CITYWIDE

Trump’s SoHo Project Back on Track

Construction at the Trump SoHo Condo Hotel site will resume, after the Department of Buildings yesterday lifted the stop-work order it issued on December 12 when human remains were discovered on the site at Varick Street between Spring and Dominick Streets. “Work is going to resume at a phased in program,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings, Jennifer Givner, said. “They’re not going to go back to work on the entire site all at once.” The burial ground of a 19th century abolitionist church was damaged last week during excavation and the city ordered the developer, Donald Trump, to stop work on the site. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation is protesting the decision to lift the order. The GVSHP is surging the city to reconsider its decision, arguing that it favors the developer at the expense of the public interest.

— Special to the Sun

IN THE COURTS

Former Guantánamo Bay Detainee Files Lawsuit

Lawyers for a former detainee imprisoned for almost three years at America’s military prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, filed a federal law suit yesterday asking a judge in New York to force the Defense Department to release transcripts of Murat Kurnaz’s detention proceedings. Mr. Kurnaz was transferred to Germany last year and released shortly thereafter without explanation. A federal judge had previously ordered more than five dozen transcripts released to the Associated Press under federal open records laws last January, but Mr. Kurnaz’s files were missing from the release. A law professor at Seton Hall University, Baher Azmy, who filed the suit, said Mr. Kurnaz is innocent. The Defense Department didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

— Special to the Sun

STATEWIDE

ExxonMobil To Pay $6M for Cleanup

OGDENSBURG – ExxonMobil Corp. has agreed to pay $6 million for the cleanup of petroleum contamination at the site of a historic fort on the St. Lawrence River, state Comptroller Alan Hevesi said Wednesday. The settlement includes a damage payment of $2.25 million to the Fort La Presentation Association and transfer of 4.5 acres of land to the fort, the association’s attorney who helped negotiate the agreement, Judy Drabicki, said. The settlement ends a seven-year dispute with the oil giant and will allow the association to proceed with its plans to construct a replica of the fort and a visitor’s center on the site, now called Lighthouse Point.

—Associated Press

Clinton on ‘The View’

Senator Clinton told the audience of the daytime talk show “The View” yesterday that the nation would have to wait and see whether what it would be like to have a woman in the White House. “We will never know that until somebody tries because it is such a leap of faith and I am well aware of that,” said Mrs. Clinton, during an interview on the program. Mrs. Clinton also talked about how “heroic” woman are for their ability to balance work and family. The show has an almost entirely female audience – a group that could be crucial if Mrs. Clinton decides to make run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun