CITYWIDE

DOCTORS: LONG-TERM POST-9/11 HEALTH MONITORING NEEDED

The federal government must pay to monitor and treat thousands of first responders and Lower Manhattan residents and workers still suffering from illnesses stemming from their exposure to ground zero after the terrorist attacks September 11, 2001, for at least 30 years, doctors told a congressional panel yesterday.

– Associated Press

FIREFIGHTER FILES DISCRIMINATION SUIT AGAINST CITY

A New York City firefighter filed a lawsuit yesterday against the city and the Fire Department, alleging he was the subject of racial discrimination. Lanaird Granger, a firefighter since 1997, claims he was subject to a hostile work environment and was denied promotion because he is black. In a complaint filed yesterday in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Mr. Granger also said his co-workers placed a hangman’s noose in his personal gear – a claim that the city’s office of Equal Employment Opportunity substantiated in February 2005.The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages and punishment for Mr. Granger’s unnamed aggressors. A spokesman for the Fire Department declined to comment yesterday.

– Special to the Sun

MTA BOARD APPROVES BUS CONTRACT TWU VOTED DOWN

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s executive board yesterday unanimously approved the same contract the Transport Workers Union voted down in January for two bus driver union locals. The Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1056, voted to approve the contract in early February by 79%. Local 726 of the same union also approved the contract recently by a margin of 93%. Reports yesterday said that a grassroots movement is starting in depots to hold a new vote on the contract.

– Special to the Sun

PBS AFFILIATE WILL NOT AIR DISCUSSION ON KILLING OF ARMENIANS

A public broadcasting station has decided not to air a panel discussion that includes speakers who deny the killing of more than 1 million Armenians in the 20th century was genocide. The taped discussion, which was scheduled to run April 17 on WNET-TV, was criticized by elected officials and Armenian-American community leaders, who called it an insult.

– Associated Press

IN THE COURT

PROSECUTOR TELLS JUDGE THAT EX-MOB BOSS WON’T TESTIFY

The former boss of the Bonanno organized crime family – who shocked the underworld last year by becoming a cooperator – will not testify at the murder trial of the family’s reputed acting boss, a prosecutor said yesterday. Defense lawyers had expected Joseph Massino to be the star government witness against a former beauty salon owner known as Vinny Gorgeous and a mob codefendant. But on the second day of the Brooklyn trial, an assistant U.S. attorney, Greg Andres, told the judge that Massino would not take the witness stand.

– Associated Press

ALBANY

SENATE APPROVES PROPOSAL TO GIVE SOME PARENTS $500 TAX CREDITS

The Republican-controlled Senate has signed off on Governor Pataki’s proposal that would give parents of children in struggling school districts up to $500 in tax credits, which reduce tax liability dollar for dollar. The credits could be used to help pay for private school tuition or tutoring for the students. Releasing a tax cut package yesterday along with its revenue forecasts, the Senate said it was including the tax credit program at a cost of $400 million, the same cost of Mr. Pataki’s proposed program. In the Assembly, the Democratic speaker Sheldon Silver, who represents Lower Manhattan, has said he has serious concerns with the credits, which are opposed by public school teachers’ unions. There are indications that he may back a plan that would make the credits available to parents in all school districts, not just ones with failing schools.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

SWEENEY BLOOD-PRESSURE SPIKE CALLED POTENTIALLY LIFE-THREATENING

Rep. John Sweeney was in an intensive care unit yesterday where his condition stabilized after a potentially life-threatening spike in his blood pressure, doctors said. Mr. Sweeney, a Saratoga County Republican, was hospitalized February 22, complaining of a severe headache. Physicians found his blood pressure elevated and lowered it with intravenous drugs. He was released Friday only to be readmitted to the Albany Medical Center two days later through the hospital emergency room.

– Associated Press

TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT EFFORT IS STARTED

Arguing “Someone needs to shout: You’re fired!” to Washington’s establishment, the head of New York’s Independence Party has launched a Web site aiming to draft Donald Trump into the 2008 presidential race as a third-party candidate. “Donald Trump could be the next president of the United States,” the party chairman, Frank MacKay, said yesterday. Mr. Trump eyed a third-party run for president in 2000 as the candidate of the Ross Perot-inspired Reform Party, but eventually decided against it.

– Associated Press

STATE WON’T ENFORCE NEW CIGARETTE TAX LAW

Convenience store operators near Indian reservations and taxpayers statewide are expected to start missing out on millions of dollars in cigarette sales and tax revenue today as the state chooses not to enforce a new law. The Pataki administration apparently won’t start enforcing the law that would require the collection of taxes on cigarettes before they reach the reservations.

– Associated Press

ASSEMBLY SAYS STATE REVENUE MORE THAN GOVERNOR EXPECTS

The Democrat-led state Assembly and Republican-led state Senate contend the state will take in $1 billion more in revenue this fiscal year and next than Governor Pataki’s office is forecasting. The Assembly said New York will get $1.33 billion more than Mr. Pataki expects with state tax receipts reaching $53.88 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31.

– Associated Press

LEGISLATURE APPROVING NYRA BAILOUT

The Legislature plans to approve a $20 million bailout for the New York Racing Association this week. The package provides NYRA, a private agency operating on the state’s horse racing franchise, with a $20 million advance from the state Lottery Division.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

POLICE STUDY SECURITY VIDEOTAPE FOR CLUES IN GRAD STUDENT SLAYING

Investigators seeking witnesses and suspects in the brutal slaying of a graduate honors student have been studying security videotape from the Manhattan neighborhood where she spent her last night out with friends, police said yesterday. One tape shows the victim, Imette St. Guillen, talking to a friend at about 3 a.m. Saturday out side Pioneer, a bar in the Bowery section.

– Associated Press

UNIDENTIFIED BODY FOUND IN PLASTIC BAG

The Police Department and the medical examiner are working to identify the body of a man found inside a plastic bag in East Harlem yesterday morning. The bag was found around 8 a.m. in front of an apartment building on East 119th Street. Police said the body was lying in the fetal position inside a black plastic bag that was inside a canvas bag. Based on an examination done through the bag, investigators believe there may have been some dismemberment of the body.

– Special to the Sun

MANHATTAN

TRANSGENDER FEMALE ARRESTED FOR USING WOMEN’S RESTROOM

A phone repair worker who is in transition from male to female said yesterday that she has been arrested three times by transit police in the last six months for using the women’s restroom at Grand Central Terminal. Helena Stone, 70, said an officer called her “a freak, a weirdo, and the ugliest woman in the world” and warned her, “If I ever see you in the women’s bathroom, I’m going to arrest you.” A Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman, Tom Kelly, said later that the charges against Ms. Stone would be dropped and the matter had been resolved.

– Associated Press

BROOKLYN

UKRAINIAN ORPHAN AND BROOKLYN RELATIVES CELEBRATE REUNION

For six long years, Raisa Skakun lived in an orphanage in Odessa, Ukraine, waiting for word that would reunite her with her grandmother and brother in Brooklyn. Then, a twice-rejected application to bring the 12-year-old to America was suddenly ap proved.

– Associated Press

BRONX

MC LYTE’S DIARY AMONG HIP-HOP RELICS COLLECTED BY SMITHSONIAN

MC Lyte’s diary, as well as a turntable, vinyl records, and other memorabilia from her fellow hip-hop pioneers, have been donated to the Smithsonian Institution for a collection that will trace the history of the Bronx-born music genre. The contributions, which also include artifacts from Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash, were displayed at a Manhattan news conference yesterday.

– Associated Press