STATEWIDE

CRIME FALLS TO LOWEST LEVELS SINCE REPORTING STARTED

Overall crime dropped by 2.7% in New York State last year, leaving crime at its lowest levels since statewide crime reporting started nearly 40 years ago, according to an annual FBI survey of the nation’s police departments. The continuing downward trend statewide that started 11 years ago was helped by a 5.2% drop in violent offenses, which includes murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. That reduction outpaced the 2% decrease in violent crime nationwide, according to the figures released by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. New York is now the sixth-safest state in the country, up from seventh last year. It also ranked as the safest large state for the second consecutive year. Compared to 1994, overall crime has declined by 44.9% and violent crime has declined by 51.6%, according to the figures.

– Associated Press

SCHUMER CALLS ON ROCHE TO RELINQUISH BIRD FLU DRUG PATENT

Senator Schumer yesterday called on the maker of the only known treatment for bird flu to relinquish its patent rights to the drug temporarily so that America could increase its stockpile. The Swiss company, Roche, and the pharmaceutical industry have resisted pressure to allow broader production of Tamiflu, an anti-viral treatment scientists say would be the best defense against a bird flu pandemic. The company has said it would have to work at full capacity for years to make enough Tamiflu to protect against a worldwide pandemic, and that it would take another company even longer to replicate the complex, multistep production process.

Mr. Schumer threatened to draw up legislation that would suspend Roche’s patent on Tamiflu until a sufficient stockpile could be produced. “We can’t just go into this pandemic with our eyes closed,” he said. America currently has enough pills to treat 2.3 million people, and federal officials want to increase the supply so that 20 million people could be treated. “The problem is not with the cost of the drug,” Mr. Schumer said. “The problem is with its availability.”

– Special to the Sun

IGNIZIO URGES PATAKI TO EXPLORE STATEWIDE 311 SYSTEM

Assembly Member Vincent Ignizio is calling on Governor Pataki to launch a task force to examine the initiation of a statewide equivalent to New York City’s 311 information number. “State government is a mystery for most people. They don’t know how to contact it,” Mr. Ignizio, who represents part of Staten Island, told The New York Sun. The city’s information number receives more than 30,000 calls a day and grants callers access to every city government agency. It costs approximately $25 million to implement, according to a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg. Mr. Ignizio suggests the task force be given a 1-year timeline to investigate the costs and benefits of a statewide program.

– Special to the Sun

CITYWIDE

MAYOR LOBBIED TO REJECT UNION SQUARE RESTAURANT PROPOSAL Community groups and elected officials called on Mayor Bloomberg yesterday to reject the Union Square Partnership’s plan to build a seasonal restaurant in the pavilion in Union Square Park and to move forward with the construction of a long-delayed playground. “It is shameful that a children’s playground, funded 5 years ago, has been held hostage to the … business agenda. Parks are supposed to be for children,” the president of NYC Park Advocates, Geoffrey Croft, said. NYC Park Advocates, a watchdog group dedicated to improving public parks, organized the event. A state senator, Thomas Duane, state Assembly members Sheldon Silver and Rosie Mendez, and representatives of 37 area block associations joined Mr. Croft at the press conference.

– Special to the Sun

MEMORIAL MUSEUM TO TAKE ‘IMMERSIVE’ LOOK AT 9/11 ATTACKS

Visitors to a September 11 memorial museum could relive the 2001 terrorist attacks in an “immersive” area that surrounds them with pictures of the falling towers, the sounds of police sirens, and the last words of some of the people who died at the World Trade Center.

The first piece of steel in the trade center’s north tower to be hit by a hijacked jet – as well as lottery tickets and keys pulled from ground zero, and a contemplative area where visitors can leave personal messages – are among other proposed exhibits for the memorial museum.

The plans, presented in public workshops over the past month, offer the first glimpse of an institution that is likely to become one of the country’s most visited museums, while also prompting tense questions over how to tell the story of September 11.

– Associated Press