New York City: Developer to release plans for tower at trade center site

In an important step toward rebuilding ground zero, a developer is set to release plans today for a new office tower just north of where the twin towers stood.

The 52-story 7 World Trade Center will incorporate “cutting-edge safety and environmental features,” said Howard Rubenstein, a spokesman for developer Larry Silverstein.

The original 7 World Trade collapsed more than eight hours after the twin towers were attacked.

The building, which housed the mayor’s Office of Emergency Management and other offices, had been evacuated, and no one died when it fell.

Washington, D.C.: Moussaoui tied to 9-11 plot

An al-Qaida leader in U.S. custody has linked suspected 9-11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui directly to the alleged mastermind of the attacks, The Washington Post reports.

Ramzi Binalshibh told interrogators that Moussaoui met with Khalid Sheik Mohammad in Afghanistan in the winter of 2000, the Post reported today, citing unidentified sources familiar with the interrogation. Mohammed is believed to be al-Qaida’s director of operations.

Mohammed provided Moussaoui with names of contacts in the United States, and Binalshibh gave him an e-mail address and wired him money to advance the plot, the Post said Binalshibh told interrogators.

Washington, D.C.: Audit: Military hospitals losing millions to fraud

Record-keeping at some military hospitals is so bad that millions of dollars in insurance payments are being lost and hundreds of patients may be using the Social Security numbers of dead people to get free health care, congressional investigators say.

The General Accounting Office, in a review of military hospitals in Georgia, Virginia and Texas, said it also found potentially fraudulent uses of government credit cards and inadequate records of prescription drug inventories and usage.

The GAO was asked to investigate financial controls at military hospitals after the Pentagon’s $24 billion military health system overspent its budget in six of the past eight years.

Tennessee: Nine children, teacher’s aide struck by car outside school

An 81-year-old woman driving to an elementary school to pick up her granddaughter plowed into nine children and a teacher’s aide outside the Memphis school Tuesday, critically injuring two of the students, sheriff’s officials said.

“A car jumped the curb and hit some kids lined up outside the school waiting for their parents to pick them up,” said Teresa Taylor, watch commander for the Memphis Fire Department.

A 5-year-old boy was in critical condition with multiple injuries, and a 5-year-old girl was in serious condition after being upgraded from critical at Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, spokeswoman Sarah Burnett said. Two 9-year-old girls also were in serious condition.

No charges were filed against the driver, but authorities were interviewing her.