All Trought about politic at Ukraine

If you're one drink or toke over the Westchester County line, or drag racing, you could wind up kissing your car goodbye.

Adding to the obvious reasons not to, the county's legislature is poised to pass a new vehicle forfeiture law that would let cops seize the vehicles of drivers convicted of driving while impaired or drag racing on Westchester roads.

"The prospect of forfeiting one's car, often an expensive material possession, will cause people to think twice before getting drunk and getting behind the wheel," said Bill Ryan, chairman of the Westchester County Board of Legislators.

The bill gained momentum following recent high-profile drunken-driving tragedies like the July ... Read more »

Sen. Edward Kennedy, the indefatigable liberal icon whose 47 years in the Senate were often overshadowed by his twin roles as keeper and casualty of the Camelot myth, died late Tuesday night after a long battle with brain cancer.

He was 77, and passed away at the famed Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass.

"We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever," the heartbroken Kennedy family said in a statement.

"We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progr ... Read more »

The consultant behind the city's troubled Snapple deal stands to make big bucks if its new schools contract is approved tonight.

Education officials want the marketing firm Octagon to find new corporate sponsors for kids' sports - despite the Snapple deal Octagon brokered that resulted in $5 million less than guaranteed.

"The Snapple and Octagon deals were bad the first time," Controller William Thompson wrote in a letter urging Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) members to reject the contract.

"We teach our kids to learn from their mistakes; the DOE should learn from its mistakes."

Tonight's PEP meeting is the first since the changes to the mayoral control law required a vote on contracts over $1 ... Read more »

City controller hopeful John Liu insisted during a recent debate that he's refunded every major contribution from donors linked to groups he's given taxpayer dollars as a city councilman. But it's simply not true.

The Daily News counted at least 10 people on the boards of groups to which he steered money who have lavished him with donations.

Among them:

- Two board members of Asian Americans for Equality, which got $50,000 from Liu's portion of the City Council slush fund this year. Banking executive Fred Hung gave the maximum $4,950.

- Two board members of the Flushing Business Improvement District gave Liu $4,950 and a third, restaurateur ... Read more »

OUTPOST SPUR, Afghanistan - Eight soldiers based in upstate Fort Drum are perched atop a 7,000-foot mountain - and they are constantly on high alert.

This is one of Afghanistan's tiniest outposts, high in the rugged peaks of Logar Province, about 100 miles south of Kabul.

Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division's 3rd Brigade Combat Team, along with an Afghan interpreter, spend 10 days at a time here living in a small metal container airlifted in by helicopter.

They sleep on cramped bunk beds, eat ... Read more »

PARIS - France plans to include happiness and well-being in its measurements of economic progress, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday, beckoning other countries to join in a "revolution" in the way growth is tracked after the global economic crisis.

France will adapt its statistical toolbox as recommended by two Nobel economists whom Sarkozy commissioned 18 months ago to analyze new ways of measuring social progress, he said in a speech in Paris on the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers.< ... Read more »

CAIRO — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden described President Barack Obama as "powerless" to stop the war in Afghanistan, and Americans' inability to grasp why the Sept. 11 attacks occurred has "cost you a lot without any result whatsoever."

The remarks by the terrorist leader were released two days after the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that he ordered. Bin Laden typically addresses the American people in a message timed around the Sept. 11 anniversary.

Bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding in the mountainous region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, said current White House officials are merely following the strategy of former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney to "promote the previous policies of fear to market the interest of big companies."

"Rather than fighting to liberate Iraq — as Bush clai ... Read more »

Mayor Bloomberg tried to distance himself Sunday from a hit his campaign launched at Controller William Thompson, his likely mayoral opponent.

Bloomberg campaign staffers handed out leaflets ripping into Thompson's record - at a news conference the controller held to spotlight school overcrowding.

Afterward, Bloomberg dodged questions about the tactic.

"You'll have to ask the campaign about that," he said, referring to his own campaign.

When pressed to comment about the leaflet - which challenges Thompson's record as president of the Board of Ed from 1996 to 2001 - the mayor repeatedly refused.

Later yes ... Read more »

WASHINGTON - Rep. Joe Wilson is sorry for calling President Obama a liar - sort of. And he's done apologizing.

The once-obscure South Carolina Republican was more defiant than penitent on Sunday, explaining he was "provoked" when Obama asserted in last Wednesday's primetime speech that his health care reform plan excludes illegal aliens from benefits.

"I believe in the truth," Wilson told "Fox News Sunday" in a rambling appearance. "What I heard was not true." Republicans contend that House bills barring benefits for illegal immigrants have no enforcement teeth.

House Democrats want Wilson to apologize on the chamber's floor this week. His refusal means they will likely introduce a "resolution of disapproval" rebuking his "You lie!" outburst, which even GOP leaders have said was way out of line.

Republican elders pressured Wilson into issuing a wri ... Read more »

The first round of swine flu vaccines could be ready as early as the first week of October, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday.

"We're on track to have an ample supply rolling by the middle of October. But we may have some early vaccine as early as the first full week in October. We'll get the vaccine out the door as fast as it rolls off the production line," she told ABC's "This Week."

Sebelius said she is confident the vaccine will be available early enough to beat the peak of the expected flu season, and that early doses are intended for health care workers and other high-priority groups, such as pregnant women and children with chronic illness.

Researchers last week discovered that one dose of the vaccine instead of two could be ... Read more »

WASHINGTON - Tens of thousands of people thronged to the National Mall Saturday, propelled by the belief that President Obama will do evil, deny care to the elderly and destroy the Constitution and country.

"It's not that he's evil," said Suzanne Mullen, of Fayetteville, N.C., "but the outcome will be."

"What he's doing to the budget, and taking over health care, is ... Read more »

Across from the World Trade Center site there were more flowers than usual outside Engine 10, Ladder 10, the legendary New York firehouse known as Ten House. There are always more flowers, and signs, and photographs and flags, when there is another anniversary of Sept. 11.

So the FDNY Memorial Wall, stretching down Greenwich St., was alive with color and handmade art yesterday morning. A "Flag of Heroes," listing the names of emergency service personnel who gave their lives eight years ago, hung outside Ten House at the corner of Greenwich and Liberty.

There was a wreath for the < ... Read more »

HOUSTON - The guy named Vinny with the Vandyke and Brooklyn accent looked out of place in the leafy Texas neighborhood of gated mansions.

That's because this Vinny was Vincent Palermo - onetime Mafia star turned FBI informant - a guy who managed to vanish from the world of scungilli and Sinatra to recreate himself 1,400 miles away in the land of BBQ and the Texas two-step.

Palermo, with a new name, lives under a cloak created by the feds after testifying against the DeCavalcante clan, the Jersey-based Mafia family w ... Read more »

DALLAS — Agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, the father of the "green revolution" who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in combating world hunger and saving hundreds of millions of lives, died Saturday in Texas, a Texas A&M University spokeswoman said. He was 95.

Borlaug died just before 11 p.m. Saturday at his home in Dallas from complications of cancer, said school spokeswoman Kathleen Phillips. Phillips said Borlaug's granddaughter told her about h ... Read more »

BAGHDAD — Gunmen broke into the home of a Kurdish policeman in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk early Sunday, killing his wife and three children execution-style with shots to the head as they slept, authorities said.

Omed Abdul-Hamid had already left for work when the gunmen burst into the house and shot the woman and children as they lay sleeping together on a mattress on the floor, police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir said.

In vivid crime scene photos released by police, a 2-year-old boy could be seen lying on his back to the right of his mother with his head on a pillow, his face caked with blood where he had been shot. The boy's two sisters, ages 6 and 9, lay to the left of their mother; all three were face down and shot in the back of the head.

... Read more »

The outspoken Mayor of London - who's in town to lure New Yorkers to his home turf - joined the fray Sunday over the Lockerbie bomber's controversial release, calling it a "betrayal" and "completely crazy."

"Had I been in charge, I would not have released him. It seems to be completely crazy," said Boris Johnson.

"It's a complete mockery of justice. It's a betrayal of the victims of the Lockerbie Bomber."

Johnson's remarks come as the U.S.-British "special relationship" remains in the deep freeze over last month's decision by Scottish ministers to free convicted ... Read more »

OUTPOST SPUR, Afghanistan - Eight soldiers based in upstate Fort Drum are perched atop a 7,000-foot mountain - and they are constantly on high alert.

This is one of Afghanistan's tiniest outposts, high in the rugged peaks of Logar Province, about 100 miles south of Kabul.

Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division's 3rd Brigade Combat Team, along with an Afghan interpreter, spend 10 days at a time here living in a small metal container airlifted in by helicopter.

They sleep on cramped bunk ... Read more »