I'm Coy Wire.

This is CNN 10, the best 10 minutes in news because of you.

We're going to zip you through some of the top news stories of the day.

There's not a lot of time to do it, so let's get to it.

We start with your headlines, starting with a first of its kind liftoff to outer space.

SpaceX's latest mission dubbed Polaris Dawn launched on Tuesday after a series of delays.

The four-person civilian crew is on a bold and risky trek beyond Earth's low orbit and into outer space.

They'll have to quickly pass the Van Allen radiation belts, which hasn't been done by humans since the Apollo space program in the 1970s.

Then they plan to one-up that feat by conducting the first commercial spacewalk.

Timing is absolutely critical here.

The Polaris Dawn mission only has enough life support for five or six days in space because of the major drain on oxygen supplies that comes with carrying out a spacewalk.

Next, back here on Earth, the Gulf Coast is bracing for Tropical Storm Francine.

The storm is quickly nearing hurricane status and could strengthen to a Category 2 storm by landfall today.

A hurricane of that strength can do a lot of damage to homes and cause widespread power outages.

Earlier in the week, communities in Louisiana and Texas took preparations for the storm's predicted flooding, powerful winds, and storm surge.

Louisiana's governor even issued a statewide emergency declaration ahead of Francine's arrival.

And, in the western U.S., officials say more than 60 active, large wildfires have burned more than 2 million acres of land there.

Blazes in California, Idaho, and Nevada are especially alarming, where flames and record heat have prompted evacuations and caused the destruction of several homes and businesses.

Those who haven't had to evacuate are dealing with power outages and closed schools as firefighters in the air and on the ground work to contain the blazes.

This just in, you were looking at, obviously, a very disturbing live shot there.

That is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

CNN Center right now is just beginning to work on this story, obviously calling our sources and trying to figure out exactly what happened, but clearly something relatively devastating happening this morning there on the south end of the island of Manhattan.

That is, once again, a picture of one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

Today is Wednesday, September 11th, and it marks the 23rd anniversary of the attacks on American soil.

The day caused chaos, terror, and death when the Al-Qaeda terrorist group carried out coordinated attacks against America.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed when terrorists flew commercial airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Now, Wednesday, on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to visit three sites of those attacks.

Now, considered a National Day of Service and Remembrance, September 11th memorial ceremonies and volunteer events will be held in communities across the country as the nation pauses to reflect and remember those who lost their lives on that tragic day.

In New York, a 9-11 memorial and museum now sit in the original location of the World Trade Center towers.

CNN went inside that museum as it was opening.

The museum is built almost entirely underground, some 70 feet down.

It sits in the precise footprint of the World Trade Center.

So this is exactly where the tower started and went up 1,350 feet.

A striking display of the sheer scale of the destruction with poignant reminders of the tragedy at every turn.

Visitors will also walk alongside the survivor stairs.

Used by hundreds of people as the buildings are crumbling, running from the dust cloud to escape to safety.

And it's for all our visitors to understand the story of survival.

And likely one of the most emotional stops in the museum.

This art installation mimics the blue sky on that fateful morning.

Behind it, the still unidentified remains of 911 victims.

The move met with mixed emotion from their families.

Right next door, a room dedicated to the lives of those lost.

Exactly.

That room is in an area called In Memoriam.

And it's a photographic portrait of each and every one of the 2,983 victims.

You see pictures, a father coaching his son's little league team, a wedding.

You see the lives that were lost that day and not just about how they died.

It's who these people were.

Throughout the museum, chilling reminders of the day.

Handmade flyers for the missing.

A cross emerging from the wreckage.

Everyday items simply left behind.

We helped through these artifacts and images tell that story of just, it was panic.

And while the museum is vast, one small exhibit has been the biggest source of controversy.

Its focus, the terrorists themselves, including a film criticized for not making a clear enough distinction between Islam and Al Qaeda.

There's been a lot of criticism.

Why give any time to the terrorists?

You know, it's, one way to look at it is you don't build a Holocaust museum and not be very clear that the Nazis were the ones who committed those atrocities.

Al Qaeda was an extremist terrorist group.

But no one will come through this exhibit and in any way think that we are indicting an entire religion, which we in no way are.

It seems very appropriate that you end here at the last column.

And it's, again, goes right back to resiliency, seeing those messages of hope and remembrance on this very tall column that's still standing strong.

That's powerful stuff.

Now September, did you know, is also National Literacy Month?

There is power in knowledge.

It's why we aim to learn so we can be a little better each day than we were the day before.

And the strength behind that power starts with reading and writing, which is why September is dedicated to recognizing the importance of literacy.

To celebrate National Literacy Month, a few of my CNN colleagues are sharing the books that made a huge impact on their lives.

I had two favorite books.

One was a collection of poetry, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.

I had a bit of a speech impediment when I grew up, and so it helped me to perfect my diction a lot.

And it was just fun tales and gave you encouragement, and I loved it.

The other one was a book called The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho.

It translates at every stage in your life, looking for meaning in your personal journey.

Well, my favorite book growing up is a pretty obvious one for me.

It was Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.

The big takeaway was that knowledge is something that can be taught, but wisdom is something that has to be experienced.

I give this book to a lot of high school students, even today when they're graduating from high school or even earlier, because it had such a profound impact on me.

The first time I ever cried in front of all my middle school classmates was thanks to a novel called Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.

And to be fair, everybody was crying.

It is a beautiful story of a boy and his two red-boned coonhounds growing up in the Ozarks.

It shaped the way I think about wildlife, our relationship with nature, and each other.

This book really changed my life.

It's called A Sense of Where You Are by John McPhee, the best writer, in my view, biased, of all time.

And the writing in this book was quite literally what made me want to be a writer.

Yes, it was a sports book about a famous basketball player, Hall of Famer Bill Bradley, but how John McPhee wrote and how he was able to almost force a picture into your brain, it felt like you were almost watching TV while you were reading the book.

What is my favorite YA book?

Rick Riordan.

I mean, come on.

You cannot read YA today without looking at Percy Jackson and anything that Rick Riordan does.

So I really love The Chalice of the Gods.

Even though this is a story written for teens, you know, tweens, I found it to be truly one of those books that even adults can truly, truly love.

Our story today, getting a 10 out of 10, is a balloon-tiful sight.

If you were passing through or over Reno over the weekend, you may have been flummoxed by what you saw if you didn't know what was happening.

The Great Reno Balloon Race had up to about 100 hot air balloons rising to the occasion, one of the biggest hot air balloon festivals in the country.

More than 150,000 spectators were on cloud nine watching these dirigibles take off.

Congrats to Lola High School in Kansas for submitting our vocabulary word of the day, flummoxed, an adjective meaning bewildered or perplexed.

I see you, Madison.

Thanks for all the submission, and thanks for all the shout-out requests on our CNN10 YouTube page.

Today's shout-out goes to Environmental Charter School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Go Hawks!

Rise up, everyone.

I'll see you right back here tomorrow on CNN10.