GBH Daily: On remembering

🌂Morning showers, then clearing skies, with highs in the 80s.Sunset will be at 7:02 p.m.

Tomorrow marks 25 years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In our newsroom, we’ve been collecting and remembering stories from that day and about how it’s shaped the quarter-century since, like the story of a Boston Globe reporter who lost his father in the attacks and then went on to report on the war in Afghanistan. If you have memories of that day and are willing to share them, I would love to hear from you. Please reply to this newsletter today or send a message to daily@wgbh.org. I may include some of your stories in tomorrow’s newsletter.

Four Things to Know

1. A district court judge will look into what happened before and after Cambridge police shot and killed William Woodworth, 64, on Aug. 21. This process is called a judicial inquest: District Court Judge Holly Broadbent will review body camera footage and witness interviews to help determine what happened. Then the final report will go to the local district attorney’s office, where prosecutors will decide whether to charge officers or anyone else involved.

“I know it’s hard to wait, especially for the family,” Cambridge City Councilor Marc McGovern said. “But you also want to ensure that … you’re giving the investigation the attention and the time that it deserves for everybody’s sake.”

2. City councilors in Worcester voted 8-3 against creating a board of residents to investigate complaints against local police officers. Some Worcester residents have been asking for a police review board since a Department of Justice investigation found wide-ranging officer misconduct in 2024.

But city council members said residents can go to the city’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which can investigate complaints and talk to Police Chief Paul Saucier about resolving conflicts.

3. More than 7,300 Salvadoran immigrants in Massachusetts (and more across the country) are dealing with confusion over their immigration status. The federal government didn’t take the official steps to renew temporary protected status for El Salvador — but a media representative said that they “retain protection” without answering further questions about what Salvadorans who lost work authorization due to the status being terminated Wednesday could do, and if they were safe from detention.

Congress originally created TPS in 1990, and El Salvador was the first country to be designated for the humanitarian protection. That was due to an ongoing civil war. Salvadorans were also able to use it to move to the U.S. after earthquakes and continued instability in 2001. GBH’s Sarah Betancourt has more on the history of TPS and how Salvadorans in Massachusetts are dealing with the uncertainty of their status here. 

4. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said her takeaway from last week’s primary is that “longtime incumbents with big war chests and a lot of support can’t just cruise to reelection in this moment because people expect more.” Wu endorsed two challengers to incumbent state senators this year: Daniel Lander, a former adviser running against State Sen. Will Brownsberger, and Latoya Gayle, a nonprofit leader running against State Sen. Nick Collins.

Gayle lost, and Lander is 34 votes behind in a race in the middle of a recount. Both Collins and Brownsberger had opposed Boston changing the way it taxes commercial properties to try to lessen the amount residents have to pay. “It was first-time candidates who were very badly outspent, who started with no name recognition whatsoever [and] ended up holding an incumbent to just over 50 percent in both cases,” Wu said.

25 years after Sept. 11 attacks, Muslims are still navigating the backlash

GBH’s Sam Turken talked to Muslims in Massachusetts about how the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the waves of Islamophobia that came after them shaped their lives. Here’s some of what they told him.

Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, now executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, talked about running for Congress and getting threats because of her religion: “It was very painful,” Amatul-Wadud said. “Every day, I woke up and I was having to humanize myself … I was very much burdened to have to almost seek permission to be standing in that room asking for their vote. No other candidate has that burden.”

Ihab Dabbagh, a member of the board of trustees at the Islamic Society of Worcester, said many Muslims still fear backlash: “If [there’s] any incident in any state, I swear, first thing my wife will ask me is, ‘Is he a Muslim? I hope he’s not a Muslim,’” Dabbagh said.

Abdulqadir Farah, the lead imam at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury, said he’s focused on “the idea of resilience. That there’s always going to be bad things that we have to deal with and we’re going to come out of it,” he said. “There’s more good in this country than there is bad.”

Find more stories and reflections in Turken’s full report here. 

Dig deeper:

-The man who walked between the Twin Towers: an interview with Philippe Petit

-The 9/11 story that made New York Mayor Ed Koch break down

-Inside President Bush’s 9/11 response