CITYWIDE

TWU APPROVES CONTRACT The Transport Workers Union members have changed their minds about the contract they voted down in January, union leaders said yesterday. For the last two weeks, the union has been conducting a second vote on the agreement reached at the end of the strike in December. Saying his members were now properly informed about the details of the contract, the Local 100 president, Roger Toussaint, announced that the agreement has now been approved by 71% of about 20,000 voting transit workers in a second vote. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority gave a brief statement calling the revote “an empty gesture.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

QUINN OPPOSES WAL-MART IN CITY Wal-Mart could have a tough time getting approval for new stores in New York City under the tenure of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. At a breakfast hosted by Crain’s yesterday, Ms. Quinn, sitting a few feet away from a table of Wal-Mart representatives, called the retailer a “bad corporate citizen” and said she would oppose a store in the five boroughs unless Wal-Mart changed the way it treated its employees. She said Wal-Mart would place an additional burden on the public health care system because of health care benefits that she characterized as inadequate. A spokesman for Wal-Mart, Phillip Serghini, said Ms. Quinn’s charges were based on misinformation about Wal-Mart’s health care policies.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

TALK OF MAYOR’S SUCCESSOR ABOUNDS As the city’s first CEO-turned-mayor, Mayor Bloomberg can be counted on to think about succession planning at some point. Names of possible successors are swirling around City Hall – but Mr. Bloomberg isn’t picking favorites yet. Potential candidates could include a deputy mayor, Daniel Doctoroff, the police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly, and the schools chancellor, Joel Klein. Even the name of a Mr. Bloomberg’s CEO-friend, Richard Parsons, the head of Time Warner, has cropped up recently. “I think all them are competent and would make great mayors,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

LANDMARKS CLOSER TO OKAYING BUILDING WITH UNDULATING GLASS FACADE The city Landmarks Preservation Commission moved closer yesterday to approving an 11-story residential building with an undulating glass facade planned for a site in the Greenwich Village Historic District. The chairman of the commission, Robert Tierney, said that commissioners gave “generally very favorable” comments and some potential modifications to the developer, Hines, at a public meeting yesterday.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

IN THE COURTS

RESTAURATEUR SENTENCED FOR PUBLIC LEWDNESS A restaurateur, Daniel Hoyt, 43, who admitted he exposed himself to a woman in a subway car, an act the woman captured with her cellular telephone camera, was sentenced yesterday to two years probation and ordered to undergo counseling.

– Associated Press

QUEENS

NTSB SAYS NEW RUDDER WORRY NOT LINKED TO 2001 CRASH Federal air safety officials said yesterday that their investigation into the crash of Flight 587 in Queens is not affected by a recent warning of a different potential rudder problem in Airbus A300 jets. The assurances came after Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat of Queens, and a pilots’ group urged the National Transportation Safety Board to reopen its investigation into the November 12,2001,crash of the American Airlines jet that killed 265 people.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

POLICE CHARGE SUSPECT IN TODDLER SHOOTING WITH MURDER Police charged one of the suspects allegedly involved in the inadvertent shooting of a 2-year-old in the Bronx with murder yesterday. Nicholas Morris, 26, of 1962 University Ave., turned himself into police late Monday night after a brief interview with Channel 12 in the Bronx. The other suspect, Ronneil “Burger” Gilliam, 25, is still at large. During his interview, Morris maintained his innocence.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

BRONX

COYOTE SPOTTED IN PARK, DUBBED JACOB Weeks after Hal the coyote attracted national attention with his adventures in Central Park, another one of the animals was spotted in a Bronx park yesterday and was given a much more formal name: Jacob Van Cortlandt. The Department of Parks & Recreation said two golfers reported seeing the coyote at about 3 p.m. by hole no. 5 on Van Cortlandt Golf Course, a municipal course inside the park that stretches more than 1,100 acres at the northern end of the Bronx.

– Associated Press

STATEWIDE

MEDICAID STUDY UNDER WAY A dispute over how many millions, if not billions, of dollars in the state’s Medicaid program is lost to waste, fraud, and abuse may be answered in a few weeks when a study funded by the Greater New York Hospital Association is released. The study being conducted by a professor from Emory University in Atlanta will focus on whether human error, rather than deception, can account for expenses that several politicians say is wasted money in the program. New York’s $42 billion Medicaid program is more expensive than the same program in Texas and California, combined. Thomas Suozzi, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, said at least 10% of the program in New York is lost to waste, fraud, and abuse, which is driving up property taxes. His opponent in the Democratic primary, the attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, said fraud is closer to 2%.

-Staff Reporter of the Sun

ALBANY

PATAKI STEPS UP FUND-RAISING FOR FEDERAL COMMITTEE Governor Pataki, eyeing a bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, has dramatically picked up the pace of fund-raising for his federal political action committee, according to public records available yesterday. Documents filed with the Federal Election Commission show Mr. Pataki’s 21st Century Freedom PAC-Federal raised $500,922 during the first three months of this year.

– Associated Press