IBT Staff Reporter

On September 11, 2001, hijacked passenger airplanes destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and damaged the Pentagon in Washington D.C. killing near 3,000 people.Following is a brief timeline of the events of the day.

There is little support in Congress for sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives said on Thursday, indicating possible trouble ahead for President Barack Obama.

Vice president Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden visited the World Trade Center at Ground Zero on Friday marking the eighth anniversary commemoration of the 9/11 attacks.

Chinese parents wept at a memorial for babies poisoned by tainted milk powder, demanding support for sons and daughters still sick a year after the scandal broke and more research into long-term problems.

Prisoners started a fire during a riot at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. and Iraqi officials said, resulting in some injuries at the jail that became synonymous with U.S. detainee abuse.

Mysterious needle attacks have spread to new cities in China's restive far-western region of Xinjiang, the China Daily said on Friday, although once again the assaults appear to be a mix of real and imagined.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Friday he had not yet decided whether to run for president in 2012 when Dmitry Medvedev's current term ends.

Social networking site Facebook has rolled out a new slim down version of Facebook aimed at people with slow net connections.

Campbell Soup Co posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Friday, helped by higher prices and increased sales of condensed soup and Prego pasta sauce as people ate at home more to save money.

Nebraska photographer, Tracy Raver, has become the latest sensation in photographing newborns making the moment last a lifetime.

U.S. stocks struggled for traction on Friday after five days of gains, even as positive economic data and a rosier outlook from FedEx supported hopes for economic recovery.

President Barack Obama delivered brief remarks on Friday at a wreath laying ceremony at the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va. remembering the 911 attacks of 2001, the worst seen in the history of the United States.

U.S. investigators are probing the former head of American International Group Inc's Financial Products unit, Joseph Cassano, and other executives for securities fraud, a law enforcement source familiar with the case said on Friday.

U.S. refiners said operations were normal at refineries in Texas and Louisiana on Friday morning as they monitored a storm system in the western Gulf of Mexico that has a low chance of becoming a tropical cyclone.

FedEx Corp said profits in both the current and next quarters would be higher than Wall Street expected, citing an improving economy and stable fuel prices, and its shares jumped 6.8 percent to their best level in nearly a year.

President Barack Obama delivered brief remarks on Friday at a wreath laying ceremony at the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va. remembering the 911 attacks eight years ago.

FedEx Corp said profits in both the current and next quarters would be higher than it had earlier expected, citing an improving economy and stable fuel prices, and its shares jumped 5.4 percent to their best level in nearly a year.

Campbell Soup Co posted higher quarterly operating profit on Friday, helped by higher prices.

U.S. stocks were little changed on Friday as positive data and a rosier outlook from FedEx supported hopes for economic recovery, but Wall Street struggled for traction after five days of gains.

U.S. consumer sentiment rose in early September to the strongest in three months with growing expectations the economy will improve, a survey showed on Friday.

Wells Fargo Securities downgraded American International Group Inc to underperform, saying the company has virtually no tangible book value at the moment and that its shares are over priced.

U.S prosecutors are preparing to impanel a grand jury to consider indicting the former head of American International Group's AIG Financial Products unit for securities fraud, the Wall Street Journal reported.

September 11, 2009 marks the eighth anniversary of the deadly terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of many.

FedEx Corp said profits in both the current and next quarters would be higher than it had earlier expected, citing an improving economy and stable fuel prices, and its shares jumped 5.4 percent to their best level in nearly a year.

China will have to retool its engines of economic growth to help the world avoid increasingly dangerous levels of greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades, a leading expert on the economic impact of climate change said.

Oil and gas explorer Rockhopper Exploration Plc said on Friday that it agreed on the terms for a farm-in of one of its licences with a third party energy company.

British oil company BPC Ltd said a number of well-known institutional investors bought over 272 million shares of the company after RAB Special Situations and Edgewater Estates cut their stake, sending its shares up 30 percent.

Hungarian oil group MOL sold 47,369 of its own shares on the Budapest Stock Exchange on Thursday, it said on Friday, raising about 675 mln forints ($3.57 million) to help finance a gas project in Iraq.

Wall Street was set for a modestly higher open on Friday as investors were optimistic about economic recovery prospects and FedEx said its first-quarter earnings would exceed expectations.