🗣️ It’s the 25th anniversary of 9/11. I was 17 years old, a senior in high school, when our teachers turned on the TVs so we could watch the horror unfold: the World Trade Center towers and Pentagon on fire and then falling to the ground, killing thousands.

It was almost unthinkable that there could be a terror attack on US soil before then, so it was easy at first to rally around whatever our government planned to do to make us safer.

But then came expanded surveillance of US citizens with the Patriot Act; the tortures at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay that has meant the masterminds behind 9/11 are still not brought to justice; and a war in a country that had nothing to do with the attacks that killed tens of thousands.

It was the beginning of my political awakening: the realization that an atrocious act can be a pretext to more atrocities—if we collectively allow it.

My thoughts today are with the families of those killed in the attacks and in the aftermath.

Time for Only in Iowa, this week’s photo, Positively Iowa, and news you can use.

The Cy-Hawk rivalry heads to Kinnick Stadium in September. (Joseph Hendrickson/Shutterstock)

For one Saturday every September, Iowa has a very important question to answer: Are you wearing black and gold or cardinal and gold?

This year, the rivalry is headed back to Iowa City, where Iowa will host Iowa State at Kinnick Stadium on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. The game will air on NBC, just the third time the football rivalry has been played on primetime in Iowa City.

Reply and tell me which team you root for, then check out the history of the rivalry, the series, and that time the new trophy was widely mocked.

This summer, a group of Cedar Rapids women won their third-straight national championship—in Granny Basketball.

The Cedar Rapids Sizzlers won the tournament, played in Ankeny, in July.

The roster is for women over 50, who play a 1920s-style basketball game for “competitive exercise, sportsmanship, friendship, and recognition of women who continue to pursue athletic challenges well beyond the age when competitive sports traditionally end,” Sizzler player Jen Neubauer said.

Check out that story on Iowa’s News Now, and learn more at grannybasketball.com.

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Thanks for reading. This newsletter was written by Amie Rivers. It was edited by Crystal Niforos.

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