CITYWIDE

Bloomberg Teams Again With President’s Brother

Mayor Bloomberg had high praise for Governor Bush of Florida yesterday, a day before the two were scheduled to speak together on education at an Association for a Better New York breakfast. Mr. Bloomberg told reporters that the president’s younger brother had “done a great job in Florida. I think most people hold Jeb Bush up as a role model for what states can do to help education.” The mayor, who has been critical of President Bush’s administration on several issues, has forged an alliance with Jeb Bush to promote accountability in public schools. The two penned an Op/Ed article in the Washington Post in August urging Congress to reauthorize the federal No Child Left Behind Act with several changes. “I’ll try to work with any governor across this country, regardless of party, that focuses on education,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

MTA To Keep Security Recordings

A new MTA security system will keep digitally recorded images of subway and bus riders permanently on file, the New York Post reported yesterday. But now the story’s source, a vice president for Broadware Communications, the company providing software for the new video security system, says the daily tabloid misquoted him. “Broadware helps [the MTA] do whatever they need to do, but we’re not in the business of telling them how long to keep things,” a vice president for Broadware quoted in the Post, Dennis Charlebois, clarified. “I won’t get into how long we would hold stuff, but it would not be forever,” MTA spokesman Tom Kelly said. “That is a security issue that would be dealt with at the time.” According to the MTA, digitally recorded images from subway platforms will be kept for 45 days, and images recorded on buses will be kept for 90 days, unless a tape is needed for criminal prosecution, litigation, or a legal claim.

— Special to the Sun

STATEWIDE

State, Guardian Angels Form Online Safety Partnership

ALBANY — The Guardian Angels is getting a $200,000 state grant to teach children around the state about the dangers of online predators, Governor Pataki’s office said yesterday.The money will go to the Guardian Angels’ CyberAngels program, one of the oldest online safety education programs in the country. Program directors work directly with schools and libraries, conducting workshops and seminars and providing lesson plans to help teachers educate students about Internet dangers. “When the Guardian Angels was founded in 1979, the safety risks facing New Yorkers were on the streets and in the subways. Yet today our children face even greater threats in the online world from pedophiles and cyber-bullies,” Angels founder Curtis Sliwa said. In conjunction with the Guardian Angels, a nonprofit group originally formed 27 years ago to fight street crime in New York City, the state’s Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure will work with community groups to teach children about online safety. It will also teach parents how to better monitor their children’s online activities, Mr. Pataki’s office said. Teachers will also be taught to make sure students’ work has not been plagiarized and learn how to detect and stop cyber-bullying: attacks on children by other children through e-mail, instant messaging or rumors on Web sites.

— Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

Driver With Suspended License Hits, Kills Pedestrian

Police arrested a man for driving with a suspended license after he struck and killed a man in Brooklyn Heights early yesterday morning. The accident occurred at 3:50 a.m., when police said the victim was hit by a 2005 Hyundai traveling on Atlantic Avenue between Nevins and Bond streets. The victim, who was not identified, was then hit by a 1998 Nissan, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Yesterday, police arrested the driver of the Hyundai, Dion Gadsen, 26, and charged him with driving with a suspended license.

— Special to the Sun

TRISTATE

Oates Says Story Was Only influenced by N.J. Student’s Death

TRENTON — Joyce Carol Oates says her latest short story, about a college student found dead in a landfill, was influenced by a similar event involving a New Jersey student. But the acclaimed author said her work is not a fictional account of that man’s death, according to a published report. Ms. Oates, a Princeton University professor, said “Landfill” drew from incidents at other schools besides The College of New Jersey, from which freshman John A. Fiocco Jr. went missing in March. The remains of Fiocco, 19, of Mantua, N.J. were found a month later in a Pennsylvania landfill. Among incidents Ms. Oates said she also considered for the story were sexual assault allegations against members of the Duke University lacrosse team, the 68-year-old writer told the Times of Trenton for yesterday’s newspapers. TCNJ spokesman Matt Golden has said that while Ms. Oates can choose her topics, sadness over Fiocco’s death “can only be compounded by this work of fiction.”ATCNJ professor sent Ms. Oates an e-mail decrying her “lack of compassion and humanity.” “While I support freedom of speech, I also believe that writers have choices about what they write and a responsibility for exercising those choices in an ethical manner,” professor emerita Regina Kenen wrote, according to a copy of the e-mail the school provided the Times. The circumstances over Fiocco’s death remain cloudy. Authorities searched the landfill in Bucks County, Pa., after his blood was found in a trash bin outside his dormitory. Police have not determined whether somebody put him in the bin, or whether Fiocco plunged into it from the dorm’s trash chute. The art major was last seen alive at 3 a.m. on March 25 in a dorm room.

— Associated Press