ALBANY

PATAKI TO VETO ‘MORNING-AFTER PILL’ LEGISLATION

Governor Pataki, eyeing a run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, will veto legislation that would have allowed pharmacists to provide, without prescriptions, conception-preventing, “morning-after pills” to women, an aide said yesterday.

“This bill, which hasn’t even been sent to the governor yet, is a flawed, politically expedient measure that fails to include any common-sense protections for minors and ignores the fact that the FDA will rule on this issue in just a few weeks,” Mr. Pataki’s spokesman, Kevin Quinn, said. “Consistent with his record on women’s reproductive issues, the governor plans to veto the legislation primarily because it provides no protection whatsoever for minors,” Mr. Quinn added. “If this and other flaws in the bill are addressed, and a responsible version of the bill is advanced, the governor would support it.” Similar legislation was vetoed last week by the governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, who is also eyeing the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. Supporters of the New York legislation had feared that Mr. Pataki, seeking to appeal to conservatives who tend to dominate the GOP presidential nominating process, would veto the measure.

– Associated Press

BROOKLYN

POLICE: TIRES OF SIX VEHICLES SLASHED IN ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK

In what police describe as an anti-Semitic attack, the tires of six vehicles, including two Hatzolah ambulances, were slashed in Crown Heights on Saturday morning.

All of the vehicles were parked in front of the Lubavitcher headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway, a synagogue that has been embroiled in a dispute between two factions within the fervently Orthodox chasidic movement on the wording of a certain plaque that went missing more than a month ago.

The words “of blessed memory” on the plaque beneath the name of the group’s leader, Grande Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, had kept the atmosphere tense at the synagogue for more than a decade. One group believes he is dead, following the official account that he passed away in 1994, while the other faction believes he lives on and that it is disrespectful to say otherwise. The plaque mysteriously disappeared on June 28, and has not yet been recovered by synagogue officials. Police said they had no evidence that the tire-slashing had anything to do with the dispute between the factions within the religious group.

– Special to the Sun

QUEENS

TEENAGER WHO DISAPPEARED FROM YANKEE STADIUM RAN AWAY

A 13-year-old boy from Stamford, Conn., who was reported missing from a men’s room in Yankee Stadium, ran away and was found in Queens early yesterday, police said. “He ran away and we found him,” a police spokesman, Detective John Sweeney, said. He declined to elaborate on how or why the boy ended up in another borough.

Hundreds of police and security guards searched for Majelique Lewis after he disappeared during a trip to the bathroom during the seventh-inning stretch of a Yankees-Angels game in the Bronx on Friday night. His mother immediately reported him missing to security, who notified police about an hour later, about 10:05 p.m. A search of the stadium, including parking lots, restricted areas, and locked rooms, was fruitless, police said. Officers also searched nearby fast-food restaurants and train stations without results. But police said the boy was located in front of a building in Jamaica, Queens, early yesterday morning in good health. He was returned to his parents, Mr. Sweeney said.

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

TWO MURDERED IN SEPARATE INCIDENTS

In two separate incidents, men were murdered in New York on Saturday – one died in a gunfight on the Upper East Side and the other died after being stabbed in the chest in Queens, police officials said.

Early Saturday morning, Phillip Diaz, 23, of Bethlehem, Pa., died after sustaining a gunshot wound to the head. When police responded to a call about a man shot on 100th Street between First Avenue and the FDR Drive, they found Diaz and another 24-year-old shot in the back. Diaz was pronounced dead at Metropolitan Hospital. The other man, whose name was not released by police, was listed in stable condition at the hospital yesterday.

Nearly 17 hours later, Miguel Angel Restituyo, 21, of 147-25 88th Ave. in Jamaica, was stabbed fatally in the chest by an unknown assailant, police said. He was taken to Mary Immaculate Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police had made no arrests in either case yesterday.

– Special to the Sun