CITYWIDE

BLOOMBERG LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN AGAINST LITTER

Mayor Bloomberg stumped for the city’s “Stomp Out Litter” campaign yesterday in Times Square, but he was upstaged by a man 40 years his senior. At the ceremony kicking off a nationwide cleanup effort, Carl Berner, 104, was honored with a Presidential Service Award for his “lifelong” commitment to volunteering. A former toymaker who has lived in Middle Village, Queens, since 1938, Mr. Berner still goes out a few times a month to pull weeds and pick up trash on two designated “green streets” near his home. Mr. Bloomberg, 64, joked that the city was “a lot cleaner today” than when Mr. Berner was born in 1902. The mayor was on hand to launch a citywide campaign against littering, which features public service announcements starring the cast of “STOMP.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

ANTHRAX PATIENT TO BE RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL

SAYRE, Pa. – A dancer and drum maker who contracted inhalation anthrax has recovered and will be released from the hospital sometime in the next several days, officials said yesterday. Vado Diomande, 44, of New York City, collapsed February 17 after performing with his dance company in Pennsylvania. Officials at Robert Packer Hospital upgraded his condition to good and scheduled a news conference for today to discuss the case. Mr. Diomande and his doctor were expected to attend.

– Associated Press

CCRB HEAD SAYS FUNDING IS IMPEDIMENT

Officials at the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates allegations of police misconduct, said yesterday that even as its caseloads are rising, a preliminary budget for next year would force it to reduce its staff significantly. Testifying at a hearing before the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety, the executive director of the CCRB, Florence Finkle, said that while complaints have risen 47% in just three years, the current fiscal year 2007 financial plan would require the CCRB to reduce its investigative staff by 24 positions. The CCRB received 6,796 complaints in 2005, up 10% from 2004, the group stated.

– Special to the Sun

IN THE COURTS

NORMAN’S LAWYER: REIMBURSEMENT FORMS AT FAULT, NOT LEADER

A lawyer for the former Kings County Democratic leader charged with falsely filling out travel reimbursement forms, Clarence Norman Jr., told a judge yesterday that the fault lay with the forms, not with Norman. The attorney, Paul Schoeman, did not say whether Norman, also a former Assembly member, was right to have sought government reimbursement for trips to Albany in a car his party paid for. But Mr. Schoeman said Norman filled out those forms accurately and therefore cannot be accused of being misleading, as prosecutors seek to show. Mr. Schoeman made his remarks to Judge Martin Marcus in an afternoon conference after the prosecution had called its last witness and the jury had left for the day. “There must be millions of government forms out there that are confusing and misleading and ambiguous or inadequate for their purpose,” Mr. Schoeman said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

FORMER NYU STUDENT PLEADS GUILTY TO FELONY DRUG CHARGES

A former New York University student who was dubbed the school’s “pot princess” was sentenced yesterday to five years’ probation as part of a plea deal that took effect after she completed a drug rehabilitation program. Julia Diaco, 20, of Rumson, N.J., was allowed to withdraw her guilty plea to narcotics possession and sale and plead guilty to lesser versions of those charges after the prosecutor told the court she had satisfied terms of the plea deal.

– Associated Press

PROSECUTORS SAY ACCUSED IMAM’S NAME FOUND AT TERRORIST AREAS

ALBANY – In response to a federal judge’s order to unseal documents, prosecutors yesterday filed court papers alleging the name of a Muslim cleric in Albany was found by the U.S. military in raids at three suspected terrorist posts in Iraq. Yassin Aref, 35, imam at Masjid as-Salam in Albany, and Mohammed Hossain, 50, a mosque member, are accused of supporting terrorism by laundering money in 2003-04 for an FBI informant, a Pakistani businessman posing as an arms dealer. Neither is accused of actual violence. Shortly after their arrest in August 2004, prosecutors said Mr. Aref’s name, address, and phone number were found on June 11, 2003, in a notebook near Rawah, Iraq, at a suspected camp for the terrorist group Ansar al-Islam that American forces attacked.

– Associated Press

STATEWIDE

PATAKI URGES ‘GOOD FAITH’ NEGOTIATIONS ON GROUND ZERO

A week after talks broke down about who should build what at ground zero, Governor Pataki said yesterday that formal negotiations would resume only when a private developer and the site’s owners “are prepared to act in good faith.”

– Associated Press

CLINTON KEEPS RAISING MONEY, GIULIANI ACCOUNT KEEPS QUIET

Mayor Giuliani raised all of $103 for his political future last month, while another possible presidential contender, Senator Clinton, pulled in $182,797 in the same period for her political action committee. Mr. Giuliani, a nationally popular Republican, has said he is waiting until after the 2006 election to decide if he wants to re-enter politics. Mrs. Clinton, a Democrat, is using the bulk of her fund-raising muscle to beef up her Senate re-election bid, which had a staggering $17 million in cash at the start of the year.

– Associated Press

WEB SITE LISTS DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS AGAINST LICENSED PROFESSIONALS

ALBANY – Consumers in New York State can now search online to see whether their real estate agents, barbers, or nail salon operators have had disciplinary actions against them. The state Department of State yesterday launched a Web site that lets people search the results of more than 7,500 disciplinary hearings for licensed professionals.

– Associated Press

ABORTION DOCTOR’S CONFESSED KILLER WANTS TO REPRESENT HIMSELF

BUFFALO – An activist opposed to legalized abortion who detailed his killing of an abortion doctor in a newspaper said yesterday he wants to act as his own attorney at his federal trial. James Kopp made the request after a judge refused to allow Mr. Kopp to override his appointed lawyer’s authority in a dispute over whether a newspaper confession should be allowed as evidence.

– Associated Press

SCIENTIST ACCUSED OF SENDING GUIDANCE SYSTEMS TO CHINA

ALBANY – A Chinese emigre working as a state health researcher has been accused of sending weapons guidance systems to China in violation of federal regulations. Jun Wang, 36, a microbiologist for the state Health Department, was charged last week in a sealed indictment with obtaining the Crossbow Attitude & Heading Reference System from a U.S. supplier and mailing it on September 7 to China, according to court papers.

– Associated Press

POLICE FIND MOTHER OF ABANDONED BABY

YORKTOWN – The mother of a baby who was abandoned on a Westchester doorstep has been found and is cooperating with investigators, police said yesterday. The infant boy was reported in stable condition. The woman was tracked down after neighbors told police she had been pregnant and was due to give birth about the time the hours-old infant was found on Saturday, a Yorktown police lieutenant, Donald Schuck, said.

– Associated Press

IRAQ WAR VETERAN FIT FOR COMBAT, BUT NOT MAIL DELIVERY

HAMBURG – Sergeant Jason Lyon underwent months of medical treatment after surviving a roadside bomb that killed three friends. It was an experience he said he never expects to forget. But it is a relatively minor mishap that occurred six months earlier – an ankle sprain suffered jumping off a Humvee – that is proving difficult to move on from. While military doctors have certified the National Guardsman as physically fit to return to combat if needed, the U.S. Postal Service says the ankle injury has left Sergeant Lyon physically unfit to deliver mail. “To me, it really seems unfair,” Sergeant Lyon said.

– Associated Press

ALBANY

BRUNO: PATAKI BUDGETEERS SHOULD ‘LEARN HOW TO COUNT’

The Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, yesterday said state budget talks may be running into a wall with Governor Pataki, who is warning against overspending and future deficits. “I think they ought to go back to kindergarten and learn how to count in [Pataki’s] budget division,” Mr. Bruno said. He said Mr. Pataki’s Division of Budget has long made predictions of fiscal gloom later countered by the Senate’s budget office.

– Associated Press

TWO GAY CLUBS TABLE GUBERNATORIAL ENDORSEMENTS

Two gay political clubs that planned to make an endorsement in the Democratic gubernatorial primary tabled their votes when both the state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, and the Nassau county executive, Thomas Suozzi, sent surrogates to speak at the clubs’ joint meeting last night in Park Slope. The co-presidents of the groups, the Brooklyn-based Lamda Independent Democratic Club and the citywide Greater Voices Coalition, which represent about 450 paid members, did not say when they would reschedule the vote. Mr. Suozzi’s campaign chairman, Jay Jacobs, told the groups that Mr. Suozzi was at a Manhattan fund-raiser. Mr. Spitzer’s stand-in, the Manhattan district leader, Brad Hoylman, said Mr. Spitzer was in Syracuse.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun