ALBANY

PATAKI TRAVELS TO IOWA, KEY STATE IN 2008 PRESIDENTIAL RACE

Governor Pataki will travel this weekend to Iowa for a summer meeting of governors – an event he hasn’t attended in years, but which happens to be a state critical in selecting the next president.

Mr. Pataki will be one of 30 state executives expected in Des Moines for the National Association of Governors meetings, which will focus on education, Medicaid, and other challenges facing state governments. Stephen Roberts, said. Pataki spokesman David Catalfamo said he was not aware of Mr. Pataki ever attending an NGA summer meeting before, but said that was determined by local, not national, politics.

– Associated Press

BROOKLYN

HOWARD BEACH WITNESS ARRESTED IN SUBWAY ROBBERY

A witness in a brutal hate crime last month in Howard Beach, Queens, has been arrested in an armed holdup on a subway train, police said yesterday.

Richard Wood, 20, was accused of stealing a necklace and a wallet from an 18-year-old subway rider at gunpoint at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday in East New York, Brooklyn. A second suspect was being sought. Mr. Wood was awaiting arraignment on charges of robbery, grand larceny, and criminal possession of a weapon. Prosecutors did not have the name of his lawyer.

Mr. Wood was on the street in Howard Beach with Glenn Moore at 3 a.m. on June 29, when, authorities say, a pair of white assailants chased down Mr. Moore, beat him with a baseball bat and told him, “That is what you get when you try to rob white boys.” Nicholas Minucci, 19, and Anthony Ench, 21, have been charged with assault as a hate crime and other offenses.

A defense lawyer has said Mr. Moore provoked the attack by holding a screwdriver to Minucci’s neck.

– Associated Press

MANHATTAN

DOCTOR FILES SLANDER LAWSUIT AGAINST RADIO PERSONALITY IMUS

A doctor who once cared for sick children at Don Imus’s New Mexico ranch has sued the tart-tongued radio personality for slander, claiming he made false derogatory comments about him on his “Imus in the Morning” show.

Dr. Howard Allen Pearson says in court papers that on at least four days last year, Mr. Imus said Dr. Pearson “was one of the worst doctors in the world and did not care if children suffered.”

Dr. Pearson’s lawsuit says Mr. Imus apparently misunderstood the physician’s response to a morning call to treat a child for pain in July 2004. Reached by telephone at his ranch near Ribera, N.M., Mr. Imus confirmed and repeated his disparaging comments about Dr. Pearson. He said the lawsuit was “disgraceful.”

Dr. Pearson’s lawsuit, filed in a Manhattan court Friday, asks unspecified damages for “distress, shock, humiliation, and economic loss.”

– Associated Press

AMTRAK RESUMES LIMITED ACELA SERVICE TO WASHINGTON

Amtrak resumed limited Acela Express runs yesterday for the first time since April, when the high-speed fleet was pulled from service due to cracks in many of the trains’ brake rotors. Amtrak restarted the Acela service with two daily roundtrips, starting yesterday through Friday, between New York and Washington.

The remaining 18 Acela trains will be put back in service once they are equipped with the new brakes, an Amtrak spokeswoman, Tracy Connell, said. No date was announced for resumption of Acela service to Boston.

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

AUDIT SHOWS $10.6 MILLION IN UNCOLLECTED CHILD SUPPORT

The Department of Finance failed to find and serve about 1,545 parents who have avoided making child support payments, leaving as much as $10.6 million in child support payments uncollected, an audit released yesterday by William Thompson, the New York City comptroller, found.

The audit found that the Finance Department’s Sheriff’s Office, which is responsible for collecting child support payments owed by noncustodial parents, did not adequately research parents’ addresses. Of 144 cases sampled in which parents weren’t found, 72 were not located because of insufficient addresses. Of those, Mr. Thompson’s office was able to track down 52 by searching computer databases such as Lexis Nexis. Mr. Thompson recommended that the Sheriff’s Office begin using multiple computer databases.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

QUEENS

CAPTAIN SUSPENDED FOR ALLEGEDLY DELAYING PIPE BOMB REPORT

A fire captain has been suspended for violating protocol when he allegedly delayed reporting the discovery of a pipe bomb to the police’s bomb squad unit, the Fire Department commissioner, Nicholas Scoppetta, said yesterday.

“Captain James Goelz of Engine Company 320 has been suspended without pay pending further investigation into the incident involving a pipe bomb in Queens on Saturday night,” Mr. Scoppetta said in a statement.

Firefighters partially disassembled the homemade device, found in a burning recycling bin in Bayside, and then allegedly violated procedure by bringing it back to a firehouse before calling the police bomb squad unit nearly an hour later.

Police eventually took the gunpowder-filled, 8-inch bomb from the firehouse to a bomb squad disposal facility.

Authorities also were working to determine who assembled the device.

– Associated Press