CITYWIDE

CITY COUNCIL EXPECTED TO STOP SUNDAY TICKETING

If the City Council has its way, feeding parking meters on Sundays will be a thing of the past. The council is expected to approve a bill this week to suspend the operation of parking meters on Sundays. Proponents of the legislation have argued that Sunday meters are unfair to those attending church and said that the public deserves a day off. But Mayor Bloomberg has said the meters keep parking spots turning over. He has also offered to extend one-hour meters near churches to two hours. The city began enforcing Sunday meter rules three years ago when it was faced with a massive budget deficit. Several council members said yesterday that the city should reverse that rule because of this year’s budget surplus. The council has 41 co-sponsors on the bill – enough to override Mr. Bloomberg’s anticipated veto.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STRING OF SHOOTINGS IN CITY

There were a series of separate and unrelated shootings throughout the city over the weekend, leaving several people dead and many wounded. In the latest case yesterday at 4 a.m., two male Hispanics were shot in Washington Heights while sitting in an automobile at the corner of 204th Street and Vermilyea Avenue, police said. The victims drove themselves to a hospital where one man died and the other was listed in stable condition with a graze wound, police said. Twenty-two minutes earlier, one man was allegedly shot to death and five others were shot and injured. The gunfire broke out in front of 596 Grand Concourse, in Morris Heights, the Bronx. A day earlier, there were three shootings in Brooklyn.

In one case at 1:33 p.m., police faced off with a male wanted for the kidnapping of a 27-year-old woman, police reported. The gunfire erupted on the corner of Beverley Road and Brooklyn Avenue. The suspect was brought to the hospital in serious condition. Police fired off the rounds after the suspect allegedly shot the woman in the mouth. She was listed in stable condition, police said. At 9:04 p.m. on the same day in Brooklyn, a man, 19, was shot to death inside 760 Park Avenue. The bullets were discharged into the upper portion of the man’s body, police said, and he was declared dead at the hospital. About an hour later, five bullets were discharged into the chest of a man between 21 and 25 years old at the intersection of Foster and Brooklyn avenues. The victim died at the hospital. In all cases, the investigations continue.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEWIDE

CLINTON CHALLENGER SAYS WEB SITE ERASED

GRAHAMSVILLE, N.Y. – The Web site for a lawyer seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Senator Clinton for a U.S. Senate seat has stopped functioning. William Brenner’s campaign staff calls it cyber-sabotage. Mr. Brenner, a Sullivan County tax attorney, began pursuing the nomination publicly in April. Campaign spokesman David Brenner says the campaign doesn’t know who erased the site last week, but the FBI launched a formal investigation July 19.

– Associated Press

MANHATTAN

HIP-HOP EXECUTIVES ARRESTED ON CHARGES OF ATTEMPTED MURDER

Two executives from the hip-hop magazine the Source were arrested on charges of attempted murder yesterday, police officials said. The men, identified as Leroy Peeples, 32, and Alvin Childs, 35, allegedly shot three men in a dispute outside a bar in Gramercy, police said. Mr. Peeples is the general manager of the magazine, and Mr. Childs is a salesman. One victim, an aspiring rapper identified as Orlando Orenga, 26, was shot once in the head and taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition. Police said he is expected to live. Another victim who was shot three times is listed in stable condition at the hospital. A third victim, Alex Colon, 30, who was shot in the arm and the torso, was listed in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital, police said, adding that they recovered two handguns on the scene. Messrs. Peeples and Childs are each charged on three counts of attempted murder.

– Special to the Sun

BROOKLYN

SWIMMER MISSING AFTER DIVE OFF CONEY ISLAND PIER

Police are searching for a man who went missing yesterday after diving off a pier in Coney Island on Saturday evening, police officials said. The New York Police Department’s scuba unit, joined by lifeguards and Fire Department divers, searched the waters near the pier Saturday, but called the search off later that night. They resumed their search this morning, but did not find the swimmer, police officials said. At about 5:30 p.m. Saturday, the man dove off the Pat Auletta Steeplechase Pier into the ocean. According to an article in Newsday yesterday, witnesses said the man had been drinking beer throughout the day.

– Special to the Sun