Following the launch of Anthony Weiner’s campaign, a cagey Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a scornful Governor Andrew Cuomo separately offered their thoughts about the former congressman on Wednesday.

Dodging questions at an East Harlem press conference regarding New York City’s new professional soccer team, Bloomberg steadfastly avoided saying whether he believed Weiner’s 2011 sexting scandal would hurt the city if he were elected.

Finally, one reporter pinned him down by asking if good judgment and good character were important.

“I don’t know there’s anything else that matters,” Bloomberg said finally—before going on to caution against judging people.

Cuomo likewise attempted to remain poker-faced on the topic early on Wednesday, but he was decidedly more blunt just hours later while speaking to the editorial board of the Syracuse Post Standard about his opposition to term limits.

“So if Anthony Weiner wants to run for mayor, he can run for mayor,” Syracuse Media Group chairman Stephen A. Rogers said.

“He runs? He runs,” said Cuomo.

“And if we elect him?” Rogers asked.

“Shame on us.”

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According to New York Post exclusive, Mayor Michael Bloomberg had some choice words for Taxi Management CEO Gene Friedman at last week’s Knicks playoff at Madison Square Garden.

Friedman reportedly approached the mayor and inquired after “what is going on with the Taxi of Tomorrow,” the mayor’s proposed taxi-replacement that was shot down by a judge the day before.

The mayor reportedly responded, “Come January 1st, when I am out of office, I am going to destroy your f———ing industry.”

Friedman told the Post he tried to calm the mayor and asked, “Why can I sit down with you and figure out something that works?”

The mayor, reportedly with his face red and his jaw clenched, replied, “After January, I am going to destroy all you f———ing guys.”

As he and a friend walked away, Friedman told the Post he asked his friend, “Did the mayor just threaten me?”

To which his friend reportedly replied, “No, he threatened you twice.”

The mayor told the Post that all he remembered from the night was that “it was a great game.”

Taxi of Tomorrow was Bloomberg’s plan to replace the entire yellow cab system with a more spacious Nissan. Nissan won the right to design the car in an open competition.

The taxi industry challenged the plan in court, and state Supreme Court Judge Peter Moulton recently ruled that Taxi of Tomorrow could not stand because it violated a hybrid-cab option for garage owners.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks former state Assemblyman Vito Lopez should retire from politics.

Bloomberg said he believes Lopez should not run for City Council given the sexual harassment allegations that forced the assemblyman to resign, the New York Post reports.

“I do not think he is the kind of person we want in the City Council based on what’s reported about his actions,” Bloomberg said.

Lopez resigned on Monday, but the once powerful Brooklyn politician said he plans to run for City Council.

The mayor and Lopez had a close relationship in the past, the Post reports. Bloomberg sought Lopez’s help when he needed to persuade Brooklyn council members to allow him to extend term limits.

The relationship changed when the Department of Investigation released a report in 2011 detailing shady practices at the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, a nonprofit founded by Lopez, the Post writes.

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The Center for Constitutional Rights slammed the NYPD today over the leak of an internal report from the mayor’s office apparently finding Judge Shira Scheindlin biased against law enforcement.

Scheindlin has a long history of covering stop-and-frisk related cases, and is presiding over a major one currently. The Center of Constitutional Rights is on one side of that case; the NYPD and the City are on the other.

The report was apparently leaked to the New York Daily News. According to the News, the report found that Scheindlin decided against law enforcement in 60 percent of her written opinions on “search-and-seizure” over the course of her nearly two decades on the bench. The study allegedly also says that rate is the highest among 16 current and former Manhattan federal judges that the report included since 1990.

The mayor’s office reportedly declined to comment to the News, but Scheindlin told the News that the study is “completely misleading” as it doesn’t include any rulings from the bench.

While the majority of her written opinions may involve dismissing evidence, she told the News that in “nearly all” of her bench rulings on seized evidence, she has denied motions to suppress.

Early this year, the judge ruled on a case involving stops in some Clean Halls buildings. She ordered that the stops cease, but a short time later rescinded that ruling.

CCR released a statement calling the report “nothing short of outrageous.”

“Having already attacked the Center for Constitutional Rights, communities mobilizing to end violent and discriminatory policing, and the press, the attack on a respected judge scrapes the bottom of the litigation barrel,” the statement read.

CCR recommended that the city instead focus on “studies to remedy the persistent constitutional violations in its police department.”

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not immediately respond to a request for comment as to whether the NYPD was responsible for the leak, as CCR’s statement implied.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Red Hook will welcome a free ferry service between its businesses and Manhattan this summer.

The free Red Hook Summer Ferry service will begin May 25, running from Pier 11 in Manhattan to Van Brunt Street and then to IKEA, officials announced today.

“Every weekend all summer long, folks can hop on the IKEA ferry for free and hop off at a brand-new stop in Red Hook to spend the day and night sampling the neighborhood’s great small businesses,” Quinn said.

When the program launched, it only ferried people between IKEA and Pier 11. With the expanded service, officials expect a ferry to arrive every 25 minutes, less than the 40 minutes now.

Hopefully, officials say, this will bring more residents to Sandy-affected businesses in Red Hook.

“Hurricane Sandy hit the Red Hook community hard, and that’s why we’re making it easier than ever for New Yorkers to get to small businesses in the area,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

The service starts at 10 a.m., running through 9 p.m. on Saturday and Sundays from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend, including holiday Mondays.

Local business owners lauded the new way to bring visitors, from the five boroughs or even overseas, to their doorstep.

“We learned that the East River can bring heartache, devastation and loss of business, but if the ferry lands at VanBrunt Street this summer, the East River will also be responsible for bringing profits back to businesses and the assurance of survival and progress,” said Triciann Botta, who owns Botta di Vino in Red Hook.

The expansion comes the same week that the popular East River Ferry will reach 2 million total riders this week, officials said.

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Staten Island is the borough most struggling with prescription pill abuse, according to new city data.

The borough experienced the largest increase of prescription pill-related deaths in recent years, the Health Department reported Tuesday.

Citywide, between 2005 and 2011, overdose deaths from painkillers shot up by 65 percent.

But in Staten Island, painkiller overdose deaths increased a whopping 261 percent during the same time frame, data showed.

“Prescription opioid painkillers are out of control in our borough and taking far too many of our loved ones,” borough president James Molinaro said.

In the five boroughs, 220 people died in 2011, according to the city, including 40 Staten Island residents.

Between 2008 and 2011, the Health Department added, the number of painkiller prescriptions filled increased by 31 percent, and oxycodone accounted for more than half of those prescriptions. The largest increase in users was among New Yorkers ages 25 to 34, according to city data.

Earlier this year, the Mayor’s Task Force on Prescription Painkiller Abuse suggested that emergency rooms should no longer hand out prescriptions for pills like oxycodone.

About 20 hospitals adopted this recommendation, according to the city.

The NYPD has also added GPS trackers to bottles in case pharmacies are robbed.

The city plans two conferences in June for Staten Island doctors and dentists next month to address addiction.

“Prescription opioids can be dangerous drugs,” Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said. “They are chemically and biologically very similar to heroin and, like heroin, can lead to addiction and fatal overdose.”

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According to a report from Talking Points Memo, Mayor Bloomberg was recently asked about the spying scandal at his former news company, Bloomberg, and told a reporter that he couldn’t say anything due to “an agreement with the Conflict of Interests Board.”

“You’ll have to talk to the company,” he said.

The scandal came to light after a complaint from Goldman Sachs about Bloomberg journalists accessing information about Goldman employees.

It turned out that Bloomberg reporters had been trained to use the terminals to track story subjects and were accessing data on staffers at J.P. Morgan Chase, as well as higher-ups at U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Reserve.

The company has admitted at least one reporter got Goldman Sachs-related information through this terminal-accessed data.

Mayor Bloomberg, who is no longer an executive at the company since he became mayor, but is still a majority owner, was asked about the issue at a press conference regarding water cleanup in the Gowanus Canal.

He reportedly initially declined to discuss the matter, but when a second reporter asked about tracking that occurred when he was still with the company, he replied “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you’ll have to talk to the company.”

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended plans to build a soccer stadium in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park on Monday, saying green space in Queens is not “irreplaceable,” the New York Post reports.

“On balance there’s an enormous amount of new park land,” he said. “But it’s not the only thing people need. A lot of people want a stadium to enjoy soccer.”

Major League Soccer is expected to announce plans in the next few weeks for a 25,000-seat stadium that will sit on about 13 acres.

But a new park that will soon replace old Flushing Airport in College Point will make up for the loss of green space, the mayor added.

That response wasn’t good enough for some opponents to the plan.

“If Flushing Airport is the best replacement we can find, that just indicates no green space can replace Flushing Meadows Park,” Hilary Klein of Make the Road New York told the Post.

Local elected officials and activists have been fighting to block the sale of the land at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Opponents say the Queens park is irreplaceable, and that a soccer stadium would lead to pollution.

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In his speech at the annual National Rifle Association convention, conservative radio personality Glenn Beck likened New York City’s mayor to a Nazi.

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  Glenn Beck Likens Mayor Bloomberg to a Nazi

Beck took issue generally, it seems, with some of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s policies, such as the sugary drink regulation.

Beck also took issue with his “friends in New York City,” who may want to reconsider that friendship in light of Beck’s name-calling.

“I am amazed at how many of my New York friends have become absolute dopes,” Beck declared, emphasizing that last word, “and just will accept the soda ban, the popcorn ban, the salt ban.”

Maybe he meant frenemies?

We were previously unaware of a popcorn ban, so we checked with the mayor’s office: spokeswoman Samantha Levine assured us that there is, in fact, no popcorn ban.

Whew.

While many New Yorkers don’t hold back when it comes to complaints about the possibly-overprotective “Nanny Bloomberg” and his soda ban, some may feel a little protective of the mayor after the new ad campaign Beck pitched to replace Milton Glaser’s famous “I love NY” design.

The ad Beck displayed featured a graphic of Bloomberg, who happens to be of Jewish descent, making the Nazi salute.

Beck’s main gripe appeared to be Bloomberg’s fight for gun control, before he veered off into complaints about Bloomberg’s health initiatives and proposals to replace iconic artwork.

“When somebody argues for gun control, they are either living in self-imposed ignorance or they are just living an argument of control,” Beck said.

According to a recent poll for the Bloomberg-led organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns conducted by Republican Frank Luntz, 82 percent of gun owners, including 74 percent of National Rifle Association members, support criminal background checks for anyone purchasing a gun. In the congressional districts polled in New York, Luntz found that 94 percent supported those background checks. Such background checks have been the focus of many of Bloomberg’s recent “arguments of control.”

 Correction: It turns out Beck wasn’t likening Bloomberg to a Nazi.

In Beck’s own words, “this was actually the exact image ripped off Soviet propaganda art.”

So everyone calm down: Beck just meant Bloomberg was like Lenin — who, as Beck noted, “also killed a lot of people, yes.” Many of whom also were Jewish.

For what it’s worth, whether it’s Lenin or a Nazi, the pose is “a sieg heil salute,” per Beck’s own admission. And as an astute reporter on Twitter noted, the armband on the Bloomberg version is missing from the “ripped off” Soviet original, and does seem to recall the Nazi uniform.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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As a national debate on immigration reform heats up, the New York City Council is proposing an amendment that would grant broader immigrant voting rights, and the Bloomberg administration told Talking Points Memo they will not support it.

The legislation, co-sponsored by Councilman Daniel Dromm and Councilwoman Gale Brewer, would give legal immigrants who are residents of the city for six months or longer the right to vote in municipal elections.

It had eight supporters in the council when it was first introduced in 2010. It currently has the support of 34 of the Council’s 51 members, which is exactly the number of votes needed to override a veto from the mayor, Dromm told Metro.

The mayor has long been a vocal proponent of immigration reform, but a spokeswoman for his administration, Evelyn Erskine, told TPM: “This bill violates the state constitution and the administration does not support it.”

“The mayor believes voting is the most important right we are granted as citizens, and you should have to go through the process of becoming a citizen and declaring allegiance to this country before being given that right,” Erskine said.

While the majority vote in the council could override a Bloomberg veto, the bill could still be stopped by Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Quinn decides when — if at all — bills come to the floor, so it’s up to her whether it comes up for a vote.

Robin Levine, a spokeswoman for Quinn, told Metro the speaker is “looking forward to reviewing testimony from today’s hearing.”

Dromm is adamant that legislation is vital for the adequate representation of the city’s immigrant communities, particularly ones like the one he represents, which he says “is 68 percent immigrant, many of whom would fall into this category.”

Giving them the right to vote would change the way politicians interact — or often neglect to interact — with them, Dromm said: “No longer could people running for city office ignore communities like mine; they’d have to come and address the issues.”

“The nation’s founders were right in saying that there should be no taxation without representation,” Dromm said. “In the early days of this country if you were a property owner, it didn’t matter what country you came from, you had the right to vote.”

He corrected himself, conceding that the law only applied to white male property owners, but noted that over the course of history, that law was expanded to include women and African-Americans. Including immigrants, he believes, is simply the next logical step.

Dromm also notes that the state constitution actually says that municipalities and localities are able to determine who can vote in their elections, and that from 1968 to 2001, anybody, even undocumented immigrants, could vote in school board elections — a rule which was approved by the state legislature in 1968. 

He dismissed concerns that giving immigrants voting rights will deter them from applying for full citizenship and taking on all the responsibilities that come with that status.

“These are people who desperately want to participate in the American system,” Dromm said. “Sometimes it takes 13 years, even when you have a good lawyer and you’re on the path to citizenship and even after you’ve received a green card.”

Councilman Jumaane Williams, another one of the bill’s supporters, agreed after Thursday’s hearing, and noted the potential this legislation has to affect the national conversation on immigration reform.

“These individuals are contributing and taxpaying members of our communities,” Williams said. “I am a proud child of immigrant parents and I represent a proud immigrant community.”

“We look forward to the restoration of immigrant voting rights and the positive effects this will have on the nationwide conversation,” he added.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Stop-and-frisk incidents are down 51 percent, while New York City’s murder rate also decreased by 27 percent, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the decrease in crime comes from fear of police stopping and questioning suspicious persons, according to the Daily News.

However, New York Civil Liberties Union representative Donna Lieberman told CBS News that the data were not necessarily related.

NYPD officers have been testifying about stop and frisk at a trial this spring.

Critics of the program note that cops mostly stop minorities, and they say this reflects racially biased stops.

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The New York City Council passed legislation Wednesday that will require thousands of businesses to provide paid sick days to workers.

Companies with 20 or more employees will be required to offer five paid sick days beginning Apr. 1, 2014. On Oct. 1, 2015, it will expand to include companies with 15 or more workers.

An estimated one million workers will benefit from the legislation. Another 300,000 workers will receive unpaid sick leave under the new legislation.

“This vote marks a big step in the right direction toward providing paid sick time to workers in our city,” said Vincent Alvarez, president of the city AFL-CIO.

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said the vote means “working families do not have to choose between their jobs or their health.”

He added, “More than 1 million workers will no longer be afraid of being fired for taking a sick day.”

Supporters say the bill will allow workers to take time off when they are sick without fear of losing pay or their job. Critics of the measure say that many business owners cannot afford to offer paid sick days, and that businesses and employees should be left to work out sick-leave arrangements on their own.

“We have a good, strong and sensible piece of legislation that recognizes the needs of everyday New Yorkers and the realities that our struggling small businesses face,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said when she first outlined the bill on March 29.

Advocates have been pushing for a bill that would apply to businesses with five or more employees. Despite some of the limits of the bill, the legislation is viewed as a pivotal step in a national push for paid sick days.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said earlier this year that the bill would “stifle job creation,” is expected to veto the measure, but the Council, which passed it 45-3, will likely have enough votes to override the veto.

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The city released a comprehensive review today about Superstorm Sandy, evaluating how its agencies functioned during the storm.

The mayor-ordered report evaluated how prepared officials were before, during and after the storm.

Bloomberg asked two deputy mayors to review the city’s actions in December. Today, the administration said the recovery efforts were some of the fastest ever.

Officials issued 59 recommendations, focusing on things like evacuations, public safety and shelters.

Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway, who helped craft the report, said the hurricane “caused unprecedented damage throughout the five boroughs.”

“As well as the city performed, we can always do better,” he said. “We will take the lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy and strengthen the city’s capacity to respond to future emergencies.”

One highlighted area was 311, which officials said was available throughout the storm but could have had shorter waiting times.

The Office of Emergency Management is also updating the city’s evacuation zones for the 2013 hurricane season, implementing zones from 1 to 6 to replace Zones A, B and C. These zones will be announced in June, according to the city.

The report also suggested the Department of Health evaluate their regulations for evacuation procedures, including back-up power supply, which was an issue when generators failed, causing evacuations.

The city maintained that the 911 system did not fail or drop calls during Sandy, despite criticism that people were not able to reach responders through the system.

The city said 20,00 families have returned to their homes through the Rapid Repairs program, which helped fix up homes.

But many are still unable to return, including hundreds waiting on a court ruling about whether the city can kick them out of city-funded hotel rooms.

The review recommended identifying shelter that would be usable for a longer time.

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Former Schools Chancellor Cathie Black had a brief tenure that began and ended with heavy criticism of her lack of education experience. Now, a series of emails released by the city reveals that Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s staff scrambled to gather support for the publishing executive by seeking the support of prominent female celebrities.

The emails between City Hall staffers and Black were released after a journalist filed a request for them under the Freedom of Information Act. An appeals court rejected the city’s request to keep the emails private, The Daily News reports.

City officials compiled a list of notable women from whom they would seek endorsements as well as talking points to be used to convince them, according to the emails. Among the listed women were Oprah Winfrey, Gloria Steinem, Whoopi Goldberg, Donna Karan and Caroline Kennedy.

When they successfully earned the support of Winfrey, they emailed about the Daily News cover which had the headline, “O BACKS CATHIE.”

When Black asked Micah Lasher, previously Bloomberg’s director of state legislative affairs, if she should be concerned about a New York Times article that highlighted her lack of experience with handling the challenges of the New York City public school system, he replied, “All our focus needs to be on getting allies to come out in support and on getting you prepared for a debut as soon as possible.”

Black, who was previously chairman of Hearst Magazines, stepped down from her role as schools chancellor after just 95 days on the job.

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City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said Wednesday that she will move forward with the bill to create an inspector general for police.

Despite Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s speech on Tuesday defending stop-and-frisk and slamming the proposal for an inspector general, Quinn said she stands firm on the bill, the New York Post reports.

The mayoral candidate said she will also allow a vote on a second bill to ban racial profiling even though she does not agree with that legislation.

Bloomberg criticized the way some of the mayoral candidates have attacked the Police Department, saying he believes it is politically driven. He noted that crime in the city is significantly lower than other major cities in the country. The mayor believes eliminating stop-and-frisks and creating an inspector general to oversee police would have deadly consequences.

Quinn also said Wednesday that if she is elected mayor, stop-and-frisks would happen in a “constitutionally sound way.” She also noted that the number of stops in the city has declined as a result of her intervention.

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In his public safety address to NYPD top brass, Mayor Michael Bloomberg lashed out at the New York Times and critics of stop-and-frisk for not paying attention to the shooting death of 17-year-old Alphonza Bryant in the Bronx.

DNAinfo reached out to Bryant’s mother, who reportedly was grateful for the attention the mayor brought to her son, though surprised, as she had never heard from the mayor or his aides following her son’s death three and a half weeks ago.

“We just thank him for putting it out there,” Bryant’s mother, Jenaii van Doten, told DNAinfo. “That he was a good kid.”

Bloomberg had also discussed stop-and-frisk in his speech, touting its vital importance in protected the city’s children and condemning its critics.

Van Doten partially agreed that stop-and-frisk is needed “to save our children,” but also felt “they need to modify it.”

She said that Bryant had been stopped himself on several occasions, though he avoided guns and gangs, and recounted one instance where he was in a bodega talking to her on the phone while buying a sandwich and said, “Ma, I got to get off the phone,” as she could hear cops cursing at him in the background.

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With 245 days left in office, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s public safety address to top NYPD brass today called into question the qualifications of an unnamed “some” of his potential successors.

Citing statistics, the mayor rued that the police force is “under attack,” saying it’s “hard to believe” given an “incredible record” in public safety: for example, Houston, a city a quarter of the size of New York, had twice as many fatal shootings by police officers in 2011.

Bloomberg speculated that criticism of the NYPD is politically motivated, “probably because this is an election year.”

“The attacks most often come from those who play no constructive role in keeping our city safe, but rather view their jobs as pointing fingers from the steps of City Hall,” he said.

While Bloomberg abstained from naming these attackers, he noted that “some have… sued the NYPD and demanded a Federal monitor over NYPD operations.”

Bill de Blasio, one of the Democratic candidates for mayor, has been outspoken against stop-and-frisk and in favor of a more wide-reaching amendment to the existing racial profiling bill. A spokesperson for de Blasio’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment, but de Blasio’s office as Public Advocate promptly released a statement accusing the mayor of “fear-mongering.”

“Mayor Bloomberg offers a false choice between public safety and our basic constitutional rights,” de Blasio said in the statement, repeating his support for an Inspector General and a law banning racial profiling. “We can have both, but only with the common-sense accountability and protections Mayor Bloomberg so strenuously opposes.”

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is in favor of an Inspector General but against the bias amendment, released a statement via her campaign spokesperson, pointing out that, unlike whoever the mayor referenced when he mentioned a lack of public safety experience among the candidates, she is “the only candidate for mayor who actually has a record on adding police officers.”

She agreed with the mayor on the need to avoid lawsuits that the bias amendment would invite, but reiterated her support for an Inspector General.

The mayor said an Inspector General would call into question whose orders officers should follow, and could create deadly confusion.

“Whose policies should an officer on the street follow — and how would he or she know that their partner would be following the same procedures when the bullets start flying?” the mayor asked. “With confusion comes deadly consequences to our police officers and to the public they are sworn to protect.”

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly confirmed today that Dzhokhar Tsarvaev told investigators last night that he and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planned to drive to New York and detonate bombs in Times Square.

This plan apparently came out of a spur-of-the-moment decision after the brothers hijacked a Mercedes SUV Thursday night.

The driver of the SUV had previously told investigators that the brothers spoke a foreign language to one another while in the car, but that he had been able to make out the word “Manhattan.”

They had with them in the SUV six bombs, including a pressure cooker bomb similar to the two that were detonated at the Boston Marathon ten days ago.

The other five bombs were pipe bombs, Bloomberg said.

While he maintained that the decision to hit New York was spontaneous, Bloomberg said he did not know where the brothers had planned to take the bombs prior to setting their sights on Times Square.

Some details are apparently still unknown to Bloomberg and Kelly, though Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne did confirm that there is more information out there.

The investigation into the younger Tsarnaev brother has reportedly turned up photos of him in Times Square with friends last year, “on or before April 18,” Kelly said.

Tsarnaev was reportedly in the city again in November of last year.

Kelly said authorities “don’t know if the visits were related in any way” to the reportedly “spontaneous” decision to target Times Square.

The NYPD Intelligence Division is investigating Tsarnaev’s “movements” in the city and who he may have been with or interacted with while here. Some people in the Times Square photo have already been identified, Kelly reported.

Kelly had previously said, as recently as Wednesday, that the brothers had planned to come to New York to “party,” information which apparently came from the initial questioning by investigators.

Today Kelly said that authorities are inclined to believe last night’s confession over the previous statement because Tsarnaev was reportedly “more lucid” during the second questioning.

While they said there is no way to know if the NYPD would have been able to stop the Tsarnaev brothers if they had made it to Times Square, Bloomberg noted that there would have been numerous officers visible all around Times Square, as well as “an extensive network of cameras” that the brothers would not have seen.

Bloomberg and Kelly pointed to the large role surveillance camera footage played in the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings, asserting that shows how crucial surveillance is to New Yorkers’ security.

The NYPD already uses a vehicle that takes 360-degree photos along the route of major events, like marathons, but Kelly said they want to expand the numbers of cameras around the city generally.

In particular, he said, they would like to increase the number of “smart cameras” they use, which use video analytics to conduct real-time facial recognition.

Bloomberg agreed that cameras are an integral part of the city’s security measures, noting that they work as a deterrent because “you’re never going to know where all our cameras are.”

Kelly and Bloomberg both assured the public there is “no evidence to suggest that New York City is currently a target.”

“Do I feel safe going out tonight?” Bloomberg asked. “Yes. Do I feel safe that every area of the city is protected? Yes, I do.”

The mayor said “it’s a dangerous world, but you’re probably safer here than you are anywhere else.”

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City officials announced today that the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx will become the world’s largest indoor ice facility.

The planned Kingsbridge National Ice Center will have nine indoor ice rinks that will be open year round, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

It will also include a 5,000-seat rink for national and international hockey and skating events.

“The Kingsbridge Armory will now have an interior program befitting its iconic exterior architecture,” Bloomberg said.

The armory, which is a landmark, has been vacant since 1996.

The city expects 2 million people to visit the rink each year.

Right now, the city hosts seven year-round ice rinks, and none are in the Bronx, Bloomberg said.

Added Rangers NHL Hall of Famer Mark Messier, “As a New Yorker, I know it will also change this city, providing invaluable educational and athletic opportunity to thousands of young people.”

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried out the city’s new electric taxis on Monday, the first of the eco-friendly vehicles to join the city’s fleet of cabs.

The mayor rode in the city’s first all-electric taxi this morning, stepping out at Rockefeller Center.

Six of the Nissan Leaf taxis hit the streets Monday, according to the mayor’s office.

The mayor’s administration hopes to make one third of the taxi fleet electric by 2020, officials said.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg assured New Yorkers that security is still on high alert Tuesday even though city officials received no specific threats.

Bloomberg stood with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to brief New Yorkers on the response to twin blasts at the end of Monday’s Boston Marathon.

“We prepared as if yesterday was a prelude to an attack here in New York,” Kelly said.

He mobilized counterterrorism officers and stationed police at houses of worship and landmarks like the Empire State Building.

“We’ll leave those measures in place until we learn more about what actually happened,” Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg ordered flags at half-staff Tuesday at City Hall, including a Boston flag. He also phoned Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who he has partnered with in the past on gun issues.

The NYPD is also re-evaluating security for two weekend races, Kelly said.

They encouraged New Yorkers to phone in potential threats — the NYPD received 77 suspicious packages tips, Kelly said.

But otherwise, Bloomberg said, New Yorkers should go about their day. He took the subway to work.

“We’ve got a weekend coming up,” Bloomberg said. “There are lots of events. There’s no reason you shouldn’t go out and feel safe.”

The mayor also said the ING New York City Marathon, scheduled for Nov. 3, will continue.

Kelly said they would re-examine security for that event, too, but that perfection might never be achievable.

“A marathon is 26 miles long, so there are points of vulnerability by definition,” he said.

“As a country we may not be able to thwart every attack,” Bloomberg added. “We saw that yesterday, but we must continue to do everything we possibly can to try.”

Governor increases state security

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today that statewide, security officials also are on high alert.

“Our law enforcement agencies will remain vigilant in looking for any unusual activity, and I urge all New Yorkers to report any suspicious packages or activity to the authorities,” he said.

The New York National Guard sent 230 soldiers and airmen to boost security at transit spots like the Port Authority, Penn Station along,  Grand Central Terminal and city tunnels and airports.

State police will also be patrolling MTA and Amtrak stations, he said.

The governor said counter-terrorism and state police officials spoke last night about upcoming special events and mass gatherings.

He added that Port Authority officials are evaluating security for Sunday’s 9/11 Memorial 5K Run/Walk.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg will meet Thursday morning with the parents of Hadiya Pendleton, a Chicago teenager killed just days after she performed at President Obama’s inauguration in Washington, D.C.

Bloomberg will speak with her parents, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel Pendleton, this morning at City Hall.

Pendleton, 15, was shot and killed in January in a park near her school.

Her parents recently filmed a television commercial for the mayor’s efforts against illegal firearms.

Bloomberg has been pushing for stronger gun laws for New York and the nation alongside his Mayors Against Illegal Guns group.

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A new app from from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene aims to provide New York City teens with information about clinics and sexual health services at the click of a button — or tap of a finger.

The app is getting surprisingly little promotion, given the backlash from the mayor’s teen pregnancy ads, when many advocates and city officials accused the administration of wasting funds and energy on a shame campaign that did not focus enough or at all on providing access to information or resources.

“The app is a great step forward and I commend the administration,” said Councilwoman Anabel Palma, one of the city officials who took issue with the ad campaign. “But I still am extremely disappointed about the ads and upset the administration won’t change the messaging of stereotyping or stigmatizing current teen parents and past teen parents as well.”

Palma praised the app as a better proactive, preventative measure, insisting that “scare tactics don’t get teens to correct their behavior, education does.”

The app seizes on the fact that in New York state, teens are not required to get parental consent before receiving sexual health resources, information, or treatment.

The app has three components: a clinic search engine; information about various forms of birth control, including emergency contraception, and a reminder that both a condom and birth control must be used to be effective; as well as a section of video testimonials from teens.

The teens in the videos describe the experience of clinic visits, as well as other experiences teens may have trouble discussing with adults, including sexual attraction and unplanned pregnancies.

Some clinics are marked with a gold star, indicating they offer some services free of charge. All of the clinics included in the app’s directory have been screened by teen “mystery shoppers,” who visited the clinics in advance to make sure they’re adolescent-friendly.

The app also assures users that all of the clinics offer confidential sexual health services, so information will not be shared with parents or significant others. No information is logged by the app when downloading or using it, either.

The app, called Teens in NYC Protection +, is available via iTunes.

More information on teen health resources and services is accessible on nyc.gov by searching “NYC teen.”

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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The mother of a teenager shot by police is not answering the mayor’s phone calls, he said.

According to various news reports, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been trying to reach out to the family of Kimani Gray, killed by police March 9.

The shooting set off nightly protests in the teen’s East Flatbush neighborhood.

Bloomberg told The New York Times he had tried to call Gray’s parents.

“The woman, the mother, is not taking any calls, changed her phone number so I can’t, but I did reach out,” he told the newspaper.

The family’s lawyer, Kenneth Montgomery, told reporters they “weren’t interested in the photo op.”

He confirmed that the mayor’s office had reached out to him since the shooting.

The family declined the requests, he said.

Gray’s mother has called for an independent probe into her son’s death.

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Parents around the city are worried their day care programs will be cut under the mayor’s budget.

Hundreds of parents and children who attend after-school programs plan to protest the possible cuts at City Hall Park on Thursday.

The Campaign for Children says that 47,000 children would be cut from child care and after-school programs if the mayor’s budget does not change.

The group estimates as many as 700 children will be at the Thursday rally.

Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal, about 75 percent of after-school spots will have been slashed during since 2008, the group said.

Children who attend such programs are more likely to graduate and do better in school, according to the group.

Students who attend after-school programs rallied outside the City Council earlier this month, saying the after-school spots are important for kids like them to stay safe and learn.

Mayoral spokesman Marc LaVorgna told Metro, “We will be working with the Council to ensure we keep the budget balanced while providing as much of the services needed as possible.”

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City comptroller and mayoral candidate John Liu said he opposes the idea of an inspector general for the NYPD, reversing his position on the proposal.

“The more I think about it, the less sense it makes,” Liu told the Wall Street Journal. “I don’t support it.”

Liu has reversed his position on the issue in less than a week, the Journal reports. The comptroller’s campaign told the Journal last week in an email that he supports the proposal for an inspector general.

He said Monday that he believes an inspector general would be a “distraction” and that the real problem is the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy, which he promises to abolish.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, another candidate for mayor, endorsed the bill last week.

Liu’s new stance puts him on the side of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Republican candidates for mayor. The other major Democratic contenders – Quinn, Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio and former Comptroller Bill Thompson – support the bill.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Monday a fleet of new programs he said will deliver new jobs to low-income New Yorkers.

Speaking at Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, a Bushwick group that offers job-placement help, the mayor launched eight programs to connect New Yorkers with career placement.

One program will help people pursuing an associate degree or certification by giving them workplace experience in their field of study, such as an internship at a tech company for someone at CUNY’s New York City College of Technology.

Another program will create apps to link job searchers and gigs, for example helping a student find a job within a 30-minute subway ride.

Vacant land will also be put to employment use — designated areas in Brownsville and East New York can become businesses, like a pop-up store that could bring jobs.

Still another program targets immigrants, helping provide them with skills training and career planning.

Many immigrants arrive with advanced degrees from their home countries, like engineering or a medical degrees, but must undergo more education or training here.

Leslie Robbins, director of the Riverside Language Program, which offers free English for Speakers of Other Languages classes, recalled a conversation in a cab 25 years ago.

She asked her driver what he did before coming to New York.

“I was a cardiologist in Russia,” he replied, “but I have no dream of being a doctor in the U.S.”

With the new programs, she said, “New York City will benefit from a whole new pool of intellectual riches.”

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The city has completed repairs on more than 20,000 homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy, officials announced today.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the Rapid Repairs program finished repairing nearly 100 percent of homes, six months after the storm.

At times, he said, 2,300 workers were fixing more than 200 homes per day.

The homes fixed reflect 20,000 families and about 54,000 people, Bloomberg said.

NYC Rapid Repairs provides free repairs to homeowners who sign up for the program, through city-funded contractors and construction workers.

Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu lauded the program, saying that her state learned “the hard way” how “ineffective trailers are as a one-size-fits-all solution.”

Bloomberg also elaborated about how the city will use $1.77 billion in federal aid that began trickling into the city last month. He said $10 billion will be donated to one- and two-family homes in need of moderate repairs. 

“We still have a lot of work ahead of us to help the families and businesses impacted by Sandy to make a full recovery,” Bloomberg said.

Since Sandy, thousands of people have been unable to return to their homes, with some living in hotels where they say conditions are awful.

And some homes might not be salvageable. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has offered to buy waterfront land from homeowners at pre-Sandy prices, to make sure no one builds homes on the land again.

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Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant has passed a law people are calling the “anti-Bloomberg bill,” CNN reports, prohibiting city or local governments from enacting regulations like the controversial drink size ban in New York City.

The ban had been set to go into effect last week, but was struck down in the 11th hour by a judge who ruled that it excessively expanded the powers of the Department of Health beyond precedent.

According to a recent Central for Disease Control report, Mississippi has the highest rate of obesity in the country, at 34.9 percent.

New York state’s obesity rate was 24.5 percent as of 2011.

But Bryant reportedly told CNN that obesity among children in his state has dropped 13.3 percent between 2005 and 2011.

The New York Post recently depicted Mayor Michael Bloomberg as Mary Poppins hovering over the city, a play on his “Nanny Bloomberg” nickname.

The mayor responded favorably to the drawing.

“That’s one of the most wonderful cartoons I’ve ever seen,” he said.

He reiterated his stance in a speech following the judge’s ruling, insisting he was doing what was best for the people in his city.

“I take that as a great badge of honor,” the mayor insisted. “I can’t think of anything I like [more]. It says we’re trying to do something: Save lives.”

The Mississippi lawmaker who sponsored the bill, state Sen. Tony Smith, is also a restaurant owner.

“If the market demands that I serve a more healthy food, I’ll do that to meet the market demand,” Smith said. “But … why should I risk my capital, my hard work, my efforts that I’ve put into build a restaurant on the thinking of what a government official thinks?”

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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