CITYWIDE

CITY DOORMEN TO HOLD LABOR RALLY

With a strike deadline set for midnight Thursday, doormen, porters, and handymen are holding a rally today as round the clock negotiations are set to begin between the building workers’ union, Local 32BJ, and the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, representing building owners.

A strike could involve up to 28,000 building workers at about 3,000 apartment buildings, leaving about one million city residents without normal service.

Citing rising health care, energy, and insurance costs, the Realty Advisory Board is asking building workers for a one-year freeze in wages and for a contribution of 15% of their health care costs. Union representatives are saying that workers need a wage increase to pay for the rising cost of living, and that a booming real estate industry should be able to foot the bill.

The last building workers’ strike was in 1991, lasting 12 days.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

COMMUNITY GROUP CHALLENGES JPMORGAN CHASE, BANK OF NEW YORK DEAL

A community group has filed a challenge with the Federal Reserve, calling for public hearings on a multibillion-dollar deal between Bank of New York and JPMorgan Chase, the group announced yesterday.

The Bronx-based Inner City Press/Fair Finance Watch argued in a release that the deal could raise prices and close local branches. The group also accused JPMorgan Chase of charging higher mortgage interest rates to people of color and enabling predatory lenders.

– Associated Press

TOURISM TO ISRAEL REACHES HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE ’99

Israeli tourism is expected reach a new peak for the first time since 1999, according to the Israel Ministry of Tourism. Foreign visits began declining after 1999 due to suicide bombings and other violent outbreaks. Although a suicide bombing occurred yesterday in Tel Aviv, tourism officials said they expect at least 500,000 North Americans will visit Israel this year – up from 485,000 last year.

“Bombings have been going on for some time. We are becoming very realistic. I don’t think it will have the impact people are looking for,” executive vice-president of the American Tourism Society, Donald Reynolds, said.

“In the last few years, travelers come in groups – religious and otherwise, now they come as individuals and with families that combines a cultural and religious experience,” Israel Ministry of Tourism commissioner, Arie Sommer, said.

– Special to the Sun

POLICE BLOTTER

DELIVERY DRIVER KILLED BY LOOSE PLANKS FROM TRUCK

A delivery truck driver was killed yesterday when several 12-foot wooden planks came unfastened from his flatbed truck and wounded him fatally in the head. The man, identified as Wei Lin Wu, 36, of 245 Broome Street, was found dead around 1:24 p.m. in front of 858 Meeker Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

HOMELESS MAN KILLED BY C TRAIN

A homeless man, who hasn’t yet been identified, was killed by a southbound C train at the 81st Street station yesterday morning. Police said he might have fallen because he was exhausted. Trains were diverted for several hours while emergency workers extricated his body.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEWIDE

NEW AD: SPITZER OVERCAME ‘BUZZ-SAW’ OF INTEREST GROUPS

Democratic candidate for governor Eliot Spitzer yesterday came out with his fourth television ad, the first one that shows video footage of the state attorney general. Previous ones featured his voice and still images, leaving the rest to imagination.

In the new 30-second spot, which was produced by Moxie Pictures and is airing on cable and network television, Mr. Spitzer praises himself for walking into the “buzz-saw” of interest groups. He says he followed a simple rule: “I never asked if a case was popular or unpopular. Never asked if it was big or small, hard or easy. I simply asked if it was right or wrong.”

It is Mr. Spitzer’s investigations of Wall Street wrongdoing that catapulted the attorney general onto the national arena. Mr. Spitzer’s Democratic opponent, Nassau County executive Thomas Suozzi, has accused Mr. Spitzer of allowing Medicaid fraud to fester while conducting investigation that gave him maximum press exposure.

The ad is interlaced with shots of Mr. Spitzer at press conferences and a shot of a stock ticker. Most of the time, Mr. Spitzer is shown talking in an extreme close-up shot.

The ad concludes with the tagline: “Bring some passion back to Albany.” The campaign has also used the tagline: “Now, just imagine what he’d do as your governor.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLICEMAN SAYS SUSPECT SAID ‘I’M GUILTY’ BEFORE BEING QUESTIONED

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – Just minutes after he was stopped by police officers near the scene of a fatal shopping-mall stabbing, a suspect blurted out “I’m guilty,” a patrolman testified yesterday.

Phillip Grant, 44, had been handcuffed and placed in the back seat of a patrol car, said White Plains police Officer Larry Brown. After a transmission on the police radio announced that a witness was coming to try to identify him, Grant leaned forward and said, “You don’t have to bring someone over here, I’m guilty,” Officer Brown testified.

The patrolman, who spoke at a pretrial hearing in Westchester County Court, was to be cross-examined later yesterday. Mr. Grant has since pleaded innocent, and his lawyer, Eugene Traynor, is trying to get state Supreme Court Justice Lester Adler to declare the statement inadmissible.

Officer Brown said Mr. Grant made his statement before his Miranda rights were read to him, but Lucian Chalfen, spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said outside court, “If you volunteer information and you’re not being coerced” the statement is still admissible.

– Associated Press

NUN WHO FOUNDED HOME FOR FORMER INMATES IS MISSING

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Police searched yesterday for a missing Catholic nun who is the founder and director of a residence for former prison inmates.

Sister Karen Klimczak, 62, was last seen Friday night at Bissonette House, where she lives. The residence is at the same address as Hope House, the Buffalo halfway house she founded in 1989 for non-violent ex-convicts.

Sister Klimczak also was seen earlier Friday evening at a parish church where people were decorating for Easter Sunday. Church members became concerned when she missed several appointments Saturday and failed to show up for Easter services.

The nun is described as 5-feet-6, 120 pounds, with short gray hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a T-shirt and jeans and sneakers.

– Associated Press

KAYAKER DIES IN FRIGID RIVER

SYRACUSE, N.Y.- A 42-year-old man drowned in the Seneca River after flipping his kayak in the frigid water, authorities said.

Rescue divers recovered the body of James Fitzgibbons, of Baldwinsville, about 8:20 p.m. Sunday, following a two-hour search, according to deputies with the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Department. He was not wearing a life vest.

A person living along the shoreline called authorities just before 6 p.m. after hearing a commotion and seeing the overturned kayak in the water. Two shoreline residents attempted to save Fitzgibbons but were unsuccessful.

Sheriff Kevin Walsh said witnesses saw Fitzgibbons trying to stand up in his kayak when it flipped.

– Associated Press

FAMILY FOUND IN CAR TRUNK DURING POLICE STOP

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – A Rochester area family that had reportedly been abducted Sunday night was found early yesterday in the trunk of their car during a traffic stop, police said.

The family of three – a husband, wife and the couple’s two-year-old daughter – had returned to their home between 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Sunday night when they were confronted in their garage, robbed, and abducted, said Irondequoit Police Captain Marty Corbett.

– Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

MANHATTAN TRANSSEXUAL CHARGED WITH ASSAULTING WEALTHY MOM

The jury in the case of a transsexual accused of breaking her wealthy 85-year-old mother’s arm during a fight over money will hear testimony about other alleged violence against the mother, a judge ruled yesterday.

Diane Wells is charged in Manhattan Criminal Court with harassing and assaulting Constance Joyce Cheney on May 10, 2005, in the Central ParkWest apartment where they lived.The trial was expected to start today.

Judge Ellen Coin said that besides evidence related to the charges, she will allow evidence that Ms. Wells manhandled her mother, that she pushed her into a wall causing her head to hit a picture frame and that she blew smoke into her face during an argument.

– Associated Press