De Niro to the Rescue of New York

— -- Robert De Niro is launching a film festival to help New York, governors are seeking $4 billion; 40,000 photo negatives from the Kennedy era are burned; the White House will mark three months since the terror attacks, and children raised $500,000 for fire trucks.

De Niro to the Rescue of New York

N E W Y O R K, Dec. 6 — Actor Robert De Niro today announced a plan to hold a new film festival in Tribeca, an upscale neighborhood in lower Manhattan struggling after the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

The Tribeca Film Festival, open to the general public, is to be held May 1-5, showcasing about 40 feature-length films and 20 shorts by emerging and established film makers from around the world.

Film screenings will be held in venues throughout the neighborhood in an effort to boost foot traffic and help small businesses, which have suffered since Sept. 11 as people were deterred from the neighborhood by safety concerns and limited street access.

Over the past 20 years, De Niro has become a fixture of the neighborhood, opening the chic Tribeca Grill and co-founding the Tribeca Film Center and Tribeca Productions with producer Jane Rosenthal in 1988.

De Niro and Rosenthal said the groundwork for a film festival began a few years ago, but the Sept. 11 attacks lent urgency to the effort.

They were joined by actors Meryl Streep and Ed Burns, director Martin Scorsese, Gov. George Pataki and Empire State Development Corp. Chairman Charles Gargano to announce the plans. Gargano lauded the $5 billion film industry, which employs 100,000 people in the state.

Scorsese, when asked if he might premier his upcoming "Gangs of New York" at the festival, responded by stressing the importance of festivals as a platform for emerging or foreign film makers.

"I think what's needed here is four days and nights of a bunch of young people coming down, and people whose films were unable to be accepted in other venues," he said.

The festival will include a free outdoor screening of a film retrospective, a special presentation of films celebrating New York, and one full day of discussions and seminars about cinema, media and the arts.

Streep said she hoped to be on the jury, which will present an Emerging Filmmaker Award and an award for Best Short Film.

—The Associated Press

Lawmakers Brainstorm on Terror, Seek Cash

W A S H I N G T O N, Dec. 6 — Security and public health demands could cost states up to $4 billion, governors estimated Wednesday as hundreds of state lawmakers gathered to develop new approaches for terrorism and its fallout.

"Bioterrorism, public health, airport service — ultimately, it's going to cost us all," said Alaska state Rep. Pete Kott, who came cross-country to get ideas to protect the state capitol in Juneau and the Alaska oil pipeline. "We're all going to pay."

The National Governors Association, in a preliminary estimate that it said could grow, figured states would have to spend $1 billion to protect airports, bridges, power plants and other critical infrastructure in the fiscal year that ends June 30. Another $3 billion would go to public health and law enforcement needs.

"State budgets are already burdened by the recession," said Kentucky Gov. Paul E. Patton. "We have responded to the requests of various federal agencies for assistance in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and to be blunt, these services aren't cheap."

Governors were seeking at least $3 billion from Congress to help.

State lawmakers at the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures weighed the potential for federal financial help versus their own tight budgets as they considered changes to laws and budgets.

A few states, such as New York and Florida, have already taken steps to increase penalties for terrorism, but most states won't begin legislative work until the new year.

The usual concerns of state government — education, welfare, rural development and tax issues — were not ignored at the scores of round-table discussions and workgroups at the annual meeting.

But this year, the task of finding responses to terrorism in allits forms swamp the agenda. Conference choices for more than 600 lawmakers, aides and lobbyists include "Preparing Legislators to Lead in Crisis," "Cyberterrorism," and "Is the Capitol Safe?"

"The threat is real," said Michael Lowder, a Federal Emergency Management Agency planning chief who spoke about potential environmental crises. "The key thing is preparedness."

Today, lawmakers were to hear from Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor now heading the federal Homeland Security office.

The crush of ideas ranged far beyond increased penalties: wiretapping authorities for prosecutors; revamped equipment for police, fire and emergency management officials; preventing and punishing terrorist hoaxes.

—The Associated Press

White House to Mark Three Months Since Attacks

W A S H I N G T O N, Dec. 6 — "The Star-Spangled Banner" will reverberate across the White House grounds Tuesday at 8:46 a.m. ET, marking the exact moment three months before that the first hijacked jet struck the World Trade Center.

President Bush, announcing the observance during an appearance in the Oval Office on Wednesday, asked America's allies to play their own national anthems or other appropriate songs at the same time.

Bush said he wanted the observance to send a signal to the terrorists responsible for those attacks:

"They want us to be silent. They want us to shirk from our duties. They want us to forget what took place on September the 11th. We will not do so. The United States won't do so and our friends and allies won't do so. We won't forget and we will bring them to justice. … Civilization is at stake."

In sync with the White House, the national anthem will also ring out from the Pentagon and sites in New York and Pennsylvania — the three places where terrorist hijackers crashed jets on Sept. 11.

U.S. embassies and posts overseas will also participate, the White House said. And NASA is expected to hold a special remembrance in space, either aboard the space shuttle or space station.

—The Associated Press

Middle Schoolers Raise $500,000 for Fire Trucks

W E S T C O L U M B I A, S.C., Dec. 6 — Middle schoolers who collected more than a half-million dollars to repay a 134-year-old debt of kindness to New York firefighters were thanked in person Wednesday.

Four members of Ladder Co. 101 thanked the students who sold T-shirts, baked cookies and collected the money in the weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Seven firefighters from the ladder company died and the station's ladder truck was destroyed when the World Trade Center towers collapsed. The money will be used to buy a new ladder truck.

The gift repays a debt incurred when New York firefighters bought a hose reel wagon for the city of Columbia after the Civil War.

"The outpouring of support helps to ease the pain," Capt. Tom Calkins said as the firefighters fought back tears. "The heart of America is right here in Columbia, South Carolina."

The students originally collected $354,000 and presented a check to firefighters in New York on Thanksgiving Day. As word of the effort spread, an additional $152,000 poured in from across the country.

The extra money, which the school gave to the firefighters Wednesday, means a more expensive ladder truck can be bought for the station.

"Your gift will help us rebuild the New York City fire department," Capt. Tom Giordano said.

The new truck will carry a plaque bearing the names of the station's firefighters killed Sept. 11 and commemorating White Knoll Middle School's efforts.

—The Associated Press

40,000 Photo Negatives From Kennedy Years Lost in Trade Center

N E W YORK, Dec. 6 — An estimated 40,000 negatives of images taken byPresident John F. Kennedy's personal photographer are believed to have been destroyed in a bank vault beneath the World Trade Center.

One of Jacques Lowe's most famous images shows Kennedy leaning against his White House desk in November 1961. Lowe died in May at age 71.

Lowe's daughter, Thomasina Lowe, said her father kept his collection of negatives in a safe-deposit vault at the JP Morgan Chase bank branch at 5 World Trade Center, a nine-story building that was heavily damaged in the attack that destroyed center's twin towers. She said they were probably worth $2 million, and were not insured.

Chase officials told customers in September they would try to retrieve the safe-deposit boxes.

But in a Dec. 3 letter, the bank said an inspection concluded that the weight of the debris and subsequent fires had destroyed the estimated 1,000 boxes and their contents.

Lowe's agent, Woody Camp, said the negatives recorded "everything that related to the Kennedys. There were photographs of meetings during the Bay of Pigs. … Historically, there's a lot that's not there any more."

Lowe's daughter said she is heartbroken by the loss.

"I'm not being unreasonable. I know what happened on Sept. 11," she said. "I just don't understand why they can't demolish the building and then sift through what's left."

Charlie Maikish, executive vice president for global real estate at JP Morgan Chase, said approximately $500,000 was spent in an effort to retrieve the vault. He said once the building is demolished, workers will make another attempt.

—The Associated Press