CITYWIDE

KLEIN PUSHES OPENING OF 75 NEW CHARTER SCHOOLS

The schools chancellor, Joel Klein, said the mayor is committed to opening 75 additional charter schools across the five boroughs after a celebration for the new Achievement First Crown Heights Charter School in Brooklyn yesterday. “We need to make sure these opportunities are available throughout our city,” he said. A vocal proponent of the publicly funded, but privately run schools, Mr. Klein persuaded the Connecticut-based group to open charter schools in both Crown Heights and East New York. It plans to open another in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, next year.

The initial Achievement First school, Amistad Academy, was opened in New Haven, Conn., by a group of Yale Law School graduates who said they were dismayed by racial inequity they found in regular public schools. City Council Member Letitia James, a Working Families Party member from Brooklyn, also joined in yesterday’s celebration. She called on Albany to change the law limiting the number of charter schools in the state to 100. The state is expected to reach the maximum next year. Despite that legal limit, Mr. Klein said he was still encouraging new schools to apply for charters in the city.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

ALARMED EMERGENCY EXIT TO BE INSTALLED IN SOME SUBWAY STATIONS

Transit officials announced yesterday that they would be installing alarmed emergency exit bars on swing gates in subway stations with floor-to-ceiling turnstiles. The change came in response to riders who worried that they would not be able to evacuate during an emergency. The New York City Transit Authority said they had installed a prototype bar in September at the Lawrence Street M and R station in downtown Brooklyn. Bars will be installed at 1,336 gates adjacent to the floor-to-ceiling turnstiles throughout the subway’s 486 stations. The project should be completed in December 2006.

– Special to the Sun

STATEWIDE

JUDGE DENIES REQUEST TO DELAY NORMAN TRIAL

A state Supreme Court judge set to preside over the second trial of a fallen Brooklyn Party leader, Clarence Norman Jr., denied his attorney’s request yesterday to delay proceedings for four months. The attorney, Edward Rappaport, said the potential jury pool had been “poisoned” by recent newspaper articles and that his client had no chance of getting a fair trial.

Justice Martin Marcus disagreed and ordered jury selection to begin Monday at 10 a.m. The trial is the second of four and will focus on allegations that Norman stole $5,000 from his Assembly campaign committee. The former party leader and assemblyman has already been convicted of three felony charges for soliciting illegal campaign contributions. Justice Marcus denied prosecutors’ requests to use two pieces of evidence that would have strengthened their case, but he granted their requests to tell jurors about past conviction and about another questionable $2,500 deposit.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLICE BLOTTER

WOMAN KILLED IN FIRE IN QUEENS A fire killed a 76-year-old woman yesterday in the Queens building where she lived, police said. At 11:35 a.m., firefighters said the two-alarm fire broke out in the building at 232-12 Merrick Blvd. in the Queens Village area. Firefighters responded to the scene three minutes later, fire officials said. Vilma Colombaria was found dead in the basement of the building, police said. The fire does not appear suspicious, fire officials said, and may be due to careless smoking.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MAN POSING AS FIREFIGHTER SEXUALLY ABUSES WOMAN

A man who claimed he was a firefighter allegedly sexually assaulted a woman at gunpoint in her Chelsea home on Halloween, police said. On Monday at 6 p.m., the 34-year-old woman heard a knock at her door. She opened the door and found a man dressed as a firefighter. He allegedly pushed his way into her apartment, said he was a firefighter, and sexually attacked her at gunpoint before leaving. No arrests were made by early yesterday evening.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POSSIBLE MURDER-SUICIDE IN THE BRONX

A man and woman who had legally separated were found dead yesterday in what police said might have been a murder-suicide. Police say they believe the man shot the woman and then himself. At 10:30 a.m., the woman, 39, and man, 45, were discovered in the woman’s Bronx home by her daughter, 21, with gunshot wounds to their heads. A revolver was recovered at the scene, police said. The couple’s names were not immediately released because their family members had not yet been notified.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun