The families of more than 5,000 victims of the World Trade Center attack will each receive a wooden urn with dirt from the mass graveyard, the mayor said after he heard reports that con men were peddling phony mementos from ground zero to family members.
"We are going to give the families soil from the World Trade Center," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Tuesday. "We will provide every single family with an urn, made of beautiful wood."
Meanwhile, a court declared 41 of the missing victims legally dead, acting at the request of their families. All had worked for the Cantor Fitzgerald bond trading firm, which lost some 700 employees.
Once the health commissioner receives the court's report, he will issue the death certificates. The process of obtaining a death certificate for a missing person has been speeded up from a few years to a few days to help victims' families.
Officials have acknowledged that it could take months to recover and identify victims of the fiery disaster and that some of the dead may never be found. Giuliani said 1,202 families whose relatives are still missing in the smoking ruins have applied for death certificates.
One of the major employers near the site, Merrill Lynch, plans to return to its offices at the World Financial Center on Oct. 22 -- another sign of the city's return to normalcy, the mayor said.
The bodies of 15 firefighters were recovered from the 1.2 million tonnes of rubble, law enforcement sources said on condition of anonymity. Nearly 350 firefighters are believed to be among the victims.
The confirmed number of dead now stands at 363, including the bodies of 64 firefighters.
One of the survivors, a security broker caught in a fireball on the 83rd floor, left the hospital Tuesday -- the first victim released from the New York Weill Cornell Burn Center. Fourteen other victims remain.
New York City easily sold US$1 billion in bonds to meet cleanup needs and relief costs Tuesday. Officials said the bonds sold out in two hours and investors placed US$4 billion worth of orders.
And an assortment of celebrities -- including native New Yorker Robert De Niro, Regis Philbin and Sigourney Weaver -- joined Governor George Pataki in encouraging tourists to come back to New York.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said it expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-Wong tomorrow, which it said would possibly make landfall near central Taiwan. As of 2am yesterday, Fung-Wong was about 1,760km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving west-northwest at 26kph. It is forecast to reach Luzon in the northern Philippines by tomorrow, the CWA said. After entering the South China Sea, Typhoon Fung-Wong is likely to turn northward toward Taiwan, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張峻堯) said, adding that it would likely make landfall near central Taiwan. The CWA expects to issue a land
Taiwan’s exports soared to an all-time high of US$61.8 billion last month, surging 49.7 percent from a year earlier, as the global frenzy for artificial intelligence (AI) applications and new consumer electronics powered shipments of high-tech goods, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. It was the first time exports had exceeded the US$60 billion mark, fueled by the global boom in AI development that has significantly boosted Taiwanese companies across the international supply chain, Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) told a media briefing. “There is a consensus among major AI players that the upcycle is still in its early stage,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said it is expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong this afternoon and a land warning tomorrow. As of 1pm, the storm was about 1,070km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, and was moving west-northwest at 28 to 32kph, according to CWA data. The storm had a radius of 250km, with maximum sustained winds of 173kph and gusts reaching 209kph, the CWA added. The storm is forecast to pass near Luzon in the Philippines before entering the South China Sea and potentially turning northward toward Taiwan, the CWA said. CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張峻堯) said
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday said that China using armed force against Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, allowing the country to mobilize the Japanese armed forces under its security laws. Takaichi made the remarks during a parliamentary session while responding to a question about whether a "Taiwan contingency" involving a Chinese naval blockade would qualify as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, according to a report by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. "If warships are used and other armed actions are involved, I believe this could constitute a survival-threatening situation," Takaichi was quoted as saying in the report. Under Japan’s security legislation,
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