CITYWIDE

CITY’S STREET HOMELESS POPULATION DIPS BY 13%

An estimated 3,843 people are living in the city’s streets and subways, a decrease of 13% from last year, according to results of an annual head count released yesterday by the Department of Homeless Services. “It is extremely encouraging to see that the number of vulnerable residents living on New York City’s streets is on the decline,” the acting commissioner of homeless services, Fran Winter, said. “This year’s results show that real progress is being made toward overcoming street homelessness.”

– Associated Press

CBS CONFIRMS RETURN OF OPIE AND ANTHONY CBS

Radio confirmed yesterday that shock jocks Greg “Opie” Hughes and Anthony Cumia will replace rocker David Lee Roth, who was fired Friday after barely three months on the air in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and four other markets.

– Associated Press

AUDIT: MINOR LEAGUE YANKEES OWE CITY MORE THAN $500,000

The New York Yankees may be the first baseball team worth more than $1 billion, but the stats aren’t as good for their minor league affiliate. The Staten Island Yankees owe the city more than half a million dollars for electricity, water, and sewer payments on their stadium, plus late fees on bills that have piled up over the years, according to an audit by the city comptroller, William Thompson.

– Associated Press

MANHATTAN

9/11 HEALTH OFFICIAL WORRIED ABOUT AUTOPSY RESULTS

The government’s point man on September 11, 2001, health programs said he is worried that an autopsy linking a retired detective’s death to recovery work at ground zero may be a warning sign of other life-threatening cases. But Dr. John Howard also said it will take time to determine whether there is a scientific link between deaths and exposure to toxic dust at ground zero. Some epidemiologists have said it will take 20 years or more to prove such a link.

– Associated Press

WORLD TRADE CENTER MEMORIAL MUSEUM NAMES CHIEF CURATOR

A museum consultant who has been developing September 11 collections since shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks was appointed yesterday as chief curator of the World Trade Center Memorial Museum. Jan Seidler Ramirez will oversee the collections for the museum being built, along with the trade center memorial, and will integrate the collections with other museum events and education programs, the trade center memorial foundation said.

– Associated Press

BILL TO BE INTRODUCED BROADENING BENEFITS FOR GROUND ZERO WORKERS

Lawmakers are expected this week to introduce legislation that would broaden death benefits granted to ground zero workers in Albany. It would grant full death benefits to those ground zero workers who retire with a disability developed as a result of work performed following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Current law provides city and state workers with disability pension, but not line-of-duty death benefits if the worker dies due to September 11-related illnesses.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

GIULIANI SAYS SEPT. 11 COMPARISON TO KATRINA UNFAIR

It’s unfair to compare the pace of rebuilding in hurricane-battered New Orleans with the swift recovery of New York after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Mayor Giuliani said yesterday. “They’re two different kinds of things. One was a singular incident – on one day, in one place, with tremendous implications. But the rest of the city was not affected,” Mr. Giuliani said at a pre-tournament gathering for this week’s Zurich Classic PGA event in New Orleans.

– Associated Press

ALBANY

NEW YORK POST GETS SUBPOENAS OVER PATAKI TAPES

The New York Post is complying with federal subpoenas issued in connection with newspaper reports about recorded telephone conversations involving Governor Pataki, his wife, top aides, and others, a spokesman for the newspaper said yesterday.

– Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

MAURY POVICH, OTHERS AT HIS TV SHOW SUED FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT

A producer for TV talk show host Maury Povich filed a $100 million sex harassment lawsuit against him and other members of his staff yesterday, claiming they barraged her with sexual remarks and made her watch porno movies and expose her body. Bianca Nardi, 28, of Fort Lee, N.J., says in court papers that the sexually charged atmosphere among the show’s production staff was fostered by the “intimate and sexual relationship between defendants Maurice Richard Povich and Donna Benner Ingber.”

– Associated Press

JUSTICES STAY OUT OF FIGHT OVER STUDENT’S JESUS POSTER

The Supreme Court refused yesterday to get involved in a fight over a Jesus poster that a New York kindergarten student submitted for a class assignment on ways to save the environment. The Baldwinsville Central School District in suburban Syracuse wanted justices to stop a lawsuit filed by Antonio Peck and his parents, who claim his free-speech rights were violated when school officials censored his poster.

– Associated Press

25 YEARS IN PRISON FOR BROOKLYN MAN IN GAY HATE ASSAULT

A Brooklyn man convicted of a hate crime for the brutal beating of a gay neighbor was sentenced yesterday to 25 years in prison. A suspected street gang member, Steven Pomie, was convicted by a jury last month of first-degree assault and assault as a hate crime for the June 9, 2005, attack on Dwan Prince. He received the maximum, 25 years on each charge, with the sentences to run concurrently.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

FORMER TEACHER ALLEGEDLY COLLECTED DEAD MOTHER’S CHECKS

A Queens man and former substitute teacher in New York City public schools was arrested after investigators alleged he collected his mother’s worker’s compensation checks for two years after her death. According to the city’s Department of Investigation, Nicholas Schiraldi endorsed 47 of his deceased mother’s checks, collecting more than $20,000. He also signed two affidavits to the New York City Law Department that stated his mother was still alive, investigators said. Mr. Schiraldi faces various charges, including grand larceny, forgery, and fraud.

– Special to the Sun

STATEWIDE

PRESS CAMPAIGN TO QUELL PANIC OVER BIRD FLU READY TO AIR

State health officials are ready to air a press campaign upon the first reports of avian flu in New York to extinguish any flare-up of public panic. The ads stress that the appearance of a bird infected with the H5N1 virus does not mean an outbreak in humans is looming, officials at the state Health Department said. “The important, no. 1 message is that just because infection appears in the animal population, it doesn’t mean there’s a higher chance it will move into the human population,” the state’s deputy health commissioner, Dennis Whalen, said.

– Associated Press

STATE AGENCIES IGNORE LOBBYING COMMISSION LETTER FOR INFORMATION

The Legislature, state agencies, and other offices have failed to give lobbying regulators information about vendors seeking contracts with them as requested, the Lobbying Commission’s executive director said yesterday. The commission in February sent letters to all government agencies that buy products and services asking for information about lobbyists representing businesses seeking to sell them goods.

– Associated Press

ECSTACY, CASH FOUND HIDDEN IN CARS

NIAGARA FALLS – In two separate cases, 13,000 tablets of ecstacy and $360,000 in American currency were seized over the weekend from hidden compartments in vehicles at the Canadian border.

– Associated Press

13-YEAR-OLD SCHOOLGIRL ABDUCTED IN ROCKLAND, FOUND HOURS LATER

RAMAPO – A 13-year-old schoolgirl was abducted by masked hoodlums and forced screaming into the trunk of a car but was found within hours, apparently unhurt, police said. The girl, Mara Downes, was still locked in the trunk and alone in the car when it was found at about 6:20 p.m. in a wooded area in Spring Valley, about a mile from the abduction scene, police said. She was “physically okay” when she was freed and was reunited with her parents and taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, a Pomona detective, Lieutenant Brad Weidel, said. He would not comment on what the girl told police. Officers were searching the wooded area for the abductors, believed to be three men or two men and a woman in their late teens or early 20s

– Associated Press