CITYWIDE

BURGER KING GRANTS 41 SENIORS $1,000 COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS Burger King announced yesterday that it was granting 41 New York area seniors with $1,000 for college as part of its annual scholarship program. Since the scholarship program started in 2000, the company’s foundation, Burger King/McLamore, has given away $10 million in scholarships to 10,468 students around the country. This year, six students in New York City won the money including seniors at the following high schools: Midwood, Long Island City, Aviation, Herbert H. Lehman, Abraham Lincoln, and Marta Valle. – Staff Reporter of the Sun

PATAKI: GOVERNMENT SHOULD PAY FOR MEMORIAL INFRASTRUCTURE Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki have agreed to cap the cost of building the Memorial and Museum at $500 million after estimates of the total cost, including related infrastructure, reached about $1 billion. Yesterday, Mr. Pataki said that “government resources” should be used for the infrastructure, estimated to cost up to $300 million. Mr. Pataki made the announcement after meeting with the executive committee of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, a non-profit corporation that will “own, construct, operate, and maintain a memorial.” Under the governor’s vision, the Memorial Foundation would only be responsible for raising the money for the $500 million memorial and museum.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

‘UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN’ TITANIC MEDAL AUCTIONED A bronze medal commissioned by a Titanic passenger, Molly Brown, to honor one of her rescuers sold for $10,200 at the Christie’s auction house yesterday. A corroded cast bronze flag from a Titanic lifeboat sold for $72,000, and a bronze name board, from another of the ill-fated liner’s lifeboats, sold for $60,000. Brown, a New York socialite, is known as “the unsinkable Molly Brown” for inspiring the people in her lifeboat to row and keep calm despite their fear and the frigid temperatures.

– Associated Press

HEALTH DEPARTMENT CLOSES THE STAGE DELI A famed deli that has served corned beef and pastrami on rye to celebrities such as Mike Tyson, President Clinton, and Milton Berle was briefly shuttered by city officials this week after it failed health inspections. The Stage Deli, on the edge of Midtown’s Theater District, was closed on Tuesday, reopened without permission and was closed again on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Sandra Mullin, said. Manager Alex Mirvis said the deli passed an inspection yesterday after doing plumbing, refrigeration, and electrical work and would reopen Friday morning. – Associated Press

ACS HIRING MORE CASEWORKERS AS IT DEALS WITH INCREASING WORK LOAD Almost six months after the high-profile death of a 7-year-old girl, the city’s child welfare agency is working to bolster its ranks as it confronts a backlog in investigations and an increasing caseload for workers. Speaking at a City Council budget hearing Wednesday, officials from the Administration for Children’s Services said the agency has between 14,000 and 15,000 open abuse and neglect cases, up from about 10,000 a year ago. The agency also has a backlog of 4,000 investigations that have not been closed within a state-mandated 60-day deadline, officials said.

– Associated Press

ACTIVISTS WARN PARENTS IN L.A. ABOUT MAYOR RUNNING SCHOOLS Activists in New York and Chicago are circulating an open letter warning parents in Los Angeles not to support their mayor’s attempt to take control of their school district. The letter contends that mayor-controlled school systems lack accountability. “The mayors of our cities and their appointees now feel empowered to ignore the priorities of parents, teachers and other stakeholders in the system, and have imposed radical changes from above without reference to research, experience, or conditions on the ground,” the letter states. “This has resulted in more chaos, violence, and worsening opportunities for many of our students.”

– Associated Press

ON 25TH AIDS ANNIVERSARY, CITY STRUGGLES TO IMPROVE HIV TESTS The numbers are alarming: More than 100,000 New York City residents have HIV, and 20% don’t know it. Many sicken and die without learning their status. New York City health officials want to reverse the trend by making it easier for doctors to administer HIV tests and to monitor the care of people who have the virus.

– Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

RAPPERS KANYE WEST, LUDACRIS WIN COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT TRIAL

Top-selling rappers Kanye West and Ludacris won a copyright infringement trial yesterday when a jury concluded their 2003 hit “Stand Up” did not copy a tune by New Jersey musicians. “I hope the plaintiffs enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame,” Ludacris said after the verdict was announced. “This whole experience is proof to me of why I will always fight for what I believe in.” Mr. West was not in court.

– Associated Press

PROSECUTORS: MAN TOLD FAKE DISTRESS TALE AT AIRPORT A man who pretended to be a doctor who had just been mugged at an airport so people would give him money he claimed was for cab fare to a hospital has been charged with scheming to defraud, prosecutors said. A police captain, a rabbi, and a flight attendant were among those who gave up to $100 in cash to Michael Cosmi, of Wayne, N.J., the Queens district attorney, Richard Brown, said yesterday.

– Associated Press

POLICE BL OTTER

FACE-OFF BETWEEN POLICE, MAN ENDS IN MAN’S DEATH A face-off between police and an emotionally disturbed man in East Harlem ended with the man’s death on the stairs of his apartment building. Police were called at 11:46 a.m. when the man, 38, whose name wasn’t released yesterday, held his 6-month-old daughter at knifepoint. After negotiations he turned the baby over to her mother, but locked himself in the apartment, police said. When he opened the door, police attempted to arrest him, but he struggled free and ran down the hallway. Police said he then punched his arm through a glass windowpane in the hallway door, cutting himself deeply. He fled up stairs, but collapsed. Emergency personnel declared him dead at the scene. – Staff Reporter of the Sun

WOMAN HIT, KILLED BY TRACTOR TRAILER An 88-year-old woman was struck and killed by a tractor trailer in Staten Island yesterday, police said. The woman was hit at the corner of Metropolitan Avenue and 70 Road. Her name wasn’t released yesterday. Police stopped the driver several blocks from the accident, but an investigation found no criminality. The driver was issued two summonses for equipment violations. – Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEWIDE

BAR PRESIDENT WANTS LAWYERS TO PROVIDE FREE SERVICES TO POOR A New York City attorney, Mark Alcott, took office yesterday as the new president of the 72,000-member New York State Bar Association. He replaces Vincent Buzard of Rochester whose one-year term as head of the nation’s largest state bar association ended. Mr. Alcott, 66, a commercial litigation attorney specializing in business disputes, is calling on lawyers across the state to provide at least 50 hours of free legal services each year for the poor. – Associated Press

ACCUSATIONS EXCHANGED AFTER DOCTORS EXIT HOSPITAL HARRIS – The head of Sullivan County’s only hospital and the physician group that quit admitting patients there exchanged accusations of greed and mismanagement yesterday. Crystal Run Healthcare said its 62 doctors practicing at Catskill Regional Medical Center stopped at midnight Wednesday. “There’s a culture at the hospital where sub-optimal care is tolerated,” the group’s managing partner, Dr. Hal Teitelbaum, said. – Associated Press

REPORT SHOWS HIGHER RATES OF MEDICAL PROBLEMS NEAR POLLUTED SITE BINGHAMTON – A state report shows elevated levels of some cancers and higher rates of birth defects among residents living near the site of an old IBM manufacturing complex in Endicott. But while the report by the state’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found the illnesses were not likely due to chance, it could not explain them or directly attribute them to the toxic site. The latest report is an update of a study conducted in August that found high rates of testicular and kidney cancers, birth defects of the heart, and low birth weights in several areas polluted with industrial solvents.

– Associated Press

TRIS TATE

INVESTIGATORS PROBE CAUSE OF PLANE CRASH STAFFORD TOWNSHIP, N.J. – Accident investigators trying to figure out what caused a small plane to break up and nosedive into a wooded area – killing four people – arrived yesterday at the crash scene to begin a probe that will take up to eight months. Witnesses said the 27-year-old, single-engine Piper Dakota began disintegrating in mid-air Wednesday, raining debris on a neighborhood before crossing over busy Route 72 and crashing. – Associated Press