■ United States
`Freedom tower' begun
A 18-tonne slab of granite, inscribed to honor ``the enduring spirit of freedom,'' was laid at the World Trade Center site as the cornerstone of the skyscraper that will replace the destroyed towers. The ceremony on Sunday marked the start of construction on the 533m Freedom Tower, designed as a twisting glass and steel tower that evokes the Statue of Liberty, including a 83m spire resembling her torch. Its height in feet is to symbolize the year the US gained independence from Britain. Organizers say it would be the world's largest skyscraper -- but it's not clear whether it would hold that title by the time it's scheduled to be completed in 2009. The current largest skyscraper is Taipei 101 in Taiwan at 50m, which this year surpassed the 452m Petrona Towers in Malaysia, according to the Web site of The Skyscraper Museum in New York.
■ United States
Cheney doctor drug-addled
Vice President Dick Cheney's personal doctor, who four years ago declared Cheney "up to the task of the most sensitive public office" despite a history of heart disease, was battling an addiction to prescription drugs at the time and has recently been dropped from the vice president's medical team, according to officials at George Washington University Medical Center where he practiced. The doctor, Gary Malakoff had treated Cheney since 1995. Hospital officials said Sunday that they had known since 1999 of Malakoff's problem. But he was permitted to continue working, they said, while undergoing treatment and monitoring, including urine tests, by an independent board. But in May, when the board concluded Malakoff was too impaired to care for patients, he was relieved of his position as director of the medical center's general internal medicine division, they said.
■ United States
Pilot saved
A 25-year-old pilot was plucked safely from Rockaway Inlet off Brooklyn on Sunday after he was forced to ditch a single-engine plane he had flown over the holiday beach crowds of Staten Island and New Jersey with aerial advertising in tow, the authorities said. "This was a very fortunate young man," said Captain Martin Zweig of the US Park Police, which patrols the Gateway National Recreation Area and the section of the bay where the plane went down at 3:55pm. He said the pilot, whose identity was not disclosed, was pulled from the water almost immediately by the driver of a motorized water scooter and transferred to a park police boat. Zweig said the cause of the accident remained under investigation.
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