Bronx News Roundup Jan. 14

The rise and rise of Monroe College's Lady Mustangs.

Yankees President Randy Levine is appearing before a New York Assembly committee today to answer questions about his team's request for more taxpayer money to build their new stadium. The committee was formed to probe the financing behind the much-criticized project. A public hearing will be held tomorrow. A vote on whether or not to accept the Yankee's demands is expected on Friday. Here's what Times' columnist Jim Dywer has to say.

A firefighter who jumped from a fourth floor window to escape a raging fire that killed two of his colleagues in January 2005, testified yesterday at the manslaughter trial of three men tied to the deaths.

More on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's heating oil program, which abruptly cancelled last week and then reinstated two days later. The program saves thousands of Bronx residents hundreds of dollars each winter. Time Magazine wonders why American oil companies aren't being similarly generous.

Jazz greats Poncho Sánchez and Gato Barbieri are performing at Lehman Center for the Performing Arts this Saturday.

A Bronx firefighter underwent a painful operation so he could donate bone marrow to a Canadian teenager he'd never met in order to save her life.

A blogger has some interesting thoughts on whether or not Adolfo Carrion is qualified to head up Obama's new Office of Urban Policy. (See half way down the page.)

Congressman Jose Serrano has given two community activists from the South Bronx - ages 77 and 80 - tickets to Barack Obama's inauguration later this month.