New York Desk

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun
NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

MANHATTAN


FAMILY OF ELECTROCUTION VICTIM SETTLES WITH UTILITY The family of a Manhattan woman electrocuted last winter settled yesterday with ConEd, which acknowledged her death was caused by an improperly wrapped wire. The family received more than $6.2 million in cash from the utility, the New York Times reported on its Web site last night. In addition, it agreed to fund a $1 million scholarship and research fund at Columbia University in memory of Jodie Lane. The 30-year-old was killed on January 16 when she stepped on the metal cover of a utility box while walking through the East Village with her two dogs. The Lane family, using a portion of the settlement, plans to launch the Jodie S. Lane Public Safety Foundation to pursue methods of improving public safety in the city. Lane was a student at Columbia University’s Teachers College, completing her doctorate, at the time of her death. The scholarship and research fund will be established there. Lane, an architect, was walking her dogs when they were shocked by the electrified box. As she tried to rescue them, she suffered a jolt of electricity.


– Associated Press


BUCKLEY HONORED The founder of National Review and a columnist of The New York Sun, William F. Buckley Jr., was honored yesterday with the “Mightier Pen” Award of the Center for Security Policy. The center is a small Washington-based think tank headed by a Pentagon official from the Reagan administration, Frank Gaffney. In offering an invocation at the lunch honoring Mr. Buckley, a priest noted that the writer is at the age at which he is a prime candidate for elevation to the papacy, a position in which Mr. Buckley could hone his reputation for infallibility. Mr. Buckley, in accepting the award, also displayed some of his characteristic wit: “Why ‘mightier’?” asked Mr. Buckley. “Not ‘mightiest’?”


The event drew a crowd that included Abraham Rosenthal, Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, C. Boyden Gray, and Henry Kissinger.


-Staff Reporter of the Sun


CITYWIDE


MORE THAN 150 STUDENTS KEPT BACK MORE THAN TWICE More than 150 New York City schoolchildren are two months into their third attempt at finishing the third-grade and five students are on round four, the Department of Education said yesterday. Under the education department’s new plan to end the “social promotion” of third-graders, 157 children were held back for the second time. Before the new policy was put in place, the department did not keep track of double and triple holdover numbers. All of the approximately 5,000 repeat third-graders are receiving special interventions by school-based “academic intervention teams,” who are developing personalized plans for each child.


City Council Member Eva Moskowitz, who heads the committee on education and has criticized the plan, said it’s inevitable that a certain number of children will be held back multiple times when they’re put back into the same classrooms where they didn’t learn before. But she questioned the intervention plan, which didn’t exist when the policy was enacted last spring.” I don’t think it’s an argument against retention,” she said of the new data. “I think it’s an argument for a solution for these kids. There’s something going on here that is clearly not working.”


– Staff Reporter of the Sun


POLICE BLOTTER


THREE ARRESTED IN EXTORTION OF NBA STAR Three men were arrested yesterday for attempting to extort $3 million out of NBA star Carmelo Anthony by threatening to release a videotape they said showed Mr. Anthony involved in a physical altercation, police said. At 10 a.m. yesterday, an undercover detective for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office met with the trio while posing as a representative for Mr. Anthony, the forward for the Denver Nuggets. The meeting was staged near West 61st Street and Central Park West.


The suspects brought the original tape, and the detective handed over a check. The three suspects were then placed under arrest and charged with grand larceny in the first degree and criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree, police said. Police identified the suspects as Rodrigo Sanchez, 36, of South Orange, N.J., and Jason Pabon, 26, and Joubert Santos, 29, both of the Bronx. Pabon has served prior prison terms for robbery and drug charges.


The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment on the case until after the suspects are arraigned today. Mr. Anthony’s agent, Calvin Andrews, declined to comment.


– Special to the Sun

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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