MANHATTAN

WEINER, BROWNBACK BACK ISRAEL AT ZOA DINNER

Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat of New York who is a likely candidate for mayor, last night called for an end to all American aid to Saudi Arabia and to the Palestinian Authority.

Mr. Weiner made his comments at the annual dinner of the Zionist Organization of America, a pro-Israel group. “My name is Anthony Weiner and I am from the ZOA wing of the Democratic Party,” Mr. Weiner said to a crowd of 880 gathered at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square. He also called on America to stop providing military aid to the Egyptian government.

Mr. Weiner, who criticized Mayor Bloomberg, a Republican, for being too close to the conservative agenda of the Bush administration, described the keynote speaker, Senator Brownback, as “the great senator.” Mr. Brownback is a conservative Republican of Kansas.

Mr. Brownback used his comments to explain why “Red America” supports Israel. “Right’s right, wrong’s wrong, and it’s worth fighting about,” the senator said. He called on America to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. “It’s past time,” Mr. Brownback said.

The likely successor to Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, came in for criticism at the dinner. “Cursed be the one who puts his faith in Abu Mazen,” said Rabbi Moshe Tendler, who delivered the invocation at the dinner. The president of the ZOA, Morton Klein, said that Abu Mazen had been Arafat’s deputy for 40 years, and that no one would stand for having Saddam Hussein’s deputy for 40 years take over the new Iraq.

Mr. Klein also said the ZOA plans to reintroduce the Saudi Accountability Act, a bill that he said has the support of 20 senators and 50 congressmen and that could lead to sanctions on Saudi Arabia. Two New York businessmen, Michael Orbach and Martin Gross, received the ZOA’s Justice Louis Brandeis Award at the dinner, while a columnist of the New York Sun, Daniel Pipes, who is director of the Middle East Forum, received the ZOA’s Ben Hecht Award.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

CITYWIDE

THOMPSON TO ANNOUNCE HE WON’T RUN FOR MAYOR

The city comptroller, William Thompson Jr., will tell key financial backers and senior staff today that he will not run for mayor. He also plans to speak publicly for the first time today about his reasons for not entering the mayoral race.

The New York Sun was the first to report last week that Mr. Thompson, who was considered a strong Democratic candidate to take on Mayor Bloomberg, would not run and will instead seek reelection as comptroller. His aides said yesterday he would lay out his reasons for seeking another term in his post in a series of interviews with reporters. There will not be a press conference.

This time last year, Mr. Thompson had said that, in order for him to enter the 2005 mayoral race, he would have to disagree fundamentally with the direction in which the city was headed and that Mayor Bloomberg’s poll ratings had to be suffering. Since then, Mr. Bloomberg’s poll ratings have been in the high 40s and are rising, making it more difficult to say the city is heading in the wrong direction.

While Mr. Thompson disagrees with the mayor on the West Side development project and his marketing agreements for the city, he could not deny that New Yorkers seem generally satisfied with Mr. Bloomberg. Mr. Thompson has said in the past that he would endorse the Democratic nominee for mayor. Mr. Thompson, the son of a powerful Brooklyn judge, rose through the Brooklyn political ranks and the Board of Education before becoming comptroller. Political analysts say he should have little trouble getting re-elected.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

LONG ISLAND

JURY ENDS SECOND DAY OF DELIBERATIONS IN PELOSI CASE

A Long Island jury concluded its second day of deliberations yesterday without reaching a verdict in the murder trial of Daniel Pelosi, accused of killing his lover’s estranged husband, millionaire banker Theodore Ammon. The jury began working at 9 a.m. yesterday and deliberated for about 12 hours before leaving court for the night. The judge asked jurors to return today at 9 a.m. During the day, jurors heard readings of testimony of Mr. Pelosi’s sister and some of Mr. Pelosi’s own testimony about the night Ammon was killed. On Saturday, the panel of nine women and three men reviewed phone records and reheard the testimony of a key prosecution witness who said Mr. Pelosi admitted the slaying to her three months after Ammon was killed. Mr. Pelosi claims he was at his sister’s house in Center Moriches, 40 miles from Ammon’s mansion in East Hampton, when the slaying occurred in 2001.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

TEENAGER CHASED AND STABBED TO DEATH ON QUEENS STREET

A New Jersey teenager was chased and stabbed to death by a group of men who confronted him on a Queens street as he argued with his girlfriend yesterday, police said.

Michael Barrios, 18, of Ridgefield, was stabbed in the neck and torso after he was attacked by a group of five men at Elmhurst, at about 1 a.m. Barrios did not know his attackers and tried to flee, running two blocks before they caught up with him in front of 80-37 47th Ave., where he was stabbed twice. Barrios was taken to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:18 a.m. Police described the suspects as Hispanic men in their 20s.There have been no arrests.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLICE ARREST SUSPECT IN SHOOTING THAT WOUNDED GIRL

Police arrested a man yesterday who was wanted in connection with a December 2 Bronx shooting that injured a 4-year-old girl. Thomas Morton, 28, was charged with attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon yesterday after Bronx detectives arrested him in his vehicle and found a loaded firearm in the car.

Police sources said that they knew who they were looking for when they picked up Morton, but have not yet confirmed that the firearm found was used in the shooting. Morton was known by police to have a criminal past. He was arrested in 1993 and 2000 on multiple charges including assault, criminal drug sales, robbery, and criminal possession of a firearm. Police do not yet know who the intended target was, but witnesses said that a bullet came through the open door of the Fadel Deli and Grocery on White Plains Road in the Soundview section of the Bronx and hit the girl in her left arm as she was shopping with her grandmother.

– Special to the Sun