ALBANY

WEINER UNVEILS TAX PLAN

Rep. Anthony Weiner unveiled a tax plan yesterday that builds on a plan he announced last year while running for mayor. The five-point plan includes a 10% tax reduction for households with a combined income of less than $150,000 and additional taxes for millionaires and billionaires. Individuals earning more than $1 million would be charged a 7% surcharge and those who make more than $1 billion would pay 10%. Families making $25,000 or less would pay no income tax at all under Mr. Weiner’s plan.

— Special to Sun

BILL PASSED TO ALLOW CHECKS ON RELIGIOUS SCHOOL EMPLOYEES

State lawmakers passed a bill that will allow independent and religious schools to conduct federal background checks on prospective employees.Through the FBI’s national criminal background check system, employers will be able to learn if a job candidate has ever been convicted of a crime, anywhere in the nation. The bill, which is sponsored by a state senator, Dean Skelos, of Long Island, and Assembly Member Harvey Weisenberg of Long Island, is awaiting the approval of Governor Pataki. About 500,000 students attend nonpublic schools across the state.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

SUOZZI CALLS ON SPITZER TO QUIT FAMILY TRUST’S BOARD

Prompted by three different news articles raising conflict of interest questions, a Democratic gubernatorial hopeful, Thomas Suozzi, yesterday called on Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to step down as a board member of his family’s charitable trust and demanded that his office disclose their oversight involvement with the trust. Despite the fact that Mr. Suozzi did not claim that Mr. Spitzer’s fund had violated any state law or has not been overseen, he relied on a 1990 New York State Ethics Commission that concluded policy-making state officers “may not serve as directors or members of boards of organizations regulated, overseen, or licensed by their employing state agency” to condemn Mr. Spitzer. A spokesman for the attorney general, Darren Dopp, responded to the allegations, saying that the commission’s report only applies to nonprofits, not trusts like Mr. Spitzer’s.

— Special to the Sun

McFARLAND HIRES BLOOMBERG CAMPAIGN AIDE

One of Senator Clinton’s Republican challengers, Kathleen Troia McFarland, has hired the volunteer coordinator from Mayor Bloomberg’s re-election campaign to help ensure her a place in the general election. The aide, Michael Tracey, is spearheading an effort to get 15,000 signatures from registered voters to place Mrs. McFarland’s name on the ballot as the candidate for a minor political party. The name of that party was not finalized yesterday, her aides said. Mrs. McFarland is also running for the Republican nomination and is being challenged by the former mayor of Yonkers, John Spencer, who is endorsed by the Conservative Party.

— Staff Reporter for the Sun

MEDICAID CAP SAVING COUNTIES MORE THAN EXPECTED

Efforts to control costs in the state’s Medicaid program are saving counties more than originally expected, the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, said yesterday. Under a law enacted in 2005, annual increases in Medicaid spending by counties and New York City are capped at 3.5%. Medicaid costs have grown by 7% this year, but the state is picking up the added costs counties would have faced.

— Associated Press

SILVER’S LAW FIRM SEEKS TO REPRESENT PEOPLE HURT AT STATE PARKS

The personal injury law firm where state Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, practices is pitching its services to people injured at New York parks. A section of the Weitz & Luxenberg firm’s Web site devoted to “on premises” injury lawsuits tells potential clients they could sue the state for injuries suffered while boating, hiking, swimming, or engaged in other activities at state parks.

— Associated Press

CITYWIDE

MAYOR SAYS PANDEMIC FLU IS UNLIKELY

Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday that a pandemic flu is unlikely, but that the city will be prepared if a worldwide outbreak of a new mutation appears in New York. In unveiling the city’s new “Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response Plan,” Mr. Bloomberg said the city would beef up communication and intensify monitoring of medical trends in the city. He said the city has conducted 50 tabletop exercises and drills in the last five years to come up with its new plan. The plan hinges largely on the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene detecting an outbreak before it becomes too serious.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

LAWMAKER TO INTRODUCE BILL ON ‘PORK-BARREL’ FUNDING

The City Council made reforming the annual budget process a priority this year, but one Queens lawmaker wants the body to go even further. A council member, Hiram Monserrate, said yesterday he would introduce a bill to require that millions of dollars spent annually on local earmarks include the name of the lawmaker sponsoring the “pork-barrel” funding and the district where it will go. Mr. Monserrate said this would add transparency to an “ambiguous and non-descript” process. “We want to see how far this reform-minded council is willing to go,” Mr. Monserrate said. The council’s speaker, Christine Quinn, would not commit to the bill and, in a statement released by her office yesterday, said the council had made “significant progress” in budget reform and that she looked forward “to hearing from all New Yorkers on how we can continue to reform the process.”

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

LONG ISLAND

SUFFOLK POLICE COLLECTING DATA ON RACIAL PROFILING

YAPHANK — Suffolk County police are collecting information on the race of people detained for routine traffic violations as part of a study of whether residents are being profiled, county officials said yesterday.

— Associated Press

MANHATTAN

OFFICIAL: MAN ACCUSED IN TUNNEL PLOT TALKED ABOUT SETTING FIRES

The Lebanese man accused of plotting to destroy and flood Hudson River train tunnels also discussed the possibility of setting wildfires in California to inflict harm on America, a federal official said yesterday.The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said wildfires were “only part of their planning discussions. No steps were taken to carry it out.”

— Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

POLICE INVESTIGATE CASE OF MAN WHO DIED AFTER HEAD TRAUMA

Police are investigating the death of a Brooklyn man who died late Sunday night after suffering apparent head trauma. Officers responding to a 911 call around 11:15 p.m. found Peter Siniengo, 32, unconscious in front of his home on Prospect Place in Crown Heights, police said. Siniengo was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital, where he had been brought with blunt force trauma to his head, police said.Yesterday, police said an investigation was ongoing.

— Special to the Sun

POLICE: MAN COMMITTED SUICIDE ON SUBWAY’S THIRD RAIL

An unidentified man committed suicide early yesterday morning after electrocuting himself on the third rail of a Manhattan subway track, police said. Police said it happened around 5:30 a.m. when the man, believed to be in his sixties, reportedly put his head on the third rail of the southbound no. 6 train at the Astor Place station. Just before he did so, police believe he was lying across the tracks waiting to be struck, although the conductor of an oncoming train stopped short to avoid hitting him. Last night, police said the man had no verifiable identification on him when he was found. A spokesman for New York City Transit said train service was initially rerouted after the incident, but it returned to normal by 10 a.m.

— Special to the Sun

STATEWIDE

GIULIANI RAISES MONEY FOR GOP CANDIDATES

Mayor Giuliani began a fundraising tour yesterday for Republicans locked in tight congressional races, a trip that is taking him into two presidential battleground states and heightening speculation about a possible White House run.

— Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

QUEENS DAD SENTENCED TO PRISON FOR SHAKING INFANT SON

A man who pleaded guilty to shaking his infant son, breaking several of the 3-month-old’s bones, was sentenced to 11 years in prison, prosecutors said yesterday. Jerome Wiza, 26, of Elmhurst, Queens, pleaded guilty last month to first-degree assault for violently shaking his son, Nikkolas, in February. Wiza admitted that he also squeezed the baby around the chest, causing serious injury, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said. The child stopped breathing for a short time and later was diagnosed with having suffered hemorrhages, eight rib fractures, and a broken leg and pelvis. There was evidence he had been shaken before, prosecutors said.

— Associated Press