Have you all been following the case of the young prosecutor, Jonathan Luna, who was prosecuting these rappers/drug dealers and was viciously murdered. Because the criminals had already wrapped up a ple bargain, seems the police are tending to rule them out as suspects and are now looking into his private life. What a double heartache for his family! Bwoy, me a tell you.

www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/12880.htm

AE: To tell you the truth, my heart bleeds for Haiti. But it seems such a hopeless case! This is a country with such a proud history but they have had no luck with leaders. Father Aristide was the big hope, but nothing seems to have changed. It feels like only outside intervention might be able to put that country on any kind of footing to recovery. But nobody would agree to that, I don't think. Waffi do???

In the meantime: From the NY Post

December 8, 2003 -- Mayor Bloomberg is heading south for the winter.

Hizzoner announced yesterday that he'll take a quick trip to Haiti and Jamaica in mid-January - and he's taking Abner Louima's uncle with him.

"I really am a believer that if I am going to do as much as I can for the people of this city, knowing who they are and where they come from and what they're so proud of is so important and I'm lucky enough to be able to do it," he said during a church service yesterday at the Evangelical Crusade of Fishers of Men Church in Brooklyn, where the Rev. Philius Nicholas preaches. Nicholas is the uncle of Louima, the Haitian immigrant who was sexually tortured by NYPD cops in 1997.

Bloomberg will fly his private plane to Port-au-Prince for the part of the year-long celebration of the bicentennial of Haitian Independence Day, which is Jan. 1. He will also visit a church and a hospital and meet with community and business leaders. Then he'll jet off to Jamaica later that same day.

No exact date was given for the trip - only that it would be on a Sunday in mid-January - and aides did not know which city the mayor would visit in Jamaica.

"On the Haitian flag there's a motto, which if you translate it into English, it says, 'In unity there is strength,' " Bloomberg said. "That's true in Haiti, and that's true here in New York City . . . It is the diversity of this city that gives it its strength."