CITYWIDE

Health Care Options Expanding on Staten Island Based on Need

Mayor Bloomberg yesterday helped break ground on a new emergency center at Staten Island University Hospital and cut the ribbon on a health clinic elsewhere in the borough as his administration sought to highlight progress in improving health care in neighborhoods where officials have long complained their communities are underserved. The 40,000-square foot trauma center will double the space of the hospital’s current emergency room. Staten Island is the fastest growing borough in the city, but residents say infrastructure improvements have not kept up with the growth. “The care is the best, but the conditions could be better,” the hospital president, Anthony Ferreri, said. Officials also used yesterday’s groundbreaking to try to jumpstart a fund-raising campaign that has fallen short of its $30 million goal. In a health-themed day of events, the mayor also cut the ribbon on a community health center in Richmond, spoke at the launch of $1.3 billion capital campaign for Weill Cornell Medical College, and hosted a fund-raiser at Gracie Mansion for the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

—Staff Reporter of the Sun

Report Indicates Online Real Estate Listings Are Falsely Advertised

Nearly one-third of online real estate advertisements might not be telling the truth when they promise no brokers’ fees, a report released yesterday said. The city council’s Committee on Oversight and Investigations found that 31% of 223 agents who posted nofee apartments on Craigslist.org and Backpage.com had used deceptive techniques to hide their charges. Queens Council Member Eric Gioia, the committee’s chairman, teamed up with Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, to urge the Department of Consumer Affairs to start actively monitoring online real estate advertising. Mr. Newmark said tracking down deceptive agents was his “biggest timeconsuming project over the last few years.” A spokeswoman for the DCA said the department looked forward to working with the council on strengthening protections for online consumers.

— Special to the Sun

KFC To Announce ‘Significant Change’ Amid Trans Fat Debate

Is Kentucky Fried Chicken getting rid of trans fats ahead of a likely city ban on the artery-clogging acids? The company’s president, Gregg Dedrick, will be in Lower Manhattan on Monday to announce a “significant change” to the chicken chain’s 5,500 locations across the country, according to a press release issued yesterday. A KFC spokeswoman would neither confirm nor deny that the announcement is related to the use of trans fat, but the press conference is being held on the same day and on the same street as a hearing by the city’s Board of Health on the Bloomberg administration’s proposal to bar trans fats from restaurants. A food industry watchdog group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, sued KFC in June for using partially hydrogenated oil, which contains trans fat, to cook its chicken. A company statement at the time said, “We’ve tested oils that are trans fat-free, but we haven’t found a recipe yet that’s as delicious as our world-famous Original Recipe.”

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

City Council Questions Success of Bus Privatization

The MTA’s takeover of seven privately franchised bus lines that was completed last February is raising financial questions at City Hall —questions that the director of the city’s office of Management and Budget, Mark Page, claims are essentially unfounded. Council member John Liu, chairman of the transportation committee, held a hearing yesterday to discuss how much the takeover is costing taxpayers and questioned whether the MTA is taking advantage of federal funds to pay for new electric hybrid buses scheduled for delivery next summer. Mr. Page said that the current operating deficit—the difference between fare box revenue and service costs—is essentially the same as what it was when the bus lines were managed by private bus companies. “I don’t have any feeling that they’re inappropriately spending money. I think they are spending money constructively maintaining and enhancing their ability to provide bus service,” Mr. Page said. Chairman of the MTA’s bus company, Tom Savage, also testified before the committee and reported that the MTA has added service on overcrowded routes and extended the coverage area of its buses.

— Special to the Sun

MercyCorps To Open Hunger Education Center

Organizers hail it as a comprehensive clearing house for the world’s downtrodden — part museum, part resource center, part boot camp. However one describes the World Hunger Action Center, international relief organization Mercy-Corps signed a 30-year lease with the Battery Park City Authority yesterday to build the center on vacant land between North End Avenue and Vesey Street. Organizers hope the center, which plans to open across from the Irish Hunger Memorial next to Rockefeller Park by 2008 with interactive exhibits, will call attention to world hunger.

— Special to the Sun

POLICE BLOTTER

Teenager Shot In Brooklyn

A 16-year-old who was shot in the neck yesterday is in critical condition at a Brooklyn hospital, police said. The shooting took place around 4:30 p.m. on McClancy Place in East New York, police reported. The victim was shot one time by unknown suspects who fled the scene in a dark SUV, according to police. The victim – who was not identified – was taken to Brookdale Hospital. An investigation is ongoing, police said.

— Special to the Sun

IN THE COURTS

Judge Rules Grand Theft Auto Suit Can Proceed

A federal judge has rejected an attempt to dismiss a federal lawsuit brought by parents and others who claim they were duped when they bought Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for their children unaware that it contained secret pornographic scenes that can be viewed with a code available on the Internet. When the game’s distributor, Take Two Interactive Software, submitted the game to be rated, the scenes weren’t revealed to the rating board. Many of the plaintiffs say they wouldn’t have bought the game if they’d known about the sex scenes and the more explicit rating the game would have received had the company been forthcoming. In legal language considerably less exciting than the four-letter salty lexicon used in Grand Theft Auto, Judge Shirley Wohl Kram said the suit could proceed.

— Special to the Sun