Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:34:13 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Daniel Hemel :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Daniel+Hemel istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/business/new-york-goes-back-to-bulgaria-or-vice-versa/67424/ Tue, 4 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST SOFIA, Bulgaria — The building site stands five miles south of central Sofia, but the facades of the new structures would fit in easily among the low-rises of SoHo, Chinatown, and Little Italy. Two cars sporting the New York City Police Department logo are parked on the street, and copies of several New York publications clutter the windows of a street-corner newsstand. "We're creating a new New York," David Varod proclaims as he watches the 200-person construction crew at work. Mr. Varod is... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/bloomberg-sees-gains-in-gun-fight/41037/ Fri, 6 Oct 2006 00:00:00 EST Mayor Bloomberg is taking his battle against illegal guns to Capitol Hill next year, and he already has more than 100 city leaders from 44 states behind him. The Boston-born Mr. Bloomberg appeared there yesterday alongside the city's Democratic mayor, Thomas Menino, to trumpet the latest expansion of their anti-gun trafficking effort. It was the mayor's third out-of-state trip in as many weeks amid speculation that he is considering a run for the White House. He has repeatedly denied... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/city-reducing-payment-to-contractors-providing/18901/ Fri, 19 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST The city is reducing payments to scores of contractors providing tutoring to students in underperforming public schools, according to an August 12 letter from the city's Department of Education that was obtained by The New York Sun. According to the document, federally mandated tutoring programs that use public school facilities will face a 9% cut in their rate of payment in the coming academic year. The reduction "could have a material impact on educational quality, program design, and... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/private-memo-guarantees-ratner-space/18795/ Thu, 18 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST City and state officials, in a memorandum they never released, promised the developer Forest City Ratner six months ago that they would arrange for the firm to obtain the rights to build almost 1.9 million square feet of residential and commercial space in downtown Brooklyn, even if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rejected the firm's bid for the development rights at a nearby rail yard. The disclosure of the February 18 memorandum comes three weeks after the MTA board told Forest City... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/sharpton-opposes-garcia-nomination-as-top/18746/ Wed, 17 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST An array of New York political figures - including the Reverend Al Sharpton; a former City Council member from Boro Park, Noach Dear, and a candidate for attorney general, Charles King - is seeking to block a top homeland security official, Michael Garcia, from becoming U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. The opposition to Mr. Garcia stems from an incident involving three black women who were removed from senior management posts in the homeland security department's Immigration... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/soaring-gasoline-prices-inflict-pain-on-cabbies/18634/ Tue, 16 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST Although soaring gas prices have left many New Yorkers' wallets feeling lighter, the impact of rising petroleum costs is perhaps most devastating for drivers of the city's roughly 50,000 taxis. The Taxi and Limousine Commission sets rates for the city's 12,187 "medallion" cabs - the metered, yellow cars that are ubiquitous on the streets of Manhattan - and the commission says that as of now it has no plans to increase fares. One medallion cab driver, Zaki Atef, 49, of Bay Ridge, said that even... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/impasse-in-talks-between-uft-and-united-cerebral/18582/ Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST Contract talks between the United Federation of Teachers and a nonprofit agency that serves patients with cerebral palsy have reached an impasse. Union officials said their members might walk off the job if the two sides cannot arrive at an agreement by the end of this month. "We're not looking to strike, period. But we haven't ruled anything out," a union special representative, Ilene Weinerman, said. The agency, United Cerebral Palsy of New York, serves about 10,000 city residents who suffer... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/hynes-worker-used-official-car-to-campaign/18620/ Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST A veteran detective investigator in the office of the Brooklyn district attorney improperly used a taxpayer-financed car with official government plates last week while distributing campaign literature for the incumbent district attorney, Charles Hynes, a spokesman for the district attorney's office has acknowledged. The spokesman, Jerry Schmetterer, told The New York Sun that the detective investigator, Douglas LeVien, would not face any formal disciplinary measures. "What he did was wrong... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/mayor-unveils-plans-for-700-million-biotechnology/18458/ Thu, 11 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST Mayor Bloomberg unveiled plans yesterday for a $700 million privately financed biotechnology center on the Lower East Side that, aides say, is a first step toward transforming the Big Apple into "the bioscience capital of the world." The city has selected a Pasadena, Calif.-based firm, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, to develop the 870,000-square-foot facility at the north edge of the Bellevue Hospital campus. The deal appears to be a short-term sacrifice for the city's Health and Hospitals... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/campaign-ad-law-may-be-in-effect-but-is-it/18423/ Thu, 11 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST Candidates who place campaign advertisements on lampposts, bus shelters, and other public street fixtures could face stiff fines from the Sanitation Department, according to a letter sent last month to all office seekers by the department's commissioner, John Doherty. The city's Poster Law imposes a penalty of between $75 and $150 for the first piece of printed material that is affixed to public property, and of up to $250 for each additional violation, according to Mr. Doherty's letter, which... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/owens-rescinds-endorsement-of-sampson/18375/ Wed, 10 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST A state senator from East Flatbush who is running for Brooklyn district attorney, John Sampson, is caught in the crossfire of a bitter battle between two powerful families on the borough's political scene. A Democratic congressman from the borough, Major Owens, said he was rescinding his endorsement of Mr. Sampson yesterday and will back one of Mr. Sampson's rivals, the former chief of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's anticorruption division, Mark Peters. A Sampson campaign spokesman, Michael... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/want-to-lose-weight-try-baking/18260/ Tue, 9 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST As weight-watching dieters eschew high-carbohydrate foods, workers at one Queens factory have found a rather starchy way to stay svelte: baking bread. Bread-making, it turns out, can be an arduous test of strength and stamina, with bakers moving and lifting as much as 8,000 pounds in a day, according to the president of the Tom Cat Bakery of Long Island City, Noel Comess. "Out of 150 people who work here, there are four or five whom we could call 'overweight,'" Mr. Comess said. That is a... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/three-brooklyn-da-candidates-solicit-donations/18294/ Tue, 9 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST Only one of the four Democrats seeking the party's nomination for Brooklyn district attorney, Arnold Kriss, appears to be following the recommendation of the city bar association that candidates refrain from soliciting campaign contributions directly. The other candidates - the four term incumbent, Charles "Joe" Hynes; the former head of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's anti-corruption division, Mark Peters; and a state senator, John Sampson - have all chosen not to follow a formal opinion... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/clam-eating-rays-mistaken-for-pack-of-flesh/18209/ Mon, 8 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST Swimmers and sunbathers at Midland Beach on Staten Island reported seeing about 30 sharks surfacing several yards from shore around 10:30 a.m. yesterday, and the Parks Department barred beachgoers from entering the waters for more than four hours amid widespread - albeit misplaced - fears of flesh-eating fish. Several beachgoers likened the incident to the 1975 Steven Spielberg film "Jaws." Far from a blockbuster, however, yesterday's supposed shark sighting turned out to be a short subject... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/gop-council-candidate-says-incumbents-challenge/18149/ Fri, 5 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST A Kazakh-born Republican candidate for City Council, Oleg Gutnik, has charged that the incumbent Democrat, Michael Nelson, is guilty of "pure discrimination" against immigrants because of Mr. Nelson's challenges to the signatures of Russian-speaking voters on Dr. Gutnik's ballot-access petition. An election attorney in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Theodore Alatsas, who represented Dr. Gutnik — the candidate is an obstetrician-gynecologist — in the petition fight, said that at the end of Board of... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/national/harvard-settles-lawsuit-alleging-employees/18048/ Thu, 4 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST Harvard agreed yesterday to pay the federal government $26.5 million to resolve a civil lawsuit in which the Justice Department alleged that two of the school's employees diverted and wasted federal funds while providing economic advice to the Russian government. The settlement ends the Justice Department's eight-year investigation of a Harvard project to assist the government of Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, during the former communist country's rocky transition to a free-market... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/national/raise-for-summers-led-board-member-to-leave/17916/ Tue, 2 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST The first black member of Harvard's governing board, Conrad Harper, resigned his post last month because he "could not and cannot support a raise" in the salary of the school's president, Lawrence Summers. In a stinging three-page letter to Mr. Summers that was released by the university yesterday, Mr. Harper, a former State Department official and civil litigator, called on the school's embattled president to step down. Mr. Harper's letter marks the most potent challenge to Mr. Summers's... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/racial-profiling-central-issue-in-democrats-run/17946/ Tue, 2 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST One day after a state assemblyman from Boro Park, Dov Hikind, suggested that police should be allowed to conduct non-random searches of Arab passengers on the subways, the issue of racial profiling took center stage in the four-way fight for the Democratic Party's nomination for Brooklyn district attorney. Two candidates - the four-term incumbent, Charles Hynes, and a former deputy commissioner for trials in the Koch administration's Police Department, Arnold Kriss - vowed not to accept Mr... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/national/summers-is-cited-in-a-resignation-from-harvard/17771/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST The only black member of Harvard's seven-person governing board has resigned his post to express his disaffection with the university's often-embattled president, Lawrence Summers. The resigning board member, Conrad Harper, a Midtown Manhattan resident and former civil litigator at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, told The New York Sun yesterday: "The reason for my resignation is that I can no longer support President Summers." The resignation threatens to revive the controversy that erupted... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/ties-between-ratner-city-hall-visible-in-tweed/17794/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST An artist's larger-than-life digital image of a faceless male pedestrian, "Bruce Walking," will stand on the steps of Tweed Courthouse until October, as an inadvertent but nonetheless striking symbol of the close ties between the exhibit's sponsor, developer Bruce Ratner, and nearby City Hall. In a move that raised eyebrows among citizens' groups this week, Mayor Bloomberg instructed his four appointees on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's board to vote in favor of Mr. Ratner's bid... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/legality-of-campaigning-on-the-subway-system-is/17776/ Fri, 29 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Is it legal for political candidates to campaign in the city's subway system? It depends which representative of New York City Transit you ask. On several occasions, and as recently as Wednesday, transit spokesmen have told The New York Sun that politicking is barred in all areas beyond the subway turnstiles. But another spokeswoman, Deirdre Parker, confirmed yesterday that campaigning on subway platforms is permitted - as long as candidates stay off the trains. She pointed to a long-standing... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/board-wants-ratner-to-increase-his-bid/17737/ Thu, 28 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's board sent a clear message yesterday to developer Bruce Ratner that he will have to increase his offer of $50 million in cash to gain control of the Vanderbilt Yards in downtown Brooklyn, where Mr. Ratner seeks to build an arena for his professional basketball franchise, the New Jersey Nets. One board member, Barry Feinstein, said the Ratner cash bid is "unacceptable" and noted that an appraiser hired by the MTA has assessed the yard's market value at... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/crucial-vote-on-atlantic-yards-today/17625/ Wed, 27 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST On the eve of a Metropolitan Transportation Authority board vote that may lead to the building of housing for thousands of people, and an arena for a National Basketball Association team in downtown Brooklyn, debate emerged yesterday over reports that Mayor Bloomberg has instructed his four appointees on the MTA board to opt for the bidder that plans the larger project and the one that would use bigger public subsidies. A leader of the transit activist group the Straphangers Campaign, Neysa... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/ratner-extell-fight-turns-ugly/17535/ Tue, 26 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST The fight over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's rail yard in downtown Brooklyn turned ugly yesterday morning as supporters and opponents of developer Bruce Ratner's bid for the site exchanged bitter, profanity-laden personal attacks during a public meeting at the MTA's Midtown headquarters. When a spokesman for the anti-Ratner coalition Develop Don't Destroy, Daniel Goldstein, rose to speak at the MTA real estate committee's monthly meeting, the treasurer of the pro-Ratner group... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/supporters-of-project-vow-to-fight-if-mta-decides/17467/ Mon, 25 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Waving an ivory staff as he spoke before a crowd of about 140 yesterday afternoon, a community activist from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Atiim Ferguson, vowed to wage "a war in the streets" if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rejects the bid by the developer Bruce Ratner for the 8.4-acre rail yard in downtown Brooklyn. According to documents released Friday by the MTA, Mr. Ratner's firm, Forest City Ratner, is offering the transportation authority $50 million in cash for the development rights... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/analysts-say-spike-in-black-voters-may-aid/17505/ Mon, 25 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST With several competitive Democratic contests in Brooklyn's heavily black City Council districts and ho-hum races in predominantly white districts, some analysts and political power brokers are anticipating a possible spike in the percentage of black turnout across the borough in September's primary election. That could provide a lift to a state senator, John Sampson, who is the only black candidate remaining in the borough's heated four-way district attorney race. The four-term incumbent... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/report-arena-vulnerable-to-terrorists/17435/ Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST The high-rise urban hub and professional basketball arena proposed for downtown Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards would be vulnerable to a devastating terrorist attack because of design flaws in architect Frank Gehry's plans for the site, according to a recent report co-authored by a Defense Department analyst that was released to The New York Sun. The arena is at the heart of real estate mogul Bruce Ratner's bid for downtown Brooklyn's 8.5-acre rail yard, which is currently owned by the Metropolitan... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/vallone-introduces-bill-giving-police-veto-power/17440/ Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST A City Council member, Peter Vallone Jr., told The New York Sun yesterday that he will introduce legislation that will give the Police Department veto power over all proposals to construct buildings higher than seven stories in the five boroughs. "At this day and age, the Police Department should be able to have a say in the construction of any major project," according to Mr. Vallone, a Democrat from Astoria. The bill would also require the Police Department to review and approve any plan for... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/not-for-sale-signs-are-starting-to-bloom-in-parts/17338/ Thu, 21 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Fed up with brokers who are making unsolicited offers for the neighborhood's modest wood-frame houses, homeowners on the south side of Park Slope are placing signs in their windows that announce: "House Not For Sale." The 18-by-24-inch signs are the brainchild of a graphic designer, 34-year-old Aaron Brashear, who moved into a house on 23rd Street across from Green-Wood Cemetery last September, after purchasing the home for $345,000. One month later, when Mr. Brashear and his wife, Mic Holwin... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/residents-charge-development-board-misleading/17192/ Tue, 19 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Residents of Cobble Hill and South Brooklyn Heights allege that the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, the 11-member board of officials appointed by Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki to oversee the construction of a 1.3-mile strip of parkland along the East River, has not been forthcoming with renderings of the 30-story luxury condominium complex slated for the park's southern tip. Frustrated with what they say were misleading drawings circulated by the development corporation... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/weiner-treasury-should-shut-down-arab-banks-only/17140/ Mon, 18 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST A Democratic congressman and mayoral candidate, Anthony Weiner, called on the Treasury Department yesterday to "stop its policy of playing footsie" with a Jordanian financial institution that allegedly funnels cash to terrorists. At a press conference at Arab Bank's only American branch - on 53rd Street between Madison and Fifth avenues - Mr. Weiner said that federal authorities should distribute the bank's American assets to the families of terror victims, and then should expel the bank from... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/building-collapse-on-broadway-traps-4-people/17038/ Fri, 15 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST A vacant one-story building came crashing down onto a bus stop along Broadway between 99th and 100th streets yesterday morning, briefly trapping at least four people, including a 7-month-old girl, under a pile of debris and halting subway service on the nos. 1, 2, and 3 lines. There were conflicting reports about the status of the collapse victims, but the city's fire commissioner, Nicholas Scoppetta, said all were in stable condition. A 25-year-old plumber, Julian Jimenez, said that when he... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/owens-contradicts-on-eminent-domain/17062/ Fri, 15 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST A Democratic congressman whose Brooklyn district includes the site of the proposed Atlantic Yards development, Major Owens, is being accused of hypocrisy for his seemingly contradictory stances in the debate over eminent domain. In a rap poem composed last March, Mr. Owens, who touts himself as the "Rappin' Rep," expressed his desire to limit the authority of city and state officials to use eminent domain to transfer property from one private landowner to another. The opening lines of the rap... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/public-advocate-alarmed-by-number-of-caesareans/17010/ Thu, 14 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST The city's public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, blasted New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center yesterday for its "alarmingly high" rate of Caesarean sections. More than 37% of births at the hospital in 2003 were by Caesarean section, compared to a citywide average of 26.4%, according to a report Ms. Gotbaum released yesterday. The hospital's chief of labor and delivery, Amos Grunebaum, said the public advocate's criticism is "misleading." He said that the hospital's Caesarean-section... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/legislation-in-congress-could-bar-forest-city/16813/ Tue, 12 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Momentum is gathering in both the House and the Senate behind bills that could bar a development firm, Forest City Ratner, from receiving federal subsidies for its proposed high-rise hub in the Atlantic Yards area in downtown Brooklyn. The two bills come in response to a Supreme Court ruling late last month in the case of Kelo v. New London, in which the justices, on a 5-4 vote, upheld a ruling allowing state and local governments to exercise their power of eminent domain to seize private... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/9-11-families-vow-daily-protests-of-freedom/16752/ Mon, 11 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Family members of September 11, 2001, victims vowed yesterday to stage daily protests near ground zero until officials scrap plans for an International Freedom Center at the site. Organizers of the center have said their plans call for exhibits on the Holocaust, the civil-rights movement, and the Soviet gulags, as part of an effort to construct a "universal narrative of hope." Family members express concern, however, that the center's wide-ranging displays will divert attention from the victims... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/business/new-york-times-starting-weekly-targeting-small/16798/ Mon, 11 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST The New York Times Company is planning to launch a weekly newspaper in a largely black community on the east side of Gainesville, Fla., next month, raising concerns among several black journalists and publishers who say that the Gray Lady's new paper will divert revenue from black owned papers. Industry watchers said that the paper, which will be called the Gainesville Guardian, comes as part of a broader trend of mainstream media giants wading into ethnic niche markets. Knight Ridder and... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/on-ny-subway-daily-routine-prevails/16693/ Fri, 8 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Just hours after a string of deadly bombings rocked the London Underground, the subway line beneath Lexington Avenue was so packed with passengers that a painter from St. Francisville, La., Caroline Porche, 64, tied her 6-year-old granddaughter to a leash to keep track of her amid the lunchtime crowds. After purchasing a seven-day unlimited ride MetroCard on Wednesday, Ms. Porche said she was not prepared to let her $24 investment go to waste - regardless of events on the other side of the... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/ratners-atlantic-yards-foes-delighted-by-extell/16670/ Fri, 8 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST A City Council member from Brooklyn, Letitia James, said yesterday that her constituents are "jumping up and down in joy" after a Manhattan-based development firm made a bid to block a real estate mogul, Bruce Ratner, from erecting a high-rise hub on a site in Ms. James's district that is owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Earlier this week, Forest City Ratner submitted a proposal to build six skyscrapers, rising as high as 60 stories, as well as a pro-basketball arena for the... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/its-chapter-11-or-divine-assistance/16566/ Wed, 6 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST If yesterday's Chapter 11 filing in the federal Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York cannot solve the financial woes of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, some employees at the seven-hospital network's flagship Greenwich Village branch said, then they will rely on divine intervention. "I believe God is going to take care of St. Vincent and all the employees," a radiology aide, Michelle Geerman, 35, of Brooklyn, said yesterday. A pulmonary functions technician who has worked... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/national/holocaust-scholars-demand-revision-of-fdr-museum/16539/ Wed, 6 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Several prominent Holocaust scholars are demanding that the federally funded Franklin D. Roosevelt Museum in Hyde Park, N.Y., revise a display caption that they claim downplays the 32nd president's complicity in the slaughter of six million Jews. The caption acknowledges "stains on the American record" and mentions the country's failure to open its borders to refugees fleeing Nazism. But in a sentence that has sparked an uproar from historians, the caption continues: "Yet even Roosevelt's... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/brooklyn-teens-death-scares-ipod-owners/16485/ Tue, 5 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST After a fight blamed on an iPod left a 15-year-old boy dead Saturday evening in East Flatbush, some New Yorkers who wore the digital music players nonchalantly during their daily travels said they were having second thoughts. "I'm very afraid to wear mine," a Crown Heights resident, Marcia Blyden, 29, said - although she nevertheless let her telltale white earphones show as she walked home from the gym in Lower Manhattan yesterday afternoon. Ms. Blyden, an administrator at Bank of New York... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/documentary-chronicles-brooklyn-das-alleged/16344/ Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST The six-candidate race for the Democratic nomination for Brooklyn district attorney has at times resembled an action-packed drama fit for the wide screen. Now, it could be headed to a theater near you. A filmmaker who has won an Emmy award and made this year's documentary "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," Alex Gibney, is at work on a project examining allegations that the incumbent district attorney, Charles Hynes, improperly used his authority to silence a critic of the Brooklyn... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/business/business-climate-rankings-get-poor-marks-in-new/16363/ Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST Although New York placed dead last among the 50 states in a recent index of "economic freedom," a new report from a University of Iowa economics professor tells Big Apple residents not to worry. In the 89-page study, Peter Fisher argues that state-by-state business climate rankings should be ignored. Mr. Fisher's findings, published today by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute, will come as a relief to New Yorkers after a series of recent rankings panned the Empire State for... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/owenss-colonizer-remark-gets-spin/16125/ Mon, 27 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST After a retiring member of Congress, Major Owens, called the only white candidate for his Brooklyn seat, City Council Member David Yassky, a "colonizer," one of Mr. Yassky's opponents sought to spin the congressman's remarks to his own advantage. "I'm the only one who knows how to deal with colonialism," a Jamaica-born member of the state Assembly, Noah Nicholas Perry, said in a phone interview yesterday. "I don't necessarily agree with the congressman, but if that's what he thinks, he should... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/libertarians-mission-impossible/16047/ Fri, 24 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST As the committed core of the Brooklyn Libertarian Party gathered Wednesday night at the rear of Freddy's Bar and Backroom off Flatbush Avenue, the theme from the film "Mission: Impossible" played over the loudspeaker. The music seemed apt when the party's mayoral candidate, Audrey Silk, set out her aims for the November election in front of an enthusiastic audience of four. "My objective is to unseat Bloomberg," Ms. Silk said with a chuckle. A retired police officer from Marine Park, Ms. Silk... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/exile-sex-offenders-from-manhattan-say-14-members/15845/ Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST In their attempt to curtail repeat sexual predators, some members of the City Council are taking a cue from the reality television show "Survivor" and trying to vote them off the island. A bill co-sponsored by 14 council members would effectively exile ex-convicts classified as medium- and high-risk sex offenders from Manhattan. The legislation, written by the council's Republican leader, James Oddo of Staten Island, would bar Level 2 and Level 3 offenders from living, working, and "loitering"... Daniel Hemel http://www.nysun.com/national/school-may-shed-association-with-a-us-president/15846/ Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST If the majority of parents, teachers, and students of Jefferson Elementary School in Berkeley, Calif., has its way, the school will soon shed its name and its association with the nation's third president, who they say is not worthy of being honored because of the hundreds of slaves he owned at his Monticello plantation. The city's board of education is expected to vote today on a proposal to change the school's name to Sequoia Elementary. But even with that name, the school district cannot... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/national/afl-cio-president-rallies-the-forces-for-re/15733/ Mon, 20 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST The AFL-CIO's embattled president, John Sweeney, plans to kick off his reelection campaign this morning in the face of strong pressure from some labor leaders who are upset by what they see as the federation's lackluster organizing efforts. The chiefs of about 15 member unions will congregate in the nation's capital today to announce the launch of the "Sweeney Solidarity Team," according to a spokeswoman for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Jodi Sakol. Ms... DANIEL HEMEL http://www.nysun.com/new-york/health-officials-hospital-broke-aids-drug-rules/15595/ Fri, 17 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST Federal investigators have concluded that Columbia University Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital violated protocol on the use of human research subjects between 1988 and 2001, when doctors at the center administered experimental AIDS drugs to foster-care children. In a letter dated May 23, the Department of Health and Human Services gave Columbia and New York Presbyterian until June 30 to develop a "corrective action plan" to bolster safeguards protecting children in clinical...