BROOKLYN

WILLIAMSBURG FIREFIGHTER WINS CBS-TV’S ‘SURVIVOR: PALAU’

New York City firefighter Thomas Westman won “Survivor: Palau” last night, picking up the top prize of $1 million in the live finale of the CBS hit.

Lieutenant Westman, a Queens native works out of ladder company 108 in Williamsburg, bested Katie Gallagher, Ian Rosenberger, and Jennifer Lyon on the final night of competition. Many of his fellow firefighters were in the audience cheering him on as the ‘Survivor’ votes were counted. Ms. Gallagher, a radio advertising saleswoman from Merced, Calif., won $100,000 as the runner-up.

In a game where over-the-radar power players are usually booted way before the finale, Lieutenant Westman was an anomaly. He dominated the individual immunity challenges, but his strong alliances and strategic relationships kept him from coming under fire. The 41-year-old father of three who lives in Sayville, Long Island, led the Koror tribe to demolish the Ulongs in every immunity challenge – a “Survivor” first. Lieutenant Westman said he won by simply being himself.

– Associated Press

MILL BASIN MAN FOUND DEAD AMONG HIS OWN ARSENAL

A fire extinguisher stuffed with black powder and a small weapons cache were discovered inside the apartment of a Brooklyn man who apparently died of a heart attack over the weekend, police said.

At about 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, emergency workers and members of the Police Department’s bomb squad discovered the homemade explosive, nine handguns, one assault rifle, and the body of the Brooklyn man, George Lambert, 46.

According to police, Lambert kept his small-weapons arsenal in a private room in his Mill Basin home. Lambert’s wife, whose identity was not released by the authorities yesterday, told police that she had never entered her husband’s private room because he said she was forbidden to do so. After noticing that her husband had been in the room for several hours, she told detectives that she entered the room and found her husband slumped over on a bed. Lambert was arrested in 2004 on a weapons charge, police said, and had an upcoming court appearance.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

HUDSON PARKWAY NORTHBOUND TO REOPEN TODAY

The northbound lane of the Henry Hudson Parkway is expected to be reopened today after it was closed all weekend following the collapse of a retaining wall that triggered a landslide Thursday, raining massive amounts of debris onto the highway.

Residents who were evacuated from their building at 1380 Riverside Drive have returned to their homes, the mayor said yesterday. The city’s departments of sanitation and transportation spent the weekend carting away the rubble and finding places to discard it once the hill was cut down to a slope. The next phase will include putting sheeting over the slope to protect it from erosion. The mayor said it was unclear who would eventually pay to rebuild the wall. Residents in the Washington Heights neighborhood, however, remain concerned that other retaining walls in the hilly neighborhood are also unstable.

– Special to the Sun

RALLY SCHEDULED THURSDAY TO PROTEST CENTRAL PARK RALLY RULES

The executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Norman Siegel, tried to drum up support yesterday for a rally scheduled for Thursday to protest a Parks Department proposal to scale back large gatherings on Central Park’s Great Lawn.

At a press conference at Strawberry Fields, Mr. Siegel urged New Yorkers to attend the rally and an all-night candlelight vigil on May 19 at 8 p.m. on the Great Lawn to demonstrate their disapproval the night before the Parks Department is to hold a public hearing on the proposal. The new rules would limit the number of events on the Great Lawn with more than 50,000 attendees to six times a year. Annual performances by the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera would count as four events, while the remaining two would be restricted to the months of August and September. Mr. Siegel denounced the proposal as being the latest attempt by the Bloomberg administration to “erode people’s first amendment rights” and called it part of a larger trend to limit New Yorkers’ rights to free speech.

A spokesman for the Parks Department, Warner Johnston, said the proposal is an effort to put into writing management practices that have existed since the lawn was restored in 1997, and are not meant to discourage public events or rallies in the park. “The great lawn is just one location in Central Park. There will still be many other places in the park for people to gather,” Mr. Johnston said.

Representatives of the National Latino Officers Association, a law enforcement group, were on hand to support Mr. Siegel in promoting Thursday’s rally and vigil.

– Special to the Sun

THE BRONX

MURDERED WOMAN FOUND NAKED INSIDE GARMENT BAG

The decomposed body of a naked woman with a plastic bag wrapped over her head was found stuffed inside a garment bag Saturday off a Bronx highway, police said yesterday.

At about 5 p.m. on Saturday, a father and son on a bicycle ride noticed the garment bag on a grassy patch of land off the Pelham Parkway, about a quarter mile from Bruckner Boulevard.

Detectives said the body of the victim had been decaying inside the garment bag for more than two days. Police said the plastic bag around her head indicates that the woman was a homicide victim. Her clothes were also found inside the garment bag. The woman was described yesterday as being either white or Hispanic. No other details were available, pending identification efforts by the Medical Examiner’s office, which is expected to release more information in the next few days.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

CITYWIDE

COUNCIL RELEASES EDUCATION BUDGET REFERENCE BOOKLET

Interested in learning more about the education budget in New York City? There’s a new resource for you: “The Education Budget For Dummies,” a reference booklet created by the chairwoman of the City Council’s committee on education, Eva Moskowitz.

Ms. Moskowitz, who has held more than 24 hearings on the education budget, said the guide is meant to help parents and taxpayers navigate the annual schools budget of nearly $20 billion. The booklet contains a glossary of useful budget terms like “DBOR,” Department of Education lingo for the Division of Budget Operation and Review, and “SBER,” which is a School Based Expenditure Report, an annual snapshot of how much money was spent in each school.

The booklet explains the nuances of such complex issues as budget modifications, object codes, school-based budgeting, and procurement. It also points out that 25% of the budget is spent on pension and interest costs, and about 50% of the budget makes it into the classroom.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun