Ambulances reached patients in life-threatening emergencies faster than ever this year — and there were also near-record lows in murders and fire deaths, authorities said Wednesday. With the year nearly over, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly gathered at City Hall to announce public safety achievements — what Bloomberg called the “safest decade” in city history. Most notably,... 

Charlotte Bloomberg, the mom with moxie who watched her son rise from restless schoolboy to become New York’s three-term mayor, died Sunday. She was 102. “As the center of our family, our mother’s unimpeachable integrity, fierce independence, and constant love were gifts that profoundly shaped our lives and the lives of so many who knew her,” Mayor Bloomberg said Sunday night in a statement issued after the Daily News broke the story online. “Our... 

Mayor Bloomberg launched a probe into the NYPD yesterday after it confirmed leading a Midtown motorcade for rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs so he could make a $75,000 gig in New Jersey — at the request of a dry cleaner. Internal Affairs cops swarmed the city’s busiest precinct house, Midtown South — searching log records and work schedules — after The Post’s Page Six revealed that New York’s Finest helped...