THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Megan’s Law allows a neighborhood to check if a convicted sex offender is living in their midst. The registry lists 582 convicted offenders living in Queens. "Would you want to know when a convicted sex offender moves into your neighborhood?" To express your opinion, CALL (212) 980-3434. ENTER question number 343 PRESS 1 for YES, I want to know PRESS 2 for NO, it's their business. They have served their time.

Tom Cruise,
West Nile
& You

So what does the West Nile virus and
Tom Cruise have in common? Both have gripped residents of Queens this summer through a bizarre connection discovered by QConfidential.

Chimera Bronze, Vth century B.C.

With the arrival of summer, many Queens residents have headed to the movies to check out Cruise’s latest flick, Mission: Impossible 2 (and escape the mosquitoes carrying the
dreaded West Nile).

The plot is simple enough. A powerful drug company decides to release a virus of its own creation and make millions selling the only vaccine available. The disease is named after the Chimera – a mythical beast with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent which wreaked havoc on the world.

However, the movie mirrors some of the ongoing problems Queens residents are experiencing with the West Nile virus.

With the fear of West Nile gripping the borough this summer, the National Institutes of Health has recently awarded a Massachusetts biotech firm $3 million to create a vaccine. Ora Vax Inc. of Cambridge, a subsidiary of Britain’s Peptide Therapeutics Group, is developing a vaccine named ChimeriVax for the Chimera.

So let’s recap: Big biotech companies earning millions to create a vaccine for a virus that’s gripping the local populace with fear.

Hmmm . . . maybe Dante wasn’t so far off when he wrote that art often imitates life. Or is it the other way around?

Jenkins Does It Again!

Cynthia Jenkins, candidate wannabe for the State Senate, was thrown off the ballot for petition fraud. This was not the first time she had failed to properly collect signatures, previously losing her a ballot place and an Assembly seat.

Jenkins called our office last week, just to say that she will still find a way to be on the ballot come November. According to the cantankerous former Assemblywoman, there is no stopping
her. "I am not going anywhere," said Jenkins.

"Besides, mine are not the only petitions with
bad signatures; nobody’s petitions are without fault. But they just like to spend time going
over mine."

Jenkins also said she will always run, even
if it's just to be a thorn in the sides of other candidates.

"I’m having too much fun," she says. "I have good health, a good man I’ve been married to for 51 years, and I’m gonna keep on doing this!"

Hmmmm!

Keep doing what, Cynthia? Getting knocked off the ballot?

Lessons Of Flight 800

You read it here, first.

Officials at the National Transportation Safety Board (NSTB) are making final preparations on the long-awaited report outlining the "official" cause of the crash of TWA Flight 800. The jumbo jet burst into flames mid-air moments after leaving JFK International Airport on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 people on board.

Insiders tell QConfidential that the report blames the crash on an explosion in the jet’s near-empty central fuel tank – but that’s as far as it goes. Rather than point to one source for a spark that ignited vapors in the tank, the report offers several possibilities, insiders said. Among them are cracked or peeling wires inside the Boeing 747 central fuel tank. Sources said the report (the size of a telephone book) indicates that the wiring sparked and blew up the plane.

Sound familiar?

Perhaps that’s because we reported the faulty wiring scenario on the Tribune’s NYConfidential page in December, 1996. We identified it as the most likely culprit in the explosion, and even went a step further, relating some history of the wiring.

Seems the feds found the wiring problem in military aircraft back in the 1960s, and notified the airline industry that they had to change the wiring or pump inert gases into the central fuel tank to prevent a spark from igniting vapors inside the tank. They listened, but did nothing.

The industry was warned again after a similar crash of a 747 over Thailand in 1981. Again, they failed to act.

Why?

Because, according to an airline industry spokesperson, if the cost of the modification is greater than the value of life on board an aircraft, it is financially unfeasible to make the modification.

So, we’re telling you again – because the anticipated report does not mention why the modifications were never made that might have saved the 230 people on board the doomed Flight 800 – and we think you have a right to know.

Online Campaigning?

Multi-lingual district? Why would Assembly candidate Patrick O'Malley send out press releases with his campaign web site address if all you get is "Under Construction" in a variety of tongues?

From The Ashes

Arthur Ashe Day (Saturday, August 26) in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park will once again set the star watchers focusing on Queens. Expected to make appearances at this year’s performance are soulful R&B-pop quartet 98 Degrees, 21-year-old "Party of Five" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" actor Jennifer Love Hewitt, New York native and Tennis Pro-turned funny man Chevy Chase, Massapequa-born Alec Baldwin, CBS This Morning co-anchor Mark McEwen and international supermodel/VH1 VJ Roshumba.

Beyond the usual tennis superstars, the Ashe Day festivities are also expected to draw athletes such as former Knick Trent Tucker, Orlando Magic’s Grant Hill, Mets’ Edgardo Alfonzo, NJ Devils Scott Gomez & Petr Sykora, and Ranger Manny Malholtra.

If your fun is in trivia and not the stars, try this one for size – the two stadiums that will host this year’s world-class U.S. Open and bring the eyes of the tennis world to Queens are both named after outstanding African-Americans. The older stadium – Louis Armstrong Stadium – bears the name of legendary Corona, Queens trumpet player now buried in Flushing Cemetery. The newer stadium – Arthur Ashe Stadium – honors the memory of the former military man who turned into the first African-American man to win a major tennis tournament and was lost tragically after receiving a blood transfusion tainted with HIV.

Confidentially New York . . .

E-MAIL your items to: conf@queenspress.com