CITYWIDE

CITY COUNCIL WANTS $1.2 MILLION OPERATING BUDGET INCREASE

The City Council proposed a $1.2 million increase in its annual operating budget yesterday. “We are committing to operating the budget within that allocation and not to increase our spending midyear,” the City Council speaker, Christine Quinn, said of the proposed $50.8 million budget. Ms. Quinn said the 2.5% increase was needed to pay for a technology upgrade that includes Council Stat, a new computerized system to track trends in constituent complaints phoned into council members’ district offices. Additional money is needed to pay for an $86,000 rent increase for the council’s central offices at 250 Broadway, and in the members’ respective districts. In fiscal year 2006, the council adopted a $47.5 million budget, then added more than $2 million more a few months later, according to the speaker’s office.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

APARTMENT BUILDING WORKERS REJECT CONTRACT PROPOSAL

The union representing 28,000 doormen and other workers at more than 3,500 apartment buildings said yesterday that it has rejected the building owners’ contract proposal and could strike when the current contract expires April 20.

– Associated Press

POLICE ANNOUNCE ARRESTS IN 1990 DEATH OF 4-YEAR-OLD

It’s been a decade since a man walking his dog in the woods near the far eastern end of the Long Island Expressway found a makeshift grave holding the skeletal remains of a tiny girl. Yesterday, homicide detectives announced they cracked the mystery, arresting 4-year-old Jennifer Shafiq’s mother for second-degree murder and her father for hindering prosecution. Authorities say the parents lived in Queens when Khairual Abdul, now 42, allegedly beat the girl to death in 1990.

– Associated Press

EDITOR OF CATHOLIC MAGAZINE SUES EMPLOYER, ALLEGES HARASSMENT

A magazine editor who says she was told to accept a supervisor’s sexual harassment as “a challenge from God” has challenged her employer in a lawsuit claiming discrimination on the basis of gender and national origin. Eileen Reinhard, editor of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association publications, says she was hired in July 2002 and immediately was “subjected to pervasively hostile and discriminatory treatment” from supervisor Michael La Civita. Mr. La Civita, CNEWA’s executive editor and spokesman, said yesterday he was surprised by the lawsuit and denied the allegations in it.

– Associated Press

NYCLU: CONVENTION ARRESTS TAINTED BY OFFICERS’ FALSE STATEMENTS

A civil liberties group accused police yesterday of lying about the circumstances surrounding the arrests of hundreds of protesters during the Republican National Convention. In a letter to police and prosecutors, the New York Civil Liberties Union demanded a review of cases brought against protesters arrested on August 31, 2004, at demonstrations near the World Trade Center site and Union Square.

– Associated Press

MAN GIVEN ANOTHER CHANCE AT ASYLUM FOR RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

A federal appeals court has given a new chance for asylum to an Indonesian citizen whose claim of religious persecution was rejected because his grasp of Christianity seemed shaky after he said Jesus was responsible for the Ten Commandments. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resurrected Jose Rizal’s claim in a decision Tuesday, rejecting an immigration judge’s reasoning that Mr. Rizal’s sketchy knowledge of Christianity doomed his bid to stay in America.

– Associated Press

CITY ANTHRAX VICTIM TO BE RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL; DANCES FOR PRESS

SAYRE, Pa. – A dancer and drum maker thanked his doctors, smiled broadly, and danced in a hospital auditorium yesterday, showing off his remarkable recovery from a rare and usually fatal form of anthrax. “I just want to say thank you to my doctors; they do very good job. If not for them, maybe I’m not here today,” Vado Diomande, choking back tears, said at a news conference.

– Associated Press

STATEWIDE

GE SEEKS TO PUSH BACK DREDGING TO 2008

General Electric Company said yesterday it plans to delay by a year dredging work on the Hudson River, a move that’s sharply at odds with an Environmental Protection Agency’s goal to start scouring the river bottom in 2007. The agency, which is overseeing the project, sounded worried over the initial details over the company’s release of a gargantuan, 1,500-page, 48-pound proposed design for the first phase of the dredging project.

– Associated Press

ALBANY

PATAKI SIGNS BILL SOUGHT BY UNION ON CONSULTING CONTRACTS A bill requiring the state to extensively disclose information about state contracts for consulting services was signed Tuesday night by Governor Pataki. The measure was pushed by the Public Employees Federation union to protect their members’ state jobs. Union leaders argued state agencies spend millions of dollars a year on consulting services, but that outside contractors are subject to little public disclosure or oversight.

– Associated Press

POLICE: STATE SENATOR UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR HARASSING STAFFER

A state senator, Ada Smith, is being investigated for allegedly harassing a staffer in a government building, police said yesterday. A state police spokesman, Sergeant Kern Swoboda, confirmed the investigation but said he could not give details of the incident. Ms. Smith, a Queens Democrat, allegedly threw coffee in the staffer’s face, according to a report posted yesterday on the Albany Times Union’s Web site that cited unnamed sources. The alleged attack happened Tuesday morning after the senator returned from a Weight Watchers meeting and said she had lost about four pounds. The staffer responded she thought Ms. Smith would have lost more, given her lifestyle, according to the Times Union.

– Associated Press

PATAKI, BACK TO PUBLIC DUTIES, SUSPENDS CANAL TOLLS

WATERFORD – Hitting the public stage for the second day in a row in the wake of a five-week recuperation from an appendectomy, Governor Pataki came to this Erie Canal community just north of Albany yesterday to announce a break for recreational boaters. Mr. Pataki said his administration would be suspending fees for pleasure boaters using the state canal system this boating season.

– Associated Press

TRISTATE

TERROR FEARS DRAG CORZINE, MENENDEZ INTO ARAB CANDIDATE’S RACE

NEWARK, N.J. – Two weeks ago, fear of an Arab company taking over operations at U.S. ports led to the collapse of the deal. Now an Arab-American businessman’s candidacy for county office is drawing concern from Democrats who fear he is sympathetic to terrorists. In northern New Jersey’s Arab-American community – one of the nation’s largest – anger is rising over what some consider a renewed wave of anti-Arab bias. Two years ago, Sami Merhi, a Lebanese-born businessman from Totowa, narrowly lost a bid to run as the Democratic Party’s candidate for Passaic County freeholder because of remarks he made in 2002 that some interpreted as sympathetic to Palestinian Arab terrorists. This year, he won the party’s blessing to run for the seat, but now finds himself dogged by the same comments, and facing opposition from Governor Corzine and Senator Menendez because of them.

– Associated Press

MAN CLAIMS HE GOT HEPATITIS THROUGH ILLEGALLY HARVESTED TISSUE

TRENTON – A Nebraska man, Ned Jackson, this week filed a lawsuit claiming that he contracted hepatitis B and C through tissue he received during back surgery. The tissue, he claims, was illegally harvested as part of a massive scheme that took place in New York and New Jersey, in which stolen body parts were transplanted into patients across the country.

– Associated Press

QUEENS

QUEENS SCHOOLS WORKER PLEADS GUILTY TO POSING AS ARCHITECT

A city Department of Education employee pleaded guilty yesterday to pretending to be an architect and falsely certifying building plans and permit applications for nearly 30 properties. James Arriaga will be sentenced to four months of weekends in jail, five months of probation and reparations of $10,000, a Queens district attorney, Richard Brown, said in a news release.

– Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

JUDGE TO HEAR EVIDENCE ABOUT SEX OFFENDER TREATMENT PROGRAM

A federal appeals court yesterday tossed out a lower court decision finding a treatment program for sex offenders unconstitutional. It directed the lower judge to hear more evidence about the program before ruling again. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals order pertained to a state Department of Correctional Services rehabilitation program for sexual offenders that requires them to provide sexual histories, including acts for which they are not charged.

– Associated Press