At today’s rally for Omar Edwards, the off-duty police officer who was killed by another cop in East Harlem , Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) was asked if he had advice to give President Obama, who is visiting NYC this evening . The Daily News reports that Rangel delivered a “snide” answer, “Make certain he doesn’t run around in East Harlem unidentified .” Edwards, who was black, had been chasing a man suspected of breaking into his car; he was out of uniform with his gun drawn when he was fatally shot by a white officer . Rangel, who wants a federal investigation of the shooting, also said , “If you become an officer and you have a pistol and you are of color, in or out of uniform, your chances of getting shot down by a police officer

Photograph of Plastic Bag Monster from New York Daily Photo on Flickr Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed 5-cent fee on every plastic bag used by shoppers would help reduce waste and raise an estimated $100 million to help the city’s budget crisis , but it will probably never see the light of day now that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn opposes it . Quinn is also blocking a move to reimpose the city sales tax on clothing and shoes under $110, which would raise an estimated $394 million a year, and instead she wants to increase the city’s sales tax from 4% to 4.5%. Though the Speaker hasn’t commented publicly, sources tell the Staten Island Advance the proposals were …

During the latest day in the trial of Anthony Marshall, the late philanthropist Brooke Astor’s son, a lawyer who represented both son and mother testified that Marshall diligently crunched the numbers to calculate what his wife would get, in the case of his death. Because Astor despised daughter-in-law Charlene Marshall that she explicitly told lawyer-turned-witness Henry Christensen that she didn’t want to leave anything to her. Christensen said that Anthony Marshall gave him a 2001 memo, titled, “Concern: My ability to provide sufficient financial assistance to Charlene upon my death after distributions and expenses, including taxes.” But Christensen said that in spite …

Harry hates to party If you see a royal mess of traffic on the streets today, remember that Prince Harry is in town for the weekend. Before he hits the polo field tomorrow , he’ll be making the rounds in Manhattan later today. But after his visits to Ground Zero, the British Garden, the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Harlem, there allegedly won’t be any parties . Even TIME magazine made note of it, saying, “With those engagements in mind, the royal heartthrob, who has a well-known penchant for long, alcohol-fueled nights, won’t be hitting New York City’s dance floors.” …

“Helloooo, this is Dr. Maya Angelou calling. Tell me something: Would you deny your son or your daughter the ecstasy of finding someone to love?” This was the question posed by the Pulitzer prize-winning poet over the phone to State Senator Shirley Huntley , a Queens Democrat who opposes same-sex marriage. It wasn’t a pre-recorded robocall; it was actually Angelou, and at first Huntley thought it was a joke, telling the Times , “I said, ‘What?’ I heard the voice, and I said: ‘My God. It is her.’ And that was that.” But by ‘that was that,’ she doesn’t mean Angelou changed her mind. The impassioned phone call failed to shake Huntley’s commitment to defend the…