Morning Headlines | Must-Reads from the WNYC News Hub

POLITICS
Larger Donations Swell Cuomo Campaign Account (NYT)
Danny Hakim reports: “Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s prodigious fund-raising machine continued to focus on big donors over the last six months, helping to increase his campaign treasury to $19.3 million. Nearly two-thirds of the individual contributors to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign during that period gave $1,000 or more, according to an analysis of his latest campaign finance filings. By contrast, about a fifth of his donors gave less than $250.”

POLITICS
Liu Campaign Spending Big on Legal Fees (WSJ)
Michael Howard Saul reports: “City Comptroller John Liu, a potential mayoral contender, devoted more than half of his campaign's expenses—representing nearly a third of his donors' contributions—to legal fees during the six-month fundraising period that recently ended, records released Monday showed. Mr. Liu, the city's chief financial officer and the first Asian-American to hold citywide office, filed a disclosure report with the city's Campaign Finance Board that showed he spent nearly $180,000 on legal fees in connection with the ongoing federal probe into his fundraising operation.”

POLITICS
Pol’s Sex Ads Rub DA Wrong Way (NYPost)
Beth Defalco reports: “Queens Assembly candidate Myungsuk Lee, whose Korean-language newspaper runs ads from “massage parlors,” some of which also peddle prostitution, could be in some legal trouble. Queens DA Richard Brown says he’s meeting with his vice squad “on this matter” after The Post yesterday exposed the ads and the massage parlors. Offices for Lee’s newspaper, the Korean American Times, and his campaign are located in the same building where several of the massage parlors that advertise in his pages are based — and where a Post reporter was solicited for sex when he paid for a massage last week.”

POLITICS
Despite Cuomo’s Vow of Sunlight, a Bid to Keep Aides’ E-Mail in the Dark (NYT)
Thomas Kaplan reports: “When he ran for office, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo vowed to operate the most transparent administration in New York State history. And his aides argue that he has: they say that their communication methods differ little from those of other elected officials, and that Mr. Cuomo will preserve more documents than any of his recent predecessors. But while Mr. Cuomo has taken steps to improve citizen access to the State Capitol, literally as well as digitally, he and his aides have also set up an executive chamber that prides itself on leaving few footprints.”

POLITICS
Panel Discounts Ethics Charges Against Staten Island’s Grimm (Staten Island Advance)
Tom Wrobleski reports: “The non-partisan House Office of Congressional Ethics has recommended that charges of illegal fundraising against Rep. Michael Grimm be dismissed, the Advance has learned. But that doesn't mean Grimm's legal problems are over: The FBI and the Federal Election Commission continue to pursue their own investigations.”

POLITICS
Second Booker Communications Director Steps Down (WSJ)
Heather Haddon reports: “The acting communications director for Newark Mayor Cory Booker is stepping down at the end of the month, the second top press staffer to leave his office in less than two months.
The office is now engaged in a national search for a new communications director after the series of departures.”

POLITICS
Restaurateurs Back Their Own for City Council (WSJ)
Lisa Fickenscher reports: “The restaurant industry is rallying behind one of its own to be elected to City Council in 2013. Ken Biberaj, a vice president at The Russian Tea Room, who is running for Councilwoman Gale Brewer's seat on the Upper West Side, raised more than $20,000 from over 35 donors who are involved in the restaurant business. Ms. Brewer is prevented from running for her seat next year by term limits.”

ENERGY
Christie Promises to Sign Bill to Prop Up Solar Sector (NJ Spotlight)
Tom Johnson reports: “Gov. Chris Christie said yesterday he plans to sign a bill aimed at propping up New Jersey’s solar sector, one of the few growing segments of the state’s economy.”

EMPLOYMENT
Window Washers Enjoy Surge in Demand (NYT)
Elizabeth Harris reports: “[G]lass buildings must be washed about twice a year, lest they look as if they were covered with giant smudged thumbprints, and the windows on a towering residential building, 50, 60, even 70 stories above the ground, are far too dangerous for the casual cleaner. So as recent architectural trends around New York City have spawned apartment buildings both taller and glassier than in years past, at least one profession has been made very happy.”

HOUSING
Owner of Collapsed Building Has Several Run Down Properties, Pol Charges (DNAinfo)
Paul DeBenedetto reports: “Mousa Khalil's building at 552 Ovington Ave. partly fell down Monday for the second time in a month. The surrounding buildings were evacuated with no injuries. But residents and a local politician fear the problem is much bigger than just one building. Councilman Vincent Gentile and neighbors on Ovington Avenue say landlord Mousa Khalil, 45, has amassed as many as 30 buildings in the neighborhood — and say many of them are in rundown conditions.”

CRIME
Another MTA Bus Driver Attacked in Bronx (NYDN)
Barry Paddock and Pete Donahue report: “A rider pummeled a Bronx bus driver, breaking his nose in a random attack Monday two days after a woman was charged with smacking a Brooklyn bus driver with a cane. Fernando Lopez, 31, was arrested on felony assault charges in the noontime attack on Bx10 driver Jose Rondon at W. 231st St. and Broadway. Rondon said the assault came completely without warning as he was discharging passengers.”

CRIME
‘Killer’ Yanked off JFK Jet (NYPost)
Jamie Schram and Philip Messing report: “The man was described by the source as a ‘hard-core gang member’ with ‘tattoos on his hands and fingers.’ He’s being eyed for the slayings of Xiao L. Li, 70, and Yong Hua Chen, 36, who were found dead inside a burning Henry Street apartment on June 29. Both women had been shot in the head before the apartment was set ablaze.”

RELIGION
A Rare Buddhist Ceremony in Queens, Paid for With a Life’s Savings (NYT)
Sarah Maslin Nir reports: “Dayangji Sherpa lives with her 25-year-old daughter, Nima, in a one-bedroom apartment in Woodside, Queens, where they sleep in the same bed to save money. But on Sunday, they stood on a dais before an altar of glittering gold Buddhas while some of the highest-ranked Buddhist monks from around the region bowed their heads to the women and showered them with benedictions. It was the culmination of a rare ceremony where every single text of their Buddhist canon is read from morning until night by monks, who are fed, housed and paid by a sponsor until all 108 books are read. It took more than a month. And it cost more than $50,000 — the elder Ms. Sherpa’s life savings.”