U.S. interior secretary to meet with Flight 93 landowners

SOMERSET, Pa. (AP) — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar privately met today with landowners to discuss the status of negotiations over the land needed for the Flight 93 Memorial in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The government and the several landowners have been working toward deals even though a government-imposed deadline to use eminent domain to acquire the land has passed. Both sides say negotiations have been progressing.

Salazar met with the owners this afternoon in Somerset. The government and families of the victims want the memorial in place by the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

Flight 93 was hijacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed in rural Somerset County, about 65 miles east-southeast of Pittsburgh.