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To the news!
Story of the Day: Jose Rivera Stirring Up Trouble
Bronx political battle ax and assemblyman, Jose Rivera, didn’t let Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s austere budget pass quietly. Last weekend, during the Puerto Rican/Hispanic caucus’s Somos El Futuro conference in Albany, Rivera, the former Bronx Democratic party boss, ripped Cuomo for criticizing his own party during budget negotiations. For the most part, Bronx Dems have been quiet about expressing their problems with the budget, which included deep cuts to education, health care and social services (and did not include strengthened rent laws or an extension of the so-called “Millionaire’s Tax,” which may have staved off some of these cuts). Not Rivera. He seemed energized by the fight, as you can see in the video he recently posted of the (ultimately ineffective) rallies held in Albany leading up to the budget deal.
Quick Hits:
The sister of late Bronx rapper Big Punisher – aka Big Pun, aka Christopher Rios – is lobbying to have the corner of E.163rd Street and Rogers Place in Longwood renamed Big Pun Place. The Grammy-nominated Big Pun died of a heart attack in 2000, with reports saying he weighed nearly 700 pounds at the time of his death. An earlier effort to rename a street after him was rejected by the city, which claimed his lyrics were too “violent and racy,” the Daily News reports.
Yesterday, Dr. Nirav Shah, the state’s relatively new health commissioner, made a trip to a new Bronx health clinic at El Nuevo San Juan Health Center. He’s promoting the use of one-stop-shopping health services provided by these type of health clinics, which he says will streamline care.
Two Bronx custodians have been accused of bilking the city for some $500,000 after allegedly creating a fake-job scheme at two Bronx high schools.
Police are looking for three women they have on tape delivering a nasty beat down to another woman in Mott Haven.
A Bronx woman say she’s certain Terry King, who was arrested and charged with two rapes committed a decade apart, is the man who raped her in Melrose in 1998.
The Bronx Zoo is scheduled to announce the name of its celebrity Egyptian cobra today.
