ALBANY

CLINTON: ROVE IS ‘OBSESSING ABOUT ME’

Reacting to a new book quoting Karl Rove as saying she will be the 2008 Democratic nominee for president, Senator Clinton said yesterday that President Bush’s chief political strategist “spends a lot of time obsessing about me.” Noting that Mr. Rove and his White House aides have met regularly with her possible opponents in the 2006 Senate race, Mrs. Clinton said, “He spends more time thinking about my political future than I do.”

– Associated Press

PATAKI IN HOSPITAL A WEEK AFTER SURGERY

Governor Pataki remained hospitalized yesterday, nearly a week after undergoing surgery to correct a postoperative complication related to an emergency appendectomy. Mr. Pataki, 60, continued eating some food yesterday but also remained on intravenous nutrition and antibiotics to reduce the risk of an abscess, his spokesman, David Catalfamo, said. “A date has not been set for the governor to be discharged and doctors will continue to evaluate the governor on a daily basis.”

– Associated Press

REPORT: POPULATION DECLINES, RISING COSTS SAPPING CITY BUDGETS

Once-flourishing cities across New York are being financially sapped by decades of population declines coupled with skyrocketing health care costs, according to a report released yesterday. The report by the state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, found nearly half of cities in the state were facing deficits and that financial conditions continued to worsen in the four major cities outside New York City – Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, and Yonkers.

– Associated Press

SENATOR BALBONI SAYS HE WON’T RUN FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL

A Republican state senator, Michael Balboni, who had been considering a possible run for attorney general, said yesterday he will instead run for re-election to the Senate. The decision leaves the former Westchester County district attorney, Jeanine Pirro, as the only announced Republican candidate for attorney general.

– Associated Press

BRUNO SAYS HE WON’T BOW TO EDUCATION GROUP ‘THREAT’

The state Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, yesterday blasted back at an education funding group that has targeted Republicans in the fall elections who refuse to support a multibillion dollar increase in school aid for New York City schools. The League of Education Voters of America, a political action committee, was formed last week to engage “voters in the fight for fair funding for public schools.”

– Associated Press

NEW LEGISLATION WOULD PROVIDE ‘MORNING AFTER’ PILL

The Legislature yesterday supported a new bill that would allow pharmacists to offer the “morning after” contraceptive pill to girls and women without prescription. Lawmakers said the new version addresses most of the concerns that led to Governor Pataki’s veto of an earlier bill.

– Associated Press

SPITZER LOOKS FOR NEW ERIE CANAL-LIKE INVESTMENT BY STATE

A Democratic candidate for governor, Eliot Spitzer, told the state’s mayors yesterday that he won’t “waste” the crisis New York faces but will instead use it to galvanize support for an economic resurgence. He said the state finds itself in trouble: High taxes, low graduation rates, and employers and young people leaving the state for opportunities elsewhere. Mr. Spitzer’s Democratic opponent, Tom Suozzi, said Mr. Spitzer missed the top priority of the mayors and New Yorkers: Reducing local property taxes.

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT TO BOOST TRANSLATION SPENDING

The city’s Department of Education will spend an additional $2 million a year to translate school documents and provide interpreters for non-English speaking parents, Mayor Bloomberg announced yesterday. The agreement prevented a standoff between the mayor and the City Council, which passed a bill in December known as the Education Equity Act that was expected to boost funding for those services by $10 million.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEWIDE

11 CITIES SHOW INTEREST IN PLAYING HOST TO ’08 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

Eleven cities have shown interest in playing host to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, twice the number of cities that applied to get the 2004 gathering. The DNC initially sent out letters to more than 30 cities, giving them an overview and finding out their level of interest. The 11 cities that said they were interested: Anaheim, Calif.; Dallas; Denver; Detroit; Las Vegas; Minneapolis; New Orleans; New York; Orlando, Fla.; Phoenix, and San Antonio.

– Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

ATTORNEY FINED FOR PREDICTING TESTIMONY AT BONANNO TRIAL

A federal judge fined a defense attorney $5,000 yesterday for telling a reporter how he expected former mobsters to testify in the trial of two members of the Bonanno crime family. Judge Nicholas Garaufis of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn promised to charge defense attorney Barry Levin $10,000 the next time he violates the court’s gag order pertaining to upcoming evidence. Mr. Levin is an attorney for Vincent Basciano, whose murder and racketeering trial began yesterday. The government is expected to call more than 100 witnesses, including former members of the Bonanno crime family, to testify against Mr. Basciano and a co-defendant, Patrick DeFilippo. Defense attorneys depicted their clients yesterday as a pair of bookkeepers and gamblers who steered clear of the two dozen murders and murder plots that the government claims to have tied to the Bonanno crime family. Both defendants are accused of murder. Other charges range from operating video poker machines to attempted murder.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

SLIWA RELIVES 1992 SHOOTING IN TESTIMONY AT JUNIOR GOTTI’S TRIAL

A radio talk show host swung his arms from side to side on the witness stand yesterday as he relived his 1992 shooting in the back of a taxi during a kidnapping prosecutors blame on John “Junior” Gotti. The eyes of most jurors at Gotti’s racketeering trial seemed fixed on the witness, the Guardian Angels founder, Curtis Sliwa, as he recounted how a routine cab ride to work changed abruptly in June 1992 when a masked gunman popped up from the front passenger seat and aimed a handgun at him.

– Associated Press

BROOKLYN

COUNCIL ON JEWISH POVERTY GETS $11M GRANT

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded an $11 million grant to build housing for senior citizens in Brooklyn, officials said. The funds were awarded to the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, which will use the money to buy a section of land in the Co-op City neighborhood of the Bronx and build 70 units for senior citizens. Thirty percent of the units are reserved for homeless senior citizens, officials from the council said. The council already owns four similar residences with about 700 senior citizens living in them.

– Special to the Sun

POLICE BLOTTER

POLICE: JOHN JAY STUDENT MURDERED

A young Boston woman pursuing a degree at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan was found dead in Brooklyn on Saturday night, an apparent murder victim. Police said the body of Imette St. Guillen, 24, was found around 8:30 p.m. in East New York. She was naked and wrapped in bedsheets, and had been bound hand and foot, with her face covered by tape. She also was sexually assaulted, police said. St. Guillen was last seen early Saturday morning at the Pioneer Bar, a trendy night spot near the Bowery Mission in Lower Manhattan.

– Special to the Sun

MOTHER ARRESTED AFTER LEAVING FOUR CHILDREN HOME ALONE

A Brooklyn woman was arrested yesterday after police said she left her four children home alone. Arlynn Lauderdale, 36, of Howard Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child after police said she left her four young daughters unattended. The four girls – ages 7, 4, 2 1/2, and 2 – were alone for an undetermined amount of time before police said a toilet in the apartment overflowed and the girls alerted a neighbor. The neighbor called 911, and officers arrested the mother when she returned home around 3:45 p.m. from what she told police was a food-shopping trip.

– Special to the Sun

HOME DEPOT EMPLOYEE STABBED TO DEATH

A Home Depot employee was found dead yesterday by co-workers, the apparent victim of a deadly stabbing, police said. Tunde Alonge, 25, of East 29th Street in Brooklyn, was found by co-workers at a Home Depot store on Avenue U in Brooklyn shortly before 9 a.m. yesterday. Emergency responders brought Alonge to Brookdale Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition for several hours before dying at around 3:30 p.m. yesterday. Police have made no arrests and are continuing to investigate.

– Special to the Sun