■ United States
WTC debris used on roads
Debris that may have contained bits of bone from victims of the World Trade Center attacks was used to fill potholes and pave city roads, court papers filed on Friday showed. The charge was made in an affidavit filed in Manhattan federal court in an ongoing case filed in 2005 by family members of those killed in the attacks against the city. They say the city did not do enough to search for remains, denying victims a proper burial. Eric Beck, a construction worker employed at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island, where the rubble was taken after the Twin Towers fell, said in his affidavit that the process of sifting through the debris was rushed.
■ United States
Shirts upset Mormons
For a coffee shop, T-shirts of a Mormon angel with java flowing into his trumpet are selling well. But they don't have the blessing of religious leaders. The shirts have upset the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Not only is the angel Moroni a revered figure, but Mormons are discouraged from drinking coffee. The shirts show the angel Moroni, a male figure in a robe blowing a trumpet. The trumpet is turned up at an angle as coffee is poured in. "They've been the best-selling T-shirts we've ever done," Just Add Coffee co-owner Ed Beazer of Utah said. The church informed Beazer that the angel's image is a registered trademark. "If they provide proof, we're going to comply," Beazer said. "We don't want to break any laws or anything."
■ United States
Man sells rare document
A rare 1823 copy of the Declaration of Independence sold at auction for US$477,650 by a man who found it last year in a Nashville thrift store for US$2.48. Michael Sparks, a music equipment technician, sold the document on Thursday at Raynors' Historical Collectible Auctions in Burlington, North Carolina. Six bidders contended for the document, most by phone or Internet, when bidding opened at US$125,000. The identity of the winner was not disclosed.
■ United States
CIA agent `buried' Che
A former CIA agent claims he personally buried leftist revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and challenged Cuba to allow a DNA test to prove that the remains it interred are Guevara's, the Miami Herald reported on Friday. Miami Cuban emigre Gustavo Villoldo, 71, a veteran of the failed US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion, said he buried Guevara and two colleagues in October 1967 in a pit in Vallegrande, Bolivia, after cutting a lock of the hair of the Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary hero. The Cuban government in 1995 announced it had located Che's remains and returned them to Cuba in 1997 for a pomp and parade-filled funeral extravaganza.
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