Bronx News Roundup, July 21

Veterans at the Bronx Veterans Affairs Hospital, in Kingsbridge, are learning to channel their post-war tension into music as volunteers teach them to play musical instruments.

Ruben Diaz Jr., ex-Yankees Roy White and Darryl Strawberry and Yankees scout Cesar Prescott, gathered to remember late team owner George Steinbrenner before a baseball tournament on Randall’s Island yesterday.

Don Coquí, an authentic Puerto Rican restaurant in New Rochelle, is celebrating its first anniversary this month. Its owner, Jimmy Rodríguez, is the founder of Jimmy's Bronx Cafe and the son of the founder of Marisco del Caribe in the Bronx.

The city Administration for Children's Services will fund Rosalie Hall, a center for pregnant teens, for another year. Although the number of beds must be reduced from 16 to 10, the funding may allow the center to provide birthing services and full-time residency for young mothers and their children.

Christopher Benfey, a professor at Mount Holyoke and contributor to the New York Review of Books, wrote about his experience attending “Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers,” at the Botanical Garden on the New York Review of Books website this morning.

The Point, a community development organization in the South Bronx, which reclaimed vacant land in the city for a 400-square-foot garden, is setting an example for Detroit and other American cities. The Center for American Progress released an article about the benefits of urban farms today.

Bronx native Latisha Ryer, 35, was arrested on charges of possessing and selling crack cocaine in Port Jervis today.

The Daily News reported that teens jumped fences to swim in the Bronx River yesterday, in spite of the recent deaths in the area.

Bronx News Roundup, September 23

Newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will throw the first pitch at Yankee Stadium on Saturday's game against the Boston Red Sox. Sotomayor's pitching arm will be used to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month at Yankee Stadium.

Yesterday, Jonathon Huff, a dean of a Bronx high school-- the Urban Assembly Academy of History and Citizenship for Young Men-- pleaded not guilty to the charge of inappropriately touching a 14 year-old student.

The Bronx Supreme Court sentenced a former police detective, Christopher Perino, to four months in jail after he was convicted of perjury during an attempted murder trial in the Bronx.

Police arrested a Bronx man, William Crean, for allegedly setting fire to a building in Westchester Square in March. The fire caused $2 million worth of property damage and minor injuries to three fire fighters. Crean faces charges of arson and up to 25 years in prison.

The New York City Administration for Children's Services cut their budget, and they will no longer provide 5 year-old children with after-school day care. Only children under 5 years-old will receive day care assistance, which leaves many Bronx working parents struggling to find care providers.

This afternoon, police arrested seven Bronx hospital workers (six at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center and one at Jacobi Hospital) for taking bribes and steering patients into clinics operating insurance scams. Authorities are still conducting an investigation of bribery and insurance scams at New York City hospitals.

Yesterday, a sudden shooting in Mott Haven on East 146th Street left a 25 year-old woman dead and a 25 year-old man injured.

Bronx News Roundup, August 24

A Bronx cab driver was shot dead late last night in Mott Haven. This murder is the second fatal shooting of a cabdriver in the Bronx in the span of about a week. Police arrested a 31 year-old suspect carrying a gun near the murder scene soon after the Sunday shooting.

This week, Crotona Park will host the annual EmblemHealth Bronx Open, where children from around the tri-state area can play tennis for free with some of the top ranked women's players in the sport. The Bronx Open will also feature the fourth annual tennis match between the New York City Fire Department and the New York City Police Department.

A Bronx woman, Gloria Ford, was killed yesterday afternoon in a kitchen fire at her Norwood apartment. Police are still investigating the cause of the fire.

After an eight year-old girl, Destiny Antonio, fell seven stories from her Bronx apartment building last Friday, her mother, Robin Antonio, is being investigated by the Administration for Children's Services. Robin Antonio claims that she complained to housing authorities about the broken window before the incident. Robin Antonio's daughter suffered a broken pelvis and leg from the fall and she is recovering in the hospital.

In Hunt's Point, a dad saved his three year-old son from being attacked by a 120-pound Husky dog.