CITYWIDE

CITY TO TEST STORM RESPONSE SYSTEM

As forecasters warn of another busy hurricane season, the city is planning to test its response to a major coastal storm with its first-ever large-scale evacuation drill in July. The Office of Emergency Management is finalizing a revised evacuation plan this month and has planned two exercises to evaluate its effectiveness, the agency commissioner, Joseph Bruno, said at a City Council budget hearing yesterday. The first, on June 8, will be a limited, “table-top” drill, designed to test the decision-making of top city officials in preparing for a major storm. A field exercise planned for July will involve between 500 and 700 people and will simulate the city’s plan to move residents through designated “evacuation centers” and into shelters if an evacuation is deemed necessary. The hurricane response drill follows a simulation of a chemical explosion in late March that tested the new Citywide Incident Management System.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLICE TO SPEND $10.4M ON OVERTIME BECAUSE OF STRIKE

The New York Police Department shelled out $10.4 million in overtime costs as a result of the illegal three-day strike by the city’s transit workers in December, the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, said yesterday at a City Council budget hearing. The total was lower than the $17 million officials had estimated, Mr. Kelly said, because the strike occurred during the week, when more officers are on duty. The state has committed to paying the city $2.5 million to reimburse costs of the strike, but it is unclear how much will go to the Police Department. Officials have estimated the total cost of the strike to the city’s economy at nearly $1 billion.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STUDENTS PROTEST SCHOOL METAL DETECTORS

More than 100 students protested safety policies in the nation’s largest school system, demanding an end to metal detectors and random scanning procedures and seeking a greater voice in crafting school policies. Protesters gathered yesterday at the Department of Education headquarters in Manhattan armed with 8,000 postcards addressed to Mayor Bloomberg, the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, and the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly.

– Associated Press

CELEBRITY GOLF TOURNAMENT COMING TO GOVERNORS ISLAND

Watch out for that water hazard. A celebrity golf competition is coming this October to Governors Island, located 800 yards off the tip of Manhattan, right in the middle of New York Harbor. The event will run from October 19-22, culminating in a made-for-television skins game featuring pros Anika Sorenstam and Natalie Gublbis.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

DECAYED BODY FOUND IN A BARREL IN QUEENS

Responding to a call about a foul and suspicious odor, police found a body stuffed in a barrel behind a building in the Jamaica section of Queens yesterday, officials said. The body was so badly decomposed that the body’s sex was unable to be identified. Detectives are waiting for the medical examiner’s office to conduct an examination before they carry on with their investigation, police said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLICE ARREST TWO WEAPONS DEALERS

Two weapons dealers were arrested yesterday after police said they failed to require buyers to show valid gun licenses. Police arrested Jack Togati, 40, of DF Brothers Sport Center in Brooklyn, and Michael Spallone, 43, of Woodhaven Rifle and Pistol Range in Queens, after undercover investigators purchased weapons from both of them without showing a gun license. Police suspended both men’s handgun and dealers’ licenses, and confiscated 247 weapons from Mr. Togati’s shop, and 234 from Mr. Spallone’s. Police said the two stores can be linked to weapons used in more than 100 crimes that took place between 1994 and 2001. The arrests are part of Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign against illegal guns, the chief spokesman for the Police Department, Paul Browne, said.

– Special to the Sun

ALBANY

PATAKI PROPOSES NEW REGULATIONS FOR MERCURY EMISSIONS

Coal-burning power plants in New York State would have to cut mercury emissions by 90% by 2015 under a proposal made yesterday by Governor Pataki. The state Department of Environmental Conservation will offer a public comment period on the proposed draft regulations, which would go into effect in two stages.

– Associated Press

MANHATTAN

KENNEDY CALLS FOR CURB ON JAPAN WHALE HUNTING

Environmental advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared yesterday on a 70-foot steel-hulled sloop docked in Lower Manhattan to call for America to oppose what animal welfare advocates call the slaughtering of endangered whales by Japan.

– Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

JUDGE CRITICIZES GOVERNMENT’S NEW INDICTMENT OF GOTTI

The third racketeering trial of John “Junior” Gotti was postponed by seven weeks yesterday by a federal judge who suggested the government was trying to pull a fast one by slipping references to murders into a rewritten indictment.

– Associated Press

LUDACRIS DENIES INFRINGING ON SONG BY NEW JERSEY ARTISTS

Best-selling rapper Ludacris testified yesterday at a copyright infringement trial that he never heard an expression that he allegedly swiped to create his 2003 hit “Stand Up.” Ludacris, whose real name is Chris Bridges, also said he never received copies of a disk containing the song “Straight Like That” by the East Orange, N.J., group I.O.F. The group is suing him in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

– Associated Press

WOODY ALLEN LOSES FIGHT OVER EDITING OF MOVIES FOR PLANES, TV

Woody Allen, in another legal fight with two former friends and producers he accused of cheating him out of $12 million, has lost a skirmish over what versions of six of his movies will be shown on television and in airplanes. A state Supreme Court justice, Bernard Fried, ruled that terms of a January 2003 settlement of a lawsuit Mr. Allen filed against his former producer, Jean Doumanian, allow her to develop the television and in-flight versions of “Bullets over Broadway” and five other films.

– Associated Press

LONG ISLAND

125 SUSPENSIONS, ONE ARREST IN HIGH SCHOOL WALKOUT

MEDFORD – A high school suspended 125 students who walked out of classes during a protest over possible budget cuts, and a 16-year-old who shoved a police officer was arrested. A spokesman for Patchogue-Medford High School, Michael Conte, said yesterday that most of the students were given one-day in-school suspensions for Wednesday’s walkout.

– Associated Press