A listing of arts, entertainment and recreational activities for all our readers in the Bronx and beyond.

A listing of programs, services, events and announcements for all our readers in the Bronx and beyond.

The campaign for State Senate in the 33rd District is important to Norwood News readers because the district covers all of the neighborhoods we serve. And you only have to look at the lingering and painful budget crisis in Albany to understand that one state senator can make a very big difference.

It was only a short time ago that Edda Lopez was living her American Dream. She had a good job, a good husband and a family. She owned a home that she loved on Devoe Terrace, near the VA Hospital in University Heights.

Now widowed, disabled and unemployed, Lopez is trying desperately to hang on to her house and, with the help of community leaders and local politicians, taking on one of the country’s biggest banks.

In response to a recent shooting in the area and a general uptick in violent crime, the Police Department installed a Skywatch surveillance tower on the corner of 194th Street and Marion Avenue.

Two Bronx politicians are picking up the torch from the living wage campaign that was at the heart of last year’s battle over the Kingsbridge Armory.

City Council Members Oliver Koppell and Annabel Palma – both of the Bronx -introduced the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act on May 25, a bill that would require most development projects receiving city subsidies to pay workers eventually employed there a living wage – $10 an hour with benefits or $11.50 an hour without.

A group of housing advocates who tried to attend a "town hall meeting" held by State Senator Pedro Espada say they were physically barred from entering the building, according to two people who attempted to join the meeting.

Former State Senator Efrain Gonzalez’s last-ditch effort to withdraw the "guilty" plea he entered last spring backfired earlier this month, as a federal judge sentenced him to seven years in prison for fraud involving two nonprofit organizations.

Mother’s Day ended horribly for Wanda Marrero after a fire in a troubled Norwood area apartment building left her and her family homeless.

"I remember smelling smoke, and my daughter telling me ‘Mami, there’s smoke coming in the house!’ When I looked there was smoke in my living room," said Marrero, as she sat on the stoop of the building she once called home, several days after the fire. "I got all the kids and ran outside."