The Rainbow Rebels, a group of disillusioned Bronx pols who are attempting to overthrow party boss Jose Rivera, held a rally last night to protest Rivera's leadership. Some 400 people showed up. Originally, the Rebels planned to vote for a new leader, but a judge forced them to cancel at the last minute. Instead, they will fight it out with Rivera loyalists at a meeting this Sunday at the Utopia Paradise Theater. Here's Bob Kappstatter's latest column on the issue.
In January 2007, Dr. Leandro Lozada, a popular pediatrician who ran a health center in North Fordham, was brutally murdered in his Yonkers home. Back in March, the former owner of Lozada's house was convicted of murder. Now an accomplice has also been found guilty.
In an anti-smoking initiative, the Department of Health is distributing 330,000 match boxes to bodegas in the South Bronx, Harlem, and parts of Brooklyn. The boxes come emblazoned with grisly photos of blackened lungs and rotting teeth in an attempt to shock smokers into quitting.
A Bronx bus driver, who allegedly dropped off a 5-year-old boy two miles from his Eastchester home, has been suspended without pay.
Concourse Village residents and Community Board 4 are trying to stop the building of a citywide homeless intake facility on Walton Avenue at 151st Street. The neighborhood was previously home to a two-story intake center - the notoriously busy Emergency Assistance Unit. That site closed in 2005. The new one will be 7-stories high. A public hearing is being a held to examine the possible impact of the new center on Thursday at Hostos Community College (120 E. 149th St., Savoy Multi-Purpose Room, 2nd Fl.) The hearing begins at 7 p.m.
Doctors at Jacobi Medical Center and North Central Bronx Hospital want to unionize.
A recently unearthed photo of a baseball diamond near the old Yankee Stadium has parks advocates crying foul. They're claiming, not for the first time, that the city is failing to replace all the parkland swallowed by the new stadium.
At the weekend, the Bronx Museum of the Arts played host to a breakdancing competition.
The Coalition for Muslim School Holidays is holding a "Ramadan Awareness Event" tomorrow at the Bronx County Courthouse (851 Grand Concourse). It starts at 5 p.m. The press release says:
Come learn about Ramadan and support our campaign for equality in public education! We want the City Council to pass Resolution 1281, which calls for the DOE to recognize the two Eid holidays in the school calendar.The Norwood News wrote about this issue last year.
