A still-stunned friend of D’aja (Asia) Robinson, the sweet 14-year-old Queens girl killed when a bullet pierced the window of a Q6 bus, said she was just “arm distance away from her” when the gunfire erupted.

“My friend Cene had blood all over her,” Cantress Grant, 16, told the Daily News on Monday. “I saw Asia. She was covered in blood.”

Cantress’ account of the tragic shooting came as police continued to search for the cold-blooded gunman who fired at least nine .40-caliber bullets into the side of the bus Saturday night.

D’aja, a high school freshman, had just been at a ”sweet 16” party at a Jamaica club and had boarded the bus with her pals, bound for another birthday bash off Woodhaven Blvd. She took a window seat just behind the rear exit door.

“He let all of us on free,” Cantress said of the bus driver. “The bus didn’t even pull off yet. Three of four shots went off. Then everyone got down.”

Then the screaming started.

“We were screaming at the bus driver,” Cantress said. “Once he opened the door, everyone ran out.”

Everyone but D’aja, who had been struck in the head and who was bleeding on her party clothes.

Cantress said she called 911 the minute she got off the bus.

“There’s nothing I can say to bring her back,” the teenager said, choking back tears. “She was always laughing and talking. She was just mad jolly.”

Another of the doomed girl’s friends, 16-year-old Larae Lucas, said D’aja had texted the birthday girl at the second “sweet 16” party at about about 9 p.m. to say she was on her way.

"She texted the birthday girl and said that she loved her," Larae said. “But then she wasn't replying. They were getting worried. Later on we heard it in the news. Sad. It was very depressing.”

D’aja attended Campus Magnet High School in Cambria Heights, where classmates expressed frustration that cops still hadn’t caught the culprit, described as 18 to 25 and wearing a black sweater with a beige or cream shirt underneath.

“They need go hurry up,” said 16-year-old Nyeema Zepeda, who was in D’aja’s geometry class. “With the Boston thing, they got the guy in three days. It's not fair that her family has to go to sleep not knowing where their daughter's killer is.”

“Y’all wouldn't be here if this didn't happen to my sister,” he said. “You don't care about us.”

But an older man, who said he was the slain girl’s grandfather, shook his head sadly.

“That was my granddaughter,” he said. “She was just sitting on the bus and they shot her.”

Justice will come, he added.

“They'll catch him sooner or later,” he said. “Just a stupid kid doing stupid s---.”

At City Hall, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said he met with staffers at the school and spoke for D’aja’s mother.

“They appreciate all of New York City's condolences and support for them, and they're trying to navigate a very difficult situation,” he said. “Eight to nine shots were fired, .40-caliber shots, casings throughout the area, with no particular target in mind and a 14-year-old who was coming home from a party at a responsible hour was cut short. That is unacceptable in our society.”

He thought she was pregnant - so he killed her, cops say.

The 20-year-old man accused of smothering 14-year-old Shaniesha Forbes to death, shoving her body in a suitcase and setting it aflame on a Brooklyn beach, told detectives he murdered the teen because she said she was pregnant with his child and refused to get an abortion, police sources said Thursday.

Shaniesha Forbes had run away from home at least once before she disappeared.

But the teen wasn't pregnant, the city's medical examiner confirmed, leaving her shattered family members railing against the "senseless" crime.

"You had the courage and the balls to kill her but you couldn't go to the pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test to find out if it was true?" asked Forbes' stunned cousin Kerri Ann Thomas, 25 Thursday. "That makes no sense."

The scorched remains of Shaniesha Forbes, 14, were found in Gerritsen Beach.

Christian Ferdinand was arrested in Maine Wednesday and charged with killing Shaniesha and dumping her remains near an extinguished bonfire at Gerritsen Beach, roughly three miles from the girl's Flatlands home. He then tried to set Forbes' body on fire, but the blaze went out, sources said.

He told police he met Shaniesha on Facebook and began a sexual relationship with her, sources said.

When she told him she was pregnant but wouldn't get an abortion, Ferdinand smothered her with a pillow in his cousin's Nostrand Avenue apartment near Avenue M, law enforcement sources said.

"They even showed me his picture... I had never seen him," Price said, before breaking down in sobs Thursday.

Thomas said if family members had known Shaniesha was involved with a 20-year-old, they would have put the kibosh on the relationship.

"We would have ended it right there," Thomas said. "There's no reason he should be in a relationship with a 14-year-old. You have nothing in common. There's nothing you should even be talking about."

Police sources say Ferdinand kept Shaniesha's body in a suitcase on his cousin’s rooftop for two days before dumping it at Gerritsen Beach.

"The victim in this case was found naked and burned on the beach," Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Wilfredo Cotto told a judge before the diminutive Ferdinand, dressed in a dark blue hoodie, was remanded to custody on murder charges Thursday.

Shaniesha vanished in January after leaving her Flatlands home, saying she was going to school.

The Academy for Young Writers freshman was found dead on the beach on Jan. 6.

Her death was ruled a homicide by asphyxiation in April after the city medical examiner's office found that the girl's lungs did not contain soot, proving that she was killed before being burned on her legs, arms and hands.

Shaniesha had run away from home at least once before her disappearance, sources said.

A sketchy California doctor who duped patients out of $1.3million by selling them herbal remedies she said cured cancer has been convicted.

Christine Daniel, 58, will spend the next 14 years in prison - and has been ordered to pay back all of the cash — for the disgusting scam.

The L.A. medic told sufferers to avoid chemotherapy and pain killers — and instead charged them up to $100,000 for six months of her unique treatment.
She claimed her concoction had a 60% to 80% chance of success in overcoming advance stages of cancer and could also cure diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

But her remedies — which she claimed had been tailored individually for each patient — were completely bogus.

Experts testified that the potion — made up of sunscreen preservative, beef extract flavoring and various other ingredients — would have no effect on cancer or any other diseases.

Prosecutors said Daniel's 'treatments' had no effect on cancer or any other diseases.

It meant patients were deprived of proper treatment and had to endure the final months of their lives in "absolute agony."

"Daniel robbed victims of more than money, she also stole their hopes and dreams for a cure," U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said after Daniel was sentenced.

U.S. District Judge Robert Timlin charged Daniel with four counts of mail and wire fraud, six counts of tax evasion and one count of witness tampering.

The court heard from 28 former patients and family members of cancer sufferers who had died as a result of the ruse, reports the Washington Post.

Daniel told Paula Middlebrooks, who she charged nearly $60,000, that she was free from the disease after five months of treatment.

But, in reality, her breast cancer had spread and she died soon after.

And a 22-year-old woman, suffering from neck lymphoma, was told by Daniel not to bother with radiation or chemo. She might have been cured, but instead she died.

The sultry singer has been hit with a $3.4 million federal tax lien by the IRS, court records show.

That’s on top of separate liens from authorities in New Jersey, where she has a luxury home in Saddle River.

The 43-year-old who made her fortune on soulful songs like “Be Without You” and “No More Drama” got notice of the lien in February in Bergen County Court, records show.

The IRS filed the same lien again in March in Westchester, where Blige also owns a home, according to court documents.

The IRS said in its lien that Blige failed to pay all her income taxes for the past several years.

Uncle Sam says Blige owes $574,907 from 2009, $2.2 million from 2010 and $647,604 from 2011, the court documents show.

It seems that Blige hasn’t been paying her state taxes either. New Jersey officials are reportedly dunning the award-winning songstress for $901,769 in back taxes.

Blige is in trouble with the banks, too. She was sued recently by the Bank of America in New York State Supreme Court.

The bank claimed Blige took out a $500,000 loan and only partially paid it back. They’re suing her for the unpaid principal plus interest owed — approximately $514,000.

Blige and her husband Martin Isaacs were also sued this past November by Signature Bank for defaulting on a $2.2 million loan.

The nine-time Grammy winner came under fire last year for allowing her Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now to fall into financial disarray. The charity, which helps send girls to college, was slapped with a lawsuit for failing to pay back a bank loan in 2011. The foundation has since been reorganized, with priority given to catching up on arrears, Blige has said.

“Mary has been and is continuing to work with her new team to resolve all these issues as quickly as possible,” a member of her public relations staff said in a statement.

The Bronx-born Blige, who grew up in Yonkers, has been plagued by money problems despite phenomenal commercial success.

CeCe Bruce has received a couple of large tips in her life, but nothing like the one she got Wednesday morning.

CeCe works at the Steak 'n Shake restaurant at Keystone and 54th Street.

She said, "I was having a hard time at another table, but kept smiling and going on," and that's when one of her regular customers did something that shocked her.

When CeCe picked up the credit card receipt, "at first I thought, '$46?' And I said, 'Miss Jo, that's really generous!'"

But Miss Jo had actually left her a far bigger tip.

"When I looked again, I said 'Oh my gosh Miss Jo, I'm not taking that!' And she said, 'Yes, you're taking it' and I said no and she said 'You need to take it'," CeCe said.

The bill was $5.97, the tip $446.

"I didn't think I was worth $400 but, you know, she feels I am," she laughed.

CeCe, who's going to school part-time at Martin University, said the tip couldn't have come at a better time.

"Pay bills, pay bills right on time, that's what I'm definitely going to do," CeCe said.

She wasn't the only one at the restaurant wearing an extra big smile.

Manager Lindsay Banack said, "You've seen how everyone was pepped up a bit...it just makes me feel good about humanity."

As for Miss Jo? CeCe barely got the chance to say thank you.

"She's a really sweet lady and she didn't want any gracious gratitude. She signed the receipt and walked out the door," CeCe said, adding, "Miss Jo, if you're watching, I love you and thank you very much!"

The class of 1963 crowded in a rectangle on the dance floor, the memories of high school fresh on their minds as the band played in a sea of pink and blue hues.

Aretha Franklin. Etta James. The Temptations. Just what you would expect to be playing at a 1960s prom. Yet the song that drew the most bodies to the dance floor was "The Wobble."

Until this hip-hop song emptied the chairs, it felt as if the auditorium had been transported back 50 years.

But it's 2013, and despite the full-court nostalgia for the 1960s, that decade was one of the most difficult times in Birmingham's history.

Societal tensions over race were so high in 1963 that the city canceled senior prom for five of the city's segregated high schools for blacks.

Today, a half century has passed since the seminal civil rights protests that changed Birmingham and plotted a path for the nation away from segregation and toward equal rights.

Just like that path, the healing process has been a long one.

The Historic 1963 Prom, held Friday and hosted by the city of Birmingham, closed one chapter for these Alabamans.

'A tension-filled city'

Growing up in Birmingham in the 1950s, Earnestine Thomas knew the rules of this segregated city. At a restaurant, she could pay in the front, but had to walk around the back to get her food from a cook. She could shop only in certain places; there were neighborhoods that she knew not to visit.

"As a child, I recognized that it was unfair, but didn't understand that there were laws propping (segregation) up," she said as she waited for a hair appointment before Friday's prom.

More: Segregated prom yields to unity

She treated herself to a hair styling before donning a lavender dress with a sequined jacket and matching shoes. Lavender was a fitting color, she said, not just because it is her favorite, but because it was the school color at Parker High School.

It was a day of celebration that she and her classmates were denied in 1963.

Segregation in Birmingham permeated everything, down to the Bibles that judges used to swear witnesses in -- there was one holy book for white witnesses and another for black witnesses.

Yet members of the class of 1963 recall having the same struggles as any other teenagers, then and today -- parents' rules, scrounging enough money for dates, finding reliable transportation.

As often is the case when people witness a historic period, many black high school students in Birmingham in 1963 did not recognize the moment that was upon them.

Years of advocacy by civil rights leaders had successfully chipped away at segregation, and students pushed the boundaries -- as much out of teenage rebellion as a sense of justice.

Cynthia May and her friends were the first ones to board the bus the day that the signs relegating blacks to the back of the bus were removed, around the summer of 1962.

The teens tested the new limits immediately by sitting in the front. But when whites began boarding the bus, they stood, rather than sit behind the black teens. The teens also noticed that white riders refused to sit next to black riders, so instead of sitting two to a seat, they spread out individually to occupy the seats, leaving other passengers no choice but to sit next to them. Again, the white riders chose to stand.

"It was a tension-filled city," May said.

It was against this backdrop that the seniors at the black high schools began preparing for graduation.

Each May, in Thomas' neighborhood, the graduating seniors would parade down the street. And in 1963, it would be her turn.

There was also prom, an American rite of passage.

Thomas can still picture her long dress, a blue and green neon attention-grabber that showed different colors in the light as she moved.

A neighbor had bought it for her in December.

"Even though it was a winter dress, I was going to wear it to the prom," Thomas said. "But in one fell swoop, that was wiped away."

Civil rights come to Birmingham

There is disagreement over why prom was canceled for those five black high schools in 1963.

The civil rights movement was in full swing that year, but the high school students, to an extent, were kept at a distance from it.

This would change on May 2, 1963, when hundreds of children, some as young as 6, left school to march in Birmingham in opposition to segregation.

Thousands of arrests were made at the so-called Children's March, and when the marches persisted for several days, authorities responded with fire hoses and dogs.

"This was a very controversial thing," said Glenn T. Eskew, a history professor at Georgia State University who has written a book about Birmingham during this period. "There were those who did not believe that schoolchildren should be engaging in civil rights protests. Not only was it dangerous, but they were youth and it was a very confrontational thing."

The images of children being hosed and intimidated by police dogs renewed a level of outrage at the national level that had been flagging.

"It changed the dynamic of the protest dramatically," Eskew said. "It encouraged other youth to participate on one hand, and on the other it ratcheted up the pressure on the forces of white supremacy."

Only a fraction of students from the black high schools participated. Many were told by their parents not to participate, for fear of losing a job or other retribution.

Thomas didn't march because her grandfather expressed concerns that he might be fired if someone saw her protesting.

But everyone would be affected by the protests, whether they marched or not.

Days after the marches, the school board announced that all end-of-the-year activities were canceled for the class of 1963. No prom, no graduation, no yearbook.

The stated reason for the cancellations was security concerns; that in such a tense racial atmosphere, a gathering such as a graduation ceremony or prom could become the target of an attack.

Yet many believe that the events were taken away as a punishment for their participation in the marches.

A retired Philadelphia cop whose heroism earned him a salute from President Obama and a seat next to the First Lady was arrested Saturday on rape charges, authorities said.

Richard DeCoatsworth, 27, is accused of forcing two women to perform oral sex on him at gunpoint after making them consume drugs.

DeCoatsworth had met one of the women two weeks ago and forced her into prostitution at an area hotel, a source told NBC Philadelphia.

DeCoatsworth showed up at the woman’s home sometime late Thursday or early Friday and strong-armed the two victims.

In 2007, Philadelphia Police Officer Richard DeCoatsworth was shot in the face while making a traffic stop. Once hailed as a hero, he has been arrested and charged with rape and other crimes.

The women, both in their 20s, called police after DeCoatsworth left .

The disgraced cop was charged with rape, sexual assault and terroristic threats, NBC Philadelphia reported.

The arrest marked a steep fall from grace for the once highly-decorated officer.

In 2007, Decoatsworth chased down a suspect after getting shot in the face but collapsed before he could grab the gunman.

Richard Decoatsworth allegedly forced two women to take drugs and perform sex acts.

Decoatsworth managed to call in enough information about the shooter that cops were able to track him down later that day.

News of his heroism reached all the way to the White House and Decoatsworth later received an invitation from Vice President Joe Biden to attend Obama’s first congressional address to Congress in February 2009.

But since then, Decoastsworth’s reputation has taken a beating.

Richard Decoastsworth’s reputation has taken a beating since he was shot in the face. He was involved in a scuffle with another officer; was the subject of nine citizen complaints, accusing him of assault, abuse and misconduct; and allegedly threatened a woman three months after he retired from the force.

Philadelphia PD internal affairs probed a scuffle between DeCoatsworth and another officer in November 2011, according to the Philadelphia Daily News.

It also emerged that DeCoatsworth was the subject of nine citizen complaints, accusing him of assault, abuse and misconduct.

He retired from the force in December 2011.

Three months later, an arrest warrant was issued for DeCoatsworth after he allegedly threatened a woman in Port Richmond.

Sanford, Florida pastor and Disney employee has been accused of downloading and watching child porn while working at Disney’s Port Orleans resort.

Cedric Eugene Cuthbert was arrested Tuesday on multiple child pornography charges.

The 49-year-old has worked at the Disney resort for over seven years and is a pastor at St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church in Sanford.

In arrest papers, a Disney relations manager accuses Cuthbert, who is no longer an employee, of downloading porn while working as a nighttime custodial manager at Disney’s Port Orleans, reports WESH Orlando.

“He’s no longer with the company,” Walt Disney World spokesperson Andrea Finger said. “There are controls in place that make us aware of activity, and we notified law enforcement.”

Disney has a monitoring system that takes screen captures every three seconds of employee computers. Cuthbert was downloading child porn from the internet, while writing a sermon for Easter Sunday.

Cuthbert bonded out of the Orange County jail earlier this morning and was ordered to have no contact with children under the age of 18, except for his two sons, ages eight and 11.

The bullet that killed a beautiful Hofstra University student — who was held hostage by an armed gunman — was fired by a Nassau County cop, authorities said Saturday night.

Authorities revealed the tragic twist hours after a hulking ex-con — who jumped parole three weeks ago — was identified as the ski-mask-wearing assailant.

An April 25 warrant was issued for Dalton Smith, 30, who was paroled Feb. 4 after serving nearly nine years for attempted robbery and weapons possession, according to state correction records.

Smith, who did a prior state prison stretch from 2000-’03, had “an extensive criminal history” including previous arrests for robbery, assault and dealing contraband behind bars, authorities said.

Andrea Rebello, 21, was shot dead at an off-campus home in Uniondale, L.I., where she lived with her twin sister, Jessica, and her sorority sisters.

Earlier Saturday, a Nassau County police spokesman said investigators were still trying to piece together the chaotic events that led to the deaths of Rebello and Smith.

But four detectives, in dark suits and ties, arrived at the Rebellos’ Westchester County home late Saturday afternoon.

The grim quartet arrived in a black SUV, and walked to the front door in single file. They left without speaking about 25 minutes later.
Nassau County Police Department released a photo of suspect Dalton Smith wanted in relation to the fatal Hofstra shooting of Andrea Rebello.

The Hofstra junior and her identical twin were among four students inside the two-story house at 213 California Ave. when Smith forced his way inside around 2:30 a.m. Friday.

He was killed in the gunfire after police stormed the home, and his silver handgun was recovered at the scene — although police aren’t saying if the weapon was fired.

Cops said the wanted man was identified through his fingerprints. But they wouldn’t even confirm if he was killed by police bullets.

Surviving sister Jessica Rebello, who escaped the gunplay without injury, remained silent Saturday inside her family’s Tarrytown, N.Y., home.

A funeral for Andrea was set for Wednesday in nearby Sleepy Hollow, where the inseparable twins had attended high school. The Mass at St. Teresa of Avila Church will be recited in Portuguese.

The Rebello family has yet to comment on the tragedy or the ongoing investigation into the shooting. “We would really appreciate you not calling,” said a woman reached at the Rebello household. “There is nobody here to say anything at the moment. We would appreciate if you respect our privacy at the moment.”

Devastated friends and family members came in and out of the tidy brick-and-shingle home with its manicured front lawn and potted flowers on the front steps.