Mayor Bloomberg, other pols hoping campaign commercials are spot on

(e3media)--Billionaire Mayor Bloomberg's long been flooding the airwaves with his pitches for a third term.

Starting Thursday, the mayor's got some company: The first of the down-ballot candidates - Eric Gioia of Queens - is out of the starting gate with his own ad.

Gioia, a Democratic city councilman running for public advocate, is hitting the airwaves with "Been There," an introductory spot that seeks to convince viewers that he can understand and solve their problems because his own life experiences mirror theirs.

"For every New Yorker who's gone to public schools, who's worked the late shift or worried about making the rent, there's one Democrat for public advocate who's been there, too. Eric Gioia," a narrator says.

Gioia is competing for the Democratic nomination against former Public Advocate Mark Green, Brooklyn City Councilman Bill de Blasio and civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel.

As of his last campaign finance filing, Gioia - who attended elementary and secondary public schools and Catholic high school - had raised more than $2 million, far more than any of his foes.

A Gioia aide said "Been There" will debut with "hundreds" of airings on a variety of cable shows.

"Eric [has] a story that [is] really going to resonate with people, and has done an amazing job raising money that [is] going to give him a chance to tell that story," the aide said.

Gioia needs that chance to build up name recognition: The poll-leading Green has held the job twice, run for many other offices, written books and held down a regular TV pundit gig.

While Gioia may be among the first to go on the small screen, expect plenty more TV, print, radio and Web advertising in the weeks before the Sept. 15 primary.

For some - Democratic mayoral hopeful William Thompson, controller candidate David Yassky and Manhattan district attorney contender Leslie Crocker Snyder - filming's already underway. Controller candidate John Liu goes to air in a matter of weeks.

For the average candidate, "You want to maximize the punch" by waiting until voters are focused on the race - usually right before the election, one politico said.

"None of us quite have the resources that Mike Bloomberg does," he added dryly.

Gunman in Pittsburgh gym massacre, George Sodini, planned shooting for months, his journal reveals

(e3media)--They are the musings of a monster.

The frustrated loner who murdered three women at a suburban Pittsburgh gym before killing himself wrote a vile journal that revealed he planned the massacre for months - and "chickened out" on his first try.

Suicidal suspect George Sodini complained he'd had "no sex since July 1990" and blamed his parents, his siblings - even his preacher - for the fact that "girls and women don't even give me a second look ANYWHERE."

He placed a date of death - Aug. 4 - atop his Web site. He made it clear he didn't care who read his words.

"I will not be embarased [sic], because, well, I will be dead," he wrote in his final entry Friday. "Death lives!"

On Tuesday, Sodini strolled into an LA Fitness gym with four guns in a duffle bag and headed for a room where an aerobics class was underway.

Sodini pulled out two guns, both bought legally. Then he flipped off the lights and started shooting, police said.

Cops said he fired 35 times before turning a .45-caliber revolver on himself.

When it was over, three women were dead, nine others were injured and yet another disturbed gunman had etched his name in blood in the annals of American crime.

"He had no relationship with anyone at the club that we know of," local police Superintendent Charles Moffatt said. "He was hell bent on doing what he did."

Sodini's words confirm that. "Why do this? To young girls?" began his 4,610-word journal. "Just read below."

Sodini's first entry on Nov. 5, 2008, was a racist rant about President Obama and black men. The seeds of slaughter were sown in subsequent entries, where he complained about not having had a girlfriend "since 1984."

"Who knows why," he wrote. "I am not too ugly or too weird."

Sodini dismissed his dad as a "useless sperm donor." He raged against his "useless bully" brother. He called his mother "The Central Boss." He blasted his former pastor.

"This guy teaches (and convinced me) you can commit mass murder then still go to heaven," Sodini wrote.

A software developer for a Pittsburgh law firm, Sodini also ripped a colleague, writing that the "worst people by far are the religious types."

Sodini first tried to commit mass murder at the gym on Jan. 6 but lost his nerve. He wrote about trying to calm himself by drinking or getting high.

"I just need to use common sense, can't drink and drive etc.," he wrote.

Then, on May 18, Sodini wrote that he "actually had a date today" with a woman he met on the bus. And yet, in the same entry, Sodini wrote he was "TOTALLY ALONE."

In his final hours, Sodini added to his site the name of a woman who "had my baby in early 1991." She appears to have died five years ago.

Addressing his readers, Sodini concluded, "Maybe all this will shed insight on why some people just cannot make things happen in their life."

Four dead, including gunman, in gym shooting

(e3media)-- A gunman walked into an LA Fitness gym outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, turned off the lights and fired off 50 rounds, killing three women before killing himself Tuesday evening, police said.

The man didn't speak but was carrying a gym bag with a note inside it. He was found dead in the gym lying on top of one of his guns near a victim, said Charles Moffatt, Allegheny County police superintendent.

At least 10 other people were injured in the barrage of bullets that sent people in the gym ducking for cover, Moffatt said.

A law enforcement source identified the gunman as George Sodini, a 48-year-old gym member.

Moffatt would not release the name of the victims during a Wednesday news conference.

Sodini was a systems analyst in the finance department of K&L Gates, a law firm with an office in Pittsburgh, said Mike Rick, a spokesman for the firm. Sodini had worked for the firm since 1999, Rick said.

Neighbors described Sodini as a bit of a recluse. They said he had stopped talking to neighbors.

The gunman apparently was on a mission, Moffatt said.

"He did what he set out to do, and I think nobody could have stopped him, " he said. Watch whom the shooter may have been targeting »

Moffatt would not confirm a newspaper report that Sodini's ex-girlfriend was one of the women killed in the shooting.

He also did not say what was written on the note that was found in Sodini's gym bag.

Sodini entered the fitness center around 8 p.m. Tuesday and went straight to an aerobics classroom, where he opened fire with multiple handguns, Moffatt said.

The shooting victims arrived at three major hospitals in the area.

A spokeswoman for UPMC Mercy Hospital confirmed five female shooting victims arrived at the facility with multiple gunshot wounds. "All arrived in critical condition," hospital spokeswoman Linda Ross said. "Three of them were upgraded to serious condition overnight."

Allegheny General Hospital received two wounded patients at its trauma center, a spokesman said. Both victims are women and were listed in fair condition early Wednesday.

A St. Clair Hospital spokesman said three shooting victims arrived there Tuesday night; two were in stable condition and one, who was shot in the chest, died at about 8:55 p.m.

Perry Calabro of nearby Bridgeville told CNN he was between racquetball games at the gym when he suddenly heard screaming and multiple gunshots. He said he ran out but didn't see the gunman or others.

Other witnesses told CNN affiliate WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh that the lights went out before they saw flashes in dark, later realizing it was gunfire.

Girl, 15, returns to find family bludgeoned to death

A 15-year-old Australian girl returned from studying abroad to learn that her entire family had been bludgeoned to death in their sleep, in what police on Monday call a targeted attack.

The girl's parents, two young brothers and her aunt died of wounds to the head and upper body late Friday or early Saturday, at home in the Sydney suburb of North Epping, police said.

Police did not find signs of forced entry and nothing was stolen from the house. Authorities think the family was killed in a "personal" attack, a police spokeswoman said.

Media reports said the father ran a convenience store and had given evidence to police about an armored car robbery outside his store earlier this year.

"I don't believe they have reached anything conclusive about the motive," said the spokeswoman, who did not give her name, in keeping with department policy. "They are keeping an open mind."

The 15-year-old returned from a study trip in the Pacific Island territory of New Caledonia on Sunday.

"I can't imagine what this young girl is going through," homicide Commander Geoff Beresford told Fairfax Radio on Monday. "It is certainly going to be a long and caring process for us to deal with her."

The police department said it had set up a task force to investigate the deaths of the family, whose names were not officially released.

A family member called police Saturday morning after discovering the bodies of the 45-year-old man, his 43-year-old wife and his wife's 39-year-old sister-in-law.

Manhattan City Councilman Miguel Martinez admits he stole tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars

Manhattan City Councilman Miguel Martinez

admitted Thursday he stole tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars from children's arts and low-income housing programs funded with a shadowy council slush fund.

The two-termer became the first council member to fall in a year-old investigation of misuse of the millions of taxpayer dollars the council doles out to pet projects.

In Manhattan Federal Court, Martinez admitted he had siphoned off $106,000 in public funds through several ruses, using fake invoices, shell corporations and bogus names on bank accounts.

"I received the monies as a direct result of the conspiracy," he said.

Martinez - who resigned suddenly on Tuesday - pleaded guilty to three federal conspiracy counts, including two involving mail fraud and one involving money laundering.

Under a plea agreement, he faces between 57 and 71 months in prison. He was released on $250,000 bond.

The disgraced pol admitted he was able to carry out the scheme "because I was a New York City councilman."

The plea follows a city Department of Investigation inquiry that followed the Daily News' revelation in April 2008 that Martinez was funneling money to a non-profit his sister helped run.

Today he admitted $40,000 of his ill-gotten gains came from that group, the Upper Manhattan Council Assisting Neighbors (U-CAN). In the last two years, Martinez has sponsored nearly $800,000 in public funds for U-CAN.

In 2004 and 2005 he launched a scheme to steal money through U-CAN's involvement in an affordable housing project in the Bronx.

At Martinez's directed the developer paid U-CAN $96,000 and received millions of dollars in tax credits in return. A cooperator who works for U-CAN funneled $40,000 of that through various bank accounts to Martinez.

The councilman even used fake names to conceal his corruption, controlling one account under the name Samajulis.

Martinez also stole from children, pocketing $15,000 in taxpayer money meant to tutor children in the arts through a non-profit called the Washington Heights Arts Center.

The center has received $163,000 between 2003 and 2005 from the council - the bulk of its funding.

And he even padded his council expense reimbursements. From October 2002 through May 2008, he regularly submitted fake invoices to collect $51,000 in bogus payments.

In one case, he funneled money to a shell corporation, the Greater Manhattan Group, he claimed was performing services for his office such as "media outreach" and "constituent workshops."

The long-running probe of the council's slush fund by DOI and Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office dates back to late 2007.

Two aides to Brooklyn Councilman Kendall Stewart have pleaded guilty to stealing thousands of dollars from a council-subsidized non-profit. Stewart has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged.

Bronx Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo's nephew was arrested last month on charges of misusing funds via the South Bronx Community Council, a non-profit Arroyo helps fund. She has declined to comment on the ongoing probe.

'Wire' actor Jamie Hector denies link to fatal gunplay at wife's Brooklyn baby shower

His HBO character might have a taste for violence but a star of the crime show "The Wire" said he had nothing to do with gunplay that erupted outside his wife's baby shower.

One man was killed and two others wounded in a gunfight outside the Brooklyn bash hosted by actor Jamie Hector - who played drug dealer Marlo Stanfield on the former hit show.

Hector said in a statement released Monday that his " heartfelt prayers and condolences" went out to the victims' families.

"I would like to make it clear that the shooting incident [Sunday] did not take place at my home, nor did it involve me, my wife, nor any of the invited guests," the actor said.

Local residents, though said two of the young men injured in Sunday's 1:20 a.m. East Flatbush shootout had attended the baby shower.

Linton Williams, 17, and Walter Parker, 22, had just left the party, neighbors said, when a car drove up and opened fire on the men. Williams died at the scene. Parker survived with a leg wound.Alison Gendar