The sounds of drumming and shouting radiate throughout the halls of PS 340 as the elementary students’ simulated African marketplace comes to life. "Two dollars!" one child yells, while another tries to haggle down the price.

The extension of term limits for New York City’s elected officials from two to three terms has allowed veteran lawmaker Oliver Koppell to make a bid to retain his City Council seat in District 11, which includes Norwood, parts of Bedford Park, Riverdale and Woodlawn.

This time around, he faces Tony Cassino, a former chairman of Community Board 8 (Riverdale), who officially kicked off his campaign on June 7.

Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn released the 2010 New York City fiscal year budget last week, but not without angering at least one group of city workers – school support staff.

Members of Community Board 7 will be the first to officially weigh in on The Related Companies’ "Shops at the Armory" redevelopment proposal on July 14. Board chair Greg Faulkner told the Norwood News on the eve of a June 24 public hearing that he expects the board to vote "yes" on the proposal, despite the fact that a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) may not be in place before the vote.

A listing of public and community meetings in the northwest Bronx, mostly Community District 7.

A guide to job programs and opportunities in the Bronx and elsewhere.

After spending almost a year in various domestic violence shelters around New York City, Maria, whose real name is being withheld for her own protection, has found a new life and a new beginning in the northwest Bronx. What she found was Marcello Manor, the newest and largest project of New Destiny, a nonprofit housing corporation that provides permanent housing and help for survivors of domestic violence.

At a heavily-trafficked intersection in University Heights, residents are increasingly scared to cross the street. There is no crosswalk or traffic signal at the intersection of 183rd Street and Sedgwick Avenue, and several accidents have been reported there since 2007, sending at least two street crossers to the hospital.

Pedro Espada may be the second or third most important person in state politics at the moment, but he wasn’t a state senator a mere six months ago.

He won a Democratic primary against Efrain Gonzalez, Jr., the indicted incumbent, with less than 5,000 votes.

Democratic officials who were in the process of deposing party leader Jose Rivera, closed ranks behind Gonzalez, despite clear indications that he was headed to jail.

They overlooked Gonzalez’s pending criminal trial on fraud and corruption charges by telling themselves that Gonzalez would be more loyal than Espada, and that if he went to jail, they’d get to hand pick a candidate who would sail to election. Gonzalez had never flirted with joining the Republican caucus (though he did endorse Rudy Giuliani and Al D’Amato) and wouldn’t stand in the way of hallmark Democratic legislation like vacancy decontrol, their reasoning went.

"If he were to be convicted, he would be out of office and there would be a special election," says Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz. "If Pedro Espada got elected, we believed there would be a good chance that he’d sit with Republicans because he had a history of doing that, and it’s not a distant history."

It would be a decent point if Gonzalez had won. But he didn’t – probably because few voters were motivated to head to the polls to choose between the indicted Gonzalez and Espada, who has his own sordid history.

What if they instead had gotten behind a third candidate?