Zuma chooses Midtown for openers

Zuma — the jet-setting Japanese restaurant popular with celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Jay-Z and Beyoncé — is landing in Manhattan.

The London-based chain designed by Noriyoshi Muramatsu’s Studio Glitt will open an outpost early next year at 261 Madison Ave., between 38th and 39th streets, in a sprawling two-story space with double height ceilings.

In September, Side Dish broke the news that New York City would get its first taste of the red-hot restaurant.

Zuma New York is a partnership between Zuma founder and chef Rainer Becker and real-estate moguls Rotem Rosen and Alex Sapir.

“It has always been a personal dream of mine to open in New York,” Becker said.

Becker, along with business partner Arjun Waney, opened Zuma in London in 2002 after spending six years in Tokyo, where he fell in love with the relaxed, izakaya style of Japanese cooking.

By 2007, Zuma had opened in Hong Kong and had become a destination dining spot for the globe-trotting crowd.

That location was followed by Zuma openings in Istanbul, Dubai, Miami and Bangkok.

Zuma’s business strategy is to continue to expand. A Las Vegas outpost will follow the New York location, which is being designed by a top Tokyo architect studio. Construction in New York is slated to begin in about two months.

The food is meant to be shared and comes from three kitchens: the main kitchen, the sushi counter and the robata grill.

Signature dishes include thinly sliced seabass with yuzu, truffle oil and salmon roe and spicy beef tenderloin with sesame, red chili and sweet soy.

jkeil@nypost.com

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Police: 3 wounded in shooting on Bourbon Street in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — Police say three people have been shot on crowded Bourbon Street in New Orleans as revelers were partying during Mardi Gras.

New Orleans police spokesman Frank B. Robertson said two males and a female were shot just before 9:30 p.m. local time. He says one person is in critical condition and the other two are in stable condition. He did not release their ages.

Robertson says detectives are working vigorously to identify a suspect and determine a motive. He did not have any other details.

The streets were crawling with bar-hopping revelers as they celebrate the weekend before Fat Tuesday.

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Snow monster mashes apple

The Big Apple got walloped by Superstorm Nemo overnight, prompting thousands of canceled airline flights, suspended train and bus service and gasoline shortages.

Gov. Cuomo declared a state of emergency, giving the city and other New York municipalities the flexibility to deal with what threatened to be a storm of historic magnitude.

Workers fled their offices early to hunker down for the night — as Mayor Bloomberg warned drivers to keep off the roads.

“Stay off the city streets,” Bloomberg advised at a news conference yesterday afternoon. “Stay out of your cars.

ZUMAPRESS.com

WE SEE YOUR KNEES! This hot-blooded gal takes a “short” cut, exposing her legs to the elements in Midtown while her prudent pals stay a bit warmer in the superstorm.

“We’ve got to prepare for the worst case. We’re ready for anything.”

Among yesterday’s major developments:

* More than 1,700 flights were canceled in and out of La Guardia, JFK and Newark airports as wind gusts were expected to hit 50 mph. Travelers are urged to call their airlines today before heading out to airports for flights.

* Forecasters predicted that some coastal areas damaged three months ago by Hurricane Sandy would suffer flooding this morning from a storm surge of one or two feet above normal tides.

* New York City deployed 1,700 snowplows, 450 salt spreaders and 65 front-end loaders for a cleanup mission that will continue through the weekend.

And some 250,000 tons of salt were ready to be spread.

* Gov. Cuomo shut down Metro-North Railroad lines indefinitely as of 10 p.m. last night, with Grand Central Terminal closing at about midnight. The Long Island Rail Road suspended service on parts of the Montauk branch, and NJ Transit officials said they were monitoring snow accumulations to decide whether to suspend service.

* Worried about a repeat of gas shortages seen in Sandy’s aftermath, motorists fueled up at stations around the region, with some running out of gas and most reporting long lines.

A key tanker-delivery fill-up terminal on Long Island near the Queens border ran out of gas yesterday, and an estimated 10 percent of the service stations on the Island also came up empty.

* Con Edison promised to have 500 workers performing damage assessment to power lines, and 250 outside contractors and other personnel lined up to help with power restoration. The utility urged people to steer clear of downed wires. The Con Ed Web site showed only a small number of scattered outages last night.

* The NYPD added personnel to its Highway Division and Emergency Service Unit in neighborhoods that had already been socked by Sandy.

The FDNY also added an extra firefighter to each engine unit throughout the city as a precaution, citing the increased difficulty of battling blazes in the snow. It also deployed 100 extra ambulances on the streets.

* Alternate-side parking rules and parking-meter rules were suspended across the city through tomorrow. And senior centers also were closed today.

In Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick signed an executive order barring all private cars from highways and secondary roads in the state effective at 4 p.m. yesterday.

Connecticut also declared a state of emergency, with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy imposing a travel ban on the state’s limited access highways. Utilities reported more than 23,000 customers without power.

More than 225,000 people were without power in New England.

Bloomberg warned motorists to stay home so the city’s armada of plows, salt trucks and front-end loaders could start quickly clearing the streets.

“City sanitation workers are on a full mobilization and have been since Thursday night. They’re on 12-hour shifts,” he said.

“By [this] morning I would expect most streets to be more than passable. We don’t think it’ll be that big a deal,” he added.

Still, “ ‘stay home’ is a good rule,” he told Gotham residents.

“My biggest concern is that people go out and walk, slip, fall into traffic. You can’t take nature too lightly. It’s certainly not going to be Hurricane Sandy. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get badly hurt or killed if you’re not careful.”

Meteorologists appeared more alarmed. Nemo is “a very dangerous situation, and people need to take proper action,” said Louis Uccellini, director of the National Weather Service.

Some residents and visitors, meanwhile, were glum about the storm putting a serious damper on their weekend activities.

Cyrus Laali, a 30-year-old chiropractor from Texas, was walking through the onset of yesterday’s mess on the streets of SoHo with his 27-year-old girlfriend.

“I’m coming from Texas. It’s 70 and sunny,” Laali said. “I love New York, but I didn’t think I’d be greeted with this.”

But Betty Kim, 31, of Brooklyn, said the storm won’t spoil her plans.

“I’ll be going full throttle hitting bars and restaurants with my friends. I’m really not afraid of the storm,” she said.

dan.mangan@nypost.com

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Miss-&-tell supporters

This beauty says she’s not the only one who knows the ugly truth about the Miss USA competition.

Ex-Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin, who ignited a firestorm after alleging that last year’s pageant was rigged, claims in court papers that several fellow beauty queens have since sent her messages of support.

A day after she made her allegations on the “Today” show, Monnin says, one gal texted her, “I back u 100% on what u heard and I am appalled that no one else is speaking up bc SO many others heard the same.”

The Manhattan federal court filing says another contestant sent a text saying, “Hopefully this brings more awareness to how shady this particular competition really was.”

AP

Monnin, who resigned as Miss Pennsylvania, doesn’t reveal the supporters’ names but says she’ll make them available to the court on request.

She is seeking to overturn an arbitrator’s order that she pay $5 million to the Miss Universe Organization, which runs Miss USA, for defamation.

She says retired Manhattan federal Judge Theodore Katz “exceeded his powers” and disregarded the law when he found her liable for damages.

A lawyer for Miss Universe didn’t return a request for comment.

bruce.golding@nypost.com

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She’s a disgrace to women

Andrea Peyser

Young women, I beg you — don’t be like Rihanna!

The ravishing songstress and Bad Example for Girls waltzed into an LA court yesterday with her past and present and, I guess, forever boyfriend, Chris Brown, who isn’t man enough to pick on men or dames his own size.

Smiling as she walked in, she blew a kiss in Brown’s direction. RiRi came to stand by the man who once pummeled her face into a bloody mess for the lamest of reasons. Rihanna had confronted Brown about racy texts from random babes.

But yesterday, she walked into the courtroom as if saying, That’s OK! Every man gets a freebie.

With young women wanting to grow up to be Rihanna, this is a disgrace.

Brown showed up in the downtown LA court, where the state of California has expended scads of expensive court time, zillions of man hours and a forest-worth of paper to avenge the songstress for the bloody bruising Brown inflicted on her noggin in 2009.

For there was Rihanna, trailing Brown like an idiot puppy. She was not there to glare at her man, or give him a richly deserved smack upside the head.

RiRi instead engifted Brown with a little lovin’ before he faced a judge.

She humiliated herself.

She embarrassed all women.

Then she sat in the gallery beside Brown’s mom, Joyce Hawkins, in a show of support so vile, RiRi seemed to be telling the world that women secretly deserve to be punished.

Is this lady begging to be treated like well-dressed dog meat from a guy so wimpy and weird he can’t fathom waling on adult males?

Brown was in court to answer prosecutors’ charges that he faked records for the community service he was supposed to perform in his native Virginia, ironically as punishment for the felony assault of Rihanna. Cheating, whether on community labor or on a woman, seems part and parcel of Brown’s character.

I had nearly forgotten how starstruck and accommodating LA judges can be to celebrity morons.

I almost gasped in 2009, watching as Judge Patricia Schnegg awarded Brown a get-out-of-jail-free card — sentencing him to a slap on the wrist: five years’ probation and six months of “labor’’ in Virginia for a crime that would put away an ordinary hood for several years.

Then the judge praised Brown like a young, star-struck girl.

“I think it is commendable you took responsibility for your conduct.’’

Really? Why not send him to bed with milk and cookies? This is LA, where if you have a big enough name and enough money, anything is possible.

With kid-glove treatment like this, it’s no wonder that Brown thinks he can do no wrong.

Brown is accustomed to having women throw themselves at his head. And with her “kick me’’ attitude, Rihanna is setting an example I wouldn’t want my daughter to see.

There is no excuse for a man using a girl as a punching bag.

There is no excuse for a woman flaunting her abuse to save him.

Chris Brown already got away with using his fists to rearrange Rihanna’s face. And Rihanna has rewarded him for it.

He kept his lady, his recording contract, his fame and, among men with anger issues who think women ask for it, he kept his reputation. If Rihanna forgives him, why can’t the rest of us?

I’ll tell you why. He’s a chicken who can’t even seem to do a lick of work.

RiRi, if you want to make yourself into a fool, keep it away from impressionable girls who aspire to be just like you.

I’ve lost any respect I ever had for you.

andrea.peyser@nypost.com

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Does this make you want a sandwich?

Cod almighty, this makes us hungry for more! Sizzling Sports Illustrated supermodel Nina Agdal seductively wolfs down a Charbroiled Atlantic Cod Fish Sandwich in an ad for Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. Sure hope there were no bones in that thing.

CKE Restaurants/ Splash News

Nina Agdal

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NYPD releases stop-frisk numbers: Most used in Brooklyn & Queens, nearly all stopped are black or Hispanic

The NYPD for the first time publicly released a report last night on its controversial stop-and-frisk procedure that breaks down by city precinct — and by race — those targeted.

The figures, all from 2011, show that the precinct with the most stops by sheer numbers was Brooklyn’s 75th, which includes East New York and Cypress Hills.

More than 31,000 people were stopped, 97 percent of them either black or Hispanic.

The 73 Precinct, covering Brownsville in Brooklyn, was the next highest with 25,167 stops. About 98 percent involved minorities.

In Queens, the 115th Precinct — which includes East Elmhurst, Corona and Jackson Heights — ranked third with 18,156 stops. Nearly 93 percent of those involved minorities, the figures show.

The 40th Precinct in The Bronx, which covers Mott Haven and Melrose, racked up the next highest number — 17,690 — with 98.5 percent of them involving minorities.

And at No. 5 was the 90th Precinct in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where there were 17,566 stops, with 88.6 percent involving minorities.

The New York Civil Liberties Union had fought for release of the stats last year.

After getting them, the civil-rights group published the figures on their Web site in May, saying they show a pattern of racial profiling — a charge that the NYPD denies.

The Police Department said it had no comment on why it was releasing the figures itself now.

As has been reported, the statistics show that overall, nearly 90 percent of those targeted by NYPD stop-and-frisks in the city in 2011 were either black or Hispanic.

Meanwhile, blacks and Hispanics together make up less than 53 percent of the population.

A total 685,724 people — 8.6 percent of the city’s population — were detained by cops for “reasonable suspicion.”

That was the highest number since the NYPD started recording stop-and-frisk figures in 2002.

Of that number, 9 percent also were white, and 4 percent were Asian, the figures showed.

The No. 1 reason for stop-and-frisks that year was possible weapons possession, the report said.

The statistics did not say how many of those stops resulted in arrests.

natasha.velez@nypost.com

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Highway Patrol: 8 dead in Calif. tour bus crash

AP

Emergency personnel assist victims at the scene of a bus crash near Forest Falls, Calif. Sunday.

YUCAIPA, Calif. — The California Highway Patrol says eight people were killed in a collision involving a tour bus and two other vehicles.

CHP Officer Mario Lopez says eight are confirmed dead and many more are injured in the mountain highway crash about 80 miles east of Los Angeles near the town of Forest Falls.

Lopez says the collision included the tour bus, a pickup truck pulling a trailer and a sedan.

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Deadly deserts

Ralph Peters

Violence in Allah’s name in northern Africa won’t end in my lifetime — and probably not in yours. The core question is: To what extent can the savagery be contained?

From the Atlantic coastline to the Suez Canal, struggling governments, impoverished populations and frankly backward societies struggle to find paths to modernization and to compete in a ruthless global economy. Religious fanatics for whom progress is a betrayal of faith hope to block development.

Still, if the only conflict was between Islamist terrorists and those who want civilized lives, the situation could be managed over time. But that struggle forms only one level in a layer cake of clashing visions and outright civil wars bedeviling a vast region. Much larger than Europe, the zone of contention encompasses the Maghreb, the countries touching the Mediterranean, and the Sahel, the bitterly poor states stretching down across desert wastes to the African savannah.

AFP/Getty Images

Figthers of the Islamic group Ansar Dine

The Sahel is the front line not only between the world of Islam and Christian-animist cultures in Africa’s heart, but between Arabs and light-skinned tribes in the north, and blacks to the south. No area in the world so explicitly illustrates the late, great Samuel Huntington’s concept of “the clash of civilizations.”

If racial and religious differences were not challenge enough, in the Maghreb the factions and interest groups are still more complicated. We view Egypt as locked in a contest between Islamists and “our guys,” Egyptians seeking new freedoms. But Egypt’s identity struggle is far more complex, involving social liberals, moderate Muslims, stern conservative Muslims (such as the Muslim Brotherhood) and outright fanatics. The military forms another constituency, while the business community defends its selfish interests. Then there are the supporters of the old Mubarak regime, the masses of educated-but-unemployed youth and the bitterly poor peasants.

Atop all that there’s the question of whether the values cherished by Arab societies can adapt to a globalized world.

The path to Egypt’s future will not be smooth — yet Egypt’s chances are better than those of many of its neighbors. Consider a few key countries in the region:

Mali

Viva la France! (Never thought I’d write that in The Post.) Contrary to a lot of media nonsense, the effective French intervention in Mali demonstrates that not every military response to Islamist terror has to become another Afghanistan: The French are welcome.

As extremists invariably do, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its allies rapidly alienated their fellow Muslims — after hijacking a local uprising. The local version of Islam is far more humane and tolerant than the Wahhabi cult imposed by Islamist fanatics. To the foreign extremists, the Malian love of Sufi mysticism, ancient shrines and their own centuries of religious scholarship are all hateful — as is the Malian genius for music that’s pleased listeners around the world.

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Con Ed worker injured by explosion on UWS

On Friday a Con Ed worker was injured when a small electrical explosion burned his face and arms as he worked inside a tony Upper West Side apartment building, authorities said.

The explosion sent the unidentified Con Ed worker and one other injured person to New York Presbyterian Hospital/Cornell Medical Center in stable condition at about 12:50 p.m., the FDNY said.

The Con Ed worker suffered a flash burn to his face with first and second degree burns to his arms, neck and hands while working on a service box, Bob McGee, a spokesman for Con Ed said.

The other victim was burned on his hands, neck and face, FDNY officials said.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the second victim was a resident in the Windermere – an upscale building on West 92 Street and West End Avenue – but a Con Ed spokesman confirmed there was only one worker injured.

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Free Sandy biz inspection

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo said yesterday the state will offer free safety and health inspections to businesses hit by Hurricane Sandy, saving each of them more than $4,000.

Businesses can schedule a free inspection by calling (888) 469-7365. Appointments can also be made through the state Department of Labor’s Web site.

Cuomo said the free inspections should allow businesses to reopen sooner.

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‘Shear’ bravery beats guns: feds

WASHINGTON — Is your workplace getting shot up by a crazed gunman?

No problem — just grab a pair of scissors and fight back!

That’s some of the helpful advice in a new instructional video from the Department of Homeland Security that was posted on the agency’s Web site just a month after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

“If you are caught out in the open and cannot conceal yourself or take cover, you might consider trying to overpower the shooter with whatever means are available,” says the narrator in the video, which shows an office worker pulling scissors out of a desk drawer.

The video, titled “Options for Consideration,” also advises that people who get caught in an “active shooter” situation should run away, hide under a desk or take cover out of the line of fire.

The nearly four-minute-long video opens with chilling scenes from the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, and the 2011 attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords.

But the video quickly shifts to hokey footage of office workers scampering under desks, crouching in corners and racing into closets to hide from a rampaging gunman on the loose.

“To protect your hiding place, lock the door if you can. Block the door with heavy furniture,” recommends the male narrator, speaking in measured, authoritative tones.

Other survival strategies promoted in the video include hiding “behind large items such as cabinets or desks. Remain quiet. Silence your cellphone or pager. Even the vibration setting can give away a hiding position.”

Richard Feldman, president of the Independent Firearm Owners Association, said he has a better option for consideration than a pair of scissors when confronting an armed mass murderer — a legal firearm.

“That’s why I prefer a gun, and I usually do carry a gun when it is lawful to do so,” said Feldman. “Clearly, you use whatever you can” to fight for your life, he said.

So if scissors are all you’ve got, grab them by all means.

The video is part of the Obama administration’s ongoing campaign to reduce firearm violence in the wake of the horrific mass murder last month of 20 children and six teachers in Newtown, Conn., said a Homeland Security official.

Homeland Security has operated an active-shooter preparedness-training program for years, and the “Options for Consideration” video was in production prior to the Dec. 14 shooting in Newtown.

The video was released to coincide with President Obama’s sweeping proposals to curb gun violence in America, said the official.

Obama’s most controversial proposals include a ban on military-style assault rifles and high-capacity ammo clips, as well as expanded background checks for firearm purchases.

Security consultant Andrew Scott called the information in the video “adequate.”

He conceded that Homeland Security was correct in recommending that people use scissors to attack a gunman but only in a “last, worst-case scenario.”

“Just the suggestion [to fight back] is a positive move,” said Scott, a former SWAT commander in North Miami Beach. “You don’t want to be sheep for the slaughter.”

But if you do arm yourself with shears, the narrator warns you to drop them when cops arrive.

“Put down any items. Immediately raise your hands,” is the closing advice.

smiller@nypost.com

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‘Cannibal’ cop XXX-hibit a

Lawyers for an accused cannibal cop want this woman served on a platter . . . for potential jurors.

The twisted photo of the hogtied, nude blonde — lying prone on a serving tray, with an apple stuck in her mouth — is among three shocking images that the defense wants to show would-be panelists for the upcoming trial of Gilberto Valle.

Another pic submitted by lawyers for the deviant cop shows a buxom brunette who is bound, gagged and tied to a spit over an open fire in a wooded clearing.

Off to the side, a man who is shielding his face from the camera appears to be turning the naked woman over the flames.

HOGTIED: Lawyers for accused cannibal-plot cop Gilberto Valle want to show potential jurors this photo and two others to test their nerves.

The third is a cartoon of a nude woman partly submerged inside a clear, bubbling pot of vegetables atop a stove being tended by a mustachioed cook wearing an apron and hunting cap.

“Well Karyn you seem to be cooking up quite nicely . . . Your guests are going to get a very special dinner tonight,” the chef says in a dialogue balloon.

The cartoon woman’s face is obscured by a hot-pink rectangle — because Valle or someone else superimposed the face “of a real victim,” prosecutors alleged in court earlier this week.

The disturbing pics were submitted by Valle’s lawyers as part of a proposed jury questionnaire to help screen out people too squeamish to deal with the testimony and evidence at his upcoming trial.

The defense says potential jurors need to be “especially vetted,” in part because “at trial Mr. Valle will acknowledge that he has unusual, sexual fantasies which involve imagined acts of violence against women — a fetish that will be difficult for most jurors to comprehend.”

According to court papers, the images were given to the defense by prosecutors — after investigators seized them from Valle’s computer following his arrest last year for allegedly scheming online to kidnap, rape, torture, cook and eat women.

They were initially filed under seal, but were made public yesterday after a legal challenge by The Post.

”Because of this prosecution, Mr. Valle has been subjected to a level of embarrassment and mortification that is impossible to articulate,” public defender Julia Gatto wrote Manhattan federal Judge Paul Gardephe, in petitioning for details of a psychological exam to remain sealed.

bruce.golding@nypost.com

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Ex-NYCiSchool principal in Regents test cheat

The former principal of the high-performing NYCiSchool improperly allowed one of her teachers to re-grade and raise scores on high school Regents exams, school investigators found.

She was among nearly 100 educators — including 17 principals, 61 teachers, seven assistant principals and nine other staffers — who have been implicated in cheating probes by the city Department of Education since 2006, according to documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act filing.

It took the Department of Education nearly 18 months to comply with The Post’s request for cheating cases confirmed by its internal investigative arm, the Office of Special Investigations — in violation of the rules governing public access to documents.

Among the recent cases, NYCiSchool principal Alisa Berger let teacher Susan Herzog re-grade the June 2010 Living Environment Regents exam by herself after they had already been graded.

Herzog said she raised the scores given to students for certain questions after clarifying proper procedures with the State Education Department.

Berger told The Post that student scores were both raised and lowered, but that no students’ grade was changed from failing to passing.

“Did I make a procedural mistake? I did. Was it cheating? Absolutely not,” said Berger, who unrelatedly left the downtown school last year.

Among the biggest cases of cheating, teachers at Hillcrest HS in Queens were found to have bumped up the scores of 255 students on the English Regents exams back in 2006.

The case was never made public and no teachers were punished because the re-scoring practice, known as “scrubbing,” wasn’t technically prohibited.

In another case, Manhattan teacher Iris Ventura helped several classrooms of 8th graders with the state’s high-stakes math exams — at the request of MS 322 principal Erica Zigelman, investigators found.

Despite the DOE’s stated no tolerance policy for cheating, they were both let off with letters of reprimand.

In 2011, Ventura was caught cheating again — this time telling four 7th graders to check their answers on the state math exams, probers found.

She was again let off with a letter in her file, and has since resigned, according to the DOE.

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‘Beauty’ dad’s plea to judge

When all else fails, call Daddy for help.

Ex-beauty queen Sheena Monnin’s father has come to her aid in a bid to keep her from having to pay $5 million in damages for falsely alleging that the Miss USA pageant is rigged.

In a letter to the Manhattan federal judge who’s been asked to sign off on an arbitrator’s ruling, Philip Monnin said the hefty award against the former Miss Pennsylvania isn’t “just.”

“I am making this appeal directly to you,” he wrote on his 27-year-old little girl’s behalf.

He also said it’s “questionable” whether the pageant would have suffered the loss of a $5 million sponsorship if officials — including part-owner Donald Trump — hadn’t “blown the entire story up with their persistent media appearances.”

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FDNY: Felons welcome

New York’s Bravest can also be the baddest.

The FDNY will consider hiring convicted felons with a “Certificate ofGood Conduct” from the state parole board, the department said in a notice posted last week. Such applicants will get a “special review.”

The notice to potential applicants includes the text of a state law aimed at stopping employment discrimination against ex-cons who have done time and stayed clean.

“It’s not something we signed up for or control. It’s something we have to abide by,” said FDNY spokesman Jim Long.

Sources said the posting stems from the court case in which Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis has ordered the FDNY to remedy racial imbalances.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen the FDNY say, ‘Hey, this is something you can do,’ ” said Paul Mannix, an FDNY deputy chief and president of Merit Matters, a group opposed to hiring quotas.

Mannix said he doesn’t object to the exception for felons “as long as it’s applied equally.”

The city’s notice of exams for firefighter applicants still states that convicted felons “are not eligible for appointment to this position.”

Firefighters are designated peace officers who may conduct searches and issue summonses. A fire marshal can carry a gun.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said no exceptions apply to cops: “A felony conviction is an absolute bar to employment as a police officer,” he said.

City firefighter Patrick Quagliariello was allowed to join the FDNY in 2004, despite a 1991 conviction for felony attempted assault, after the state parole board granted him a Certificate of Good Conduct.

Last April, Quagliariello pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for leaving the scene of a fatal car accident.

He is back on full duty, Long said.

susan.edelman@nypost.com

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Assad kin on the run

The Syrian civil war has gotten so bad that even the mother and sister of brutal ruler Bashar al-Assad have fled the country, said US officials.

Assad’s mother, Anisa Makhlouf, who’s in her 70s, and his eldest sister, Bushra, went to the United Arab Emirates recently as rebels edged closer to the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Bushra had been married to Assad’s deputy defense minister, Gen. Assef Shawkat, who was killed in a Damascus bomb attack in July.

“Members of the regime, little by little, are flaking off,” said US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford.

Meanwhile, at least another 140 people were killed in Syria yesterday, according to activist groups. The death toll since the civil war began in March 2011 is well over 60,000, according to the United Nations.

The latest fatalities came as Assad’s army unleashed a barrage of rocket and artillery fire on rebel-held areas in a central province as part of a widening offensive against the rebels.

At the UN, officials said a record number of Syrians streamed into Jordan this month, doubling the population of the kingdom’s already cramped refugee camp to 65,000.

More than 30,000 people arrived at the Zaatari camp in January — with at least 6,000 in the past two days.

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Mayor Bloomberg blasted at candidates forum

William Miller

New York City mayoral hopeful Joseph Lhota at at a Thursday forum discussion.

It looks like Mayor Bloomberg is in for a very long campaign year.

The mayor got battered last night at a forum in the East New York section of Brooklyn that featured Republican contender Joe Lhota in his first appearance with other candidates.

The former MTA chairman offered carefully constructed responses to questions that focused on affordable housing before a packed audience at the St. Paul Community Baptist Church.

But most of his Democratic rivals, as well as Republican hopeful Tom Allon, unloaded at just about every opportunity at Bloomberg.

"It's quite possible Mayor Bloomberg does not know what mold is," mocked Comptroller John Liu when the questioning turned to the city's response to super-storm Sandy.

All six candidates agreed the city hasn't done enough to help residents still struggling to recover.

"This is a city administration that wanted to run a marathon while people were just moving into shelters and unfortunately bodies were still being found," said former Comptroller Bill Thompson.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is closest the the mayor of all those running, said mold removal should have been included in the "rapid repairs" program initiated by the city after a homeowner from Gerritsen Beach said hundreds of homes there might be lost due to spreading contamination.

Bloomberg has said that he doesn't intend to respond to every single issue raised by his would-be successors.

But Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson felt compelled to tweet last night, "Reality check-- Bloomberg at 65-23 (per cent in polls) on Hurricane Sandy performance."

The harshest attacks on the mayor came during a discussion of the Housing Authority and its embattled chairman, John Rhea.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio charged that the agency can't function well "if the mayor doesn't care about people who live in public housing. There's an old colorful Sicilian expression that says the head stinks from the head down."

Longshot GOP hopeful Tom Allon went him one better by describing Rhea as the "Cathie Black" of housing, a stinging reference to the schools chancellor appointed by the mayor who lasted 96 days.

There's not much political downside for the Democratic candidates hammering away at Bloomberg before the primary, where the electorate tends to lean to the left and the mayor is an easy target.

The one place where Bloomberg got some credit was his ambitious program to build or rehabilitate 165,000 housing units before he leaves office, the largest such project in the nation.

Every candidate pledged to keep that pace of 15,000 added apartments a year. None explained how they'd paid for them.

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It’s plenty of 20 – plus flurries

When they say it’s “too cold to snow,” don’t believe them. A dusting of 1 to 2 inches is expected when snow showers develop tomorrow afternoon and continue into the evening.

Before that we’ll get more struggling sunshine today, with temperatures peaking at 21 degrees — but icy winds feeling like only 2 degrees. Tonight’s low temperature will be about 13, forecasters said.

Tomorrow’s temps should be more of the same, with a high around 22 degrees.

The weekend will be warmer, but just a bit. Saturday’s high is expected to be 24 and Sunday’s will be 27.

Don’t expect relief until next week. Forecasters say temps will finally go above freezing and hit 36 on Monday, 40 on Tuesday and a positively balmy 48 onWednesday. Andy Soltis

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36% of car-insure claims bogus

A whopping 36 percent of New York City no-fault insurance claims in 2010 had some element of fraud, a staggering amount that’s hiking rates for all city drivers, officials said yesterday at a City Council hearing.

Some 22 percent of those claims were entirely bogus, while another 14 percent included inflated injuries and unnecessary treatments to gouge money from insurance companies, said Jeffrey Ferguson, executive assistant to the Brooklyn District Attorney.

The fake claims resulted in an estimated $241 million in additional insurance premiums being passed along to drivers that year, he said.

The no-fault law lets anyone involved in an accident claim up to $50,000 in benefits for injuries, regardless of who caused the accident.

Ferguson and representativess from the Manhattan DA’s Office and AAA testified in support of state legislation that would make it easier to go after scammers, including making it a felony to stage a crash.

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