Stephen Hawking’s universe

Stephen Hawking is famous for insisting that the strongest arguments are based on reason while the weakest are based on authority. So it's curious to see the eminent physicist using his authority as a physicist to elevate politics over free inquiry by joining an academic boycott of Israel.

Hawking had been set to headline an annual, star-studded geopolitical conference next month convened by Israeli President Shimon Peres. But yesterday, in a statement issued in his name, Hawking said he was withdrawing "based on advice from Palestinian academics."

AP

Stephen Hawking

As the Israeli Foreign Ministry conceded, "Never has a scientist of this stature boycotted Israel."

This is ironic in more than one way. To begin with, among the most impressive things about Hawking is that he has achieved what he has while living with a severe motor-neuron disease. If his life is a little easier today, it's because he can communicate via technology running on a computer chip designed by Intel's Israel-based team.

For another, the high-powered confab he'd agreed to attend included not only Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Mikhail Gorbachev but also Munib al-Masri — a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. It's hard to imagine another place in the Middle East that would be as open or inclusive.

Then again, though Hawking has visited Israel before, he's also compared it to apartheid-era South Africa and demanded that Jerusalem negotiate with Hamas.

He's entitled to his politics, of course. Even if the only thing that makes his boycott attention-grabbing is not his science but his celebrity.

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Hefner struggles as Mets fall to White Sox

It took just one batter for Jeremy Hefner to dim the afterglow of Matt Harvey's masterpiece start, just one hitter for him to allow a home run and remind everyone just how big the gap is between Harvey and the rest of the Mets' rotation.

The winless Hefner wasn't terrible in the Mets' 6-3 loss to the White Sox Wednesday night, but he was far from terrific, and that's exactly what the Amazin's need from their starter, with the way they have hit lately.

The Mets have mustered four runs in their past 20 innings and, despite Lucas Duda coming to the plate as the potential tying run in the eighth, never appeared to threaten in front of an announced crowd of 21,470 fans at soggy Citi Field.

After his nine innings of one-hit ball on Tuesday, Harvey is 4-0 with a 1.28 ERA. But after Hefner allowed eight hits and four runs (all earned) in his six middling innings of work last night, the rest of the Mets' rotation not named Harvey has struggled with a 4.96 ERA.

It was a disappointing outing for Hefner (0-4), unable to build on a solid outing last Tuesday in Miami. After struggling through his first four starts with a bloated 7.07 ERA, he seemingly had righted the ship. Over his previous two starts he posted a sterling 1.80 ERA and hoped to carry that over against Chicago.

"It's all about command,'' manager Terry Collins said beforehand. "The other day in Miami, his velocity was up [and] his command was better. He was ahead in the count and therefore he gets hitters to chase a little bit. When he's getting ahead, he pitches very well.''

He surrendered a home run last night to the first batter he faced. Alejandro De Aza went deep on a 2-2 pitch. Then, after Duda's second-inning solo shot into the right field loge for his seventh homer of the season, Hefner coughed up three more runs in the third.

After singles by De Aza and Alexi Ramirez, Hefner saw right fielder Alex Rios — whose infield single with two out in the seventh inning spoiled Harvey's perfect game — stroke an RBI double. Hefner fell behind Conor Gillaspie 3-1 before the third baseman dropped an 85 mph changeup into shallow left center between three converging Mets for two more RBIs and a 4-1 lead.

Hefner gave way after six, and reliever Scott Atchison surrendered a run in the seventh on Paul Konerko's RBI bloop single to right.

The Mets mustered next to nothing against White Sox starter Jake Peavy (4-1), who allowed just three hits and one run in his 6 2/3 innings.

Even their successes came with Keystone moments of high comedy. Pinch-hitter Justin Turner singled to right in the eighth inning, and as Ruben Tejada came around to make it 5-2 on Rios' error, Turner rounded first and face-planted in the dirt.

Duda crushed a solo shot into the right field loge in the second inning for his seventh home run of the season. But when he came up with two on and two out in the eighth, with a chance to tie the game, he fanned on a 73 mph curveball.

Rios absolutely crushed a Jeurys Familia fastball to left for a ninth-inning solo shot. Tejada delivered an RBI single in the bottom of the ninth, but the Mets got no closer.

brian.lewis@nypost.com

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Can dirty Harry clean up his image?

It's been eight months since the infamous strip billiards incident when the world (almost) got to see Prince Harry's crown jewels as he partied in the nude with a bevy of Las Vegas beauties in his VIP suite at the Wynn.

Today marks the playboy prince's first visit to the States since the scandal — this time, he's staying for a week of official engagements, including a trip to the storm-ravaged Jersey Shore. According to some observers, it's all part of an effort to rehabilitate the image of the royal who's third in line to the throne and a first-class troublemaker.

AP

HARRY TO THE RESCUE: Army man Prince Harry is hoping to clean up his party boy image with an official tour to the US, which will see him visiting Sandy-ravaged New Jersey on Tuesday.

Photos: Dirty Harry: Playboy Prince or Proper Prince?

"He has quite an agenda ahead to clean up his act," says Leslie Singer, branding expert for the Manhattan-based consultants Singer Salt, who has been following Harry's fortunes on both sides of the pond.

The US is "the global thermometer of what's in and what's out, and then everybody seems to follow suit. If the Americans love him and can forgive him, then hopefully everyone else will, too."

Harry's Vegas hangover is only the latest in a string of devilish misdeeds including but not limited to: smoking weed in 2002, wearing a Nazi armband at a party in 2005, and swallowing a live goldfish at a wedding reception in 1999. Earlier this year, he controversially compared his time serving as an attack gunner in Afghanistan to playing a video game, calling it "a joy for me because I'm one of those people that loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I'm probably quite useful."

While many of the royal family members find Prince Harry amusing (pictures of him joking with his sister-in-law, Duchess Kate, speak to his charms), the 28-year-old has also shone an unwelcome spotlight on the decadent, out-of-touch reputation of the aristocracy. This trip is meant to remind the public that he's his mother's son: empathetic, personable and charitable. And so, in the words of one royal aide who spoke to The Post anonymously, he'll be "kept on the leash."

Practically every day of Harry's Rehab Tour is planned to the last second with sobering excursions to Arlington Cemetery, the Warrior Games for wounded soldiers in Colorado Springs, and underprivileged areas here in New York City. On Tuesday, he will visit sections of the Jersey Shore hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy with Gov. Chris Christie, and check out the rebuilding efforts in Mantoloking and Seaside Heights. (Only Monday is unaccounted for on Harry's schedule, allowing for travel and R&R instead of hanky panky.)

According to his friends, Harry has a wish list of New York destinations that he won't be able to check off this visit. They include clubs Lavo, Kiss and Fly, and The Box (he's a discreet regular at The Box in London).

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The Benghazi beat

In the run-up to yesterday's House hearings on Benghazi, we were struck by a column by The New York Times' public editor. It was written in response to readers angry that the paper was not giving the Benghazi hearings the coverage they merited.

After suggesting that such criticism was politically motivated and "fomented by Fox News," the editor offered an interesting conclusion. "The Times," she wrote, "has had a tendency to both play down the subject, which has significant news value, and to pursue it most aggressively as a story about political divisiveness rather than one about national security mistakes and the lack of government transparency."

AP

President Obama

Translation: The critics are right.

We don't mean to single out the Times. For eight months now, the national press corps has shown little interest in questioning President Obama's narrative that any mistakes made before, during or after the Benghazi attacks were through incompetence brought about by the fog of war.

That storyline took a big hit yesterday on Capitol Hill from three State Department officers who had direct knowledge of the events surrounding that deadly terror assault. If their testimony is true, key aspects of the administration's narrative do not hold. And if it's also true that some were pressured to keep their mouths shut, we now have an even bigger story — which should especially interest those who complain the issue has been "politicized."

Not that the press corps doesn't know how to hold a pol accountable. At Mitt Romney's press conference the day after the attacks on our diplomatic posts, six of the eight questions directed at the GOP candidate were about the appropriateness of his statement on Egypt rather than what went down there.

President Obama has faced nothing remotely like that in the eight months since those four Americans were killed. Judging from yesterday's testimony from three compelling witnesses, it's time he did.

Have an opinion on this Post editorial? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Supply-side Schumer

Don't look now, but New York's senior senator has just endorsed a key proposition of supply-side economics: That high tax rates influence behavior, and that in turn has consequences for tax revenues.

As The Post recently reported, Schumer has been talking to business leaders about a plan to lure multinational corporate profits parked in offshore accounts back to this country. His proposal: Declare a tax holiday in which the tax rate for repatriating money would be lowered from 35 percent to just 8 percent.

The idea is that if the United States could entice back the estimated $1.7 trillion in accumulated offshore earnings, it would generate $136 billion in revenues under the 8 percent rate. Others say the more realistic return would be in the range of $50 billion.

AP

Chuck Schumer

Either way, it raises the obvious question: Why not just lower the tax rates permanently so we can keep money from heading overseas in the first place?

President Obama's new nominee for commerce secretary, Hyatt Hotel heiress Penny Pritzker, might have an interesting perspective here. A major bundler for the Obama campaign, Pritzker is something of an expert on how high US tax rates send money overseas, given her family's spats with the IRS about their offshore accounts.

Whatever the reason for Schumer's move, it's a big improvement over the approach he took last year when he introduced a bill to penalize Americans who renounce their US citizenship for tax reasons. In other words, people such as Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

So two cheers for Schumer's new effort. We'll reserve the third for when he extends his bid for a tax holiday into a permanent vacation.

Have an opinion on this Post editorial? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Marriott East readers’ favorite for landmark

The Marriott East Hotel at 525 Lexington Ave. is the East Midtown building our readers would most like to see named a landmark.

We invited readers a few weeks ago to weigh in with their views of the eight properties the Landmarks Preservation Commission is considering for designation.

Reader James Korth spoke for those skeptical of the whole process. "Midtown is not for landmarks . . . I vote to bring all of them down."

"Lexington Avenue has always had a little of that Eighth Avenue feel, i.e., a little cheesy and kind of sleazy. Knock 'em down, I say."

Sean Hennessey, CEO of hospitality industry advisory firm Lodging Advisors, said the Marriott East should make the cut. The former Shelton Towers designed by Arthur Loomis Harmon and now owned by a Morgan Stanley fund, although "not that special" architecturally, "was the tallest hotel in the world when it was built," he noted.

The 1924 structure pioneered the use of setbacks encouraged under 1916 zoning. It was also where the great photographer Alfred Stieglitz and his painter wife, Georgia O'Keeffe, once lived.

Hennessey also noted the "Castellano-like mystery involving former owner Biff Halloran's mob ties and subsequent disappearance." In the 1980s, Halloran, who named the hotel for himself and was implicated in a concrete price-fixing scheme, vanished without a trace.

Cushman & Wakefield EVP Robert F. Ballard, who commented on all eight candidates in detail, not only wants to see the Marriott East landmarked, he proposed "removing the entrance canopy, reverting its name and cleaning it" to "reaffirm its legacy."

Ballard also endorsed designating York & Sawyer's 125 Park Ave. and Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie DuBois' 270 Park Ave., the 52-story JP Morgan Chase tower. The latter "would be representative of its place in the history of the avenue," he wrote.

But he was dismissive of the other five. Of the Graybar Building, he said the tower's impressive lower-floors facade "could be included in a [new] soaring, modern rectangular tower."

Gregg Barkley also wants to preserve the Marriott East — "Being first in an important area of technology is something worth preserving."

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Chuck eyes re-zone bonds

Steve Cuozzo

REALTY CHECK

Joining the melee over East Midtown rezoning, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will propose today that City Hall issue bonds to pay for future transit and infrastructure improvements in the Grand Central district.

Schumer makes the pitch in a letter to Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Steel. The bonds would provide revenue to fund the upgrades — which rezoning critics say are needed to prevent unmanageable congestion — before new buildings go up in the area and add thousands of new workers to the sidewalks and rail stations.

They'd be issued against the District Improvement Fund, a proposed city-controlled pot into which landlords would pay in exchange for being able to construct larger new buildings than current zoning permits.

Associated Press

RAVES & WRECKS: Marriott East wonmore kudos from readers than other landmark candidates including 125 Park Ave.

"The No. 1 point critics of rezoning have made is that the transportation improvements come too late," said Schumer, a strong proponent of the measure pushed by Mayor Bloomberg and Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden.

"But we could get going on the transit infrastructure immediately, and not wait until the buildings go up," Schumer told us yesterday.

Since up-zoning, if approved, wouldn't kick in until 2017, the city would have a head start on new public amenities before new construction.

Schumer recognizes the obsolescence of the office stock along and astride Park Avenue, where buildings are on average 60 years old. "Our office buildings are our factories, our economic engines, and they need to be state of the art," he says.

The rezoning proposal has begun the public review process leading to a City Council vote in October. It affects a 78-block zone roughly between East 39th and 57th streets, between Third and Fifth avenues.

Under the scheme, the city wouldn't collect DIF payments until a deal was struck with a developer wishing to buy air rights to build towers larger than existing zoning rules permit.

That, Schumer writes to Steel, means "[infrastructure] upgrades would not get funded until new buildings were already rising.

"Instead the reverse must occur," Schumer says — "invest in infrastructure improvements now" to prepare for the new towers and the employees who would work there.

He also hints that pre-financing the amenities could lead to benefits from Washington: "I am open to . . . using this new source of revenue to leverage more federal resources."

While the rezoning proposal's fine print is complicated, basically a developer would pay the city $250 for each additional square foot to be built at a particular address above the currently permitted floor-to-area ratio (FAR) of 15.

The maximum permissible size of new structures would vary throughout East Midtown, but could rise to 30 FAR in the blocks nearest to Grand Central Terminal. The much greater floor space on the same "footprint" could result in towers as tall as the Chrysler Building.

The DIF would pay for "critical transit and pedestrian improvements . . . such as additional, relocated or reconstructed stair, ramp and escalator connections within the Grand Central subway station as well as a full range of at-grade public realm improvements," according to the Dept. of City Planning (DPC).

Landlords and many preservationists are on board with the idea that new, larger projects are necessary to keep the city from losing its global edge to London or other financial capitals. Under current zoning rules written in 1961, most existing East Midtown buildings couldn't be replaced by new ones even of the same size.

But they disagree on timing, the volume of new construction and how many older buildings should be protected from demolition.

All sides in the struggle are digging in. Real Estate Board of New York president Steven Spinola says the lobbying organization wants to allow larger structures on sites with footprints smaller than 25,000 square feet — a size that is required by the current proposal.

Meanwhile, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is considering eight East Midtown properties for designation, a list first reported by The Post's Lois Weiss last month.

The eight — including the Graybar Building, 270 Park Avenue and three Lexington Avenue hotels — are understood to be merely the first wave of perhaps 30-plus the LPC will evaluate over time. Rezoning advocates say the initiative has the city working at cross-purposes — the DCP battling to encourage large new development, while LPC allegedly inhibits it by making too many sites off-limits.

LPC spokesperson Lisi de Bourbon said the agency has "reached out to the owners of all eight buildings" and is meeting with them to discuss the situation.

scuozzo@nypost.com

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Courtroom drama for Aereo and CBS

Barry Diller's Aereo is playing offense in its battle with CBS boss Les Moonves.

Just days after Moonves threatened to sue the TV startup every time it expands into a new market, Aereo slapped CBS with a lawsuit in a pre-emptive strike.

Yesterday, Aereo asked a Manhattan federal court to rule that its technology doesn't violate CBS's copyrights and to bar CBS from suing it in all of the 22 cities where Aereo plans to launch.

"These public relations and legal maneuvers do not change the fundamentally illegal nature of Aereo's supposed business," a CBS spokesman said.

ZUMAPRESS.com

Here's what has CBS boss Les Moonves steamed: He thinks Barry Diller's (above) Aereomedia service amounts to stealing content like his "2 Broke Girls" show.

Aereo uses antenna farms to grab over-the-air broadcast signals. It then streams them via the Internet to tablets and other mobile devices for a monthly fee.

CBS and other broadcasters, which have sued Aereo for copyright infringement, have failed twice to get preliminary injunctions to stop the service while a federal suit wends its way through the courts.

An Aereo spokeswoman said: "The fact that CBS did not prevail in their efforts to enjoin [us] in their existing federal lawsuit does not entitle them to a do-over in another jurisdiction."

Aereo insiders said that interest and subscriber numbers are rising, thanks to the publicity surround its legal battle. The company won't say how many users it has, but estimates suggest it's only a few thousand.

Aereo plans to launch in Boston on May 15 for those who have pre-registered for the service.

catkinson@nypost.com

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The e-hail it ain’t

A judge yesterday refused to lift an order that slammed the brakes on the Big Apple's controversial pilot program for hailing yellow cabs using smartphone apps.

Appellate judge Helen Freedman issued the temporary restraining order blocking apps such as Hailo and Uber from operating under the city-run program until an appeals court panel reviews the case at a May 20 hearing.

However, e-hail app makers Hailo and Uber continue to operate in the city despite the order.

Hailo argues that the order doesn't ban e-hail apps or prevent yellow cabs operating outside of the pilot program from accepting e-hails.

Reuters

The Big Apple taxi app flap has Hailo griping about the $4.7M it spent to expand to NYC.

"We went to court to clarify whether or not we were actually enjoined by her order and it was very clearly decided that we were not," Hailo CEO Jay Bregman told The Post yesterday.

The livery cab industry, which sued to stop the pilot program run by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, disagrees. A lawyer for black car owners, Randy Mastro, said Hailo is clearly in violation of the order.

"To the extent Hailo operates illegally, it does so at its peril," Mastro told The Post. "The injunction remains in full force and effect. And the TLC should be cracking down on those violating local law and defying the court's order."

Livery cab companies, fearing competition from e-hail technology, argue that they are the only ones who have approval to accept rides arranged in advance.

Earlier yesterday, Hailo CEO Bregman asked Freedman to lift the injunction, saying it was hurting his business.

Hailo said that the London-based company has already spent $4.7 million expanding into the New York City market — $1 million of which went toward the pilot program.

"The delay and confusion associated with this protracted litigation have already strained Hailo's reputation and goodwill," Bregman told the appeals court judge.

gsloane@nypost.com

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Home wreckers

Yennifer Olortiga's American dream of homeownership turned into a foreclosure nightmare when she tried to modify her mortgage two years ago.

The Staten Island mom told The Post that she had been paying her Bank of America mortgage for six years but now finds herself, her husband and three kids close to getting booted out onto the street because of BofA's bungled loan-modification process.

"This is the American dream to own a home, and now we don't even know how much longer we'll be able to live in it," Olortiga said.

The mother of three teenagers — ages 19, 17 and 14 — says that since she applied for a loan modification on her $225,000 house back in 2011, the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank has either ignored her pleas for aid entirely or given her the runaround.

Chad Rachman/New York Post

A heartbreaking story of homeowner Joyce Harden—seen here choking up yesterday at the news conference — served as an example of the state's accusations against lenders Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

The bank has misplaced paperwork, delayed its response to the family's application and asked multiple times for the same documentation, Olortiga claims.

"We can't sleep at night," she added.

"We've resubmitted documents five times since last year," the family's lawyer said. "Within 30 days a decision should be made, but for [them] it's taken more than 15 months, and we still don't have an answer," Joseph Sant, with SI Legal Services, said.

Tales of banks bungling mortgage-modification paperwork were common in the years after the 2008 mortgage meltdown but were thought to have been erased last year when the five largest US mortgage lenders, in return for 49 states dropping lawsuits on the matter, promised to follow through quickly on modification requests.

New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman yesterday promised to sue BofA and a second bank, Wells Fargo, for failing to live up to their promise.

"We've been paying our mortgage for over six years, and it's not fair the bank would rather take it away than help us," Olortiga noted.

The family represents thousands of New Yorkers on the brink of getting bounced from their homes despite the $25 billion, 49-state settlement last year.

"Every day in America, more than 2,700 new families enter into some form of foreclosure," the AG noted.

Retired nurse Joyce Harden, 69, who lives in the Rockaways with her husband, Alton, is facing similar problems getting a modification.

Harden says she refinanced her roughly $360,000 mortgage in 2008 but has seen the value of her home plummet to an estimated $220,000 after it was damaged during Hurricane Sandy.

With a tissue in her hand and sniffling at times, Harden said that while she's still on time with her payments on the home in which she raised her family for 35 years, she fears losing it.

"We know that every month that passes we are getting deeper and deeper in a hole," she noted.

"We are headed into our 70s and want to enjoy this part of our lives without worrying about losing our homes," Harden added.

mark.decambre@nypost.com

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Mother of Goddess

Linda Stasi

Dear Mom, Love CherMonday night at 10 on Lifetime

There are three striking things in "Dear Mom, Love Cher," the singer's Lifetime documentary tribute to her mom, Georgia Holt.

The first is how incredibly gorgeous Holt is.

The second is that although Holt is now 86 she still looks 50.

But it's the third that remains the most bizarre. Why in hell did it take Cher five decades to help her mother launch her lifelong dream of a singing career?

The six-times married Holt was born into Depression-era Arkansas poverty.

Her grandfather — a rail road dynamiter — accidentally blew himself up when she was a kid.

DUET: Georgia Holt and daughter Cher

But not until after Holt hitchhiked with her father to California as a little girl, where she sang in saloons.

She dreamed that one day she'd become a famous singer and movie star.

The saloon singing brought in so much money that the little girl's pockets sagged from all the change. But the movie star thing never quite happened — despite her remarkable beauty.

For one thing, she married very young — and for apparently no reason. Certainly not for love, since she never liked her first husband, John Sarkisian (Cher's father).

In fact Holt tells us she contemplated divorce the day after the nuptials.

She hung on for a few months, got pregnant (with Cher), went to an abortionist with her mother to terminate that pregnancy, but chickened out.

It got worse. A short time later she was beat out for a big movie part by an unknown blond, Marilyn Monore.

In the documentary, Holt, Cher and her sister, Georganne LaPiere Bartylak, Cher's children, Chaz Bono and Elijah Blue, as well as Holt's long-time guy, Craig Spencer (21 years younger than Georgia) do all the talking.

Despite being loving and sweet, the documentary feels four decades too late and a million dollars short if Cher was really serious about why she made this movie — to help Holt achieve her life-long dream of a singing career.

Cher says she recently found in some garage the original tapes of an album that her mother cut 30 years ago — and discovered that she and Cher have identical voices. She's had them remastered for release.

Turns out that when the album was cut decades back, Spencer advised Holt not to sign the five-year contract that was offered. No album and no career.

Why she'd listen to him when her daughter — by then, a giant star — could have stepped in and made this happen for her is never explained.

It's a loving tribute, and eye opening at times — especially when they talk about Cher moving in with the much-older Sonny when she was a 17-year old high school drop-out.

Holt says she wanted to have him arrested.

Still, like all self-produced biographies, the nasty bits are glossed over. The rough patches of Holt's life are made to seem like minor inconveniences and not life-altering events.

Why? Because history gets to be written by life's winners.

Twitter; @lindastasi

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NY’s Post-Mike crime rate: Will it start shooting up?

The Issue: How the mayoral election will affect crime, since many candidates want to curb stop-and-frisk.

***

Mayor Bloomberg's strong resolve to keep stop-and-frisk and block the inclusion of an IG to look over the NYPD's intelligence-gathering is wise, confirming his interest in our safety ("Après Mike, Le Déluge," Editorial, May 1).

This particular issue proves that while he is a politician, he is nevertheless paternal in his concern toward our habits, like smoking and the huge, unnecessary quantities of what we ingest.

People resist having personal choices made by a governmental official, regardless of whether the outcome would benefit their health.

WireImage

Mayor Bloomberg

It is natural that Bloomberg has aroused the ire of many New Yorkers, which is overshadowing his accomplishments — the safety of a city he loves and the people who inhabit it.

Antonietta Mainenti

Bronxville

It appears that the current crop of mayoral candidates is more interested in appealing to the left-wing, police-hating fringe than in protecting the citizens of the world's greatest city.

Lenny Chiat

Pomona

We shouldn't just assume Bloomberg will leave office of his own volition. It will take an exorcism to get him out.

Bloomberg receives way too much credit. Crime was already on a steady decline when he took office, as was smoking. The mayor rides waves, then claims them as his own.

The stop-and-frisk program is great, unless you happen to be the poor soul they're stopping and frisking just because you can't afford to live in a better part of town.

The policy is a direct, blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The police have always had the right to stop and search a suspect as long as they have reasonable suspicion. Stop-and-frisk simply removes the reasonable part.

If you're wealthy, Bloomberg has been a great mayor. If you're not, he seems cruel, petty and heartless.

Gary Taustine

Manhattan

Thanks to New York City's stop-and-frisk program, death by guns has dropped from 524 in 2000 to 366 in 2011. There are 158 people who stay alive each year thanks to the program.

President Obama is supporting new gun laws by saying that if they save only one child's life, it would be worth it.

The deaths from gun violence in New York City are half the national average. If Obama is serious about saving lives, he should be campaigning to implement stop-and-frisk nationwide. It has the potential of saving thousands of lives and getting countless guns off our streets.Tom Lienhard

Westfield, NJ

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DA is no Tebow

The Post's editorial "Tebow Time for The Bronx" repeats the rumor of a plan by unnamed "political leaders" to "nudge" me from office, and compares me to the Jet's Tim Tebow, who made very few offensive plays last year.

Since January we announced a political corruption investigation which we began and which led to an indictment against one New York assemblyman and a federal indictment against another.

We indicted 14 people for selling 140 illegal firearms, including assault weapons, from four other states. We announced the murder indictment of the killer of a 2-year-old. We announced the identity-theft indictment of 17 people for stealing more than $1.5 million from numerous victims.

While indictments are merely allegations, these qualify as "offensive plays" against crime.

The Post claims that our "felony conviction rate" was 46 percent in 2011. This is a jury record based on less than 3 percent of the indictments we disposed of in 2011. In that year, 88 percent of all defendants were convicted.

Furthermore, since 1990, Bronx violent crime decreased 73 percent, homicide decreased percent and auto theft fell 93 percent.

I love doing this job, and can only be "nudged" from it through the electoral process.

Robert Johnson

District Attorney

The Bronx

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Sightings . . .

Anne Hathaway shopping for mod clothes with husband Adam Shulman at Blue & Creme on the Bowery . . . JOHN Legend opening the Yahoo on the Road tour, which also featured DJ Jonny Famous . . . BRITISH DJ Fatboy Slim at the private opening of "Lost Then Found," a gallery exhibition of never-before-seen Andy Warhol portraits by Steve Wood at 345meatpacking.

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Rockers dress for jazz

It was a toss-up which was the more incongruous sight at Jazz at Lincoln Center's benefit gala the other night: Crosby, Stills and Nash wearing suits and ties as they played with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, or Glenn Close parading with Wynton Marsalis' musicians amidst tables during the after-dinner. Michael Douglas, who sat with CNN honcho Jeff Zucker, might have had a "Fatal Attraction" flashback. In the concert, which featured new arrangements of the band's classics by orchestra members, still-dapper Graham Nash told the crowd, "Today is Judy Collins' birthday" as he introduced "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," the song she inspired. Stephen Stills teased a tech man after a glitch, "Another one like that and you go back to Neil Young," and David Crosby cheerfully admitted his songs were "herbally enhanced." The evening — which drew Lloyd Blankfein, Mayor Bloomberg, David Geffen, Larry Gagosian and Jill and Robert Wagner — raised more than $3 million.

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Fury for early headline

DC-based Bloomberg News executive editor Dan Moss flew to Prague to rage against two editors who mistakenly posted a headline before a story's embargo time. We're told Prague-based Jeffery Donovan and Alan Crosby posted a headline Thursday about the Czech Central Bank just one minute before the embargo lifted. We're told Moss "screeched and screamed through the DC newsroom and said he was going to Prague to fire the editors." He immediately got on a plane, reprimanded the journos and flew home. Donovan and Crosby were fired. "Bloomberg takes accuracy extremely seriously and they acted swiftly," said an insider. The gaffe came just after Hungarian regulators fined Bloomberg $44,000 for a story about the Hungarian central bank's rate decision which turned out to be inaccurate, but was corrected within seconds. A Bloomberg rep had no comment.

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The Oprah network

Mayor Bloomberg fought for a few months to keep his ill-fated schools chancellor Cathie Black in office. But he fought for two years to keep internal e-mails about her hidden.

And boy is it clear why.

Black was a publishing exec with no experience in education. When she was appointed chancellor, she didn't take a crash course on public schools or even visit shrines to Maria Montessori.

Instead, she dreamed of Oprah.

The e-mails were released Thursday under court order following a long and bitter lawsuit. They cover the first 10 days after Bloomberg announced Black as the new CEO of city schools in November 2010.

Because she had no background in education, Black needed a waiver from state authorities to ease her into office. The result was a bizarre PR campaign hatched by a coterie of top city officials to get prominent women to back Black.

They courted celebrities such as fashion designers Donna Karan and Diane von Furstenberg. They tried Caroline Kennedy, who wisely didn't respond. "Would we want ivanka trump?" wondered Black in one e-mail. The jewel in the crown was Oprah, who sang Black's praises in a newspaper interview and sealed the deal.

Ivanka, Oprah, DKNY — these are the stars of the supermarket check-out counter. Yet their sign-on was the priority of the woman in charge of our public schools. And she was appointed by a mayor who campaigned on mayoral control.

The city's lawyers argued that revealing these embarrassing e-mails would discourage people from public service. If that means no more Cathie Blacks, it's the best news we've heard all week.

Have an opinion on this Post editorial? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Obama’s thin red line

Bashar al-Assad has more lives than a cat. Maybe that's because the Syrian dictator isn't as impressed as our press corps by a Harvard Law degree.

Assad has long been warned by the Obama administration that the full wrath of the United States would fall upon him if he ever used chemical weapons. Indeed, the president spoke of a "red line," declaring that chemical weapons would be a "game-changer" that would carry "enormous consequences" and draw America into action.

Yet the ophthalmologist from Damascus knew better. What would happen if he used some of his vast stores of sarin gas on civilians? We now have the answer: nothing.

It's been more than a week since the White House announced that Syria used chemical weapons — and Obama's still dithering. We should not be surprised. That red line was never meant to stop Assad from acting. It was Obama's way of making sure he would never have to act, by pushing the problem out to the future.

In this way, the red line became a warrant for Assad to murder as many of his own citizens as he pleased, just as long as he shelved his chemical arsenal.

But it turns out you can't count on dictators. The world now knows Assad has used chemical weapons. And the world wants to know if Assad's calculation is right: that Obama's threat was never more than a convenient political bluff.

Never mind that by staying out of this fight for so long, America today has fewer good options. If Obama does not intervene, no one will ever take his threats seriously — least of all the Iranian mullahs seeking a nuclear weapon. They are watching Syria with keen-eyed delight.

Your move, Mr. President.

Have an opinion on this Post editorial? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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From Fidel, with love

In the category of dubious distinctions, a Queens-born citizen has just achieved another first: Joanne Chesimard has just become the first woman to make the FBI's list of Most Wanted Terrorists.

The FBI made the announcement during a press conference with the New Jersey state police. The terror listing should remind us of two things: First, that she killed a cop. And second, that domestic terrorism did not begin with Oklahoma City.

Chesimard was a member of the Black Liberation Army, just one of the many radical organizations from the 1960s and 1970s that unleashed a reign of terror on the United States, specializing in both bombings and police-killings. Forty years ago this week on the New Jersey Turnpike, Chesimard murdered State Trooper Werner Foerster, execution-style, after he pulled over the car she and her accomplices where riding in.

Chesimard was tried, convicted and given a life sentence. But in 1979, she was sprung from a New Jersey prison with the help of accomplices from the BLA and the Weather Underground. After hiding in safe houses, she eventually found her way to Fidel Castro's Cuba. There she remains, protected by the regime, immune from extradition and hailed by many as a hero.

These days Chesimard goes by the name Assata Shakur (Tupac Shakur, the slain rapper, was her step-nephew). She knew what she was doing when she picked Cuba. For the Castro regime also gave refuge to other US fugitives, including William Morales, who built bombs for the Puerto Rican group that blew up Fraunces Tavern, as well as CIA turncoat Philip Agee.

In other words, in a Cuban prison sits Alan Gross, an American whose crime is to have helped Cubans improve Internet access, while an American cop-killer walks Havana's streets free as a bird. All worth remembering next time there's talk about normalizing relations.

Have an opinion on this Post editorial? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Mets top Braves in 10th inning

By MIKE PUMA

ATLANTA - Who knew the Mets had a little Houdini in them?

Almost certain to lose on several occasions in Friday's late innings, manager Terry Collins' crew somehow kept escaping until finally delivering the Braves a knockout blow.

Ruben Tejada and Daniel Murphy inflicted the final damage, each with an RBI single in the 10th inning that helped the Mets secure a 7-5 victory at Turner Field.

John Buck, Lucas Duda, Marlon Byrd and David Wright all homered, helping the Mets (12-15) win their second straight. Byrd homered to tie the game in the eighth before Brandon Lyon relinquished the lead. Wright then homered in the ninth against Craig Kimbrel, tying the game.

Jeurys Familia recorded the final three outs after Bobby Parnell cleaned up Lyon's mess in the ninth. Jordany Valdespin's walk with two outs in the 10th against Jordan Walden ignited the Mets' winning rally. After Valdespin stole second and Mike Baxter was hit by a pitch, Tejada and Murphy each delivered an RBI single.

Ramiro Pena's leadoff double in the ninth inning against Lyon, and Reed Johnson's ensuing sacrifice bunt put the winning run at third base for the Braves. But Bobby Parnell got Jordan Schafer on a fly to center and Pena didn't bother to test Juan Lagares' arm. Parnell eventually escaped the inning by retiring Justin Upton.

Wright's solo homer against Kimbrel with one out in the ninth kept the Mets alive. It was the first homer allowed by Kimbrel - the best closer not named Mariano Rivera - in 12 appearances this season.

Evan Gattis' homer with one out in the eighth - on Lyon's first pitch - had put the Mets in a 5-4 hole. Lyon had entered after Scott Rice retired Freddie Freeman to begin the inning.

Byrd gave the Mets new life in the eighth with a leadoff homer against Eric O'Flaherty after the Braves had taken the lead an inning earlier on Andrelton Simmons' RBI fielder's choice against Scott Atchison.

Simmons beat Daniel Murphy's relay throw to first base by a step, avoiding the double play and allowing the run to score. Atchison's wild pitch in the inning was big, allowing Pena to reach third with one out.

Lefty Mike Minor frustrated the Mets, retiring the last 18 batters he faced. Minor's final line included three earned runs allowed on three hits with no walks.

Shaun Marcum lasted only 4 1/3 innings for the Mets and allowed three runs on six hits with three walks and four strikeouts. He was removed with the bases loaded in the fifth, after the Braves had pulled within 3-2 on Simmons' RBI single.

LaTroy Hawkins entered and got Justin Upton to fly out - tying the game - before striking out Freeman to end the inning.

Control has been an issue with Marcum, who has walked six batters in his first 10 innings this season. A walk to Jordan Schafer in the fifth inning last night loaded the bases for Simmons.

Marcum allowed two runs in the 15 inning on Monday in Miami and was the losing pitcher after volunteering for duty when every option in the bullpen had been exhausted.

Juan Francisco's RBI single in the third sliced the Mets' lead to 3-1, but Marcum avoided further damage in the inning. Francisco was leading from second with one out when his right ankle buckled. After falling to the ground he was picked off and had to be helped from the field. He was diagnosed with a mild ankle sprain.

Buck's two-run homer in the first inning put the Mets on the right track. Ruben Tejada opened the game with a bloop double against Minor before Buck, with two outs, homered into the left-field seats. Buck's blast gave him 10 homers in 25 games - only Dave Kingman among Mets players reached double figures faster. Kingman hit 10 homers in his first 23 games of 1976. Kingman (1982) and Carlos Delgado (2006) hit 10 homers in their first 25 games.

Duda's blast leading off the second gave the Mets a 3-0 lead. It was Duda's sixth homer of the season but first in two weeks.

mpuma@nypost.com

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Officials: Israel launches airstrike into Syria

Israel launched an airstrike into Syria, apparently targeting a suspected weapons site, US officials said Friday night.

The strike occurred overnight Thursday into Friday, the officials told The Associated Press. It did not appear that a chemical weapons site was targeted, they said, and one official said the strike appeared to have hit a warehouse.

The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Israel has targeted weapons in the past that it believes are being delivered to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah. Earlier this week, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said his group would assist Syrian President Bashar Assad if needed in the effort to put down a 2-year-old uprising.

Israeli Embassy spokesman Aaron Sagui would not comment Friday night specifically on the report of an Israeli strike into Syria.

"What we can say is that Israel is determined to prevent the transfer of chemical weapons or other game-changing weaponry by the Syrian regime to terrorists, specially to Hezbollah in Lebanon," Sagui said in an email to the AP.

In 2007, Israeli jets bombed a suspected nuclear reactor site along the Euphrates River in northeastern Syria, an attack that embarrassed and jolted the Assad regime and led to a buildup of the Syrian air defense system. Russia provided the hardware for the defense systems upgrade and continues to be a reliable supplier of military equipment to the Assad regime.

Word of the new strike, first reported by CNN, came hours before President Barack Obama told reporters at a news conference in Costa Rica on Friday that he didn't foresee a scenario in which the U.S. would send troops to Syria. More than 70,000 peoples have died and hundreds of thousands have fled the country as the Assad regime has battled rebels.

The Israeli strike also follows days of renewed concerns that Syria might be using chemical weapons against opposition forces. Obama has characterized evidence of the use of chemical weapons as a "game-changer" that would have "enormous consequences."

While the U.S. has been providing nonlethal aide to opposition forces in Syria, even stepping up that form of support in recent days, the Obama administration has resisted calls from some American lawmakers to arm the rebels or to work to establish a no-fly zone to aid the insurgency.

On Thursday, however, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the administration is rethinking its opposition to providing arms to the rebels. He said it was one of several options as the U.S. consults with allies about steps to be taken to drive Assad from power. Officials in the administration who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy said earlier this week that arming the opposition forces was seen as more likely than any other military option.

Obama followed Hagel's comments by saying options will continue to be evaluated, though he did not cite providing arms specifically. Concerns that U.S. weapons could end up in the hands of al-Qaida-linked groups helping the Syrian opposition or other extremists, including Hezbollah, have stood in the way of that change in strategy.

"We want to make sure that we look before we leap and that what we're doing is actually helpful to the situation as opposed to making it more deadly or more complex," Obama said Thursday at a news conference in Mexico.

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Change in store at Sears

The best thing about Sears' loyalty card and Internet business: It makes it easier to get rid of stores.

Hedge-fund billionaire Eddie Lampert, who took over Sears as CEO in February, hinted that he's not finished unloading Sears and Kmart stores, even as he touted the success of the retailer's "Shop Your Way" loyalty program and its growing sales online.

"We are becoming a company focused less on products and less on stores and much more on members," Lampert told shareholders at the company's annual meeting yesterday.

"We know that the level of profitability is still well below what it needs to be to justify the assets we've dedicated to the business," Lampert added.

Reuters

Eddie Lampert

Members of Sears' "Shop Your Way" loyalty program accounted for more than half its sales last year, rising 8 percent. The company's Web site grew sales by 17 percent.

Overall revenue dropped 4 percent, spurring a $930 million loss. That's despite last year's spin-off of Sears' home-store unit, which raised more than $500 million.

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Buffett’s pay plan

Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway, said his eventual successor would probably be paid more than the $100,000 he is to run the company.

"I've written a memo to the board in terms of how they should design a pay package," Buffett told Bloomberg Television's Betty Liu yesterday in Omaha, Nebraska. "It isn't $100,000 a year." He said the board would decide the next CEO's salary.

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‘Trading’ places

Todd Newman, the stock trader who helped take down hedge-fund firm Diamondback Capital Management with a multimillion dollar insider-trading scheme, was sentenced yesterday to 4 1/2 years in prison.

The feds had requested up to 6 1/2 years.

Newman, 48, also was fined $1 million and ordered to forfeit $737,724 for his crimes.

A federal court jury convicted the ex-highflying portfolio manager last December on five counts of fraud for his trades in Dell and Nvidia, which were aided by insider tips.

Around the time of his six-week trial, Diamondback announced plans to cease operations amid requests by investors that would have reduced the firm's already depleted assets by 26 percent, to $1.45 billion.

Bloomberg

TODD NOD: The judge who sentenced Todd Newman, seen here exiting court, to 4-1/2 years in prison said he was moved by support from his friends and family.

When it was raided by the FBI in 2010, Diamondback boasted assets of more than $5 billion.

It managed to hang on with reduced assets for a few years after inking a non-prosecution agreement with Uncle Sam.

Federal agents also arrested Newman's former analyst, Jesse Tortora, who pleaded guilty and testified against his former boss.

Dressed in a navy blue suit and slumped in a chair at the defense table inside Judge Richard Sullivan's courtroom, Newman waived his right to address the court.

His lawyers pleaded on his behalf, saying the divorced father is a "fundamentally good" man, and that a prolonged incarceration would be detrimental to his 12-year old daughter.

"This is not who he is," said one of the lawyers, John Nathanson. "He has lived a really unimpeachable, good life."

Sullivan said letters from Newman's friends and family moved him, but he said he could not reconcile the portrait of the person presented in the letters with the man convicted of illegal trading.

"It's hard to square that with what actually went on here," which was purely about "getting more money," he said.

kwhitehouse@nypost.com

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Cohen vows to clean up SAC

Sac Capital's Steve Cohen told investors yesterday he is determined to clean up the $14 billion hedge fund that has seen five former employees either plead guilty or confess to insider trading.

Cohen, in a May 2 letter to investors — a copy of which was obtained by The Post — said that starting Jan. 1, 2014, SAC will claw back compensation of any analyst or portfolio manager whose conduct leads to regulatory or criminal sanctions.

SAC will also claw back deferred compensation for those who leave during or after a probe.

Cohen is also beefing up his compliance department by adding nine people to its 36-person team. And he is limiting employee calls to four a year to any single person in an expert network, where much of the insider trading has occurred.

Cohen, who said he was "buffeted" by news of employees who have "pleaded guilty to, or have been accused of, insider trading," is considered the ultimate target of US Attorney Preet Bharara's seven-year insider trading probe.

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Just sold!

Manhattan

MIDTOWN WEST $3,550,000

146 W. 57th St.

Two-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath condo, 1,489 square feet, with floor-to-ceiling windows, Central Park views and master suite with marble bath and six-closet dressing area; building features a doorman and pool. Common charges $2,004, taxes $1,683. Asking price $3,750,000, on market 16 weeks. Brokers: Robert Kean, Halstead Property and Hiroko Suzuki, Macklowe Management

Queens

LITTLE NECK $630,000

248-41 Thebes Ave.

Three-bedroom, two-plus-bath Cape on a 4,000-square-foot lot, with eat-in kitchen with dishwasher, formal dining room, basement, washer/dryer, covered patio, new roof and driveway. Taxes $4,000. Asking price $649,000, on market seven weeks. Brokers: Carolyn Meenan, Bryce Rea Associates and Yunsuk Cho, Promise Realty

Staten Island

TODT HILL $840,000

795 Todt Hill Road

Three-bedroom, one-plus-bath house, 2,900 square feet, with portico entry, formal living room, formal dining room, den with sliding doors to patio, finished basement, laundry, garage and golf-course views. Taxes $12,231. Asking price $999,999, on market 45 weeks. Broker: Sari Kingsley, Sari Kingsley Real Estate

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Chris Kelly of rap duo Kris Kross dead: authorities

WireImage

Chris Kelly (left) and Chris Smith found success in the early 1990s with the kid rap duo Kris Kross.

ATLANTA — Chris Kelly, half of the 1990s kid rap duo Kris Kross who made one of the decade's most memorable songs with the frenetic "Jump," has died, according to authorities. He was 34.

Investigator Betty Honey of the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office said the 34-year-old Kelly was pronounced dead around 5 p.m. Wednesday at the south campus of the Atlanta Medical Center.

Honey said authorities are unsure of Kelly's cause of death and that an autopsy has yet to be performed.

Kelly, known as "Mac Daddy," and Chris Smith, known as "Daddy Mac," were introduced to the music world in 1992 by music producer and rapper Jermaine Dupri after he discovered the pair in an Atlanta mall. The duo wore their clothes backwards as a gimmick, but they won over fans with their raps.

Their first, and by far most successful song, was "Jump." The hit, off their multiplatinum 1992 debut album "Totally Krossed Out," featured the two trading versus and rapping the refrain, the song's title. The duo had surprising maturity in their rap delivery, though the song was written by Dupri. It would become a No. 1 smash in the United States and globally, and one of the most popular of that year.

FilmMagic

Kris Kross performed in February at a So So Def 20th anniversary concert.

Their success led to instant fame: They toured with Michael Jackson, appeared on TV shows, and even had their own video game.

The group was never able to match the tremendous success of their first song, though they had other hits like "Warm It Up," and "Tonite's tha Night."

Earlier this year, the group performed together to celebrate the anniversary of Durpri's label, So So Def.

[View the story "Chris Kelly of the rap duo Kris Kross dead" on Storify]

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One of a Kind

Back in 1997, Richard Kind, now co-starring in Clifford Odets' "The Big Knife" at the American Airlines Theatre, had a plan. He was going to propose to his then-girlfriend Dana Stanley, and he was going to bank on the number eight. It's his good-luck number.

"It was 8/8," Kind recalls, "and I told her we were going to a party on West 88th Street." It was just a ruse. He wanted to get her to an area with double eights. Then, at eight minutes after eight, he got down on one knee in front of 18 W. 88th St.

"I said, 'Eight is my lucky number, and if you say yes, I'll be the luckiest man in the world.' "

Zandy Mangold

Richard Kind, who was nominated for a Tony this week, enjoys life in the West 80s with Bella, his beloved Bernese Mountain Dog.

Zandy Mangold

CLASSIC: Richard Kind and his wife, Dana, own a sprawling Emery Roth co-op.

But she said no.

It worked out, though. A month later she turned that no into a yes. And it's clear that a man who'd propose with so much planning and precision is a man who'd be very particular about where he lives.

He and Dana (a fund-raiser for Project ALS, an organization battling the brain disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) married in 1999. After having three children (Skyler is 11, and twins Samantha and Max are 8) and living in a couple of places, they still hadn't found the home of their dreams.

Then, in 2009, they went to an open house — in the West 80s, of course — and saw exactly what they'd been hoping for. "It's a great apartment," Kind says. "It's big, but not huge. It's a nice space, but it's not ornate or grand. It's just a real comfortable living space. We bought it right away. We didn't finagle, we just said yes."

The landmarked 1899 co-op building was created by famed architect Emery Roth. "It was called 'Emery's Folly,' " Kind says, "because it was his first apartment house, and the story was that he'd made mistakes in his design."

The couple paid $2.5 million for the 2,500-square-foot apartment, which consists of three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a laundry room, a small office, a dressing room and a sprawling kitchen/dining/living area.

"We sort of created this space because there used to be walls separating the kitchen, dining room and living room," Kind says. "We knocked all that out and made the room as wide as we could.

"To be honest, that's what they do in LA. And we moved from LA so we could be in New York. This is where I wanted to raise my kids."

For the children, they made a long workstation against a wall of the reconfigured room (which they call the family room), so that each child gets desk space and shelves. When they do their homework, they can still be part of the kitchen activities.

Beyond this big room, Kind enjoys how you "have to go down a long, windowed hallway to get to the bedrooms and the bathrooms. And as you walk down the hallway, you literally head downhill. That's because the building is so old, it's settled."

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Ichiro in there

Jennifer Gould Keil

GIMME SHELTER

Yankees outfielder Ichiro Suzuki has found a new home base.

Suzuki is renting the 111 Central Park North apartment that both Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez also took a look at when it was recently on the market. The 5,400-square-foot space was listed for $23,500 a month and also for sale with a $9 million asking price.

Suzuki, who finalized a $13 million, two-year deal with the Yankees in December, is living in the residence that developer Rodney Propp bought and designed as a surprise for his wife, Eleanor, in 2007. The two later divorced.

The six-bedroom, 6 1/2-bathroom condo comes with 100 feet of terraces and unobstructed views of Central Park to Midtown. It's ideal for a Yankee because it's about a 10-minute drive to Yankee Stadium and comes with a paparazzi-proof parking garage. The unit also comes with a large family room and an eat-in kitchen that includes two big refrigerators, two dishwashers and a six-burner stove.

REUTERS

Ichiro Suzuki

SWEET 15: Starck building gets a look.

'Gats' entertainment

Douglas Elliman, a sponsor of the Gold Coast International Film Festival, is co-hosting a private May 8 screening of Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby" in Port Washington, LI, with an after-party at Hempstead House, a famed Gold Coast mansion that is now an event space.

Douglas Elliman also has a $5.9 million, five-bedroom, 4,800-square-foot Sands Point listing at 8 Sands Light, on the former tennis court at Beacon Towers. Beacon Towers is the gothic-style mansion that was believed to be part of the inspiration for Jay Gatsby's home in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, according to historians Raymond and Judith Spinzia.

We hear . . .

That an ABC Family pilot based on "Hot Property," the juicy New York real estate novel penned by broker Michele Kleier and her broker daughters, Sabrina Kleier-Morgenstern and Samantha Kleier-Forbes, is in the works. Emmy winner Richard Shepard, who directed the "Ugly Betty" pilot, is on board to work on the "dramedy." The Kleiers currently star in HGTV's "Selling New York" reality show.

Joining the 700 club

Longtime Ron Perelman associate Donald Drapkin and his gal pal Elyse Slaine have purchased a spacious duplex at 700 Park Ave. for around $4.2 million. The three-bedroom, 4 1/2-bathroom duplex was listed for $5 million. The 3,500-plus-square-foot residence, listed by Sloane Square NYC, includes an entrance gallery with a sweeping staircase, a large eat-in kitchen, a formal dining room and a terrace.

Earlier this year, a New York court awarded Drapkin $16 million that he was owed from the time he worked for billionaire Perelman. Slaine was at Drapkin's side during the trial, which added to the media circus. Slaine is the ex-wife of David Slaine, the Galleon Group hedge-fund employee who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud. He avoided prison time after becoming a wire-wearing FBI informant who helped the government convict Galleon co-founder Raj Rajaratnam.

Occupy Fifth Ave.

Now, here's an apartment for the 1 percenters!

Real estate mogul John Zuccotti — the namesake of Zuccotti Park, where Occupy Wall Street protestors camped out — has just bought fancy new digs at 1049 Fifth Ave., near the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Sources say Zuccotti, the co-chairman of Brookfield Office Properties, bought the three-bedroom, 2 1/2-bathroom condo for $2.57 million. It was last listed for $2.69 million, down from last year's $2.99 million asking price. The seller, Amine Soussane, is an investor based in Morocco.

The 1,600-square-foot unit comes with a chef's kitchen and a spa-like bath in a white-glove building that once housed Rush Limbaugh as well as Tommy Mottola and Mariah Carey.

Listing broker Carol Staab of Douglas Elliman declined to comment.

Bensimon's loft the building

Real Housewife Kelly Bensimon is on a Broad search for a new apartment.

The fashionista mom, wearing a black blazer, jeans and chic black flats, showed up to a three-bedroom, two-bathroom condo loft listing at 15 Broad St., also known as Downtown by Philippe Starck. The $2.285 million, 2,114-square-foot unit has big windows, a chef's kitchen, custom lighting and lots of storage space.

The Financial District tower is across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. The amenity-laden building includes a children's playroom, swimming and reflecting pools, a gym, a basketball court, a yoga/ballet studio, a billiards lounge, a bowling alley, a business center, a theater and a 5,000-square-foot roof terrace.

Listing broker Patricia Vance of Douglas Elliman could not be reached for comment.

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Burger Wars!

It's on. The ultimate battle royale with cheese. More than 50 new burger joints are set to open in the city this year, with new chains, like California's Fatburger and Umami Burger, storming the city and old favorites, like Burger Joint and Shake Shack, expanding their strongholds with new locations.

With all of these greasy new spots saturating the city, there are bound to be some ketchup-splattered casualties when the smoke clears. "So many of them are really good, but I'm not sure how many of these fresh beef and gourmet chains the market can handle," says George Motz, author of "Hamburger America" and the host of the new show "Burger Land" on the Travel Channel. "It's somewhat of a dangerous trend."

Christian Johnston

Open wide: The Bareburger "Supreme" layers bacon, Colby cheese and onion rings.

Photos: Crowning NYC's top burgers

Some burger barons are already predicting doom for their competitors. "I think a lot of [competing chains] are going to go [belly-up]," says Adam Fleischman of Umami Burger, the California-based burger joint that is opening its first New York location on Sixth Avenue in the Village this spring. "There are too many competing in the same price point."

Which chain's burger is most worth your time, money and rising cholesterol levels? We taste-tested nine burgers and crowned a victor.

mgross@nypost.com

Bareburger

Cow not your thing? This local chain — it started in Astoria in 2009 — offers exotic patties like elk, ostrich, wild boar and quinoa. There are currently 11 locations throughout the boroughs and Long Island, and there are plans for 11 more in the tri-state area by the end of the year. bareburger.com

THE CHEW: Despite all of those exotic options, the Beef Bareburger ($8.45) shouldn't be overlooked. The patty is thick, the organic meat exceptionally well-seasoned and the brioche bun an excellent vessel.

BOLDFACE BITERS: Steve Buscemi, Anderson Cooper, Stephen Baldwin, Liev Schreiber and Chelsea Clinton.

FINAL GRADE: 4 BURGERS

Two patties for the well-seasoned burger, one for the delicate brioche bun, another for the quasi-barnyard décor and friendly service.

All wired up: BurgerFi

This small, Florida-based chain touts its all-natural, organic beef, and recently opened on the Upper East Side (1571 Second Ave.). With its classy wood tables and free Wi-Fi, it's already a hit with local mommies and nannies.

THE CHEW: The patty might be a bit well-done for some, but it's seasoned well enough. Plus, BurgerFi offers interesting alternatives like the Breakfast All Day burger ($6.97), topped with bacon, egg, cheese and maple syrup, and a Brisket burger made from 28-day dry-aged beef ($9.97).

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Judge tells rape, stabbing victim to seek counseling as her attacker and husband of her child is sentenced

A Queens judge today scolded an unrepentant brute who on two occasions raped and stabbed the mother of his child — and he offered some sobering advice for the victim, who pleaded for leniency toward her cruel attacker.

"You don't have anything to say?" asked a stunned Judge Kenneth Holder before he sentenced 22-year-old Daniel Paguay to 25 years in prison.

"You've caused a huge mess and confusion to this family. Anyone who can stab the mother of their child in the back clearly is a danger to society at large."

Paguay was convicted last month of attempted murder and forcible rape for two separate attacks that left the victim, 19, partially paralyzed for eight months.

After raping the victim and stabbing her in the leg in April 2011, Paguay forced her out of her home at knifepoint two months later, prosecutors said during the trial.

When cops confronted Paguay in a grocery store, he stabbed her in the back three times with a 15-inch blade.

Still, the victim didn't want the court to throw the book at the father of her son.

"I don't want him to go to jail for many years," she told the judge through tears. "He's young and I want my son to hear both sides of the story — not just mine. I don't hate him, I forgive him,"

Their son is 2 years old

An exasperated Holder shook his head.

"You've asked for mercy for him," said Holder, "and that he, with an overwhelming amount of evidence of guilt can't even say I'm sorry for trying to kill you is significant.

"You should seek counseling because what you are going through will be devastating for you and your son in the future."

Paguay was acquitted of knifing his cousin, who was trying to intervene.

christina.carrega@nypost.com

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Boston bombing suspect's widow wants body released

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The widow of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects will ask the Massachusetts medical examiner to release his body to his family, her attorney said Tuesday.

Attorney Amato DeLuca said in a statement that Katherine Russell wants Tamerlan Tsarnaev's remains released to the Tsarnaev family.

Tsarnaev, 26, died after a gunfight with authorities. Police said he ran out of ammunition before his brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, dragged his body under a vehicle while fleeing the scene.

Authorities say the medical examiner has determined the cause of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's death but it will remain private until his remains are released and a death certificate is filed. His parents are still in Russia, but he has other relatives on his side of the family in the U.S.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is charged with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, a crime that carries a potential death sentence. He lies in a prison hospital after being wounded in the shootout with police as he and his brother made their getaway attempt.

DeLuca said Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow met with law enforcement "for many hours over the past week" and will continue cooperating. FBI agents on Monday visited her parents' North Kingstown, R.I., home, where she has been staying, and carried away several bags.

"Katherine and her family continue to be deeply saddened by the harm that has been caused," DeLuca said Tuesday.

Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, said Tuesday evening that the state had not yet received Russell's request to release her husband's body.

He said arrangements must be made to release the body and once that happens a death certificate will be filed and the cause of death made public. He said it is too soon to speculate on when that might happen.

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Alleged puppy 'killer' denies throwing pooch six floors to its death

A brutal coward threw his girlfriend's six-month-old dachshund's out of their sixth story window -- to its death -- after an argument in their West 129th Street apartment, officials said today.

"I don't care about the dog," Keith Rogers, a 27-year-old violent felon, told cops according to a criminal complaint charging him with aggravated cruelty to animals.

"It's $1,300. I'll buy a new one," he allegedly told cops. "I don't give a f--- about the dog."

Rogers was ordered held in lieu of $25,000 bail this afternoon after prosecutors detailed the case against him, which includes a witness's 911 call.

Steven Hirsch

Alleged puppy 'killer' Keith Rogers in court.

Witnesses also told cops they saw the little dog lying dead in a pool of blood between two parked cars immediately below the apartment window.

Rogers quickly came outside holding the girlfriend's other dog, a bulldog, and threw the dachshund's body across the street before picking it up again and tossing it in the trash, witnesses told cops.

The heavily tattooed Rogers is claiming through his court-appointed lawyer that the dachshund had run into traffic after both Rogers and the girlfriend left the apartment.

"She walked out of the house, and then he walked out of the house, and the dog followed and ran out into the street," said defense lawyer Evan Rock of the Legal Aid Society.

Rogers is due back in court May 3.

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$75,000 bail for ex-con who allegedly smashed Four Seasons lobby showcase & nabbed jewelry

A violent ex-con with a thing for bling is being held on $75,000 bail for allegedly smashing a glass showcase in the lobby of the Four Seasons hotel in February and running off with $170,000 in jewelry.

In addition to the alleged smash-and-grab at the fancy East 57th Street hotel,Tony Tacneau, 29, admittedly repeatedly posed as a customer at fancy Midtown watch stores and high-tailed it with watches valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

According to the complaint against him, on February 23, Tacneau ran out of the Tourneau Concept Store on Madison Avenue with a watch valued at $88,700; on March 12 he left the Cartier store on Madison Avenue with a watch valued $60,0000; on March 30 he left the Tourneau store on East 57th Street with a watch worth $43,000.

He fenced each watch for just $4,000, he told cops.

Tacneau was linked to the Four Seasons heist when the hammer he used to smash the case tested positive for his DNA, assistant district attorney Andrew Warshawer told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin today.

The judge set May 22 for Tacneau's next court appearance.

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