MANHATTAN

WTC WORKERS SUE

About 800 people who worked at the World Trade Center site have filed a class-action suit against the leaseholder of the Twin Towers and those who supervised the cleanup, alleging they did little to protect workers from the toxins unleashed when the towers collapsed. The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan and made public yesterday, claims Silverstein Properties and the four construction companies hired to oversee the removal of the 1.5 million tons of debris “should have known that safety precautions were needed to protect the rescue workers and cleanup workers…and anyone else exposed to the caustic dust from the airborne contamination, toxins and other substances.”

None of the defendants had seen the complaint and therefore had no immediate comment. The suit seeks unspecified compensation for victims and medical testing to track all who were exposed over the next 20 years.

– Associated Press

CLINTON RECOVERING FROM HEART SURGERY

President Clinton is doing fine after heart bypass surgery, but it’s still too soon to know whether he will be able to campaign for fellow Democrat John Kerry, Senator Clinton said yesterday.

“It’s going to be up to his doctors,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I think it’s way too soon to even consider that. Everyone says that this is at the very minimum, a six-week, eight-week recovery period – more likely a three-month recovery period.”

The senator spoke about her husband’s health at an elementary school in Chinatown on the city’s first day of public school. Mr. Clinton, 58, underwent quadruple bypass heart surgery last Monday at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia. He went home to suburban Chappaqua late Friday.

– Associated Press

SENATOR CLINTON INTRODUCES SCHOOLS LAW

Citing a federal funding shortfall of $571 million to New York City schools, Senator Clinton introduced the No Child Left Behind Improvement Act in Congress yesterday to provide schools here with more than $300 million in additional government funds.

“Today is a day of promise, yet the administration and Congress have not lived up to the promise” of the No Child Left Behind law, Ms. Clinton said yesterday.

She said the new legislation would provide $250 million for construction and renovation at schools overcrowded as a result of school transfers enabled by No Child Left Behind, and $50 million to develop language testing for students learning English as a second language.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

REPORTER TESTIFIES IN TRIAL OF TERROR LAWYER

A reporter testified yesterday that his stories were accurate as parts of them were introduced as evidence in the terrorism trial of a civil rights attorney and two others. Esmat Salaheddin, an 18-year Reuters employee based in Cairo, Egypt, was called to testify in a case accusing New York lawyer Lynne Stewart of aiding terrorists. He said he was “100% sure” of the accuracy of his quotes because he tape records his interviews and takes notes. In particular, prosecutors questioned Mr. Salaheddin about a 2000 story in which he quoted Ms. Stewart reading a declaration from Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman urging followers to give up a cease-fire on terrorist attacks.

– Associated Press

ALBANY

ASSEMBLY SPEAKER TO TESTIF Y BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will testify in private before the state Lobbying Commission this morning, not publicly as commission officials previously said.

The commission agreed to close the deposition to the public after Mr. Silver’s attorney, William Collins, objected to the procedures proposed by the commission’s executive director, David Grandeau. The commission is investigating whether a company seeking to build a casino in New York, Caesars Entertainment, gave an illegal gift to the Assembly speaker in January 2002, when he stayed at the company’s Paris Las Vegas hotel and was charged $109 a night for a luxury suite that lists for $1,500. Mr. Silver has said he was not aware of receiving special treatment, and the commission has no authority to investigate him.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun