wanted the anniversary to focus on victims’ families, first responders and New Yorkers who helped one another after the attacks, which he called a “horrific act of terror.” The 34-year-old mayor was an elementary school student in New York on 9/11.
Times Square billboards pause advertisements
Remembrances extended far from the attack sites, including beams of light projecting from New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, a stair climb at Mississippi State University’s football stadium and a ceremony at Honolulu’s 9/11 memorial.
Sept. 11 isn’t a federal holiday, but Congress has designated it both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.
“One appropriate way to remember is by serving,” says Jay Winuk, who lost his brother Glenn Winuk and then co-founded the volunteer organization 9/11 Day with friend David Paine. The group helps people find volunteer opportunities and this year arranged for dozens of Times Square billboards to pause their advertising at 9:11 a.m. Friday.
Instead, they simply displayed the time.
Peltz and Shaffrey write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Michael R. Sisak, Anthony Izaguirre, and Julie Walker contributed to this report.
On Sept. 11, 2001, there were no smartphones and no social media. What the country watched that morning — a jet airliner colliding with the south tower of the World Trade Center, the ash rolling through the streets, the paper still falling in the afternoon — was through a television set and the journalists who had to deliver the unfathomable details.
The jarring images shattered the peacefulness of a sunshine-filled late summer morning in New York.
“Everything seemed so perfect,” said MS NOW’s Chris Jansing, reflecting on the moments before anchoring her network’s continuous coverage. “It was another day of doing a job I loved, living in a city I loved.”
By nightfall, nearly 3,000 people were dead in lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon and in a field outside Shanksville, Pa. The experience of covering the terrorist attacks and their grim aftermath transformed Jansing and other journalists who were there. Twenty-five years later, it’s never far from their minds.
“It’s with me in ways large and small,” said NJ Burkett, a correspondent who covered the tragedy for New York station WABC. “When I look at my phone and it says 9:11, it takes me back.”
The Times asked five of the on-air personalities who are still working today to look back on the day they were called to cover the tragedy and its lasting impact.
Bret Baier: “I just said yes to everything.”
Fox News anchor Bret Baier at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va., on Aug. 25, 2026.
(Jared Soares/For The Times)
On every anniversary of Sept. 11, Fox News anchor Bret Baier uses the hashtag #NeverForget. He can recall every moment of that day.
Baier, 56, was driving to the Fox News bureau in Atlanta when he first heard on his car radio that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. He was a 31-year-old correspondent for the network, covering stories throughout the southeast U.S. and Latin America. When he arrived at the office, a call came from New York headquarters telling him to book a flight to the city so he could file reports from the World Trade Center site for Fox TV affiliates around the United States.
After a second plane hit the south tower of the World Trade Center 17 minutes later, all flights in the U.S. were halted. Baier and his producer were told to get a car and start driving.
“I just remember going really fast when I was driving,” Baier said. “I remember thinking what is happening with the world, and how big this story is. How big this moment is.”
By the time the duo reached northern Georgia, their plans changed again. A jetliner struck the Pentagon while a San Francisco-bound United Airlines flight crashed in Shanksville, Pa. Fox News executives told Baier and his producer to reroute to Arlington, Va.
After the 10-hour drive, Baier started the first of 10 straight days of reporting on the recovery efforts at the site. While the World Trade Center provided the most dramatic and enduring pictures of the stunning attack, the loss of life at the Pentagon was staggering as well, as 125 people died along with the 64 passengers and crew members on American Airlines Flight 77.
Baier was eventually pulled into the larger military story that followed 9/11. Fox News, just 5 years old, did not have a full-time Pentagon correspondent. Baier was offered the job while traveling overseas with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was making the case for war against Afghanistan.
“I called a buddy on a satellite phone to get me an apartment in Washington,” he said. “Fox packed up my stuff in Atlanta.”
But the unplanned move changed Baier’s life. In six years on the Pentagon beat, he traveled to 74 countries. He was embedded with the military in war zones. “I just said yes to everything,” said Baier, who has anchored Fox News’ Washington newscast “Special Report” since 2009.
Baier recalled it was in the weeks after Sept. 11 that he first wore an American flag pin on his lapel. He never felt conflicted about it, even though such displays were prohibited at other network news divisions. “I thought I could report on America, ask tough questions and still be an American, pulling for us to win,” he said. “I wanted to be tough but fair, but also show that as a country we were standing together against this horrible attack.”
Byron Pitts covering the terrorist attacks in lower Manhattan for CBS News on Sept. 11, 2001.
(CBS)
Byron Pitts: “It’s the only story I think about every day.”
A newcomer to New York 25 years ago, Byron Pitts, then a CBS News correspondent, admitted it took him a few moments to understand the massive scope of what happened the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. He arrived early at the network’s headquarters on the West Side of Manhattan to screen an interview he did with entertainer and civil rights icon Harry Belafonte. Shortly after he started, a producer knocked on his door and told him there was a plane crash at the World Trade Center.
Pitts, 65, acknowledged the producer but kept working. “I thought it was a novice pilot bumping into a building,” he recalled. “I thought it would be three hours out of my day and it won’t make television.”
The producer came back shortly and said, “You need to go down there.”
An irritated Pitts hailed a cab and headed down the West Side Highway. While in the car, he learned a second plane had hit the south tower. Traffic was stopped and he had to head downtown by foot.
As Pitts got closer to the site, he tried to use his past experiences covering fires and other disasters during his career to judge the severity of the situation.
But the horrible scenes that unfolded before him were incomparable. One was a lifeless body near the lobby of the north tower. He thought it was a homeless man until he saw a uniform. He later learned it was Father Mychal Judge, the chaplain of the New York Fire Department killed by fallen debris. Judge’s body was later carried away by a group of first responders. Pitts saw a woman and a man standing at a window of one of the towers holding hands, and then jumping.
“Gravity takes over and their hands split, and he moves a little faster than she does,” Pitts said. “And we see them on the ground. That was the moment I realized something significant was going on.”
Pitts crossed paths with Mika Brzezinski, then a CBS News correspondent, now the cohost of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe.” As debris came down and smoke filled the air, they headed into an elementary school that Pitts believes was a command post for the fire and police departments. They took turns calling into CBS News on a hard-line phone, one delivering accounts of the unfolding catastrophe while the other looked outside to gather details amid the blinding smoke and dust.
Pitts said from that day forward, he never went to a story assignment without a handkerchief.
Pitts was awed not just by the enormity of the event, but also by how despite the rigid hierarchy of CBS News, he was “the new kid on the block” who had to present the story on Dan Rather’s evening newscast that night.
“My approach became almost childlike, so I would not become overwhelmed,” he said. “I tried to make it as simple as possible. I said, ‘Dan, I’ve never heard New York City this quiet.’ I was thinking — what simple thing can I say that you would understand if you’ve never been in New York.”
A few weeks later, Pitts headed off to Afghanistan to cover the U.S. military action. His evening news report on Sept. 11 won an Emmy Award and his star rose at CBS News, leading to “60 Minutes” and then ABC News in 2014, where he is currently a co-anchor of “Nightline.”
Pitts knows the good fortune he’s had in TV journalism is linked to the tragedy that started with a producer’s knock on his door 25 years ago. “I feel some measure of guilt but mostly gratitude,” he said. “It’s the only story I think about every day.”
Pitts said he uses his 9/11 experience to provide perspective. “When we’re discussing politics, a mass shooting, or the latest awful day in Iran, I know for a fact there is one guy in the room who has seen worse and who can say, ‘we’ll be OK,’ ” he said.
Chris Jansing: “You had to balance the news response with the human response.”
Chris Jansing paid her dues as a local reporter in upstate New York before she joined MSNBC (now called MS NOW) as a daytime anchor in 1998. She loved living in Manhattan, and took friends from out of town to the World Trade Center observation decks and Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 106th floor of the north tower.
“It was so iconically New York,” she said. “And I was proud to live in the city.”
Jansing, 69, had little time to process her emotions when she was told to “get in the chair” before 9 a.m. that morning at MSNBC’s Secaucus, N.J., studios after the first plane hit.
“You had to balance the news response with the human response,” she recalled.
For several hours, Jansing co-anchored the network’s coverage alongside Gregg Jarrett. The look of 24-hour cable news evolved that day, as the tsunami of information led to Fox News, MSNBC and CNN all adding running tickers at the bottom of the screen.
Jansing went to the roof of the network’s building after Brian Williams took over the anchor chair. Trauma centers in the area had been alerted, and she was told to watch for ambulances. “There was still a hope and a prayer that there would be injured folks who would overwhelm the hospitals in New York and would need to be brought to New Jersey,” Jansing recalled. She saw none.
Jansing has never watched the coverage of that day, which is now on YouTube. She had real-life reminders every day in her Manhattan neighborhood when she walked by the Rescue Company 1 firehouse that lost half its battalion at the crash site. She adopted a dog left behind by a 9/11 victim, a Dachshund named Baron. She remains friends with every producer she worked with on the story. The experience also reinforced her purpose in a career approaching its 50th year.
“I will always think that those moments are what keep you going,” said Jansing, currently chief political reporter for MS NOW. “They were an affirmation that’s kept me in the job,”
NJ Burkett, a correspondent for WABC, on the 13th floor of the Walt Disney Co. offices in Manhattan on Aug. 31, 2026.
(Roshni Khatri/For The Times)
NJ Burkett: “I put myself in increasingly dangerous situations.”
Burkett, 64, recalls how pedestrians were gathered around WABC’s windowed street level studio on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when he arrived for work on 9/11. He presumed the crowd was there for a big name guest on “Live with Regis and Kelly.” They were actually watching monitors showing news reports of the first plane that hit the north tower.
As Burkett and his cameraman Marty Glembotzky headed downtown in a truck, he already knew it was a terror attack. He recalled covering the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center and regretted not getting footage of the firefighters’ rescue efforts. This time around he wanted to go inside the buildings and document their heroism.
A police officer stopped Burkett and Glembotzky before they could get in, likely saving their lives. A short time later, they would escape death again.
Burkett was doing a second take for a taped report that would set the scene for viewers when he heard the rumbling that “sounded like Niagara Falls.” It was the south tower of the World Trade Center coming down behind him. “A huge explosion now raining debris on us — we better get out of the way,” he said in what may be the most terrifying video clip from that morning.
Burkett and Glembotzky took cover in an adjacent building. “We open up the door and in a weird way it’s sort of providential, right?” he said. “The door is a metaphor. It’s like the door into the rest of your life. If we had to run for half a block, we’d be dead.”
Glembotzky was so shaken by the experience, he stepped away from his career as a cameraman and became a wine seller before eventually returning. But Burkett took on more dangerous assignments in the Middle East, heading to Israel to cover the Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada. He later headed to Iraq to cover the run-up to the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Burkett won a George Foster Peabody Award for his work on 9/11. In retrospect, he believes he took on assignments in war zones to avoid dealing with the trauma of the day.
“I would put myself into increasingly dangerous situations,” he said. “Looking back, I was running from 9/11. That was my way of coping. Sometimes I wonder did I allow myself feel it enough. Or did I just run too far and too hard and it will all come down and crash on me one day?”
Occasionally he worries about 9/11-related illnesses. “If I start to cough — the slightest little cough — I’ll think ‘is this it?’” he said.
But as a New York TV fixture since 1989, Burkett still feels the appreciation from viewers for his efforts. “To this day, almost 25 years later, people will come up to me on the street and ask to hug me and say ‘NJ Burkett I’m glad you’re alive,’ ” he said.
Carson Daly at NBC’s “Today” show studio at Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan on Sept. 3, 2026.
(Roshni Khatri/For The Times)
Carson Daly: “I remember how motionless the room was.”
As continuous news coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks saturated television for days, the makers of entertainment shows had to decide when it would be appropriate to go back to work. Carson Daly and the MTV executives mulled over the situation as their wildly popular program “Total Request Live” remained off the air for three days since the attacks.
“We had such a massive audience that the question was raised, ‘do we have a responsibility to simply show up?’ ” Daly, 53, recalled in a recent interview.
Daly, now a feature anchor on NBC’s “Today,” was not a journalist by trade. But he understood the trust that young viewers had in him and “TRL,” a live show that counted down the most popular music videos of the moment. The show had dealt with tragedy a few years before after the high school shooting in Columbine, Colo.
But 9/11 happened on the home turf of “TRL,” which aired from New York City’s Times Square. With the bridges and tunnels closed, getting a crew to the studio was a challenge.
“Everybody wore multiple hats,” said Daly, who also served as an executive producer.
By Sept. 14 of that week, the MTV studio on Broadway was filled with young “TRL” fans, but lacked the energy viewers were used to seeing on the screen. “They were frozen,” Daly recalled. “That was in such stark contrast to what the show was every day. I remember how motionless the room was and feeling like, ‘What am I doing on television?’ ”
Carson Daly shows a tattoo he got after the 9/11 attacks in New York.
(Roshni Khatri/For The Times)
Daly leaned on the MTV News team to update the audience on the 9/11 story developments. Music stars including Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake and Kid Rock called into the program to share their thoughts with Daly. Instead of music videos, the screen showed email messages from viewers expressing their feelings about the tragedy.
MTV News personality Sway delivered a music news report that noted how two new CD releases — “Party Music” by the American hip-hop group The Coup and Dream Theater’s “Live Scenes from New York” — were delayed because both used cover artwork that depicted the destruction of the World Trade Center.
Daly has a permanent remembrance of the week. When he arrived at the MTV offices the day before “TRL” returned, the building was evacuated after it received a bomb threat.
“I remember walking around Hell’s Kitchen,” he said. “I ended up getting a tattoo. A red, white and blue NYC on my right wrist.”
