More than 40 percent of the state’s population lives here in New York City, and when you count the other downstate counties, the number soars above 60 percent. Put simply, this is where the people are.

So why does Gov. Cuomo want to see new casinos built upstate only? And why would he continue to deny Resorts World Casino at Aqueduct Race Track the full table gaming he would allow upstate?

A Hispanic male with dark curly hair, driving a gold minivan who has allegedly been exposing himself to young girls in South Richmond Hill is the subject of a police manhunt.

Deputy Inspector Thomas Pascale, the precinct’s commanding officer, told members of the 106th Precinct Community Council at their May 8 meeting in Ozone Park that the individual they seek has exposed himself three times to two different girls 14 and 19 years old in the area bounded by 111th and 116th avenues from 123th and 126th streets.

Queens neighborhoods are all ripe with history. There’s a seemingly never-ending parade of people, places and events that define the borough’s 350-year existence and have given birth to hundreds of books and films. From the Flushing Remonstrance through Hurricane Sandy, the myriad of stories can take a lifetime to tell.

Woodhaven’s rich history is not well-known to people outside the neighborhood, but with the help of some tech-savvy and devoted young teenagers, the community’s past will be put on film for all to see.

The race for the 19th Council District has a set candidate for the Republican Party. Well, it had one up until Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) was arrested on corruption charges in April.

The incumbent has since announced he will not seek re-election, leaving the door open for a fresh-faced Republican to enter a field that is seemingly growing in number by the week.

From his office on Bell Boulevard and 73rd Avenue, City Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens) says he can hear his frustrated constituents at the former Q75 bus stop swearing, yelling, and literally crying out for someone to restore the cancelled bus route.

The Q75, which ran from Oakland Gardens to the F train stations in Jamaica, was eliminated along with 32 other bus routes, 570 bus stops and two subway lines on June 27, 2010, a $93 million service reduction.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn,Queens) came to the May meeting of the Lindenwood Alliance, in the Fairfield Arms Co-op, to meet some of his new constituents.

Jeffries told the audience that he was concerned with resolving any issues that residents had with the Federal Emergency Management Agency regarding Hurricane Sandy.

Preet can’t be beat, unless you think Loretta is better. The U.S. attorneys for the southern and eastern districts of New York, respectively, Preet Bharara and Loretta Lynch, are in the midst of stellar work that should do more to clean up the political corruption that seems endemic to Albany than most so-called reforms have ever managed.

They’re going after corruption in case after case and knocking down one elected domino after another. Any city or state lawmaker who’s on the take and hasn’t been charged yet must be very, very nervous.

Dear Editor:

The city’s executive budget plan has been released. It proposes a cut to Queens Library of $29.6 million, part of a proposed cut to libraries citywide of $100 million. If that proposal were to become reality, the impact on library service hours and the number of job layoffs are unthinkable.

Our representatives in City Hall and the City Council value libraries. They have demonstrated that in the past. Elected officials have limited revenue resources and tough choices to make. Nevertheless, the proposed cut is enormous.

It is up to the people of Queens to show the City Council and City Hall that library hours and library jobs are critical to this city. Libraries in Queens urgently need your help. Go to savequeenslibrary.org. You will be able to sign our electronic petition and send an email to your elected representatives. Or, stop in to any library and sign the paper petition or write a postcard.

Speak up for Queens Library! Tens of millions of our neighbors use free library resources or attend free library programs. They enjoy quiet reading time, sharpen their skills for their next big job, use the computers, prepare for an important exam for work or school, find out more about a health con

dition or email a friend far away. To allow that, libraries must remain open for service at least five days a week, or more.

As we speak with our elected officials, we will also be talking about how critical a stable funding stream is for libraries in the future. We need to be able to better plan for the library services you need from year to year and be assured of being able to buy books for the shelves.

For now, I hope I can count on everyone to Speak Up for Queens Library. Go to savequeenslibrary.org on your computer or smartphone, or stop at the library and sign the petition. You need your library. Right now, your library needs you.

Former state Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Jamaica), who agreed to wear a wire for the FBI in 2012 as state and federal prosecutors closed in on her, is scheduled to be sentenced today on a wire-fraud charge in federal court in Brooklyn.

The disgraced former senator provided “evidence useful to law enforcement” during conversations she had with three elected officials while wearing an FBI wire in July and August of 2012, all after she was cornered by the bureau and federal prosecutors for her role in siphoning money from “a bogus nonprofit.”

The United States Tennis Association, three Queens elected officials and some parks advocates this week lauded a deal with the city that would have the nonprofit “replace” land it wants so it can expand its National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

The accord reached between the nonprofit and city represents a unique bargain: according to a press release sent by the USTA, it replaces the 0.68 acre of parkland needed for its expansion with 1.56 acres of what looks like, is used as and mapped as existing parkland already within Flushing Meadows.

The names of six Democratic state senators and a city councilman from Southeast Queens were among those contained Wednesday on a list of people who had their conversations with then-state Senator Shirley Huntley recorded by an FBI listening device in 2012.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York declined to comment on Wednesday on the names, contained in a sentencing letter connected to Huntley’s case, or U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein’s order to unseal the letter.

City Comptroller John Liu continues to run for mayor as if confident he can overcome the embarrassment of a campaign finance scandal that could send one of his top former aides and a contributor to prison for decades.

How much impact the case will have is an open question. But according to two political science experts in Queens, the Liu campaign faces multiple challenges arising from the convictions last week of Jia “Jenny” Hou, his former treasurer, and Xing Wu “Oliver” Pan, a fundraising “bundler,” who secured donations from other parties that then went to the campaign.

St. John’s University President Rev. Donald Harrington announced his retirement on Friday in the midst of enduring accusations of corruption.

The 67-year-old, who previously acknowledged that he accepted sumptuous gifts from crooked former Dean Cecilia Chang before she committed suicide, sent an email to students and faculty declaring that he will step down effective July 31. Harrington served as president of the University for 24 years.

Elected officials, members of the public and Queens Library employees gathered Tuesday on the steps of the Flushing Library to decry a $29.6 million fiscal buzzsaw in the mayor’s proposed budget looming over the institution.

The gathering starts what has become something of an annual cut-then-rescue ritual inspired every year by Mayor Bloomberg’s budget. Inevitably, hizzoner puts out dollar figures that cause lawmakers to use terms like “unacceptable” and “draconian.”

A group that began seven months ago with a few people venting their complaints while eating at the Terrace Diner has evolved into a neighborhood movement, a force dedicated to making the Federal Aviation Administration and the Port Authority work for the residents of Northeast Queens to alleviate the noise and pollution from planes flying out of LaGuardia airport.

Approximately 200 people with similar frustrations attended the first Queens Quiet Skies community education meting on May 2 in the Bayside High School auditorium. While planes rumbled overhead, leaders and experts presented residents with legal and technical information and encouraged them to get more involved.

Powerful state Sen. John Sampson (D-Brooklyn) allegedly contacted an employee of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn in an effort to identify potential witnesses in a mortgage fraud investigation, and to determine if Sampson himself was being investigated.

A nine-count indictment of Sampson unsealed on Monday alleges the senator told an associate who was a defendant in the case that if witnesses could be identified, Sampson could arrange to “take them out.”

Pat Connolly, one of the main organizers behind Howard Beach’s annual Memorial Day parade, said it is more difficult this year for him to reach out to prospective marchers.

“The last few years, its been growing and growing, but we lost all our contacts during Hurricane Sandy,” Connolly said. “I’m just so worried about this year.”

The responsibilities of a borough president have recently become the subject of debate. While some have said these borough-heads who cannot make any decisions on legislation are irrelevant, Queens borough president candidate Barry Grodenchik says the position is about more than rules and regulations.

“The job is about bringing people together,” Grodenchik said in a sit-down with the Queens Chronicle editors last Thursday. “We live in the most diverse place in the country and probably the world, and while it’s easy to scream and rant, the tougher job is to work with the people.”

The names of six Democratic state Senators and a city councilman from Southeast Queens were among those contained Wednesday on a list of people who had their conversations with then-state Senator Shirley Huntley recorded by an FBI listening device in 2012.

Those on the list engaged in recorded conversations with Huntley in 2012.

Powerful state Sen. John Sampson (D-Brooklyn) surrendered to the FBI on Monday morning ahead of the unsealing of a nine-count federal indictment charging him with embezzlement, obstruction of justice and making false statements to FBI agents.

Sampson, an attorney, allegedly took the money to finance a run for Brooklyn District Attorney.

Former state Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Jamaica) wore a wire and gave at least partial cooperation to federal prosecutors after FBI agents confronted her with the results of court-approved wiretaps of her cell phone in 2012.

Huntley, 74, is expected to be sentenced on May 9 in federal court for her guilty plea in February to wire fraud. The charge was connected with her admission to embezzling nearly $88,000 from a bogus nonprofit organization.

The former treasurer of City Comptroller John Liu's campaign for mayor and one of his fundraisers were convicted of attempted fraud and other federal charges yesterday for their roles in accepting illegal contributions and attempting to rip off the taxpayers of New York City.

Jia "Jenny" Hou and Xing Wu "Oliver" Pan were each found guilty of playing a role in taking campaign contributions from straw donors — people whose names were entered as contributors even though someone else had provided the money — and could each face decades in prison.

Major League Soccer’s proposal to build a stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park has re-emerged this week, jangling a borough that has spent the better part of three months focused elsewhere.

The league once again contends it’s weeks away from finalizing a deal with the city, as it did last fall. This time, the league may have found an oil-rich owner for the proposed franchise: Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a billionaire member of the Abu Dhabi royal family and deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates.

Seven-year-old Alec McFarlane looks at home at the Rosedale Little League field with his teal uniform and black glove.

He plays shortstop just like his idol, Derek Jeter. And like the Yankee captain, it will be a while before Alec can get out on the field and play again.

Residents and elected officials from Southeast Queens on Friday took what they hope is not a last look at about 700 trees in the Idlewild Park Preserve.

Nearly 400 of the trees have been marked by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as being potential hazards to planes landing at or taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport.