New York City: WTC site plan proposed

After months of discussions, public meetings and hints, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. board Tuesday unveiled a preliminary proposal for the site destroyed Sept. 11.

The agency’s wish list  including a memorial, a mass transit hub, restoration of downtown’s street grid, expansion of cultural institutions and open spaces, and a biotechnology center  “represents the best possible consensus at the moment” for what may go on the 16-acre World Trade Center site, said Alexander Garvin, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.’s urban planner.

The plan envisions Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, the New York Stock Exchange and the World Trade Center memorial as key elements of a regional “Freedom Park” that could be marketed and operated as a single destination. It would feature a “museum of freedom and remembrance.”

California: Priest accused of molestation was co-owner of gay hotel

A priest accused of molesting children in Boston more than two decades ago bought a hotel that catered to gays after he was transferred to Southern California in 1990, property records show.

The Rev. Paul R. Shanley and another former priest bought the four-room Cabana Club Resort in December 1990. Shanley left the San Bernardino Diocese in 1993 and sold the hotel two years later.

In Boston, several lawsuits have been filed against Shanley, including one by Gregory Ford, 24, who alleges the priest raped him in the 1980s.

Documents released Monday by Ford’s attorney show Shanley spoke in favor of sex between men and boys at a 1979 meeting where a national group advocating the practice  the North American Man Boy Love Assn.  apparently was formed.

Montreal: Global air safety assessed

Commercial air travel was safer in 2001 if the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are excluded from calculations, the International Civil Aviation Organization said Tuesday.

In its annual report on civil aviation safety, the U.N. agency said 13 aircraft accidents on scheduled routes worldwide resulted in 577 passenger deaths last year. In 2000, there were 757 deaths from 18 accidents, according to the agency.

The figures, which did not include flight crew fatalities, involved larger commercial planes. For charter flights including cargo aircraft, 29 accidents caused 204 passenger deaths, compared with 290 deaths the previous year from 21 accidents, ICAO said.

Pakistan: Musharraf begins campaign to extend his presidency

President Pervez Musharraf launched a campaign to extend his rule on Tuesday, proclaiming at an elaborately staged rally in Lahore that his military government had saved Pakistan from being branded a terrorist state.

Tens of thousands of people were bused into the park where Pakistan’s independence movement began in 1940 to hear Musharraf’s campaign speech  the first of his political career.

Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless 1999 coup, has called an April 30 referendum to extend his rule by five years.