CITYWIDE

COUNCIL PASSES BILLS AIMED AT CURBING INFLUENCE OF LOBBYISTS

The City Council yesterday unanimously passed a package of bills aimed at curbing the influence of lobbyists with lawmakers and city officials. Part of a joint initiative by Mayor Bloomberg and the council speaker, Christine Quinn, the measures ban lobbyists from offering or giving gifts to city officials and prohibit matching public funds for their political contributions. The bills also limit lobbyists’ access to certain areas of City Hall, such as the council chambers and the speaker’s office. While some good government groups said the reform did not go far enough, Ms. Quinn called the bills “a very, very significant step forward,” saying yesterday that they would “make sure that the scandals that have rocked other legislative bodies in the country don’t ever happen here at City Hall.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLICE BLOTTER

POLICE VAN COLLIDES WITH CAR, INJURING SEVEN

Five police officers and two children were injured yesterday when a police van responding to an emergency call collided with an SUV in Brooklyn, police said. The accident took place around 4:30 p.m., when the police van was responding to a radio call for a man with a gun at Pitkin Avenue and Chester Street in Brownsville, police said. As it was speeding through the intersection of Amboy Street and Blake Avenue, it collided with a Jeep Cherokee. The crash injured two boys in the car. The 10-year-old emerged with cuts and bruises, while the 6-year-old was taken to Brookdale University Medical Center in serious condition, police said. Five police officers in the van were also hurt, including one with a broken arm, another with a dislocated knee, and two with minor neck and back injuries. All suffered various cuts and bruises, and were taken to Jamaica Hospital. The driver of the Jeep was not injured, police said. As of last night, police said the van most likely was traveling with its sirens blaring and lights flashing, but an accident investigation report is still pending. As for the original call, police arrested the man and officers recovered the gun, police said.

– Special to the Sun

STATEN ISLAND MAN’S BODY FOUND IN WATER

Police found the body of a Staten Island man floating in the water near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge yesterday. Police said Gilbert Moore, 25, of Parkhill Avenue in Staten Island was found yesterday around 11:30 a.m. in the water between Brooklyn and Staten Island. Few details about the case were immediately clear last night, and police said the medical examiner is investigating the cause of death.

– Special to the Sun

QUEENS

SHAKEN BABY DIES, QUEENS SITTER FACES UPGRADED CHARGES

A 13-month-old girl, hospitalized two weeks ago with bleeding on the brain and other severe injuries, died yesterday, and prosecutors moved to upgrade the charges against the babysitter accused of shaking her. Andrea Lopez Palacios, of Queens, died at Elmhurst General Hospital, where she was admitted May 9 with no heartbeat or breathing. Her babysitter, Dolores Guzman, will face homicide charges in the death, the Queens District attorney, Richard Brown, said.

– Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

JUDGE ORDERS PRISON INTERVIEW FOR ‘SON OF SAM’

A Manhattan judge yesterday ordered “Son of Sam” killer, David Berkowitz, and his former lawyer to answer questions under oath in preparation for a trial to settle their dispute over property that belonged to Berkowitz. A state Supreme Court justice, Sherry Klein Heitler, ordered Berkowitz to give the sworn deposition July 25 at the Sullivan County Correctional Facility, where he is imprisoned, in upstate Fallsburg, N.Y. The judge directed Berkowitz’s former lawyer, Hugo Harmatz, to give a deposition on July 17 at the state Supreme Court building in Manhattan.

– Associated Press

CLERK: LAWYERS SAY CBS, HOWARD STERN HAVE SETTLED DISPUTE

Lawyers on both sides of the CBS Corporation and Howard Stern breach of contract lawsuit said yesterday they have settled. A clerk in the courtroom of a judicial hearing officer, Ira Gammerman, said lawyers for the parties called around 3:15 p.m. to announce that they had reached an agreement. The clerk said that as far as she knew they did not divulge details. CBS sued Mr. Stern in February, claiming that its former star radio shock jock breached his contract with the broadcast giant when he moved to Sirius Satellite Radio Incorporated.

– Associated Press

CLASS ACTION DENIED IN SUIT AGAINST LOW-CALORIE ICE CREAM COMPANY

A judge has refused to give class action status to a lawsuit that charges a frozen dessert company fudged figures about its calorie and fat content and caused consumers to gain weight. A Manhattan state Supreme Court justice, Emily Jane Goodman, denied Stephen Brandt’s request to add possibly thousands of plaintiffs to his lawsuit against CremaLita, saying he had failed to show they would have complaints similar to his. Mr. Brandt sued CremaLita in 2004, saying the maker of low-calorie ice cream in dozens of flavors such as Hawaiian Coconut and Coffee Toffee lied about its caloric, cholesterol, and fat content to sell more of it.

– Associated Press

STATEWIDE

NYCLU URGES STATE INVESTIGATION OF SHARED PHONE RECORDS

ALBANY – The New York Civil Liberties Union urged state officials yesterday to investigate whether Verizon and AT&T shared customer phone records with a federal spy agency and violated callers’ privacy rights and New York law against deceptive business practices. “As Americans, we have the right to expect that our private communications will stay private,” NYCLU’s executive director, Donna Lieberman, said.

– Associated Press

FULANI ALLIES VOW TO RECLAIM INDEPENDENCE PARTY

Allies of an Independence Party member, Lenora Fulani, vowed to retake control of the party by running 3,600 candidates for county and state committee positions this November. “It’s the next step in creating a place where New Yorkers can be genuinely independent without interference,” the chairwoman of the party’s Manhattan organization, Catherine Stewart, said yesterday. In September, Ms. Stewart, Ms. Fulani, and three of her supporters were recalled from the state party’s executive committee. “Dr. Fulani’s continuing need to falsely portray herself as the leader of the Independence Party along with her inflammatory, wrongheaded remarks about the Jewish people has caused our party’s leadership to take this action,” the state party chairman said at the time.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

TRISTATE

SCIENTISTS INVESTIGATE SEA SQUIRT INVASION

GROTON, Conn. – A bloblike creature is invading Long Island Sound and posing a threat to its lobsters and other shellfish, University of Connecticut scientists say. The researchers say they have found colonies of invasive sea squirts, blob-shaped animals that reproduce easily, on the floor of the sound. They believe this variety of sea squirt, known as didemnum, arrived on the hulls of ships from Asia. They have no known predators.

– Associated Press

TWO IRAQI CHILDREN ARRIVE IN NEW JERSEY FOR HEART SURGERY

TRENTON, N.J. – A 5-year-old boy and 15-year-old girl, both from Baghdad, were flown to America yesterday to receive free, lifesaving heart surgery at a New Jersey hospital. The children and their guardians arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport yesterday afternoon, said a staffer with the Deborah Heart and Lung Center in Browns Mills, Burlington County, where they will undergo treatment. Their care will be paid for by the Deborah Hospital Foundation’s “Children of the World” program, which has provided medical and surgical care to 3,000 children from the United States and around the world since its 1972 founding, the program coordinator, Cheryl Zoppina, said.

– Associated Press

EX-SUSSEX DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN ADMITS STEALING FROM HEALTH FUND

NEWARK, N.J. – The former chairman of the Sussex County Democratic Party pleaded guilty yesterday to helping bankrupt the health fund of the labor union he had founded. Charles Cart, who admitted to two conspiracy charges, is the fourth and final person to admit a role in victimizing Local 16 of the United Service Workers of America in Newton. The union represents factory workers, auto mechanics, salespersons, and others.

– Associated Press

GUBERNATORIAL MERRY-GO-ROUND SPINS WITH CORZINE IN ASIA

TRENTON, N.J. – New Jerseyans welcomed their third governor in five days yesterday, and no one even had to resign this time to shove the state’s gubernatorial merry-go-round into motion. Governor Corzine has been touring East Asia since Saturday, making the Senate president, Richard Codey the state’s acting governor. Mr. Codey knows that role well. He was governor for 14 months after Governor McGreevey resigned amid a gay sex scandal in November 2004. But Mr. Codey left New Jersey yesterday afternoon with wife Mary Jo to receive an award from the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania in honor of their efforts to promote mental health reforms. The ceremony was in Philadelphia. With Messrs. Corzine and Codey out of state, the Assembly speaker, Joseph Roberts Jr., who became speaker in January, took his first stint as the state’s top official.

– Associated Press