Firewood Indiana Pa

Live blog: Obama lays wreath at Shanksville memorial

Update at 1:24 p.m. ET: NBC reports that a Facebook user posted on the White House page threatening messages warning of new 9/11-style attacks.

Update at 12:59 p.m. ET: The Associated Press reports that during President Obama’s visit to the Flight 93 crash site in Shanksville, Pa., one man called out: “Thanks for getting bin Laden!”

Update at 12:06 p.m. ET: USA TODAY’s Martha Moore, at Ground Zero, reports that sisters Maureen Wheeler and Michelle Fallon filled empty water bottles with water from the memorial pools when they found the name of their brother David Ruddle, a carpenter who was working in the south tower. “It’s like a resting place for him,” Fallon says. The sisters put his name on their parents headstone but the memorial “is like a resting place for him,” she says. “It’s peaceful to know that he’s remembered,” Wheeler says. “It’s like being with him again.”

Update at 12:04 p.m. ET: The Obamas did not make any public remarks, but are meeting with families of victims and local dignitaries.

Update at 11:56 a.m. ET: President Obama, accompanied by first lady Michelle Obama, places a wreath at the Shanksville memorial.

Update at 11:37 a.m. ET: Pennsylvania State Police helicopters are buzzing overhead near the Shanksville memorial site, scouring the area in preparation for President Obama’s visit this morning, USA TODAY’s Haya El Nasser reports.

Update at 11:31 a.m. ET: Al-Jazeera, quoting an exclusive interview with a former Taliban former minister, reports that the Taliban proposed to the U.S. long before 9/11 to turn Osama bin Laden over for trial for earlier terrorist activities. Al-Jazeera quotes the CIA station chief in Pakistan at the time of 9/11 as confirming the reported proposal, but says no one in the U.S. government took the offer seriously, considering it a “ploy.

The Smoky Mountain Hiking Blog: Smokies Institutes New Firewood ...

That its current policy to prohibit the transportation of firewood from federal and state quarantined areas into the park has been tightened to include several neighboring counties in Tennessee. The affected areas, Blount, Knox, Anderson, Loudon and Union, and the most recent county just added to the list, Grainger, have been quarantined by either the state or federal government to prevent the movement of the destructive emerald ash borer (EAB) and thousand cankers disease (TCD), an associated fungal disease transmitted by a small twig beetle. The current firewood quarantines cover ALL AREAS in the following states: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, and PORTIONS of the following states: Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin, and for the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. These state and federal regulations allow the movement of firewood within a quarantined county and between one quarantined county and another. In an effort to protect the world-renowned biodiversity of the Smokies, Park regulations go a step further and prohibit visitors from bringing wood from any infested county into any part of the Park, unless the wood was purchased and bears a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) pest-free certification seal. This restriction includes bringing wood from Blount County into the park, including those areas such as Cades Cove, Look Rock, and Abrams Creek which lie within Blount County. Movement of infested firewood has been implicated in the spread of destructive insects and diseases into urban and natural areas which has caused significant mortality among numerous tree species. Campers have four options for burning firewood in the Park: First, firewood can be purchased from local businesses that sell firewood bundles bearing USDA seals certifying that the wood may be transported safely.