Friday News

• Hempstead High: A source of hope for district

  THE governor stood at a podium before hundreds of high school students and declared, "I am from Hempstead, New York."

• The inexact science of parole

  Three weeks before he led Suffolk County police on a high-speed chase, running through a red light and crashing into an innocent man, John Licausi failed a routine drug test administered by his parole officer.

• California high court ruling allows gay to marry

  SAN FRANCISCO - California's Supreme Court declared that gay couples in the nation's biggest state can marry - a monumental but perhaps short-lived victory for the gay rights movement yesterday that was greeted with tears, hugs, kisses and at least one instant proposal of matrimony.

• SUNY Old Westbury-Farmingdale State merger blasted

  SUNY Old Westbury President Calvin O. Butts is launching a study of a merger with Farmingdale State College, arguing that the two schools have similar missions and could save money by joining forces.

• As term wanes, will Bloomberg maintain composure?

  One day two winters ago, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, just back from an overseas trip, traveled to Albany to testify at a key fiscal hearing. During his testimony, he grew agitated at an Assembly Ways and Means Committee staffer who was whispering information to a lawmaker - a practice even casual viewers of C-Span know is utterly routine.

• McCain: Iraq War can be won by 2013

  WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain looked into the future yesterday and predicted that American troops would return home in victory by the end of his first term as president in 2013.

• Adelphi panel: Suffolk labor crackdown is impractical

  Suffolk County's legislation requiring contractors to prove that their employees have legal working status is impractical and cannot be enforced, a panel of immigration experts told an Adelphi University audience yesterday.

• Gardeners put down roots on first 'safe' day to plant

  As Richard Schultz examined the leaves of potted basil plants in search of the perfect addition to his collection of tomatoes, peppers and string beans, other eager gardeners maneuvered two-tiered plastic carts through the aisles at Starkie Brothers Garden Center in Farmingdale.

• Obama blasts Bush for 'false political attack'

  WASHINGTON - Barack Obama accused President George W. Bush of "a false political attack" yesterday after Bush warned in Israel against appeasing terrorists - early salvos in a general election campaign that's already blazing.

• Cuomo announces LI hearings on pension scandal

  State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday that he and a bipartisan group of state legislators will hold hearings on Long Island next week on the improper granting of pensions and other benefits by schools, special districts and local governments.

• PETA plans protests at Preakness and Belmont

  With the image of a filly collapsing after finishing the Kentucky Derby still fresh in the public's mind, an international animal rights organization said it will protest at the remaining Triple Crown races.

• Long Islanders not pumped about $4-a-gallon gas

  Casting a wary eye on the rapidly scrolling numbers on the gas pump, Peter Kang looked resigned yesterday as he filled the tank of a white sedan at a Garden City station.

• Dina Lohan defends "Living Lohan" reality TV show

  Why, why, why? You're the mother of one of the most hounded people on the planet (Lindsay Lohan, or LiLo, to her hounders). And yet here you are: Enabling your 14-year-old daughter, Ali, to pursue a similar white-hot career track and, for added measure, you have just opened up your house in North Merrick to a TV network so that the rest of the world can look inside.

• State releases list of LI 'high achieving' schools

  With school budget votes just four days away, the State Education Department has announced the names of 380 "high-achieving" schools on Long Island, among more than 1,700 statewide that excel in state reading and math tests.

• Study finds Vitamin D may curb breast cancer

  Breast cancer patients with low levels of vitamin D were much more likely to die of the disease or have it spread than patients getting enough of the nutrient, a Canadian study found - adding to evidence the "sunshine vitamin" has anti-cancer benefits.

• WORLD & NATION UPDATE: AT HOME

  Paul Devoe hinted of the cross-country killing spree for which he faces the death penalty when he was in the back seat of a police car on Long Island, a Suffolk police officer testified in a Texas courtroom this week. "Do you know how many bodies they found?" Devoe asked Officer Kenneth Bombace, according to testimony in the Long Island man's murder trial in Travis County Court. Bombace testified that Devoe later added: "I had a good thing going in Texas. One mistake ruined my whole life." Devoe, 44, was arrested at a friend's home in Shirley last August, then extradited to Texas as a suspect in six slayings in Texas, Pennsylvania and Long Island. In the pretrial hearing, Devoe's lawyers moved to suppress the statements, which they say in court documents were involuntary and out of bounds with Texas law. Suffolk Homicide Det. Susan Nolan testified that Devoe volunteered "details of the murders in Texas as well as the murder in Pennsylvania." A cellmate of Devoe's in the Travis County jail testified that Devoe introduced himself as "Wolf" and said he killed six people.

• Mixed reaction to Suffolk worker-documentation law

  For John Willis, who runs an East Patchogue contracting business excavating and installing cesspools, Suffolk's new law requiring him to report the immigration status of his employees is a redundant hassle.

• Considering who will run Moynihan Station project

  Gov. David A. Paterson straddled the fence yesterday on the question of who should manage development of the Moynihan Station project.

• House OKs increase in GI Bill education benefits

  WASHINGTON - An overwhelming majority of the House voted yesterday to sharply increase education benefits for Iraq-Afghanistan veterans under the GI Bill - and to pay for it with a tax surcharge on the wealthy.

• Attorneys file suit vs. pension revocations

  Four private attorneys who were expecting or receiving state pensions say Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's moves to bar them from the state retirement system are a "politically motivated gambit" that violates their constitutional rights.

• Reactions mixed to guv's call to get tough on doctors

  Reaction yesterday was mixed to Gov. David A. Paterson's proposal calling for tougher measures against physicians who harm patients. Doctors cited too much emphasis on punishment, while consumer advocates gave it a thumbs-up.

• Challenge to Brookhaven's contracts with Zimmerman

  Brookhaven Republicans charged yesterday that Democratic Supervisor Brian X. Foley's practice of doling out town advertising contracts to political power broker Robert Zimmerman is unethical and must be stopped.

• Gas price hike leads him to trade in 4 wheels for 2

  It wasn't that the cost of gas was killing him.

• Woman indicted in MySpace teen suicide case

  LOS ANGELES - A federal grand jury indicted a Missouri woman yesterday for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network My- Space against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.

• Cops: Taxi driver shot in Hempstead road-rage attack

  In what police are calling a road-rage attack, a cabbie was shot in the jaw early yesterday by a driver angry that the victim's taxi had been blocking the road at the Hempstead Village transit depot, Nassau police said.

• Islip activist charged with grand larceny

  Three years ago, Brightwaters real estate developer Louis Modica and East Islip civic activist Patricia Montanino found common cause in a proposal to change the way Islip Town Council members are elected.

• Police: Driver in 4-car accident was high on drugs

  A man who hit a car and a school bus at a busy Huntington Station intersection yesterday, then fled, was nabbed at home and charged with driving while high on drugs, Suffolk police said.

• No adoptions yet for East Northport dogs

  The 56 dogs, squirrels and a parrot confiscated from a "deplorable" East Northport home by county animal welfare officials cannot be placed for adoption as prosecutors mull charges against their owner, after a Suffolk judge negotiated a stay of any action yesterday.

• LI pols push for breath-alcohol ignition locks

  Calling drunken driving a "tolerated" crime, State Sen. Charles Fuschillo and Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice said yesterday they will work to pass legislation that would make breath-alcohol ignition locks mandatory for people convicted of driving while intoxicated.

• WORLD & NATION UPDATE: ABROAD

  Pakistani leaders disavowed yesterday any knowledge of a missile strike in a volatile border area where the United States previously has targeted al-Qaida figures - the first attack of its kind since the new government took power six weeks ago. The strike late Wednesday in the Bajur tribal region raised concerns that the Bush administration might be seeking to hunt down al-Qaida figures while the Pakistani leadership seeks to negotiate a truce. American military officials said they had no information on the strike on a compound in Damadola village.

• Chinese struggle to receive care following quake

  DEYANG, China - After Zhang Jiazhi crawled free of the rubble that remained of his middle school, his parents began a 20-hour ordeal to get medical care for their son, whose arms were crushed to a pulp.

• Not sounding a victory for Big Brown

  As Aqueduct, Saratoga and Belmont Park's only racetrack bugler for nearly two decades, Sam Grossman - known as Sam the Bugler - has seen many races and many thoroughbreds.

• Infighting threatens new delays on town car cuts

  Brookhaven Town wants to place new restrictions on the use of taxpayer-funded vehicles, but bitter infighting between Democrat and Republican town officials is threatening to hold up the new laws.

• Nooses used as a threat a felony under new state law

  ALBANY - Displaying a noose as a threat now is a felony in New York under legislation signed yesterday by Gov. David A. Paterson.

• Myanmar admits team of Thai doctors

  BANGKOK - Myanmar's military regime agreed to admit a team of Thai doctors and nurses, the largest foreign-aid contingent yet, as leaders of the cyclone-ravaged country maintained a policy of rejecting most Western offers of help.

• Woman slips into gap at LIRR station in Kew Gardens

  An unidentified woman was taken to a Jamaica hospital yesterday after her leg slipped into a gap at the Kew Gardens Long Island Rail Road station early yesterday evening, an LIRR spokesman said.

• Burglary suspect accused of trying to run over cops

  A Valley Stream burglary suspect was arrested shortly after trying to run over two plainclothes Nassau police officers approaching the stolen car he was driving, police said yesterday.

• Remembering Freeport Navy recruit who died suddenly

  After the funeral for the young Navy recruit, friends and family gathered to remember Shawn Madigan, a Freeport High School graduate who enlisted in hopes of serving in the military and later becoming a police officer, but died suddenly after being in the service less than a week.

• THE BUZZ

  HICKS DOES "GREASE." Taylor Hicks is going from "Idol" to "Angel" - "Teen Angel," that is. The season 5 "Idol" winner will make his Broadway debut next month in the revival of "Grease," Newsday's Robert Kahn reports. Hicks begins performances June 6 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Booked into the role through Sept. 7, that gives the native Alabamian the entire summer to make Frenchy swoon with "Beauty School Dropout."

• From the publisher

  Dear Newsday Subscriber,

• Hearing on suit against worker status bill postponed

  A hearing in the lawsuit seeking to invalidate Suffolk's worker status bill was postponed yesterday until May 29, attorneys in the case said.

• Single-use vials required in Suffolk health centers

  Doctors and nurses working at Suffolk County's public health care facilities will be required to buy and use single-use vials whenever possible under a bill legislators approved this week.

• Shinnecock tribal seal added at Southampton town hall

  The Great Seal of the Shinnecock Nation will go up on the wall of Southampton Town Hall today, joining the seven seals of the town's incorporated villages.

• Fox maps out convention and fall TV schedules

  Fox will offer only two new series in the fall, traditionally its slow season, but plans flashy two-hour season premieres of four programs during the same August week as the Democratic National Convention.

• Cheneys' assets triple those of Bushes

  WASHINGTON - The tens of millions of dollars in assets reported by Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, triple those held by President George W. Bush and the first lady, Laura Bush.

• NESCONSET: Police arranging surrender

  Suffolk police are working to arrange the surrender of a Nesconset man involved in a domestic dispute Wednesday that led to a standoff that ended when officers entered the home and found he was no longer there.

• NASSAU COUNTY: Guilty pleas in Medicaid fraud case

  The owner of a health care agency that served severely ill children pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing more than $314,000 from the state through false Medicaid billing schemes, state and local prosecutors said.

• Britney Spears to vacation with Mel Gibson and wife

  Britney Spears and Mel Gibson are headed to Costa Rica where they will vacation with the singer's father and Gibson's wife, a source told People magazine.

• Friday, May. 16, 2008

  The Mets-Phillies game on May 15, 1970, was played in Philadelphia. The location was incorrect in an item yesterday.

• SETAUKET

  Mystery. Intrigue. George Washington. All this - and johnnycakes, too - will be available at the Brewster House in Setauket tomorrow, when the 1660s-era home celebrates its placement on the state and national registers of historic places. The noon event will feature the first local, public display of a 1779 letter written by Washington to the head of the Setauket Spy Ring, which worked to help win the American Revolution.

• DEER PARK

  A Deer Park middle school was evacuated yesterday after a bomb threat was found on a bathroom wall, officials said.

• CLARIFICATION

  A phone number released yesterday by the Internal Revenue Service for people seeking information about their economic stimulus payments was for refund information only. The IRS Economic Stimulus Hotline is 866-234-2942. Answers are also available at the IRS' Customer Assistance hotline at 800-829-1040. Due to heavy volume, callers may have trouble getting beyond the recorded messages.

• THIS DATE IN HISTORY

  1770: Marie Antoinette, age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15.