Bronx News Roundup, April 6

A Massachusetts man will spend the rest of his life in prison after being convicted of having his teenage girlfriend murdered. Carlos Cruz, 40, paid his cousin $700 to shot dead Chelsea Frazier on a quiet street in Castle Hill last spring, and make it look like a robbery.

A 65-year-old Bronx man is dead because a surgical sponge was left inside him during open-heart surgery at Montefiore Medical Center, his children charge in a lawsuit.

Daily News columnist Patrice O'Shaughnessy says Gov. Paterson's proposed soda tax "isn't fair" because it would hurt low-income families.  Last Wednesday, New Yorker Against Unfair Taxes, a coalition of businesses opposed to the tax, held a protest and petition-signing at a Fordham supermarket. In response, State Health Commissioner Richard Daines expressed shock that the "beverage lobby has the audacity to bring their fight against the sugary beverage tax to a borough that has the city's highest obesity rate and highest rates of sugar beverage consumption." Daines believes the tax would improve Bronxites' health.

A 27-year-old mother has been arrested after allegedly leaving her three young children unsupervised inside the family's Westchester Square apartment.

Fair-beating is still common-place on the Bx12 Select Bus Service, which runs along Fordham Road and Pelham Parkway.

Four members of a violent drug-trafficking gang, the so-called DeKalb Avenue Crew, have been found guilty of murder, robbery, racketeering, and other charges.

Robert Salerno, the Bronx cop badly injured in a gun-fight on March 22, has been released from hospital. He will spend the next two months or so at a physical-rehabilitation center in White Plains.

A look at the challengers Assembly members Carl Heastie, Naomi Rivers, Nelson Castro, and Peter Rivera, may face in the fall.

BoogieDowner wonders: Has Assemblywoman Vanessa Gibson been taking her parking cues from Pedro Espada? Yesterday, a reader of theirs snapped photos of Gibson's car parked in a bike lane on the Grand Concourse. In the window was a police placard. 

So far, Hunts Point, Morrisania, West Farms, and Wakefield are among the neighborhoods with poor Census participation rates. You can see how your neighborhood's doing here.

A look at how Puerto Ricans came to dominate Bronx politics.

In Van Cortlandt Park, work is ongoing to clear up hundreds of fallen trees that came crashing down in last month's storm.