Bronx News Roundup, Sept. 17

Wow, looks like the Bronx lucked out yesterday when a torrential, tornado-like storm ripped through Brooklyn, Queens and parts of Long Island. Here's a link to some intense footage taken by readers of the City Room blog.

In the Riverdale bombing plot trial, the FBI informant at the center of the case revealed a complex past during his testimony that involved a friendship with the former Prime Minister of Pakistan.

A Bronx man was charged with sending explicit pictures of himself to an 11-year-old Throggs Neck girl who has been missing for three days. The man maintains he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

In perhaps the least surprising new story of the day, people in the Bronx and elsewhere in the city are struggling to make ends meet during this recession.

Fordham University's The Ram newspaper opines about plans to beautify Fordham Plaza.

A City Island woman who works at Montefiore Medical Center is selling bags and donating a portion of the proceeds to a women's center in Ethiopia.

"Krackoon," a horror film about a crack-addicted raccoon, made by Throggs Neck film makers in the east Bronx is generating some buzz.

City Limits riffs off of a Norwood News story about the death of a homeless man in Norwood. Police are considering the death an accident, but friends believe it was the result of a beating. A new study says the country's homeless population is increasingly becoming a target for attacks.

Applebee's Opens at Fordham Plaza

While many avid diners continue to see one restaurant fold after another, given these questionable economic times, there is one restaurant chain that is not slowing down. Applebee's Neighborhood Bar and Grill opened a brand new location today at Fordham Plaza. The restaurant says it received over 6,000 applications for the 250 positions it created.

The company plans to open another restaurant in late August at the Bronx Terminal Market.