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NEW YORK (AP) — Americans are looking back on the horror and legacy of 9/11, gathering Monday at memorials, firehouses, city halls and elsewhere to observe the 22nd anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil.

Commemorations stretch from the attack sites — at New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania — to Alaska and beyond. President Joe Biden is due at a ceremony on a military base in Anchorage.

His visit, en route to Washington, D.C., from a trip to India and Vietnam, is a reminder that the impact of 9/11 was felt in every corner of the nation, however remote. The hijacked plane attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives and reshaped American foreign policy and domestic fears.

On that day, “we were one country, one nation, one people, just like it should be. That was the feeling — that everyone came together and did what we could, where we were at, to try to help,” said Eddie Ferguson, the fire-rescue chief in Virginia’s Goochland County.

It’s more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Pentagon and more than three times as far from New York. But a sense of connection is enshrined in a local memorial incorporating steel from the World Trade Center’s destroyed twin towers.

The predominantly rural county of 25,000 people holds not just one but two anniversary commemorations: a morning service focused on first responders and an evening ceremony honoring all the victims.

Other communities across the country pay tribute with moments of silence, tolling bells, candlelight vigils and other activities. In Columbus, Indiana, 911 dispatchers broadcast a remembrance message to police, fire and EMS radios throughout the 50,000-person city, which also holds a public memorial ceremony.

Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts raise and lower the flag at a commemoration in Fenton, Missouri, where a “Heroes Memorial” includes a piece of World Trade Center steel and a plaque honoring 9/11 victim Jessica Leigh Sachs. Some of her relatives live in the St. Louis suburb of 4,000 residents.

“We’re just a little bitty community,” said Mayor Joe Maurath, but “it’s important for us to continue to remember these events. Not just 9/11, but all of the events that make us free.”

New Jersey’s Monmouth County, which was home to some 9/11 victims, made Sept. 11 a holiday this year for county employees so they could attend commemorations.

As another way of marking the anniversary, many Americans do volunteer work on what Congress has designated both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.

At ground zero, Vice President Kamala Harris is due to join the ceremony on the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum plaza. The event will not feature remarks from political figures, instead giving the podium to victims’ relatives for an hourslong reading of the names of the dead.

James Giaccone signed up to read again this year in memory of his brother, Joseph Giaccone, 43. The family attends the ceremony every year to hear Joseph’s name.

“If their name is spoken out loud, they don’t disappear,” James Giaccone said in a recent interview.

The commemoration is crucial to him.

“I hope I never see the day when they minimize this,” he said. “It’s a day that changed history.”

Biden, a Democrat, will be the first president to commemorate Sept. 11 in Alaska, or anywhere in the western U.S. He and his predecessors have gone to one or another of the attack sites in most years, though Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama each marked the anniversary on the White House lawn at times. Obama followed one of those observances by recognizing the military with a visit to Fort Meade in Maryland.

First lady Jill Biden is due to lay a wreath at the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon.

In Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked jets crashed after passengers tried to storm the cockpit, a remembrance and wreath-laying is scheduled at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Stoystown operated by the National Park Service. Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is expected to attend the ceremony.

The memorial site will offer a new educational video, virtual tour and other materials for teachers to use in classrooms. Educators with a total of more than 10,000 students have registered for access to the free “National Day of Learning” program, which will be available through the fall, organizers say.

“We need to get the word out to the next generation,” said memorial spokesperson Katherine Hostetler, a National Park Service ranger.

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NEW YORK (AP) — The remains of two people who died in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center have been identified, the latest positive identification in the decadeslong effort to return victims to their families.

Authorities confirmed the identification of the remains of a man and woman days ahead of the 22nd anniversary of the hijacked-plane attack that killed nearly 3,000 people in Lower Manhattan. Their names were withheld by city officials at the request of their families.

New York City’s medical examiner has now been able to link remains to 1,649 World Trade Center victims, a painstaking process that relies on leading-edge DNA sequencing techniques to test body fragments recovered in the rubble.

Advancements in the sequencing technology, including increased test sensitivity and faster turnaround times, have allowed officials to identify remains that had tested negative for identifiable DNA for decades, officials said.

Similar efforts are used by the U.S. military to identify missing service members and are currently underway to test body fragments from more than 100 people killed during the wildfires in Maui last month.

Despite forensic advancements, the effort to identify the remains of 9/11 victims has slowed in recent years. The two positive identifications are the first since September 2021, officials said. Before that, the last identification was made in 2019.

More than 1,000 human remains from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have yet to be identified. They are currently being stored at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center site.

Dr. Jason Graham, the city’s chief medical examiner, said officials were committed to fulfilling their “solemn pledge” to return the remains of all of the attack’s victims.

“Faced with the largest and most complex forensic investigation in the history of our country, we stand undaunted in our mission to use the latest advances in science to serve this promise,” Graham said.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Coco Gauff set aside a so-so start and surged to her first Grand Slam title at age 19, coming back to defeat Aryna Sabalenka 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 in the U.S. Open final on Saturday to the delight of a raucous crowd that was loud from start to finish.

Gauff, who is from Florida, is the first American teenager to win the country’s major tennis tournament since Serena Williams in 1999. If last year’s U.S. Open was all about saying goodbye to Williams as she competed for the final time, this year’s two weeks in New York turned into a “Welcome to the big time!” for Gauff.

This is the sort of triumph that had — fairly or not — been expected of Gauff ever since she burst onto the scene at 15 by becoming the youngest qualifier in Wimbledon history and making it to the fourth round in her Grand Slam debut in 2019.

She reached her initial major final at last year’s French Open, finishing as the runner-up, and now has earned the biggest trophy of her still-nascent career. Gauff earned a 12th consecutive victory and 18th in her past 19 matches dating to a first-round exit at the All England Club in July.

The No. 6-seeded Gauff did it Saturday by withstanding the power displayed by Sabalenka on nearly every swing of her racket, eventually getting accustomed to it and managing to get back shot after shot. Gauff broke to begin the third set on just one such point, tracking down every ball hit her way until eventually smacking a putaway volley that she punctuated with a fist pump and a scream of “Come on!”

Soon it was 4-0 in that set for Gauff. At 4-1, Sabalenka took a medical timeout while her left leg was massaged. Gauff stayed sharp during the break — it lasted a handful of minutes, not the 50 during a climate protest in the semifinals — by practicing some serves.

When they resumed, Sabalenka broke to get within 4-2. But Gauff broke right back, and soon was serving out the victory, then dropping onto her back on the court. She soon climbed into the stands to find her parents and others for hugs.

“You did it!” Gauff’s mom told her, both in tears.

Sabalenka came into the day with a 23-2 record at major tournaments in 2023, including her first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January. The 25-year-old from Belarus already was assured of rising from No. 2 to No. 1 in the WTA rankings for the first time next week.

But she was reduced to the role of foil by the fans. As often happens when an American plays in America, Gauff was the recipient of by far the most support from the seats in 23,000-capacity Arthur Ashe Stadium. Her pre-match TV interview, shown on the video screens in the arena, was drowned out by the sound of applause and cheers reverberating off the closed retractable roof.

Even in the early stages, winners by Gauff were celebrated as if the match were over. So were Sabalenka’s miscues. Her faults and, especially, double-faults — and there were six in all, three in her first two service games alone, plus another to hand over a break in the second set — and assorted other mistakes, including one over-the-shoulder backhand volley into the net and what appeared to be a much simpler forehand volley.

By the end, Sabalenka had made 46 unforced errors, far more than double Gauff’s total of 19.

Here’s another way to view it: Gauff only needed to deliver 13 winners to accumulate 83 points Saturday.

Sabalenka came out doing what she does, pretty much no matter the setting, the surface or the stakes: pounding shots as hard as she can and punctuating them with loud exhales.

That’s not to say it’s all she can do. One particular second-set point demonstrated that, when Gauff hit a lob that Sabalenka chased down with her back to the net and, spinning around, responded with a lob of her own for a winner.

When Sabalenka has everything calibrated just right, it’s difficult for any foe to handle her power — even someone as speedy, smart and instinctive as Gauff, whose get-to-every-ball court coverage managed to keep her in points few other players would be able to extend.

And when Sabalenka misses the mark, she sure does miss. After miscues Saturday, she frequently would slap her thigh or glance toward her entourage while muttering or shaking her head.

Neither player hit all the right notes at the start, perhaps owing to their contrasting styles and the mix of Sabalenka’s superb offense against Gauff’s exemplary defense.

They traded early breaks to 2-all, but Sabalenka then grabbed the next four games to take that set. During that stretch, there was a thrilling point that had the audience making noise before it was over. Gauff scrambled to keep getting Sabalenka’s strokes back over the net, including somehow deflecting a booming overhead on the run, before a second, unreachable overhead bounced off the ground and into the stands.

Sabalenka raised her left hand and wagged her fingers, telling the folks in the stands to give her some love.

But soon, Gauff was playing better, Sabalenka was off-target more, and the love was being showered only on one of them, the sport’s newest Grand Slam champion.

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AP tennis coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

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