Bronx Weekend News Roundup, Monday, April 18

Welcome back to the program, ladies and gentleman of the Bronx and beyond. Just a reminder, today is the official deadline to file your taxes. So, get it done or risk the wrath of the IRS.

Weather: High of around 60 today with clouds obscuring the sun as the day goes on. A strong chance of rain tonight through Wednesday.

Story of the Day: Bronx Cops on the Hot Seat
Yesterday, the Post unveiled its "exclusive" look into the NYPD ticket-fixing scandal that apparently is almost exclusively focused on Bronx police officers. The report claims 400 cops, most of them from the Bronx's 12 precincts, could face internal disciplinary action and two dozen officers, many of them union delegates, could face criminal charges. The investigation began in 2008 after a Bronx cop suspected of selling drugs was heard on a wire tap asking another cop, a union rep, for help fixing a summons. The investigation ballooned from there. Today, the Times delves into the matter, quoting several unnamed "law enforcement officials" and a couple of named lawyers who say ticket fixing has been around since ticket issuing began and that the matter should be handled within the department. It's unclear when the Bronx District Attorney's office will complete its grand jury investigation, while an Internal Affairs Bureau probe continues.

Quick Hits:
Victor Toro, a South Bronx activist who face deportation back to his native Chile where he was tortured in the late 1970s, remains outspoken even as the U.S. government is intent on removing him from the Mott Haven area he now calls home.

New Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, who officially starts his new job today, spoke at Harvest Fields Community Church in Westchester Square yesterday and assured teachers: "You will never, ever hear me say  a bad thing about you," according to the Daily News. But he also said he would go through with Bloomberg's plan to cut 4,000 teachers and fight to end their seniority protections.

Three Bronx teens were injured, one critically, while driving a mini van along Bruckner Boulevard early Saturday morning.

Boxing is coming back to the Loew's Paradise Theater.

A new study found that tax filers in several low-income zip codes in the Bronx and Brooklyn saw more than a million dollars of their refund money go to high-interest "refund anticipation loans." Jumelia Abrahamson (her name is misspelled in the article [and was again misspelled in this post earlier, but is now, finally, corrected]), who works for University Neighborhood Housing Program, a Bronx-based nonprofit that offers free tax prep precisely because they want filers to keep more of their refunds, said the for-profit companies who push these loans often obscure how much of a cut their taking.

Broxite David Vizcaino will compete in the 2011 Special Olympics in Athens, Greece.

Bronx Weekend News Roundup, Jan. 31

Walked past a sturdy, 60ish woman this morning shoveling her walkway for perhaps the eighth or 15th time this winter. She smiled and rolled her eyes and looked at me. "Just making way for the next one," she said. We both chuckled and cursed, knowing full well, it's not over.

Indeed, the National Weather Service has issued a "Winter Storm Watch" for the Bronx this week and says snow could come as soon as tonight, with more on the way Tuesday, with lingering flurries continuing into Wednesday. Sigh. Gird yourselves, Bronxites.

Story of the Day
A dead Riverdale man, Raphael Klapper, collected 828 votes in the general election for the 31st State Senate District this past fall. Klapper, 85, died in May, but the Conservative Party collected signatures and put his name on the ballot anyway. William Newmark, chairman of the Bronx Conservative Party, said he didn't know Klapper was dead until the Board of Elections called him two months before the election to tell him so.

Which brings us to this question: Who in this situation was most oblivious/inept? The Conservative Party for putting a dead man on the ballot? The Board of Elections for keeping a dead man on the ballot? Or the 828 people who voted for a dead man?

(Note: Democrat Ariano Espaillat won this seat, taking over for new AG Eric Schneiderman. [Follow-up note: this past election, the Conservative Party put up another candidate, John McCarthy, in the 33rd District, without telling McCarthy about it. The Norwood resident found out when he received something in the mail from the Board of Elections.])

Quick Hits
An urban planner at CUNY who helped develop a mobile phone app for finding city landmarks, used his own hand-held device to find the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx Community College and the Loew's Paradise Theater on the Grand Concourse, below Fordham Road.

A new series on the The Huffington Post uses Milbank Real Estate's disastrous investment in Bronx apartment buildings to highlight how similarly risky ventures across the country are hitting tenants hard this winter. (For BxNN coverage of the Milbank saga, click here.)

Legendary Bronx DJ Kool Herc is reportedly too broke to pay for badly-needed surgery.

Legal nonprofit groups like the Bronx Defenders are using a new Supreme Court ruling to push for lawyers to be more proactive in telling their clients about how pleading guilty could lead to deportation for many immigrants.

Near Yankee Stadium, Muhammed Rashid, a Subway sandwich shop employee, was slashed in the neck yesterday after allegedly refusing to share a cigarette with someone.

After their Van Nest building burned down last year, a Bronx family has struggled to survive.

A Bronx minister was indicted Friday on rape charges.

A Bronx man was sentenced to 46 months for gold robberies in northern Virginia.

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New from the Norwood News

The latest edition of the Norwood News hit streets Wednesday and is now up online for your reading pleasure. I've noted where a few of these stories were updated from their print version. 

The King Charles Troupe, a team of basketball-playing unicyclists, is back in the Bronx where the troupe was born more than 50 years ago. They were supposed to debut a new show, that included other acts, called The Black Top Circus at the Loews Paradise Theater today, but the theater abruptly canceled all the shows on Tuesday. The troupe is still trying to figure out what happened. [This story has been updated.]

Here's our full story, complete with updates from the print version, on the "suspicious" fire at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church that destroyed the church's vestibule.

Residents near Tolentine (many of whom are members of the church) in University Heights want the city to install a stop light at the dangerous intersection of 183rd Street and Sedgwick Avenue. An editorial about what yet another fire in the northwest Bronx means to the community.

A sixth grader at PS 246 in Kingsbridge was named female youth runner of the year.

Employees at Montefiore Medical Center gave up their wages to donate $20,000 to the Red Cross for victims of the earthquake in Haiti.

And more.