An analysis by the Public Advocate may indicate that racial profiling does not contribute to effective stops.

The report looked at public NYPD data on stop-and-frisk from 2012, and found that weapons and guns were more often found on white New Yorkers stopped than African-American or Latino New Yorkers.

The NYPD discovered a weapon in one of every 49 stops of white NewYorkers. They only found weapons on one of every 71 Latinos stopped and one in everything 93 African-Americans stopped, the Public Advocate’s office said.

Contraband, including marijuana, was also found more frequently on white New Yorkers stopped than on minorities stopped. One out of every 43 white people stopped had illegal substances on them, while illegal items were found on one out of every 57 Latinos and every 61 African-Americans.

The director of policy at the Bronx Defenders, a holistic public defense organization, said the data aligns with “what we see representing clients every day in the Bronx.”

“Despite promised reforms a year ago, black and Latino New Yorkers—especially young people—are still stopped every day based on nothing more than the color of their skin or the neighborhood they hang out in,” said director Kate Rubin.

The report acknowledges an overall reduction in stops but found that the skewed proportion of stops of minorities is still the same. Minorities constitute 84 percent of all stops, but make up only 54 percent of all New Yorkers.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio said there is “an ugly truth in these numbers” and said the inefficacy of the system puts communities and police officers in danger.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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The NYPD will increase police presence in the Manhattan neighborhoods where five anti-gay hate crimes have occurred in the past few weeks, officials announced on Monday.

Following a rally for 32-year-old Marc Carson who was shot and killed in the West Village this past weekend, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced an action plan to keep the city safe for all New Yorkers, which includes beefing up police patrol.

The NYPD has agreed to increase its presence in LGBT neighborhoods, including setting up temporary headquarter command vehicles, according to Quinn’s office. Neighborhoods include the West Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen.

The deployments will continue through at least the end of June, which is LGBT Pride Month.

Carson was killed near the corner of West Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue late Friday night by alleged gunman Elliott Morales, 33, who shouted anti-gay slurs at Carson before shooting him to death.

Another recent anti-gay attack occurred earlier this month near Madison Square Garden when two men were attacked and injured by a group of men hurling anti-gay remarks at them.

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A Queens teacher who was arrested in April for having sex with a 14-year-old girl has pleaded guilty to statutory rape charges.

Daniel Reilly, 36, pleaded guilty to second-degree rape in Queens Criminal Court on Monday.

Reilly, who was a sixth-grade English teacher at I.S. 237 in Flushing, admitted to having sexual intercourse with a former student at his Forest Hills residence in April, according to the Queens District Attorney’s office.

Sentencing is scheduled for July 22. Reilly will be sentenced to six months in jail and ten years’ probation. He must also give up his teaching license and register on the state’s sex offender registry.

The relationship between Reilly and the girl was discovered by the girl’s sister who found sexually explicit text messages from the former teacher on her sister’s phone. The two had an ongoing sexual relationship for seven months, the New York Post reports.

Reilly is married and has a 1-year-old daughter, according to the Post.

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As Vito Lopez resigned from the state Assembly amid a sexual harassment scandal on Monday, and as Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver faced mounting criticism for the way he handled that scandal, Silver proposed sweeping changes to the Assembly’s sexual harassment policies.

Silver announced plans to create an independent investigator to look into all sexual harassment complaints reported to the Assembly, the New York Post reports.

Secret settlements–like the one Silver approved for two of Lopez’ accusers last year–would be banned, according to the proposed changes, and all sexual harassment complaints must be reported immediately.

The proposals come as women’s groups, government watchdog organizations and others have called for Silver’s resignation. According to a report by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics released last week, Silver’s staff failed to refer initial sexual harassment allegations against Lopez to an ethics committee.

A special prosecutor who cleared Lopez of criminal charges due to a lack of evidence said what he found in the investigation was “alarming,” and that the way the Assembly’s leadership handled the allegations encouraged Lopez to continue with his inappropriate conduct.

Lopez resigned Monday morning after 28 years in the Assembly.

Silver said on Monday, “I never gave any thought to resigning.”

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A 21-year-old man was found shot to death in the Fleetwood-Concourse Village section of the Bronx on Monday night, police said.

Police responded to a call about a person shot shortly after 10 p.m. in front of an apartment building located at 287 E. 162nd St., cops said. They discovered Marcos Cabral with two gunshot wounds to the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

No arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing. Cabral lived just a few blocks away from where he was killed.

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Ben Mezrich, Straight Flush: The True Story of Five College Kids Who Dealt Their Way to a Billion-Dollar Empire – and How It All Came Crashing Down. Hosted by actor, comedian and writer John Fugelsang.

Another sure bet of a book by the bestselling author who dealt us The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House.

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At least 91 people, including 20 children, were feared killed when a 2 mile wide tornado tore through an Oklahoma City suburb, trapping victims beneath the rubble as one elementary school took a direct hit and another was destroyed.

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  PHOTOS: Devastation caused by Oklahoma tornado

President Barack Obama declared a major disaster area in Oklahoma, ordering federal aid to supplement state and local efforts in Moore after the deadliest U.S. tornado since one killed 161 people in Joplin, Missouri, two years ago.

Emergency crews were desperately searching the wreckage of Plaza Towers Elementary School that took a direct hit from the tornado on Monday afternoon, Oklahoma Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb told CNN.

There was an outpouring of grief on the school’s Facebook page, with messages from around the country including one pleading simply: “Please find those little children.”

Another elementary school, homes and a hospital were among the buildings leveled, leaving residents of the town of about 50,000 people stunned at the devastation and loss of life.

The Oklahoma medical examiner said 20 of the 91 expected to have been killed were children. The office had already confirmed 51 dead and had been told by emergency services to expect 40 more bodies found in the debris, but had not yet received them.

At least 60 of the 240 people injured were children, area hospitals said.

“We thought we died because we were inside the cellar door … It ripped open the door and just glass and debris started slamming on us and we thought we were dead to be honest,” Ricky Stover said while surveying the devastated remains of his home.

Moore was devastated with debris everywhere, street signs gone, lights out, houses destroyed and vehicles tossed about as if they were toys.

Rescuers were searching for survivors throughout the swath of devastation into the early hours of Tuesday, while the dangerous storm system threatened several southern Plains states with more twisters. Severe weather was expected through the night from the Great Lakes south to Texas.

STORM ALERTS

Speaking outside Norman Regional Hospital Ninia Lay, 48, said she huddled in a closet through two storm alerts and the tornado hit on the third.

“I was hiding in the closet and I heard something like a train coming,” she said under skies still flashing with lightning. The house was flattened and Lay was buried in the rubble for two hours until her husband Kevin, 50, and rescuers dug her out.

“I thank God for my cell phone, I called me husband for help.”

Her daughter Catherine, seven, a first-grader at Plaza Towers Elementary School, took shelter with classmates and teachers in a bathroom when the tornado hit and destroyed the school. She escaped with scrapes and cuts.

The National Weather Service assigned the twister a preliminary ranking of EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, meaning the second most powerful category of tornado with winds up to 200 mph.

Witnesses said Monday’s tornado appeared more fierce than the giant twister that was among the dozens that tore up the area on May 3, 1999, killing more than 40 people and destroying thousands of homes. That tornado ranked as an EF5, meaning it had winds over 200 mph.

The 1999 event in Oklahoma ranks as the third-costliest tornado in U.S. history, having caused more than $1 billion in damage at the time, or more than $1.3 billion in today’s dollars. Only the devastating Joplin and Tuscaloosa tornadoes in 2011 were more costly.

SCHOOL DESTROYED

The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center provided the town with a warning 16 minutes before the tornado touched down at 3:01 p.m. (4.01 p.m. EDT), which is greater than the average eight to 10 minutes of warning, said Keli Pirtle, a spokeswoman for the center in Norman, Oklahoma.

The notice was upgraded to emergency warning with “heightened language” at 2:56 p.m., or five minutes before the tornado touched down, Pirtle said.

Television media measured the tornado at more than 2 miles wide, with images showing entire neighborhoods flattened.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed a temporary flight restriction that allowed only relief aircraft in the area, saying it was at the request of police who needed quiet to search for buried survivors.

Oklahoma activated the National Guard, and the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency activated teams to support recovery operations and coordinate responses for multiple agencies.

Briarwood Elementary School, which also stood in the storm’s path, was all but destroyed. On the first floor, sections of walls had been peeled away, giving clear views into the building; while in other areas, cars hurled by the storm winds were lodged in the walls.

Across the street, people picked through the remains of their homes.

The number of injured as reported by several hospitals rose rapidly throughout the afternoon.

Oklahoma University Medical Center alone was treating 65 patients, 45 of them children, though it was no longer expecting a further mass influx of casualties, spokesman Scott Coppenbarger said.

Moore Medical Center itself sustained significant damage.

“The whole city looks like a debris field,” Glenn Lewis, the mayor of Moore, told NBC.

“It looks like we have lost our hospital. I drove by there a while ago and it’s pretty much destroyed,” Lewis said.

The massive twister struck at the height of tornado season, and more were forecast. On Sunday, tornadoes killed two people and injured 39 in Oklahoma.

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Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin with a larger than life look at obesity and family relations.

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Miranda Priestly returns with a vengeance and is once again tormenting the very women she used to call her assistants.

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Featuring Joseph J. Ellis and Stacy Schiff

Joseph J. Ellis and Stacy Schiff examine a crescendo moment in American history: the summer of 1776. The summer represented the most dramatic few months in the story of our country’s founding, when the thirteen colonies came together and agreed to secede from the British Empire while Britain dispatched the largest armada ever to cross the Atlantic.

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Andrew Yancy—late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office—has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing). But first—this being Hiaasen country—Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover, a hot-blooded fugitive from Kansas; the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; two avariciously optimistic real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto death by her peculiar charms; Yancy’s new true love, a kinky coroner; and the eponymous bad monkey, who with hilarious aplomb earns his place among Carl Hiaasen’s greatest characters.

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An unforgettable chronicle of a year of minor-league baseball in a small Iowa town that follows not only the travails of the players of the Clinton LumberKings but also the lives of their dedicated fans and of the town itself.

Award-winning essayist Lucas Mann delivers a powerful debut in his telling of the story of the 2010 season of the Clinton LumberKings. Along the Mississippi River, in a Depression-era stadium, young prospects from all over the world compete for a chance to move up through the baseball ranks to the major leagues. Their coaches, some of whom have spent nearly half a century in the game, watch from the dugout. In the bleachers, local fans call out from the same seats they’ve occupied year after year. And in the distance, smoke rises from the largest remaining factory in a town that once had more millionaires per capita than any other in America.

Mann turns his eye on the players, the coaches, the fans, the radio announcer, the town, and finally on himself, a young man raised on baseball, driven to know what still draws him to the stadium. His voice is as fresh and funny as it is poignant, illuminating both the small triumphs and the harsh realities of minor-league ball. Part sports story, part cultural exploration, part memoir, Class A is a moving and unique study of why we play, why we watch, and why we remember.

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Ensemble ACJW is an inspirational collective of outstanding young professional musicians that has earned accolades from critics and audiences alike for the quality of its performances as well as its fresh and open-minded approach to performance and programming.

All members of the group are current fellows of The Academy, a two-year program that supports them as they develop careers as top-quality performers, innovative programmers, and dedicated teachers who are fully engaged with the communities in which they live and work.

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Includes Alan Alda, Jesse L. Martin, Vanessa Redgrave, Liev Schreiber and More.

Now in its third year, Public Forum is a series of lectures, conversations, and performances featuring leading voices in politics, media, and the arts. Are there some things money can’t buy?  Do we have obligations to each other as citizens? In the spirit of free exchange epitomized by more than 50 years of The Public’s Shakespeare in the Park, join in an evening of theatre and public debate. This one-night-only Public Forum will include Shakespeare readings about money and justice by Alan Alda, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Raúl Esparza, Hamish Linklater, Jesse L. Martin, Lily Rabe, Vanessa Redgrave, Liev Schreiber, and others, as well as a lively town-hall conversation with the audience conducted by Harvard professor and best-selling author Michael Sandel about the way the language of money has been taking over our lives – the subject of his recent book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets.

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What happens when a women compromises her dreams and ambitions for a life she never expected or desired? In her fifth book, The Woman Upstairs, award-winning novelist Claire Messud explores the pain and anger of elementary school teacher Nora Eldridge, a good neighbor and friend who keeps finding herself on the fringe of others’ accomplishments as she fervently searches for a sense of self. Claire will be interviewed by Michael Ravitch, author and CBE Trustee.

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If you drew a map of Manhattan, what would your landmarks be?

For one man, a smattering of dots marked six wives and three lovers. Notably, the third, fifth and sixth wives were plotted about a block apart.

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  Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps

Another map-maker left his map nearly blank, but for a small “x” in the southeast corner of Central Park with the note: “met my wife.”

A third cartographer noted at the tip-top end of Manhattan: “ruined a kickball game by kicking ball into Hudson.” Slightly further south is the note: “FIRST CRUSH I was 27.”

These maps, and 72 others, are part of a collection by Becky Cooper, titled “Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers,” out of a public art project Cooper started in 2009.

She handmade hundreds of blank maps using a letterpress at school, and initially hid 300 of them around the city, in the Waldorf and the backseats of taxis, hoping people would stumble across them. She printed her P.O. box number on the back, expecting people would fill them out and send them back to her.

But she said that none came back, until she had a conversation with a boutique owner downtown who caught her trying to stash a map in the store. Cooper explained the project and a week later received a map in the mail that she knew was from that woman.

“The conversation had invested her enough in the project to return the map,” Cooper said. After that, she and her roommate walked the length of Manhattan, from Marble Hill to Battery Park, with a shoebox of maps, and handed them out to strangers.

A contribution from New Yorker staff writer Patricia Marx, a twenty-year Manhattan resident who is apparently “still annoyed with Broadway for running on a diagonal.” Credit: Becky Cooper.

Her book chronicles that walk, recounting little stories about the people she encountered. The text of the book is, in fact, her own map of Manhattan.

When she first considered producing a collection of the maps, she spread them all out on the floor and tried to group them into categories. A lot of people used to maps to chronicle numerous lovers, and it was then that it occurred to her that the maps were little love stories.

She noted the lost or haunted feeling that can come after a breakup, the disorienting feeling of traveling through a city pockmarked with memories.

“You feel like you’re in a ghost town,” Cooper said.

Cooper recounted the words of a friend after the end of a five-year relationship: “She’s never lived in New York without being with him. She was like, ‘My whole map of the city is skewed. I don’t know the city without him.’”

Cooper hesitated when asked if she has a favorite map.

“I feel like it’s like picking your favorite child,” she said. “I definitely have maps whose circumstances I remember more than others.”

She said the second-to-last map in the book, which portrays a four-decade-long relationship with a late wife, broke her heart when she received it.

“There isn’t an overwhelming amount of emotion that would allow you to distance yourself from it, but you can feel his loss.”

One of the most memorable maps for Cooper, which she calls “Eve.” Credit: Becky Cooper.

That sender had put his own return address label on the map, so she searched his name online and discovered the eulogy he wrote for her in a local paper.

“He said, ‘She was the most wonderful person I’ve ever known,’” Cooper recalled. “I just lost it.”

Cooper had the chance to meet that mapmaker at a reading recently when he approached her to express his gratitude at seeing his map in her collection.

“I knew his name because I love his map so much,” she said.

He told her that making it had helped him to remember things about his wife as he was trying to cope with losing her.

“He thanked me for allowing him to capture that particular Manhattan,” Cooper said.

Cooper is still collecting maps. Blank ones can be accessed here, or found on the cover of Tuesday’s Metro New York. She will be giving a talk and signing books at BookCourt in Brooklyn on Thursday, June 6 at 7 p.m.

“Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers”

Book Talk and Signing with Becky Cooper

Thursday June 6

7 p.m.

BookCourt 164 Court Street, Brooklyn

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Professional sports are mostly black or white — and about wins or losses — which explains Iman Shumpert’s view of the 2012-13 season.

“We failed. We didn’t do what we were supposed to do,” Shumpert said during his season-ending exit interview session with the media on Monday.

Despite earning the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, winning 54 regular season games and enjoying the franchise’s most successful season this decade, Shumpert doesn’t look back fondly on a season that ended far earlier than he, his teammates and the rabid fanbase expected.

“At least the Eastern Conference finals,” said Shumpert, when asked his minimum expectations for the Knicks this postseason. “We knew we were supposed to go farther and we didn’t.”

Shumpert, who spoke barely above a whisper during his session, seemed wise beyond his years when discussing the current state — and forthcoming prospects — of the Knicks.

He thinks the unevenness of the collective effort from game to game caused his team’s early exit.

“We just have to hold each other accountable. Come next year, little things like not playing hard should never come into play. Letting a game slip at home should never come into play. Getting beat on the boards when that’s an emphasis coming into a series should never happen,” Shumpert said. “We have to take care of the little things and we didn’t. And it caught up to us.”

Shumpert’s veteran teammates didn’t sound as pessimistic about the Knicks’ season or their fortune going forward. To a man, every other veteran who was allowed to speak towed the company line in saying they believe this season was basically a trial run considering it was the first time this unit played together.

“I’m going to say it was a great year. It was a great year, great run. Definitely a huge step from years in the past, [and] something to build on,” Raymond Felton said. “Definitely not satisfying but, you know [we] can’t really be too upset. I think we had a great year overall. We did a lot of special things this year. So all this is about now is just capitalizing and building on it.”

Perhaps Felton’s optimism should be taken with a grain of salt, considering the point guard actually felt he had a “pretty good performance in the playoffs.”

But Carmelo Anthony essentially agreed with Felton’s outlook that the Knicks can still contend, and thinks the future is bright.

“We’re right there, I mean we’re right there,” Anthony said. “When you recap this whole season, it’s just some detail-oriented things that we kind of got to fix. … I don’t think we underachieved. We made strides forward. We made huge steps. When I first got here in New York, I always said this was a process, [and that] this was going to take two to three years. This was the first year the pieces to the puzzle started to fall into place. … We’ve set a standard, [and] kind of teased the city of New York a little bit, because now everybody expects us to play at this high level. Eventually something has to happen. We want to win the championship, that’s the goal, and we’re going to keep striving for that. I feel very confident about that.”

Knicks notes …

» Shumpert said the coaches want him to play in Las Vegas summer league, and added he’s excited about doing so because he desires to be “under coaching and under coach’s wing” all summer. It’ll be the first time he’s done so since he missed his rookie campaign (lockout) and last season’s (ACL injury) summer league.

» Among the players who didn’t speak to the media today were J.R. Smith, Amar’e Stoudemire and Jason Kidd. The Knicks brass, however, will allow Woodson and team president Glen Grunwald speak with the media on Tuesday.

» Anthony admitted that he will have his left shoulder checked out and see what kind of therapy and rehab it needs. Anthony also declined to look ahead at what he’ll do next season in regard to his opt-out clause at the end of next season, because it would be “selfish” to think about that scenario and didn’t want to “jump the gun.”

» Chris Copeland said he wants to come back next season, and will be twisting in the wind until the Knicks decide what to do with the 29-year-old rookie. The team must make him a qualifying offer by June 30.

Follow Knicks beat writer Tony Williams on Twitter @TBone8.

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The facts paint a bleak picture for the Rangers.

For the second straight series, they return to the Garden in a 0-2 hole. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, there has not been a team in NHL history that has won consecutive Stanley Cup playoff series after spotting opponents the first two games as the Rangers have against the Capitals and the Bruins.

The Rangers have been outscored 8-4 in the first two games of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Only three players — Brian Boyle, Carl Hagelin and Anton Stralman — have a positive rating after the first two games of the series. The power play is 0-for-8 in the first two games and 2-for-36 in the playoffs.

And their Vezina-finalist goaltender appeared to injure his shoulder in the final moments of Sunday afternoon’s 5-2 loss in Game 2.

With all of that said, head coach John Tortorella painted a much different picture.

“I thought we played a much better game in the second game,” Tortorella told reporters after the Rangers’ practice in Greenburgh, N.Y. on Monday in preparation for Tuesday’s Game 3. “I’m very optimistic as far as where we’re going as a team.”

Tuesday’s game is at the Garden, where the Rangers are 3-0 in these playoffs and have outscored opponents 9-6 in those games. The Rangers finished the regular season with a 16-6-2 mark at the Garden compared to a maudlin 10-12-2 road record.

The biggest reason for Tortorella’s confidence is a Henrik Lundqvist, who appears likely to play in Game 3. Lundqvist, the reigning Vezina winner, tweaked his arm in the third period of Sunday’s loss while making a diving save.

“I landed on it awkwardly and it hurt a little bit but it’s under control,” Lundqvist said. “Everybody is sore. It’s the playoffs. You can’t sit out because it’s hurting a little bit. It happens. You have to do the right things to keep it going.”

In order to extend their season past the next two games, the Rangers will have to be decidedly better defensively than they were in the first two games, in which the Bruins attempted 143 shots towards Lundqvist.

To that end, it appears as if the customary top defensive pairing of Ryan McDonagh and Dan Girardi will be reunited. According to reports, the two skated together during Monday’s practice session.

Split up prior to Game 1 in order to have a strong defender on the ice against Boston’s top two lines, the two logged their accustomed ice time while partnered with Anton Stralman and Michael Del Zotto, respectively. McDonagh finished with a goal in Game 1 in 55:55 of ice time in the series, while Girardi is minus-4 with an assist in 51:34 spanning the first two games.

Girardi was on the ice for four of Boston’s goals in Game 2, including Brad Marchand’s top-of-the-crease tap-in 26 seconds into the third period which gave the Bruins an insurmountable, 4-2, lead.

“We can defend,” Tortorella said. “It surprises me that we made some mistakes that we very rarely do on simple coverages. The third and fourth goal, they’re simple coverages and we beat ourselves.”

Follow Rangers beat writer Denis Gorman on Twitter @DenisGorman.

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Metro has gained nearly 100,000 daily readers in the last year as well as strengthened its grip as the most read free daily newspaper in New York, according to new figures that were just released.

The market research company Scarborough said Metro reached an all-time record of 733,311 people over the age of 18 in the New York area, a whooping 15 percent increase to the same period in 2012. Every week, Metro reaches over 1.5 million adults in New York in print and online – that’s 124,000 more than its competitor amNewYork.

“Thanks to our readers for making us the most popular free newspaper in New York”, Yggers Mortensen, Metro US Publisher and CEO said, “we continue to grow, innovate and find new ways to engage New Yorkers and deliver impact to advertisers both in print and online.”

Metro’s success can be attributed to 400 new newspaper boxes throughout the city as well as a concentrated focus on a re-launched website, metro.us, a redesign of the print edition and interactive features such as Blippar, a new augmented reality app.

The Scarborough data also shows that Metro has the highest proportion of adults between 18-49 years old, a demographic regarded as highly desirable by advertisers. In addition, the data says that 76 percent of readers are employed and that 1 in 10 are planning to buy a house or condo this year.

FUN FACTS ABOUT METRO READERS

1 in 5 plan to look for a new job this year

1 in 20 plan to get married this year.

25% belong to a gym/fitness club

67% own a smartphone

Your favorite beers are Corona, Bud Light and Heineken.

29% drank vodka in the past month, compared to 11%  which drank tequila.

39% attended a professional sports event in the last year

18% went to a Yankees game vs. 15% went to a Mets game

33%watched live theater in the past year

29% plan a trip outside of the United States this year

Metro readers spend $2,367 on vacation on average

45 percent visited a casino in the last year.

Source: Scarborough R1 2013

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A 34-year-old man who was robbed of his phone early Sunday morning was able to access his phone’s camera using his computer and provided the police with a photo of a “person of interest.”

At 4:45 a.m. Sunday morning, the victim passed three other men in the pedestrian tunnel at West 190th Street. One of the men grabbed the victim from behind and covered his eyes, while the others went through his pockets and stole cash and his cell phone. The three suspects fled through the Broadway exit of the tunnel.

The victim went home to call 911 and then accessed his cell phone from his computer using an app installed on his phone. He was able to access the camera and take a photo, which he then provided to the police.

Cops are looking to question the man in the photo, and have asked anyone with information about the robbery or the man pictured to call 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). All calls are confidential.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Following a Daily News report of a Brooklyn narcotics officer receiving a promotion after costing the city more than $1.5 million in settlements, NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly blasted the city for opting for settlements too frequently.

“The city is too willing to settle the case,” Kelly said to the Daily News. “We need a lot more trials and efforts to determine the true facts in many of these allegations.”

Some of the nearly 60 cases involving the narcotics officer involved racial profiling and slurs.

One of the lawsuits involved the beating of a man whose son was watching.

The City Council has been discussing legislation that would great more stringent anti-profiling laws, which opponents say could open up the NYPD to frivolous lawsuits.

In a public safety address to NYPD captains recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said these lawsuits would result in officers spending time in courtrooms when they could be out on the streets keeping the city safe.

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Vito Lopez may no longer be Sheldon Silver’s colleague as of this morning, but it seems he may still be the Speaker’s problem.

Calls for investigation into Silver have developed into calls for a coup, as women’s groups, government watchdog organizations, and newspaper editorial boards across the state rail against the Speak.

Thursday’s New York Post covered featured the Speaker with Lopez under the headline “Dirty Old Men.” Silver is being criticized for arranging a confidential settlement with staffers who filed sexual harassment complaints against Lopez.

Assemblyman Micah Kellner, running for City Council, told the New York Times the investigation into the confidentiality agreement needs to include “who proposed it, who wrote it, and who required it.”

Lopez was cleared of criminal charges, but a 68-page report by the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics detailed shocking behavior.

Lopez reportedly pushed his hand “all the way up” the inner thigh of an employee, and two others contracted pink eye after consenting to apply eye drops to Lopez’s infected eyes. At a bar in Brooklyn he apparently grabbed the hand of an employee, and squeezed harder when she tried to pull away. She began to cry and he forced her to count to sixty before releasing her.

He also made a staffer massage his hand after asking her if she “felt guilty” about being a victim of sexual assault in college. While she cried, he said, “I like that you’re holding my hand.”

A recent New York Post report stated that state government corruptions costs taxpayers at least $49,710,630.64. According to The Post, that amount of money could fund two new schools, 100 new fire trucks, or the New York Islanders.

The Post noted that the Lopez settlement cost taxpayers $103,000.

Past attacks against Silver have not been successful. Over a decade ago, Syracuse Assemblyman Michael Bragman attempted to overthrow Silver as Assembly Speaker, and Silver immediately took away Bragman’s title as majority leader. Silver’s allies crushed Bragman without Silver ever emerging from his office to come to the floor to defend himself.

A source apparently told the Daily News that Governor Andrew Cuomo is leaving Lopez’s seat vacant until a primary can be held in September, in order to prevent Lopez from being able to exert any control over his replacement in a special election.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Is happiness something that happens to you, or something that you make happen for yourself? If you ask “Glee’s” Jenna Ushkowitz that question, she’ll tell you it’s the latter.

In fact, she’s written the book on finding your own glee through the power of self-affirmation and positive thinking. “Choosing Glee: 10 Rules to Finding Inspiration, Happiness, and the Real You” is part memoir, part self-help tome, and all motivational. Written through anecdotal vignettes, personal photos, lists and charts, “Choosing Glee” is Ushkowitz’ way of giving back to the world, putting out positivity as a means of reaping more good vibes. “I like to think that positivity is a choice, and you wake up and make a conscious decision,” says the 27-year-old actress. And though she admits, “I’ve never been through any really dark times where I hit rock bottom,” she seems to know what she’s talking about.

So, what’s this book really about?

It’s 10 rules that I live by, to success, to where I’ve gotten, where I am. I just wanted to share that with my fans and readers. You know, to tell them that it’s something you can choose to believe in every day. It’s like your mantra. You know, there are like people who feel that they’re the victim and it’s always happening to them? You can turn that around, and change your outlook on life, and it really makes life a little bit brighter.

Have you always thought this way?

Yeah, I think I’ve always been this way. You could say I was born this way, but I also think I owe it to my parents teaching me to have a good head on my shoulders, and rely on my support system, and always stay true to who you are.

But what about somebody who wasn’t born that way?

Well, again, it’s making it a choice. You make it a choice, and every day you wake up and make it your mantra and say today I’m going to make the best of every situation and look at every situation with the glass half full. And then, after awhile, it sort of becomes subconscious and it becomes a way of life. It’s a lifestyle change, it’s like a diet. People always say, oh, I’m going to diet for this amount of time — well, it’s actually a lifestyle change you need to make.

Can you think of a recent situation where you had to make that choice?

Sure, I mean there was a time in the industry where I did a pilot — my belief is that everything happens for a reason — so I was doing this pilot and it got picked up, and I was all excited, and then I got this phone call that they actually weren’t going to pick me up, that they were going to recast me. And the first thing I thought was, ‘Oh, well, I’m not a good actor; I’m fat, I’m ugly, they hate me!’ (laughs) And then you turn around and say, you know what? It wasn’t me, it wasn’t meant to be, and actually it turned out that the reason was that I was a little too young. But you still believe, Oh, they’re lying,’ so I went to my friends and we vegged out and did our thing, it’s like a breakup. But then you get over it. And I then went on to book “Spring Awakening,” and then “Glee,” and wouldn’t have finished college. So you have to look at it like, well, I wouldn’t have been able to experience those things.

So you’re obviously a big believer in karma.

Oh yeah, 100 percent. Everything happens for a reason and I believe in karma. I believe that what you give to the world — the energy that you give to the world — is what you get back. And it will come back to you if you’re not good to it. (laughs)

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Three men were indicted today on drug trafficking charges after investigators New York State Police Special Investigations Unit traced a drug trail from a handoff in the Bronx on April 9, to a stash house in Corona, Queens.

The investigation yielded approximately 10 pounds of heroin and nine pounds of crystal meth.

The meth is valued at about $960,000, and that amount of heroin could be sold for more than $1 million on the street.

New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico said the drug trafficking ring “poured literally pounds of deadly, illicit drugs into the streets of Queens and beyond.”

A search of the Queens stash house uncovered a ledger pertaining to “ice” transaction, $2,000 hidden inside a vent, and supplies for making meth, including masks, grinders, a kilo-press and a scale.

Investigators believe the meth originated from “megalabs” in Mexico. One of the types of heroin they found os known as “black tar” and apparently comes from Mexico as well.

According to State Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan, the bust and seizure are “typical of a pattern” in narcotics investigations throughout the city.

Brennan believes that the presence of meth in the city is an indication that Mexican cartels are trying to “promote the use and addiction to crystal meth” here.

According to the Department of Health, emergency room visited related to meth more than doubled between 2004 and 2011, jumping from 214 to 576.

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A judge last week ruled that a Newark, N.J., hospital could be liable for the escape of inmate David Goodell, who received treatment there after allegedly faking a seizure and who police said went on to kill 21-year-old Viviana Tulli in Garfield.

Tulli’s sister and estate administrator Estella Tulli-Makowski in September of 2012 filed a suit in Essex County Superior Court against the state of New Jersey, the state Department of Corrections and parole board, the Department of Public Safety, Newark halfway house Logan Hall and its for-profit operator Community Education Centers.

The suit also names the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and the UMDNJ-Hospital, where Goodell was treated in 2010 after allegedly faking a seizure at Logan Hall, part of a CEC-operated halfway house system the complaint claims is “horribly mismanaged and has experienced an ‘inordinate’ number of prisoner escapes.”

A federal judge last Monday dismissed the claims against the state defendants, ruling they sufficiently proved they are public entities and therefore can’t be held liable for injuries sustained as a result of inmate escapes.

But the UMDNJ-Hospital could still face penalties for the escape of Goodell, who was on Aug. 29, 2010, escorted to the hospital by an unarmed CEC employee after “faking” a seizure at Logan Hall, where he was transferred in February after pleading guilty two years prior to assaulting his girlfriend and receiving a four-year prison term.

Goodell escaped from the hospital the night of Aug. 29. Tulli was dead within 24 hours.

Police said witnesses in a high school parking lot reported seeing Goodell, disoriented and covered in blood.

When officers arrived, he allegedly jumped into a car – later determined to belong to Tulli – and led police on a chase that only ended when he rammed their cars.

Investigators allegedly found Goodell inside the vehicle bleeding from the wrists due to an apparent suicide attempt.

Tulli’s lifeless body was in the passenger seat.

Prosecutors claim Goodell suffocated Tulli because she rejected his romantic advances, according to court filings.

A Bergen County grand jury in 2011 indicted Goodell for Tulli’s murder.

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