Bronx News Network

Bronx Events: Free Dental Screenings, and Some Snow Interference

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New York University’s College of Dentistry is offering free dental screenings for children ages six months to 14 years this month, starting today, at P.S. 163 at 2075 Webster Avenue. The screenings will be offered on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays through the month of January and are open to the public from 3 to 4 p.m. Call Councilman Joel Rivera’s office for more information: 718-842-8100.An events notice: the impending snowstorm that’s expected tonight/tomorrow has forced a couple of community groups to cancel their plans. Community Board 6 has canceled its monthly meeting that was scheduled for tomorrow night at 6 p.m., and the Kingsbridge-Riverdale-Van Cortlandt Development Corp.’s Riverdale meeting, which had also been scheduled for tomorrow night, is being called off. We’ll keep you posted on their replacement dates if we hear about them. More events happening this week in the Boogie Down are listed below in our community calendar.Editor’s note: What did we miss?

Bronx News Network

Peter Rivera's Pet Non-Profit Involved in Corruption Probe

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The head of a Bronx nonprofit organization that’s received substantial funding from Assemblyman Peter Rivera was slapped with corruption charges today, according to a complaint from Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.David Griffiths is being charged with “making false statements in connection with a grand jury proceeding, obstructing justice, and mail fraud in connection with an application to obtain a state grant,” according to a release. The complaint goes on to detail how Griffiths’ nonprofit received almost all of its income from an unnamed “certain member of the Assembly” between 2003 and 2007.Though the nonprofit and the Assembly member aren’t explicitly named, the website for the Bronx group NETS, or Neighbohood Enhancement for Training Services, Inc., lists Griffiths as its executive director and “a part of NETS since November 2003.”The site also names Assemblyman Peter M. Rivera as the organization’s sponsor since 2002 (it’s on the mission page of their website, here, at the bottom.

Bronx News Network

BxNN's Annual Appeal Launches: Support Quality Local Journalism Today!

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Rosemary Ordonez-Jenkins for BxNN from Bronx News Network on Vimeo.Dear BxNN Readers,As Rosemary says in the video above, we need your help. The information we provide here, and in our print publications, is free to anyone who wants it, but it costs us a lot of money to produce. We need the support of our readers to make it all work and to grow BxNN so that we can provide more news to more Bronxites.This marks the beginning of our annual appeal campaign. During the next six weeks you’ll be hearing from a number of Bronxites like Rosemary who have come to rely on BxNN. We hope you’ll join them and become a supporter.

Bronx News Network

Bronx Foodie: New Year's Resolution and Oatmeal with Maple Syrup

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In honor of the New Year, I’m asking everyone to make a New Year’s Resolution with me. For most people, New Year’s resolutions focus on getting healthier – like losing weight or going to the gym more often. Well, I have a better one and it will go a long way toward any health-focused goals you aspire to this year. In 2011, try cooking half – just 50 percent! – of your meals yourself, instead of eating out or eating already prepared foods, like unhealthy frozen dinners.

Bronx News Network

Pols Toast Rivera and End to '34 Flaky Years' in 33rd Senate District

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This is the time of year for the formal, though not required, swearing-in ceremonies of elected officials in their home districts. They are usually for rookie legislators, like the one on Saturday night at the stately Gould Memorial Hall (it’s almost Capitol-like) at Bronx Community College for newly minted State Senator Gustavo Rivera, a newcomer politician who is no newcomer to politics, having worked on the staff of other legislators (Kirsten Gillibrand, Andrea Stewart-Cousins) and on the 2008 Obama campaign in Florida. Rivera was backed by a star-studded cast of Democrats and they all seemed to want to be there for the event -Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, current borough president Ruben Diaz, Jr., former borough president Fernando Ferrer – marking a rare, lopsided victory over the powerful and controversial incumbent Pedro Espada.Ferrer, who spoke seamlessly, almost poetically, without notes (he told me at the reception later that he learned his oratorical skills on that very campus when it was NYU from Professor Jack Hasch who made students read an article for three minutes and then speak about it for three minutes) welcomed Rivera and expressed a relief that was a common theme of the evening.”We at last, after 34 flaky years have a great senator in [the 33rd] District who will make us proud,” Ferrer declared, referring to Rivera’s two predecessors, Efrain Gonzalez, who is serving a seven-year prison sentence for fraud, and Israel Ruiz, a perennial burr under the saddle of the borough’s Democratic establishment, who also spent time in jail for lying on a loan application.