CITYWIDE

MAYOR SAYS HE IS NOT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT Mayor Bloomberg shot down, again, the suggestion that his next move might be a run for president, asking reporters yesterday, “Which letter of the word ‘no’ do you not understand?” The 64-year-old Republican mayor began his second term last month and has said repeatedly that his first job in elected office will be his last.

– Associated Press

DETECTIVE: SUSPECT RATIONAL UNTIL ASKED ABOUT DUFRESNE SLAYING

A man who says he is too mentally ill to be tried on charges of fatally shooting actress Nicole duFresne during a street robbery responded rationally to police questions until he was asked about the crime, a detective said yesterday. At that point, Detective Carlos Rodriguez testified, Rudy Fleming “zoned out.”

– Associated Press

MOVIE WITH COLIN FARRELL TO MEMORIALIZE SLAIN OFFICER

The police officer shot by an on-duty patrolman last month will be memorialized in a film starring Colin Farrell. Eric Hernandez was surrounded and attacked at a White Castle on January 28. Following the beating, the dazed officer pulled a gun on a man in the parking lot. He was critically shot by a patrolman arriving on the scene, who had no way of knowing Hernandez was a fellow officer. Hernandez, 24, had agreed to appear as an extra in “Pride and Glory,” which is now in production. The movie features a fictional Police Department football team.

– Associated Press

CULTURAL CENTER, FIRST TO MOVE TO LOWER MANHATTAN SINCE 9/11, OPENS

A $5.5 million dance center is set to open today on Chambers Street in a ceremony where city dignitaries, including Mayor Bloomberg, will hail the first cultural organization to move to Lower Manhattan since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.The 25,000-square-foot space in the old New York Sun building will be the new headquarters of Dance New Amsterdam, a group formally called the Dance Space Center.The facility will include six dance studios, a 135-seat theater, an art gallery, and a street-level cafe.The organization secured the new home with help from $2.6 million in government funding from the mayor’s office, the City Council, and the 9/11 fund.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

NYPD COMMISSIONER SCOLDS RAPPER FOR SILENCE IN SLAYING

The police commissioner berated rapper Busta Rhymes yesterday, accusing him of withholding information about the slaying of his bodyguard at a hip-hop video shoot. At a news conference at New York Police Department headquarters, Commissioner Raymond Kelly complained that the silence of several potential witnesses has stymied the investigation of the Brooklyn killing last week of Israel Ramirez.

– Associated Press

DOG GOES MISSING AFTER WESTMINSTER KENNEL CLUB SHOW

A dog that won an award in this week’s Westminster Kennel Club show escaped from its cage at John F. Kennedy International Airport yesterday and was believed to be on the loose in the surrounding area, authorities said. The dog, a whippet, broke free at about noon, said Tiffany Townsend, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs area airports.

– Associated Press

MODEL’S IMAGE REMOVED FROM ‘SPAMALOT’ THEATER

An image used to promote the hit musical “Monty Python’s Spamalot” has been removed from the facade of a Broadway theater after a model filed a lawsuit claiming it showed her in a foolish and undignified way without her permission.

– Associated Press

ALBANY

BILL WOULD BAN SALE OF PHONE RECORDS

Personal telephone records containing the numbers you’ve dialed and the calls you’ve received can legally be bought on the Internet for less than $100. A bill with strong backing among state lawmakers would change that. The bill would ban phone companies from releasing personal telephone account records to anyone except the account holder and prevent third parties from selling the records.The law would pertain to cell, land line, satellite, and Internet phone records and allow those whose information was sold to sue for damages.

– Associated Press

CLINTON ‘RAISING MONEY SHE WON’T EVEN NEED’

Six years after battling her way to a Senate seat from her newly adopted state with dawn-to-dusk campaigning, Senator Clinton, a Democrat, is coasting through a re-election race, piling up money and even more celebrity.”She’s raising money she won’t even need”for her state race, said Senator D’Amato, a New York Republican powerbroker.That is no small matter for the national GOP or potential Democratic opponents who may face her in a 2008 race for the party’s presidential nomination. What money she has left from the 2006 Senate race can be used for a presidential run.

– Associated Press

COMPTROLLER SAYS PATAKI BUDGET TO LEAVE DEEP DEFICITS

The state comptroller yesterday said Governor Pataki’s proposed state budget will leave New York in deep deficits because it cuts taxes and increases spending while continuing a rapid increase in debt. Comptroller Alan Hevesi said Mr. Pataki’s budget would create a $7.9 billion deficit over the next two years.

– Associated Press

MCCALL TO ENDORSE O’DONNELL FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL

A former Democratic gubernatorial candidate, H. Carl McCall, will endorse Denise O’Donnell’s candidacy for state attorney general, fellow Democrats said yesterday.

– Associated Press

STATE SUES FEDS FOR FAILING TO DISCLOSE COMPANIES’ TOXIC RELEASES

The state has sued the Bush administration, claiming it has refused for two years to disclose how much toxic air pollution is being released by paint and varnish companies.The state Department of Environmental Conservation has sought disclosure reports from several manufacturers and importers to determine the levels of “volatile organic compounds” in their paint, stain, and varnish products.

– Associated Press

CLINTON, SUOZZI: INNER-RING SUBURBS FACE SERIOUS CHALLENGES

Senator Clinton and the Nassau county executive, Tom Suozzi – a potential candidate for governor – appeared at the same event yesterday advancing the same cause, but the senator insisted she’s not picking sides in any potential Democratic primary. “I’ve got my own race to run,” Mrs. Clinton, a Democrat, told reporters after giving an opening address at the Brookings Institution about the growing needs of aging suburban developments in New York and around the country. Mr. Suozzi, who said he’ll decide in a matter of weeks whether to challenge the state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, for the Democratic nomination, spoke after Mrs. Clinton as part of a panel of suburb executives facing rising costs, an aging population and a lack of affordable housing.

– Associated Press

DEMOCRATS CAUGHT IN OWN WEB-SPINNING AFTER CHIDING GOP

The state Democratic Committee that smacked a Republican candidate for using excerpted news stories on his Web site and passing it off as journalism has done its own editing of news stories on the Web. On Tuesday the state Democratic Committee posted an Associated Press story about GOP candidate Bill Weld on its Web site headlined: “AP: Scandal at trade school casts a shadow over N.Y. governor’s race.” The story was four paragraphs long followed by the phrase: “(excerpted per AP policy).” But there is no such AP policy nor did the committee have permission to use AP articles. The Democrats’ version ended just above where the news article reported: “Weld has said he knew of no illegal activity at the college and has offered to help with the investigation.”

– Associated Press

STATEWIDE

MISSING WESTCHESTER COUNTY MAN FOUND WITH APPARENT AMNESIA

A man missing from his suburban New York home for nearly seven months has turned up at a homeless shelter in Chicago, unharmed but apparently oblivious to how he ended up 1,000 miles from home or that he had a family searching for him. Raymond Power Jr., 57, an attorney from New Rochelle, N.Y., and a former police officer, has been living in a shelter under the name “JayTower” and selling newspapers on the street, police said Tuesday.

– Associated Press