US authorities have launched a probe into possible phone hacking of September 11, 2001 victims by News Corp journalists, victims’ relatives have been told, according to a Justice Department official.

A group of family members of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks, outraged by city plans to move the commemoration ceremony, filed a request today asking to hold the annual event at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Parts of New York’s World Trade Centre site will be searched again for remains of the September 11 dead after several bones were pulled out of an abandoned manhole this week.

Construction workers cleaning toxic waste from an empty skyscraper across from the World Trade Centre terrorist attacks site have found four more human body parts in the building, after finding 10 bone fragments on the rooftop last autumn, officials said today.

Plans to entomb the unidentified remains of victims of the 9/11 attacks at the heart of the World Trade Center memorial have been ditched, it was reported today.