Queenswide

The bill mandating that companies in the city with more than 15 employees eventually provide paid sick leave is awaiting a promised mayoral veto — and an expected override of that veto by the City Council.

The bill passed last Wednesday 45-3, more than enough to nullify the veto promised by Mayor Bloomberg, if members stick to their positions.

Dermatologists and skin cancer experts, especially before and during the summer months, write articles and give speeches on the harmful effects of sun exposure on the skin: the risk for melanoma and other skin cancers and premature aging of the skin. Despite all efforts, beaches are filled with people tanning in the midday sun, streets are filled with people with a pink-red burnt or bronze skin and tanning salons are filled with clients. Why can’t we deliver our message? Tanning is harmful to our skin just like smoking is harmful to our lungs.

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. One person dies every hour from melanoma in the U.S. There are more than 76,250 estimated new cases of invasive melanoma in the U.S. annually resulting in over 9,180 deaths per year. It is the fifth and sixth most common cancer in men and women, respectively. If melanoma is diagnosed early, it is typically cured with surgery. However, advanced disease has a poor outcome and can lead to death.

The last section of the spire atop 1 World Trade Center — the building once officially known, and still often referred to, as the Freedom Tower — was installed last Friday, marking the building’s official height of 1,776 feet, which pays homage to the year the Declaration of Independence was signed. The top of the mast was placed just after 8 a.m. Friday morning.

The $3.8 billion skyscraper can be seen from nearly every neighborhood in Queens. It returns the title of the city’s tallest to Lower Manhattan for the first time since 9/11 and stands next to the former site of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, which were destroyed that day by terrorists, killing 2,606 people, including more than 200 from Queens.

• Breaking

The New York Post is reporting that former State Senator Shirley Huntley has been sentenced to one year and one day in prison in federal court in Brooklyn on a corruption-related charge.

Huntley, 74, pleaded guilty in February to wire fraud in connection with the embezzlement of nearly $88,000 from a phony nonprofit organization.

• Featured

The United States Tennis Association, three Queens elected officials and some parks advocates this week lauded a deal with the city that would have the nonprofit “replace” land it wants so it can expand its National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

The accord reached between the nonprofit and city represents a unique bargain: according to a press release sent by the USTA, it replaces the 0.68 acre of parkland needed for its expansion with 1.56 acres of what looks like, is used as and mapped as existing parkland already within Flushing Meadows.

• Featured

City Comptroller John Liu continues to run for mayor as if confident he can overcome the embarrassment of a campaign finance scandal that could send one of his top former aides and a contributor to prison for decades.

How much impact the case will have is an open question. But according to two political science experts in Queens, the Liu campaign faces multiple challenges arising from the convictions last week of Jia “Jenny” Hou, his former treasurer, and Xing Wu “Oliver” Pan, a fundraising “bundler,” who secured donations from other parties that then went to the campaign.

Joel Miele Sr., who served as chairman of Community Board 10 for 11 years and later was commissioner of the Department of Buildings and the Department of Environmental Protection under Mayor Giuliani, passed away Monday at the age of 78.

Miele, a resident of Old Howard Beach, was also a well-known engineer in private practice with a firm on Furmanville Avenue in Middle Village. His partner in that firm was Benjamin Leonardi, who served as chairman of Community Board 9 in the 1990s.

A group that began seven months ago with a few people venting their complaints while eating at the Terrace Diner has evolved into a neighborhood movement, a force dedicated to making the Federal Aviation Administration and the Port Authority work for the residents of Northeast Queens to alleviate the noise and pollution from planes flying out of LaGuardia airport.

Approximately 200 people with similar frustrations attended the first Queens Quiet Skies community education meting on May 2 in the Bayside High School auditorium. While planes rumbled overhead, leaders and experts presented residents with legal and technical information and encouraged them to get more involved.

Powerful state Sen. John Sampson (D-Brooklyn) allegedly contacted an employee of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn in an effort to identify potential witnesses in a mortgage fraud investigation, and to determine if Sampson himself was being investigated.

A nine-count indictment of Sampson unsealed on Monday alleges the senator told an associate who was a defendant in the case that if witnesses could be identified, Sampson could arrange to “take them out.”