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A long-term diabetic who had been sick much of last year, Ventura nonetheless had remained active in the weeks before his death. He apparently had a heart attack while addressing a men's educational forum at Church of the Resurrection in Brooklyn. Ventura, who studied forensic behavioral science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, served in the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division as a flight medic instructor. He was an adjunct instructor at John Jay, as well as at New York University and several other colleges. In his clergy roles, Ventura served churches in Brooklyn and Queens, and was involved in prison ministry at Rikers Island. He is survived by his wife, Jennifer, of Buffalo; a son, Elijah; brothers Peter and Charles, both of Brooklyn; sisters Margaret Ventura, of Belize, and Elizabeth Ventura, of Brooklyn.

Ending a controversy, T-shirt-clad revelers will be allowed to participate in the parade of costumed bands - the highlight and culmination of the massive carnival - that takes place along Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights on Labor Day. Last month, Haitian and Jamaican nationals denounced as discrimination a proposal by the carnival organizers, the West Indian American Day Carnival Association, to bar from the parade revelers in halter tops and T-shirts who cavort behind music trucks. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who allocated a first-time city funding of $150,000 to the carnival's nearly $1-million budget, will be one of four grand marshals leading the parade, which steps off at 11 a.m. from Buffalo Avenue and Eastern Parkway in Brownsville.

Haitian and Jamaican nationals are calling discriminatory a ban on revelers cavorting in T-shirts rather than costumes at this year's West Indian American Day Parade. \"This is like anti-Haitian and anti-Jamaican because we are coming out in large numbers,\" said Garry Pierre-Pierre, publisher of The Haitian Times, a Brooklyn-based newspaper. Haitian groups are still expected to dance in bright yellow T- shirts behind \"a nice decorative float and a music float,\" Pierre- Pierre said. \"Costumes are a good idea, but what we do on the parkway is not just about costumes, it's about the music,\" Pierre- Pierre said.

Activists who fought to have parts of Fort Totten turned into parkland are uneasy about a government proposal to have it converted into an Armed Forces Reserve Center. Under a Defense Department proposal to close military bases around the country, the Army Reserve 77th Regional Readiness Command stationed at Fort Totten would be transferred to Fort Dix, N.J. The 75 military personnel and 74 civilians in the unit would be replaced by an equal number from the Carpenter Reserve Center in Poughkeepsie. Ray Beckerman, president of the Fort Totten Conservancy, a watchdog group, voiced fears Friday that the parkland could revert to military use if the new proposal goes through.

The Rev. [Martin Carter], 35, former director of the Office of Black Ministry in the Brooklyn Diocese and pastor of Our Lady of Victory Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which features statuary of a black Christ and black saints - said though many are happy over the prospect of the first black pope since the early church, finding a pope who can unify the church and reach out to the greater world is the most important thing. \"I'm not willing to speculate on this,\" said the Rev. Louis Uzoh, a priest in the Rosedale-based Nigerian postulate of the Diocese of Brooklyn. \"We leave it to God and the Holy Spirit and the cardinals in Rome. All we have to do is pray for our holy father, the pope, and let him rest in peace.\"

It's the Gateway National Recreation Area, and that was the finding of an online poll conducted in December for the National Parks Conservation Association, a 320,000-member, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. Adi Shamir, director of Van Alen Institute in Manhattan, a nonprofit architectural organization that is managing the competition online at vanalen.org/gateway, said Gateway \"has not been properly funded so it could live up to its name.\" \"Gateway was named Gateway because it was supposed to be the entryway to the National Park system for people not able to get out to the other national parks,\" he said.

In traditional Jewish funerals, earth from Israel is placed in the coffin, according to Rabbi Elchonon Zohn, director of the Jewish Burial Society of the Rabbinical Council of Queens in Flushing. \"This has been around for centuries,\" Zohn said. \"It is a great merit to be buried in the land of Israel. If we are not to be buried there, we will use some earth from Israel to be buried with the person.\" His 16-ounce, $20 pouches of dirt are \"100 percent genuine Israeli\" sacred and fertile soil, [Steven Friedman] said. And he hopes to also attract as customers Christians and others for whom Israel is also considered the Holy Land because of its biblical significance.