newsmakers

August 16, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

newsmakers

Cameron, group to plant 1M trees

WASHINGTON

Earth Day Network is enlisting groups in 15 countries to plant 1 million trees this year with “Avatar” movie director James Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox.

The Washington-based group is announced its plans Sunday. Cameron planted the first of 1 million trees in April in Brazil.

In the U.S., trees will be planted in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles to improve air quality and urban animal habitats.

Tree plantings in such places as Mexico, Canada and Spain will be focused on reforestation of depleted areas.

Other efforts tie in with both development and environmental improvements. In Haiti, the U.S.-based Trees for the Future will work with farmers to plant about 500,000 fruit trees and other native species to provide economic benefits. That makes Haiti one of the largest sites.

DA who prosecuted Long Island Lolita dies

ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y.

Former Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon, who in more than three decades on the job prosecuted Long Island Lolita Amy Fisher and the gunman in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road massacre, has died.

Dillon died Sunday from lymphoma at his home in Rockville Centre, just east of New York City, longtime spokesman Ed Grilli said. He was 76.

Grilli said Dillon worked as a top-notch prosecutor, not as a politician, resulting in one of the highest felony-conviction rates in the country.

Dillon successfully prosecuted Fisher after she, as a 16-year-old, shot her lover’s wife in the head in 1992.

Fisher, nicknamed the Long Island Lolita by tabloid newspapers, visited the home of her much-older lover, car mechanic Joey Buttafuoco, and shot Mary Jo Buttafuoco as she answered the door. She served seven years in prison for the attack.

Joey Buttafuoco, also prosecuted by Dillon, pleaded guilty to statutory rape and served four months in jail. His wife survived the shooting but was partially paralyzed. The couple remained together after the Fisher affair but divorced in 2003 after moving to California.

Dillon also successfully prosecuted Colin Ferguson after he randomly sprayed a crowded commuter train car with bullets from a 9mm semiautomatic gun Dec. 7, 1993, killing six people and injuring 19. He’s serving six-consecutive life terms for the massacre.

Dillon first was elected to the district attorney position in 1974 as a Democrat. The former policeman and federal prosecutor, a staunch Catholic, became a Republican in the late 1980s, when the Democrats ramped up their support for a woman’s right to an abortion.

Dillon left office after losing to Kathleen Rice in 2005.

Obamas wrap up trip to Florida beach

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla.

President Barack Obama and his family cruised the waters off their Florida Panhandle hotel Sunday, offering a portrait of a family on vacation to boost a region struggling with the economic damage wrought by the nation’s worst oil spill.

The Obamas boarded the 50-foot Bay Point Lady on a rainy, overcast morning, the second and final day of a weekend getaway during which the president assured residents that his administration would not forget the region even after oil stopped spewing from a broken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. The family returned to Washington on Sunday afternoon.

With first lady Michelle Obama and 9-year-old daughter Sasha beside him, Obama leaned over the bow of the Bay Point Lady to watch porpoises as their boat cut through the calm waters of St. Andrews Bay. Back on shore, the family stopped for treats — mint-chocolate-chip ice cream for the president, Oreo ice cream for Sasha, and a hot-fudge sundae without whipped cream for the first lady — before heading home.

The Obamas’ 12-year-old daughter, Malia, didn’t make the trip because she’s away at summer camp.

Associated Press