CITYWIDE

BROOKLYN STATE SENATOR ENDORSES FERRER FOR MAYOR

Former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, who is seeking to unseat Mayor Bloomberg in November, won the endorsement of southern Brooklyn State Senator Carl Kruger yesterday.The Albany lawmaker, who represents Sheepshead Bay, Midwood, Bensonhurst, Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach, Mill Basin, Mill Island, Flatlands,a nd Boro Park, said Mr. Ferrer was the only candidate who had a chance of besting Mr. Bloomberg in November.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MAYOR SIGNS THREE NEW LAWS ON DAY CARE

Mayor Bloomberg signed into law three bills aimed at reforming the way the city monitors day-care workers yesterday. One bill requires the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to make available information about licenses, registrations, and permits to the city’s referral agencies. Another requires the agency to post a day-care service inspection report summary for city-regulated Group Day Care facilities on its Web site and make reports available through the city’s 311 call center. It also requires an applicant for a permit or renewal to disclose whether a serious injury or death of a child has occurred in their care.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

SUBWAY CONDUCTORS FAIL IN ANNOUNCEMENTS, SURVEY SAYS

Commuters have some advice for subway car conductors: Step away from the mike. In five-sixths of subway delays and disruptions, riders said conductors either failed to make a required announcement or made an inaudible, garbled, or useless one, according to an annual survey released yesterday by the Straphangers Campaign, a subway riders’ advocacy group. Transit guidelines require conductors to tell riders basic information such as what train they are on, where it is going, and which trains they can transfer to at any given station. While the survey showed more announcements were being made – 73% of the time compared with 67% in 2003 – the most important announcements, which communicated delays and changes in service, were poorly communicated, the group found.

– Special to the Sun

NEW CHIEF OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION NAMED

Mayor Bloomberg appointed a former Department of Sanitation Commissioner,Emily Lloyd,as his new chief of environmental protection to replace Christopher Ward, who left the agency in October 2004. Ms. Lloyd is a veteran of city government with extensive experience with environmental issues and large-scale construction and engineering projects, Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

THREE INDICTED IN BRIBERY SCHEME AT HOSPITAL

Ailing patients at New York-Presbyterian Hospital may have foot the bill for an elaborate kickback scheme devised by three information technology subcontractors, Manhattan’s district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, said yesterday.

Between February 2001 and November 2003, Nadine Herrera, 55, Julio Garcia, 49 and Paul Kahn, 52, employed by First Consulting Group, accepted more than $300,000 in bribes in exchange for hospital telecommunications contracts, a spokeswoman from the Manhattan district attorney’s office said. The three were indicted yesterday on multiple criminal charges, including money-laundering, commercial bribery, and conspiracy.

– Special to the Sun

UPSTATE

COLLEGE CANCELS APPEARANCE BY PROFESSOR

Citing death threats, an upstate New York college yesterday canceled a panel discussion featuring a professor who compared the World Trade Center victims to Nazis.

A Hamilton College spokesman, Michael DeBraggio, said multiple death threats were made against both college officials and the guest speaker, Ward Churchill, who resigned Monday as chairman of the ethnic studies department at the University of Colorado. In an essay written in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Mr. Churchill said the World Trade Center victims were “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who organized Nazi plans to exterminate Europe’s Jews. Mr. Churchill also spoke of the “gallant sacrifices” of the “combat teams” that struck America.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

ELDERLY MAN USES KNIFE CONCEALED IN HIS CANE

An East Village sidewalk scuffle took a strange turn yesterday afternoon when an elderly man stabbed a vagrant with a knife concealed in his cane, police said.

With cane in hand, Eugene Carlson, 75, quickly weaved around pedestrians as he hurried down East 9th Street yesterday. But as he tried to pass George Devol, 30, the two bumped into each other and a heated argument ensued, detectives said. As the retiree and the homeless man shouted at each other on the sidewalk, Mr. Carlson twisted the top of his cane, and, with a flick of the wrist, drew forth an eight-inch blade from inside his walking stick, police said. Mr. Carlson then stabbed Mr. Devol once in the neck, cutting the man’s jugular vein, said police.

The victim was immediately taken to Bellevue Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery and is said to be in critical but stable condition.

– Special to the Sun

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