Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
NEW YORK - In a ceremony filled with pride and painful memories, New York officials laid a 20-ton slab of granite Sunday as the cornerstone of a new tower at the site of the World Trade Center.
As jets soared overhead on a sunny morning, political leaders pledged that construction of the Freedom Tower - which will rise 1,776 feet into the air and be the world's tallest building - will be finished on schedule by the end of 2008.
"The terrorists who attacked us hoped to break our spirit, but instead they broke our hearts," said New York Gov. George E. Pataki.
"How badly they underestimated the resiliency of this city and the resolve of these United States," he said. "In less than three years, we have more than just plans on paper - we place here today the cornerstone, the foundation of a new tower."
Pataki, flanked by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, New Jersey Gov. James McGreevy and other dignitaries, held the invitation-only ceremony before several hundred people in the vast concrete pit of ground zero. They entered the site down a long ramp, behind a bagpipe procession playing God Bless America, I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy and other patriotic songs.
At Philadelphia's Independence Hall, Afghan leader Hamid Karzai was awarded the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, given each July 4 by the nonprofit, nonpolitical Philadelphia Foundation to recognize leadership in the pursuit of freedom. The medal's $100,000 prize will go to support Afghan orphans, he said.
Sunday was also a day for parades, picnics, fireworks and summer stunts such as the annual hot dog-eating contest at New York City's Coney Island.
For the fourth straight year, a rail-thin competitor outperformed much beefier opponents to take the title in the Nathan's Famous hot dog-eating contest.
Takeru Kobayashi, 26, of Nagano, Japan - just 5-foot-7 and 132 pounds - wolfed down 531/2 wieners in 12 minutes, shattering his own world record. His nearest challenger gulped down only 38.
Sometimes the holiday festivities produced the unexpected.
In Utah, two young bull moose, each more than 6 feet tall and weighing hundreds of pounds, crashed the Fourth of July parade in the mountains east of Salt Lake City, coming within a few feet of spectators.
"I told my family, that's something you don't see at the downtown parades," Jeff Worthington said after the celebration at Brighton.
In Boston, outside City Hall, hundreds gathered for the opening of the city's annual celebration.
"The Fourth of July has special meaning in Boston," Mayor Tom Menino said before a fife and drum corps dressed in Revolutionary War uniforms marched past. "Our country and everything we stand for started right here in these streets."
At Camp Victory in Iraq, July Fourth celebrations began at dawn.
To beat the brutal summer heat, soldiers wanting to participate in a 10-kilometer fun run at Camp Victory, on the outskirts of Baghdad, gathered at 5:30 a.m., when the temperature dropped to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
The run was the first in a series of events giving soldiers - not on guard duty or combat patrol - a chance to enjoy the most American of holidays.
Later, in front of an Army-Air Force Exchange Service shopping mall, a five-piece, all-woman hard rock band performed for the troops, who roared with approval.
The one thing missing was fireworks.
"At least not from our side," one officer wisecracked.
But in Saddam Hussein's former stronghold of Tikrit, soldiers watched fireworks light the night sky as they held a joint celebration with Iraqi National Guard soldiers on a bank overlooking the Tigris. Thousands of troops celebrated at one of Saddam's old palaces with a buffet featuring hamburgers and hot dogs and traditional Iraqi dishes.
Elsewhere in the Gulf, the U.S. Embassy in the United Arab Emirates said it would combine Independence Day celebrations with President's Day in February because it is too hot and many Americans leave for summer holidays. The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait holds its yearly bash in April for the same reasons.
- Information from the Associated Press, New York Times and Los Angeles Times was used in this report.