Video above: Ceremony being held in New York to honor 9/11 victimsAmericans are remembering 9/11 with moments of silence, readings of victims' names, volunteer work and other tributes 21 years after the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil.A tolling bell and a moment of silence began the commemoration at ground zero in New York, where the World Trade Center's twin towers were destroyed by the hijacked-plane attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Victims’ relatives and dignitaries also convened at the two other attack sites, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.Other communities around the country are marking the day with candlelight vigils, interfaith services and other commemorations. Some Americans are joining in volunteer projects on a day that is federally recognized as both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.The observances follow a fraught milestone anniversary last year. It came weeks after the chaotic and humbling end of the Afghanistan war that the U.S. launched in response to the attacks.But if this Sept. 11 may be less of an inflection point, it remains a point for reflection on the attack that killed nearly 3,000 people, spurred a U.S. “war on terror” worldwide and reconfigured national security policy.It also stirred — for a time — a sense of national pride and unity for many, while subjecting Muslim Americans to years of suspicion and bigotry and engendering debate over the balance between safety and civil liberties. In ways both subtle and plain, the aftermath of 9/11 ripples through American politics and public life to this day.Live video: Ceremony held at the Pentagon to honor lives lost on 9/11 And the attacks have cast a long shadow into the personal lives of thousands of people who survived, responded or lost loved ones, friends and colleagues.More than 70 of Sekou Siby's co-workers perished at Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the trade center's north tower. Siby had been scheduled to work that morning until another cook asked him to switch shifts.Siby never took a restaurant job again; it would have brought back too many memories. The Ivorian immigrant wrestled with how to comprehend such horror in a country where he'd come looking for a better life.He found it difficult to form the type of close, family-like friendships he and his Windows on the World co-workers had shared. It was too painful, he had learned, to become attached to people when “you have no control over what’s going to happen to them next.”“Every 9/11 is a reminder of what I lost that I can never recover,” says Siby, who is now president and CEO of ROC United. The restaurant workers' advocacy group evolved from a relief center for Windows on the World workers who lost their jobs when the twin towers fell.On Sunday, President Joe Biden plans to speak and lay a wreath at the Pentagon, while First Lady Jill Biden is scheduled to speak in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked planes went down after passengers and crew members tried to storm the cockpit as the hijackers headed for Washington. Al-Qaida conspirators had seized control of the jets to use them as passenger-filled missiles.Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff joined the observance at the National Sept. 11 Memorial in New York, but by tradition, no political figures speak at the ground zero ceremony. It centers instead on victims' relatives reading aloud the names of the dead.Readers often add personal remarks that form an alloy of American sentiments about Sept. 11 — grief, anger, toughness, appreciation for first responders and the military, appeals to patriotism, hopes for peace, occasional political barbs, and a poignant accounting of the graduations, weddings, births and daily lives that victims have missed.Some relatives also lament that a nation which came together — to some extent — after the attacks has since splintered apart. So much so that federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, which were reshaped to focus on international terrorism after 9/11, now see the threat of domestic violent extremism as equally urgent.

A decade after two homemade bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the city will mark the somber occasion Saturday with prayers for those who died and activities demonstrating the community's resilient spirit.Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who was making her first run for City Council when the bombing happened, will join families who lost love ones to lay a wreath at memorial sites. A brief ceremony will be held later in the day at the finish line of marathon, where bells will ring followed by a moment of silence.The 127th running of the Boston Marathon takes place Monday.“I have since spoken with many, many community members, families who have been forever impacted and who carry that trauma with them to this day," Wu said, recalling how people streamed into her campaign office that day with a sense of “confusion and fear and shock about what was happening.”“The whole world saw Boston pull together in that moment and, to this day, we still carry that moniker of resilience and strength," she added.Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when two pressure-cooker bombs went off at the marathon finish line. Among the dead were Lu Lingzi, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts; and 8-year-old Martin Richard, who had gone to watch the marathon with his family.During a tense, four-day manhunt that paralyzed the city, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier was shot dead in his car. Boston Police Officer Dennis Simmonds also died a year after he was wounded in a confrontation with the bombers.Police captured a bloodied and wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston suburb of Watertown, where he was hiding in a boat parked in a backyard, hours after his brother died. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, had been in a gunfight with police and was run over by his brother as he fled.“I think we’re all still living with those tragic days 10 years ago," Bill Evans, the former Boston Police Commissioner, said.Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death and much of the attention, in recent years, has been around his bid to avoid being executed.A federal appeals court is considering Tsarnaev’s latest bid to avoid execution. A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston heard arguments in January in the 29-year-old’s case, but has yet to issue a ruling.The appeals court initially threw out Tsarnaev’s death sentence in 2020, saying the trial judge did not adequately screen jurors for potential biases. But the U.S. Supreme Court revived it last year.The 1st Circuit is now weighing whether other issues that weren’t considered by the Supreme Court require the death sentence to be tossed a second time. Among other things, Tsarnaev says the trial judge wrongly denied his challenge of two jurors who defense attorneys say lied during jury selection questioning.The bombing not only unified Boston — “Boston Strong” became the city’s rallying cry — but inspired many in the running community and prompted scores of those impacted by the terror attack to run the marathon.Video below: Boston landmarks lit in blue and yellow in honor of 127th Marathon“It really galvanized and showed our sport’s and our city’s resiliency, our desire together to continue even better and to enhance the Boston Marathon,” Boston Athletic Association President and CEO Jack Fleming said. "The bombing in 2013 resulted in a new appreciation or a different appreciation for what Boston, what the Boston Marathon, has always stood for, which is that expression of freedom that you receive and get while running.”On Saturday, the focus will mostly be on remembering victims and survivors of the bombing but also, as Wu said, “really making sure this was a moment to focus on where the city and our communities, our families are headed in the future.”That sentiment will be reflected in what has become known as “One Boston Day,” where acts of kindness and service take place to honor victims, survivors and first responders. This year, nearly two dozen community service projects are happening including a shoe drive and several food drives, blood drives and neighborhood cleanups.“This time of year evokes a strong emotion for so many of us across the City and the people touched by the tragedy ten years ago. But the most prevailing one is that Boston is indeed strong, and that our communities show up for each other in times of need,” Jacob Robinson, the executive director of West Roxbury Main Streets, one of the groups hosting the shoe drive, said in a statement.___AP Sports Writer Jimmy Golen contributed to this report.

A decade after two homemade bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the city will mark the somber occasion Saturday with prayers for those who died and activities demonstrating the community's resilient spirit.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who was making her first run for City Council when the bombing happened, will join families who lost love ones to lay a wreath at memorial sites. A brief ceremony will be held later in the day at the finish line of marathon, where bells will ring followed by a moment of silence.

The 127th running of the Boston Marathon takes place Monday.

“I have since spoken with many, many community members, families who have been forever impacted and who carry that trauma with them to this day," Wu said, recalling how people streamed into her campaign office that day with a sense of “confusion and fear and shock about what was happening.”

“The whole world saw Boston pull together in that moment and, to this day, we still carry that moniker of resilience and strength," she added.

Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when two pressure-cooker bombs went off at the marathon finish line. Among the dead were Lu Lingzi, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts; and 8-year-old Martin Richard, who had gone to watch the marathon with his family.

During a tense, four-day manhunt that paralyzed the city, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier was shot dead in his car. Boston Police Officer Dennis Simmonds also died a year after he was wounded in a confrontation with the bombers.

Craig F. Walker

Police captured a bloodied and wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston suburb of Watertown, where he was hiding in a boat parked in a backyard, hours after his brother died. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, had been in a gunfight with police and was run over by his brother as he fled.

“I think we’re all still living with those tragic days 10 years ago," Bill Evans, the former Boston Police Commissioner, said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death and much of the attention, in recent years, has been around his bid to avoid being executed.

A federal appeals court is considering Tsarnaev’s latest bid to avoid execution. A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston heard arguments in January in the 29-year-old’s case, but has yet to issue a ruling.

The appeals court initially threw out Tsarnaev’s death sentence in 2020, saying the trial judge did not adequately screen jurors for potential biases. But the U.S. Supreme Court revived it last year.

The 1st Circuit is now weighing whether other issues that weren’t considered by the Supreme Court require the death sentence to be tossed a second time. Among other things, Tsarnaev says the trial judge wrongly denied his challenge of two jurors who defense attorneys say lied during jury selection questioning.

The bombing not only unified Boston — “Boston Strong” became the city’s rallying cry — but inspired many in the running community and prompted scores of those impacted by the terror attack to run the marathon.

Video below: Boston landmarks lit in blue and yellow in honor of 127th Marathon

“It really galvanized and showed our sport’s and our city’s resiliency, our desire together to continue even better and to enhance the Boston Marathon,” Boston Athletic Association President and CEO Jack Fleming said. "The bombing in 2013 resulted in a new appreciation or a different appreciation for what Boston, what the Boston Marathon, has always stood for, which is that expression of freedom that you receive and get while running.”

On Saturday, the focus will mostly be on remembering victims and survivors of the bombing but also, as Wu said, “really making sure this was a moment to focus on where the city and our communities, our families are headed in the future.”

That sentiment will be reflected in what has become known as “One Boston Day,” where acts of kindness and service take place to honor victims, survivors and first responders. This year, nearly two dozen community service projects are happening including a shoe drive and several food drives, blood drives and neighborhood cleanups.

“This time of year evokes a strong emotion for so many of us across the City and the people touched by the tragedy ten years ago. But the most prevailing one is that Boston is indeed strong, and that our communities show up for each other in times of need,” Jacob Robinson, the executive director of West Roxbury Main Streets, one of the groups hosting the shoe drive, said in a statement.

___

AP Sports Writer Jimmy Golen contributed to this report.

It's been four years since 17 students and staff were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14, 2018.Seventeen others were injured.The gunman, Nikolas Cruz, assembled his AR-15 rifle in the stairwell and opened fire in the "freshman building." "Be advised we have possible, could be firecrackers. I think we got shots fired. Possible shots fired, 1200 building," could be heard on the radio communications.Cruz eventually dropped the gun and fled by blending in with the other students as police stormed the building. He was captured an hour later walking through a neighborhood.Shortly after he was arrested, he confessed and said the voices in his head told him to do it.The FBI came forward in the days after the shooting, saying they had received tips about Cruz.Video below: Cruz interrogation video releasedIn the fall of 2021, the shooter pleaded guilty to all charges connected to the school shooting. Prosecutors now plan to seek the death penalty.For many families, they said there will never be closure for the loss of their loved ones.Students and families turned into activists. Jim Gard, a math teacher that day, said they were all victims.“These kids that were in the class, just because they weren’t hit doesn’t mean they weren’t hit,” he said.And since that day, so many of those victims have refused to just sit back and do nothing. In the days following the shooting, a movement called March For Our Lives was born.David Hogg was one of the founders.“When we started doing the march, we thought there would be about 90 people that we could get up to DC,” Hogg said. “We got near a million.”Four years later, March For Our Lives is still going strong with chapters across the country.They’ve helped pass state laws designed to keep guns away from violent offenders. They’ve worked to get more federal funding to control gun violence.Video below: March For Our Lives in Washington, D.C. It’s become a full-time job nobody wants.“We want our job to be done so we can go back to being college students or high school students and young people and young professionals,” Hogg said.When they watched the Parkland shooter plead guilty to the murders he committed, both Hogg and Gard were pleased to see this chapter end.Video below: Cruz pleads guilty in courtThey just ask you not to call it closure.“It’s the parents of the kids, the parents who lost their children, I don’t know if there can ever be closure on that,” Gard said. “I know for a lot of the people that I talked to, families that I talked to, there is not closure that can come. There’s nothing that will ever bring their kids back, their siblings back, their best friends back.”Video below: Cruz makes statement to court, familiesThe Broward County School District announced in Dec. 2021 that it will pay more than $26 million to the families of the victims."While we recognize no amount of money can make these families whole, it is the school board's hope that this settlement will show our heartfelt commitment to the MSD families, students, staff, faculty and to the entire Broward County community," said Marylin Batista, the board's interim general counsel. President Joe Biden released a statement Monday morning, saying in part:"On this difficult day, we mourn with the Parkland families whose lives were upended in an instant; who had to bury a piece of their soul deep in the earth. We pray too for those still grappling with wounds both visible and invisible. And, as we remember those lost in Parkland, we also stand with Americans in every corner of our country who have lost loved ones to gun violence or had their lives forever altered by a shooting, in tragedies that made headlines and in ones that did not."Out of the heartbreak of Parkland a new generation of Americans all across the country marched for our lives and towards a better, safer America for us all. Together, this extraordinary movement is making sure that the voices of victims and survivors and responsible gun owners are louder than the voices of gun manufacturers and the National Rifle Association." Remembering those whose lives were lostCan't see the visual? Click here.If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, call 211 or the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.