Rebuilding: Latest Developments

By Stephen M. Silverman

Tuesday September 18, 2001 08:06 AM EDT

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Yahoo Buzz
• E-mail

• President Bush led the nation in a moment of silence on Tuesday to mark the passage of "a really horrible week" after the nation's deadliest terrorist attack.

• "Out of our tears and sadness, we saw the best of America," Bush told a Rose Garden ceremony that honored rescue workers. "We saw a great country rise up to help."

• Earlier, the commander in chief joined 300 White House employees on the South Lawn to observe a moment of silence exactly one week after the attack.

• Meanwhile, a federal grand jury has been convened to investigate the terrorist attack in New York, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. The jury, convened in White Plains, a New York City suburb, will review evidence and issue subpoenas.

• Across the country, radio stations played patriotic songs to mark the time a week ago that the first hijacked plane slammed into New York's World Trade Center, 8:48 a.m. ET. In New York, people paused this Tuesday in the streets at that precise minute.

• New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Tuesday that, seven days later, there was little chance of finding anyone alive in the smoldering wreckage of the World Trade Center. "We don't have a substantial amount of hope to offer to people that there is anyone alive there," Giuliani said. "We have to prepare people for the overwhelming possibility that finding anyone alive is very, very small."

• There were 218 confirmed dead and 5,422 missing as of Tuesday morning. Only five survivors have been found, none since Wednesday. Search crews recovered 17 bodies overnight.