CITYWIDE

BOROUGH PRESIDENT CRITICIZES MTA FOR BROKEN ELEVATORS

The president of Manhattan, Scott Stringer, criticized the Metropolitan Transit Authority for neglecting dozens of elevators and escalators in the borough’s subway stations. During a news conference yesterday outside a broken elevator at the West 4th Street station, Mr. Stringer said his office found that, on average, 78% of all elevators in Manhattan stations did not receive any yearly inspections between 2002 and 2005. City law requires inspections five times every two years. Mr. Stringer — who was joined by the leaders of various organizations representing the disabled — said that the city is “flagrantly violating the law without any concern for the people that this impacts,” referring to the Americans With Disabilities Act. After the ADA was passed in 1990, the MTA promised to have 100 accessible stations in place by 2020. Mr. Stringer called for the creation of a transit advisory council that would represent the disabled.

— Special to the Sun

SCHUMER CALLS CHAIN STORES’ PRACTICES UNFAIR

Senator Schumer is accusing Rent-a-Center, a chain of national stores, of charging unconscionable interest rates for retail goods then deeming them rental fees. “They say they’re renting, but they’re not. They’re selling,” Mr. Schumer said yesterday after appearing at a store in East Harlem. He wants a federal statute that would classify money paid to the stores to be considered interest, not fees. The rent-to-own stores, which are located mostly in poor neighborhoods, began cropping up in the late 1960s targeting customers being denied credit who wanted to buy washers and dryers. The stores’ selections have since expanded to include furniture, air conditioners, big-screen televisions, and DVD players. Mr. Schumer wants usury statutes to apply to the stores, noting the majority of the customers eventually buy the goods — at several times their retail cost. A spokeswoman for Rent-a-Center in Texas, Mary Gazioglu, disputed Schumer’s statistics in a written statement, stating that most of their customers don’t end up buying their products and that Rent-a-Center provides “financial flexibility” to its customers without deposits and credit checks.

— Special to the Sun

BLOOMBERG BLAMES OPEC FOR GLOBAL TERRORISM

Mayor Bloomberg stood by a controversial assertion made last week during his WABC radio program that petroleum purchases help fuel global terrorism. “I don’t know how you can be offended,” the mayor told reporters.”It’s a statement of fact.” He then slammed the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which represents 11 nations, as a cartel trying to “manipulate our economy and our ability to live free … unfortunately, we’re all victims.” Shortly thereafter, pockets of the crowd cheered “Bloomberg presidente!” during his walk down Northern Boulevard in Queens for an Ecuadorian pride parade. Senator Schumer, marching in the same parade, said America’s reliance on foreign oil is a “great disgrace in Washington,” adding “that makes us a little weaker.”

— Special to the Sun

STUDY: NYC STREET FAIRS ARE ALL THE SAME

Seen one funnel cake, seen them all. That’s the conclusion reached by the Center for an Urban Future, which released a report yesterday charging that the 367 fairs that crowd city streets annually are bland and generic, with the same vendors selling the same gyros, arepas, and tube socks. “They’re all so similar,” said Suzanne Wasserman, director of a City University of New York program that studies the city’s history, in the report. “You walk through and you have absolutely no sense that you’re in New York City. You could just be anywhere.” The report blames the lack of diversity partly on red tape that makes it difficult for new vendors to apply for street fair booths. Vendors who want to sell food must apply in person. The report found that in 2005 a mere 20 vendors held 46 percent of the food permits at the city’s fairs. It was suggested in the report that the city ask the production companies, which run the street fairs for block associations and other organizers, charge lower fees to New York City-based vendors to add local flavor. In 2003, Mayor Bloomberg imposed a cap on permits for new street fairs, which some New Yorkers felt were becoming a nuisance.

— Associated Press

LITTLE LEAGUE PLAYER, 10, KILLED WHILE RIDING BIKE HOME

A 10-year-old Little League player riding a bicycle home after helping his team advance to a championship game was killed when a minivan slammed into him. Family and friends said Shamar Porter had been so excited about a 16-4 victory he couldn’t wait to get home Saturday evening to talk to his mother about it. He was riding a friend’s bicycle at a busy intersection just blocks from his home in the East New York section of Brooklyn when he was struck, police said. He was taken to a hospital, where he was declared dead half an hour later. The van’s driver stayed at the scene, and the collision was being considered an accident, a police officer, Kathleen Price, said. Shamar’s friends and teammates, who called him popular and a good athlete who played many positions, cried when they found out about his death. They erected a memorial, with his green and yellow Athletics jersey surrounded by photographs of him. The team’s next game, set for August 11, will be played in Shamar’s honor.

— Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

MAN FOUND SHOT TO DEATH IN QUEENS

A 28-year-old man was found fatally shot in his car late Saturday night in the Far Rockaway section of Queens, police officials said. The man, who wasn’t identified because his family was in the process of being notified, was found at the intersection of Beach 28th Street and Seagirt Avenue in a Red Acura Legend at 11:24 p.m. The police were responding to calls about shots fired in the area. The man was declared dead at St. Johns Hospital an hour after he was found, police said. No arrests had been made as of last night.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

TEENAGER DIES AFTER BEING STRUCK BY LIRR TRAIN

An 18-year-old woman was struck and killed by a Long Island Rail Road train in Queens, authorities said.

The incident happened at about 4 p.m. Saturday at the Woodside station, LIRR spokesman Sam Zambuto said. According to the preliminary investigation, Natalie Smead, of Northfied, Minn., fell onto the tracks as she was getting off a westbound train. She crossed under the platform and was trying to climb up the other side when she was struck by an eastbound train, Zambuto said. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center, where she died three hours later.

— Associated Press

MAN STABBED IN PROSPECT PARK

A 22-year-old man was stabbed in the back by a group of men in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park last night, police officials said.The man, who wasn’t identified, was stabbed about 100 feet inside the park near the intersection of Parkside and Ocean avenues, police said. According to the victim, a group of five or six Hispanic men in their 20s attacked him. No arrests were made as of last night, police said.The man was in stable condition at Kings County Hospital, police said.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

TRI-STATE

CONNECTICUT EMERGENCY ROOM VISITS OUTPACE NATIONWIDE USE

STAMFORD, Conn.— As patients increasingly rely on emergency room care at Connecticut hospitals, the state’s rate of ER visits is now higher than the national rate, a report says. The number of emergency visits to the state’s 31 acute-care hospitals increased to 1.4 million, a rise of about 7% between 2001 and 2004, according to “Studying Health Care Utilization in Connecticut” by the state Office of Health Care Access. Cristine Vogel, commissioner of the Office of Health Care Access, said the uninsured likely account for some of the increase. But the data indicate that many others are increasingly dependent on emergency rooms.

— Associated Press

ADOPTION BACKLOG SOARS IN NEW JERSEY

TRENTON, N.J. — The number of New Jersey foster children waiting to be adopted has climbed to a record high despite a new state program that was supposed to find them permanent homes faster than before, according to a published report. More than 1,700 children are waiting for the state Division of Youth and Family Services to find them adoptive families, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported in Sunday’s newspapers. That’s 200 more children than were in the system a year ago, the newspaper reported. Overall, adoptions were down 16% through the first five months of this year and were down 7% last year, when the new program was implemented.

— Associated Press

PATAKI THANKS SCHOOL FOR FIRE TRUCK DONATION

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Governor Pataki stopped by a middle school that raised money to buy New York City a fire truck after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to show his appreciation. “I’m here this afternoon to let you know that New York remembers what South Carolina did and to say thank you,” Pataki said Saturday at White Knoll Middle School. In 2001, students at the school went about the seemingly impossible task of raising more than $350,000 to buy the fire truck to help replace a vehicle lost when the World Trade Center towers collapsed. The truck is at Brooklyn’s Ladder Company 101, home of one of the first stations to respond when planes hit the twin towers. Pataki, a potential Republican candidate for president in 2008, was in South Carolina as part of the National Governors Association meetings in Charleston over the weekend.

— Associated Press