Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff says the government will offer a cheap, convenient alternative to a much-criticized plan to require US citizens to show passports at northern border crossings.

Pataki joined officials from Orion Bus Industries to announce that the company's Utica-area plant has received a 249 million-dollar contract to make 500 diesel-electric hybrid buses for the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Victoria Ruvolo asked the judge who was sentencing 19-year-old Ryan Cushing Monday to give him a light sentence. The judge responded by sentencing Cushing to 6 months in jail. The judge also ordered him to get psychiatric treatment.

Authorities say their infant Quan David Michael died of starvation, with exposure to excessive heat as a factor, after being left unattended more than 7 hours in the family's home.

The couples 4-year-old daughter, Jade, was found Friday with her parents in an Anaheim hotel. She is in the care of Orange County Children and Family Services.

Officials say a tax panel's recommendation to scrap state and local tax deductions would wallop New Yorkers with an extra 12 billion-dollar tax bill and drive high earners out of state.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer denounced President Bush's advisory tax panel offering of a simplified income tax system that would no longer allow taxpayers to deduct what they pay in state and local taxes.

Nationally, taxpayers would pay roughly the same amount of tax under the proposed system, and much of the paperwork would be eliminated, but those changes would vary from state to state.

A Jordanian man was sentenced yesterday in Syracuse to 18 months in federal prison for his role in an unregistered charity that sent money to Iraq in violation of US sanctions.

Jarwan, the charity's founder and two other men were charged in February 2003 with conspiring to violate US economic sanctions against Iraq through the charity, which said it was raising money for Iraqi orphans and poor children.

The State Board of Elections is reminding New Yorkers that they can vote by absentee ballot if they will be out of their county or unable to go to the polls on Election Day November 8th.

Voters will receive an absentee ballot after they complete an application and mail it to their county board of elections no later than November 1st or hand deliver it by November 7th.

The Cayuga County District Attorney's Office had said the women's actions interfered with commerce and collecting sales taxes, but conceded in a letter to the women's attorney that the claim couldn't be proven.

The Democrat, who's a candidate for governor next year, will be able to deliver audio comments to radio stations and any New Yorker who may be interested.

Podcasting allows individuals and businesses to easily distribute programs via the Internet. They can be downloaded automatically by those who subscribe to them.

Spokesman Paul Larrabee says he doesn't know if Spitzer is the 1st podcasting attorney general in the nation. Larrabee says the service is aimed at helping radio stations with small news staffs to obtain sound from events they otherwise wouldn't be able to cover.

The head of a central New York corporation accused of setting up its own police force pleaded guilty yesterday to 1 count of 1st-degree scheme to defraud.

65-year-old Matthew Fortino of Van Buren agreed in Onondaga County Court to disband both the police force and the corporation and surrender the force's badges.

Fortino and his Agramark Corporation was accused of setting up the police force as a scheme to defraud about 22 people who paid dues as high as 400 dollars.

The family of a 15-year-old Rochester girl who was shot to death is offering a $1,500 dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible for her death.

Stacy Long was shot outside a recreation center October 13th. Now her aunt, Cynthia Long, says the family will pay for the tip that lands the killer in jail.

A pro-business group is throwing its support behind the proposed Transportation Bond Act that's set to go before voters on this November's ballot.

The Business Council of New York voted to support the 35.8 billion-dollar Transportation Capital Plan to provide funding for the state's highway and bridge, rail and ports, aviation, canal and other transit programs.

The trip was supposed take the groups to Toronto, go through customs then come back to Rochester, but officials say the fuel line break forced the captain to turn the ship around and head back to the Port of Rochester.

The glitches continued yesterday for Jeanine Pirro in her quest for the Republican nomination to challenge Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2006 re-election bid.

At Pirro's kickoff announcement in August, she lost one of the pages of her speech and there was an embarrassing 30-second gap. Later that day, her sound system failed.

A Rochester-area man who claimed he had to instruct young boys about sex was sentenced yesterday to 12 years in prison for molesting an 11-year-old Florida youth.

68-year-old David Williams of suburban Henrietta was sentenced in a Rochester court for sexually abusing the boy, who was visiting him from Florida when he was molested last summer.

The Orange are riding a 4-game losing streak. The latest loss was 31-9 to Rutgers at home, the Scarlet Knights' 1st win in the Carrier Dome after 9 straight losses.

Syracuse is on the road Saturday at Pittsburgh and also has road games at Number 9 Notre Dame and Louisville among its 5 remaining games, so the worst may lie ahead.

Police say a mother and son in Monroe County face charges for allegedly hosting an underage drinking party last month that led to the suspension of 180 high school athletes.

53-year-old Sandra Fassl and 17-year-old Ian Fassl of Brighton were charged with misdemeanors and could face one year in jail or a $1,000 dollar fine if convicted.

The court's ordering a Superior Court judge to reconsider Clinton's motion to drop her from a lawsuit over a Hollywood fundraising gala in 2000. Businessman Peter F. Paul, who bankrolled the event, claims Clinton and her husband, former President BillClinton, were among a group that fraudulently induced him to underwrite the evening.

The tallest peak in the Northeast has been covered with snow after 34 inches fell between Saturday and Monday, the most snowfall ever from a single October storm.

Fundraising by the Virginia-based political action committee used by Governor Pataki has fallen off substantially since he announced he would not seek a 4th term.

Records filed by Pataki's political action committee show that in the 3-month period that ended September 30th, it took in 277,250 dollars. In the 1st quarter of the year, the PAC took in 630,475 dollars, while the 2nd-quarter haul was 444,075 dollars.

Justin Landauer of Knox pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree manslaughter and driving while intoxicated in the June 23rd death of 47-year-old Gary Lehmann, a mechanical engineering professor at Binghamton University.

Landauer also says he was speeding before his pickup truck crossed into the oncoming lane and struck Lehmann's car nearly head-on in Knox, 16 miles west of Albany.

The world's biggest wine company made an unsolicited bid in the same amount for Vincor last month, urging Canada's biggest wine producer to negotiate a friendly takeover by October 14th.

One of Hillary Rodham Clinton's advisers says when it comes to political fundraising, numbers sometimes speak louder than words and Howard Wolfson says Jeanine Pirro's numbers are barely above a whisper.

Wolfson was commenting on reports that the Westchester County District Attorney had raised less than 440,000 dollars by the end of September, while Clinton had raised more than five million dollars.

Last Friday, Pirro received the endorsement of fellow Republican George Pataki, but even with the Governor's backing, Pirro will have a tough time catching up to the funds already banked by her Democratic opponent.

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