Ros Jones 💙🇬🇧🇪🇺

Drama Queen. Aston Villa supporter. Devoted Wittertainee (hello to Jason Isaacs). Welcome host at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.

[Kevin Lynch @klhoops]

On this night...25 years ago, 246 people went to sleep in preparation for their morning flights. 2,606 people went to sleep in preparation for work in the morning tomorrow. 343 firefighters went to sleep in preparation for their morning shift. 60 police officers went to sleep in preparation for morning patrol. 8 paramedics went to sleep in preparation for the morning shift of saving lives. None of them saw past 10:00 am Sept 11, 2001. In one single moment life may never be the same. As you live and enjoy the breaths you take today and tonight before you go to sleep in preparation for your life tomorrow, kiss the ones you love, snuggle a little tighter, and never take one second of your life for granted

Never forget. 🇺🇸🦅🇺🇲🦅

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Howard Lutnick was supposed to be at his desk on the 105th floor of One World Trade Center, running Cantor Fitzgerald.

Instead, he was taking his five-year-old son, Kyle, to his very first day of kindergarten.
That tender fatherly milestone saved his life, but it came at a staggering cost. At 8:46 AM, American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower right beneath Cantor Fitzgerald’s headquarters. In an instant, 658 of his employees, 67% of the company's workforce, including his brother Gary, were trapped above the impact zone. Every single one of them died.

Lutnick rushed to the scene just as the towers collapsed. Surrounded by dust and devastation, he found himself facing a horrific double reality: he had survived, but he was now CEO of a ghost company. His friends, colleagues, and entire executive team were gone.

In the emotional days that followed, the media aggressively questioned whether Cantor Fitzgerald would simply file for bankruptcy. To make matters worse, Lutnick faced intense backlash when he froze payroll days after the attack. However, he quickly clarified the brutal reality: the firm was bleeding cash, and if it went under, there would be no money left to help the families of the fallen.

Driven by a profound sense of duty, Lutnick made a quiet promise: Cantor Fitzgerald would survive, and its success would belong to the families left behind.

Over the next five years, the surviving staff worked around the clock under extreme emotional pressure. Lutnick pledged 25% of the firm's profits directly to the families of the victims and guaranteed their healthcare for a decade. Through this initiative, Cantor Fitzgerald distributed $180 million to those affected.

But he didn't stop at financial restitution. Lutnick made a legendary promise to every single child who lost a parent in the attacks: when you grow up, you have a job waiting for you at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Years turned into decades. True to his word, as those children reached adulthood, the doors of the firm opened for them. To date, 57 children of the victims have walked through those doors, joining the very company where their parents once worked.

Every year on September 11, Cantor Fitzgerald holds its annual Charity Day, donating 100% of its global revenues to various charities worldwide, turning one of the darkest days in human history into an enduring beacon of hope, resilience, and loyalty.

Before rebuilding Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick experienced profound personal tragedy early in life: his mother died of lymphoma while he was in high school, and his father passed away during his freshman year at Haverford College. Facing sudden hardship, the college president and dean granted Lutnick a full scholarship to complete his degree, a act of institutional generosity that Lutnick credits as the foundation for his later philanthropic pledge to support the families of his fallen 9/11 team.

#archaeohistories

[EarthCam @EarthCam]

Last night, 2,977 lights rose above New York Harbor, one for each life lost on September 11, 2001, before forming the Twin Towers against the New York City skyline.

The commemorative installation was created in collaboration with members of the 9/11 community, including family members, survivors and first responders, to mark the 25th anniversary of the attacks.

[DulceBiatch @BiatchDulce]

Can’t sleep… I love his perspective.
Had to share!

[Larry the Cat @Number10cat]

Since its foundation in 1824 the bravery of Royal National Lifeboat Institution volunteers has saved more than 146,700 lives at sea.
Hundreds of those volunteers have died attempting to save others. They are the best of us.
Any person or organisation questioning their actions or loyalty to this country should be corrected and ostracised.
Anyone can drown, but no one should.
https://t.co/d81tKprNkY

[Alan Ferrier @alanferrier]

As an antidote to the poison being thrown at the @RNLI, I give you Bill Bryson.

[Diane Ellison @DianeEllison]

@CBSSunday Yes we did.
https://t.co/Jj9PoksYTa

[Ros Jones 💙🇬🇧🇪🇺 @rosjones25]

We just watched a production on board the Queen Elizabeth- it was excellent, very moving.

[Ryan Gaysling @ryan_gaysling]

I cried from the first foot stomps of Come From Away. The hate engendered by a horrid man cannot stop this and I know we’d support our friends again. We just want you to get out from under. An important reminder of solidarity on this 25th anniversary

[Dexys Midnight Runners @DexysOfficial]

I, Kevin Rowland (the son of Irish immigrants) and the main songwriter of ‘Come On Eileen,’ am disgusted to learn that Nigel Farage has used our song to make his entrance for his party conference. Myself, and all of Dexys are passionately against Farage’s politics.

@ByDonkeys .

[Peter Bradshaw @PeterBradshaw1]

My review of the re-release of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) (dir. Leonard Nimoy) is up here: https://t.co/tTzLaUL6sn

[Rolling Stone @RollingStone]

Dolly Parton's family asked that, in lieu of flowers, fans make a donation to the singer's Imagination Library.

Here's what the charity does ⬇️
https://t.co/wYj727Ao9I

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

In 1988 Dolly Parton pulled every 7th and 8th grader in Sevier County into a room and told them to pick a buddy.

She made them sign a contract.. if BOTH graduate, she hands you both $500. One fails, nobody gets paid.

The county dropout rate went from 35% to 6%.

She handed out the checks herself.

In 1989 she offered $500 to every kid in the county who wanted to go to the local college.

When Gatlinburg burned in 2016, she sent 900 families $1,000 a month for six months.

You've probably heard that part.

Here's the part you haven't:

The fund raised more than expected, so she showed up in May and handed every one of those families another $5,000 on top.

Then she quietly put $3 million into the recovery group that handles the years after the news trucks leave.

She built her county an entire hospital.

She played a benefit concert in 2007, Dollywood and the Stampede matched it, and LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with a birthing unit and a women's center in it.

In 2022 she started covering 100% of tuition, books, and fees for Dollywood employees.

Full-time, part-time, AND seasonal.

In 1991 she paid for a bald eagle sanctuary because the birds couldn't be released back into the wild, no press release.

And when Hurricane Helene came through here in Western North Carolina, she wrote a personal check for $1 million and her companies matched it.

She didn't owe North Carolina anything, but she helped us anyway.

She started the Imagination Library because her daddy couldn't read or write. Before he passed, he told her it was the most important thing she ever did.

Rest in Peace, Dolly 🇺🇸

[Keith Campion @keith_campion]

If Dolly Parton can gift 20million books a year to children, why can’t Amazon, Apple and Microsoft do something like this??

[Ros Jones 💙🇬🇧🇪🇺 @rosjones25]

Who is this a picture of?

[Cyndi..🌻🌹💙🩵🎶 @cyndiwanek]

Yes, absolutely 💯

[CinemaCopa @CopaExMachina]

The single greatest use of Chekhov's pane of glass you'll ever see. It's beyond me how someone didn't die filming these stunts.

What's Up, Doc? (1972) | Peter Bogdanovich

[Nick Reeves #RejoinEU #NAFO #FBPE @nickreeves9876]

Please retweet if you will never forgive the lying politicians who robbed us of our EU Freedom of Movement.
#RejoinEU

[LubnanBoi🇵🇸🇱🇧 🇮🇷 @AgitatorAK]

Dear @JeremyClarkson I saw this on my feed on another platform and instantly thought you needed to see it.

"Jeremy Clarkson thinks people who receive benefits should have to send a weekly thank you email to a randomly chosen working person, explaining what they did with the money, or have their payments stopped.

So here is mine. If you’d like to give it a share to help Jeremy see it, that would be great.

Dear Jezza,

Thank you for your concern about my contribution to society.

I should say first that you were aiming this at young people you believe are sitting at home doing nothing.

But you wrote it as a blanket rule applying to everyone whose benefits are paid.

That includes more than thirteen million pensioners, millions of people who receive benefits while working, who may find themselves being ordered to thank another benefit claimant, and me.

I receive PIP.

That money goes towards the Motability car I use to travel to work.

It is not a free car. It is not even my car. I exchange the mobility part of my PIP to lease it.

The car takes the lot.

Which is awkward, because that same payment is also meant to help cover the additional costs of being disabled, including a wheelchair that is actually usable for my job and hearing aids that allow me to do it.

There is nothing left for either.

I chose the thing that gets me to work.

That car enables me to work and, because I can work, I now pay considerably more in tax than I have ever received in PIP.

But my contribution does not end with my own tax bill.

I have built programmes that hundreds of people now use to earn a living.

They pay tax too.

Those programmes have helped thousands of people overcome anxiety, return to their lives and, in many cases, return to work.

Then there are all the people supported by the coaches and practitioners I have trained.

That is what disability support can do when it is designed to enable people rather than humiliate them.

My PIP did not disappear into some great benefits black hole.

It helped provide the transport that allowed me to work, build a business, create opportunities for other people and contribute far more than I could ever have done without it.

But as we are exchanging thank you letters, perhaps you could send me one too.

I paid my television licence throughout the years the BBC gave you the platform that made you famous.

I now pay for Amazon Prime, which helps fund the television programme about your farm.

I do not choose to watch it.

But that is how society works, Jeremy.

We all contribute towards things we may never personally use because the entire country would fall apart if every payment had to provide us with an individual benefit.

Perhaps you could also thank the taxpayers whose public services and infrastructure support your businesses.

And while you have the stationery out, perhaps you could explain the farm.

In 2021, you told The Times that avoiding inheritance tax was “the critical thing” in your decision to buy land.

In 2024, when that became rather inconvenient, you said it had never been true. You claimed you had actually bought the farm because you wanted somewhere to shoot and that tax avoidance had simply sounded like a better story at the time.

I am not sure which version helps your argument.

It is funny how public support and clever tax arrangements are treated as perfectly respectable when they benefit wealthy people.

Yet when a disabled person receives help to leave the house, go to work and participate in society, you think they should be made to perform gratitude.

So thank you for your concern, Jezza.

I hope my licence fee, Amazon subscription, taxes and contribution to the economy have all been gratefully received.

Please send your thank you letter weekly, along with a full breakdown of how you spent the money.

If it is not sufficiently fulsome and effusive, I assume your income will be stopped.

That is only fair."