TRISTATE

DIRECT TRAIN COULD LINK N.Y. WITH ATLANTIC CITY

NEWARK, N.J. – A group of casino-hotels in Atlantic City is trying to entice new customers to gamble by offering them an easy way to get to the slots. They’re after New Yorkers who would ride a proposed new direct train service to Atlantic City from Penn Station, about a 2 1/2 hour trip.

“A lot of people who live in New York don’t have cars,” a spokeswoman for Harrah’s, Alyce Parker, said.

She declined to talk more about the service until it is approved by the board of New Jersey Transit, which is scheduled to discuss the idea at a meeting today.

A spokeswoman for NJ Transit said the new service would be direct from Penn Station and would not stop in Philadelphia. The new service would have a limited number of stops, determined by the casino industry in consultation with NJ Transit.

– Associated Press

JERSEY CITY MAYOR ARRESTED, ‘ROUGHED UP’

TRENTON, N.J. -The mayor of Jersey City, Jerramiah Healy, said he was arrested and roughed up by Bradley Beach police this weekend for intervening in an argument between a couple outside a bar. Mr. Healy said he had just left Barry’s Tavern around 2 a.m. Saturday when he saw a couple arguing in the parking lot of a nearby auto shop. He said the man was jumping on the hood of his girlfriend’s car. After he talked the man down, Mr. Healy said, police threw him on the ground and maced him. When his wife tried to retrieve his glasses, police shoved her to the ground, too, he said. Mr. Healy was charged with two disorderly persons offenses and resisting arrest. He faces up to six months in jail and $2,000 in fines if convicted.

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

SCHUMER: NYPD ‘WORKED EFFECTIVELY’ TO AVOID AL QAEDA ATTACK

As reports emerged from a new book by Ron Suskind that Al Qaeda planned to release poisonous gas in the New York City subway system in 2003, Senator Schumer said the New York Police Department was “informed and had worked effectively” at the time to avoid a potential crisis. “Reports came from serious sources and a variety of steps were taken to ensure that the threat was not pending,” he said at a press conference yesterday. The news of the potential attack highlights the “folly” of the Department of Homeland Security decision to cut New York’s anti-terrorist funding, he said. “This threat underscores the stupidity of the Homeland Security’s cutbacks,” he said. “To think that personnel is less important than equipment is nonsensical.”

– Special to the Sun

POLICE BLOTTER

FIVE SEPARATE, BLOODY ATTACKS IN BROOKLYN

Seven people were shot and three were slashed in five unrelated attacks in East Flatbush yesterday morning, police said. Five people were arrested, but only in connection to one of the incidents. Seven of the victims were listed in stable condition yesterday. One, a 24-year-old man who was shot in the chest and ankle on Martense Street, was listed in critical condition at Kings County Hospital. Felonious assaults are down 10.2% in the 67th Precinct, which covers East Flatbush, according to police CompStat reports. One hundred sixty-seven felony assaults have been reported so far this year, compared with 186 last year at this time.

– Special to the Sun

MANHATTAN TEENAGER KILLS BROTHER

A 17-year-old Manhattan teen stabbed his younger brother to death yesterday, police said. The teenager stabbed his 15-year-old brother, Kenneth Do Santos, in the upper chest yesterday around 1:30 p.m., when police said the siblings’ dispute turned deadly.

Emergency responders transported the injured brother from the teenagers’ apartment inside the George Washington Houses on Second Avenue to Metropolitan Hospital, where he died around 3:45 p.m. Police arrested the 17-year-old brother, whose name was not immediately disclosed last night.

– Special to the Sun