In light of problems identified with the City Council’s distribution and designation of “member items,” Council Member Oliver Koppell reported major changes instituted by Speaker Christine Quinn in the Council’s budget allocation process.

Assemblyman Jose Rivera went to Washington, D.C. this week to attend the national ALS Advocacy Day with his daughter Diane Rivera-Riportella, who was recently diagnosed with the condition. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, affects 30,000 Americans. It damages the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and is fatal, on average, in two to five years after diagnosis.

U.S. Representative Joe Crowley (D-NY), along with representatives from California, Kentucky, and Illinois spearheaded legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Aung San Suu Kyi, an imprisoned Burmese leader. Kyi has been crusading to end the human rights-abusing military dictatorship in Burma since the 1980s.

The Class of 1973 celebrated its 35th anniversary by raising $6,000 in honor of deceased classmates Regina Lambeau, Kathy O’Shea, Marian Collier, and Mary Smith. The funds went toward the installation of a new bench at the school and the establishment of a scholarship fund in the class name.

Last year, Congressman Eliot Engel introduced legislation to ban the Belgian FN Five-seveN pistol, a weapon that can currently be purchased legally and has the ability to penetrate police bulletproof vests "from two football fields away," according to Engel. The gun is advertised as being able to cut through 48 layers of Kevlar, the synthetic fiber used in most bulletproof vests, at 50 meters. After the same type of gun was recently used in a Philadelphia shooting in which a man was shot in the hand and a child cut by flying glass near a car detail shop owned by NFL All-Pro receiver Marvin Harrison, Engel renewed his battle to get his legislation, the PLEA Act, through Congress.

A listing of public and community meetings in the northwest Bronx.

Several hundred youngsters from PS/ MS 20 and the 52nd Precinct Explorers Program participated in the first-ever NYPD Explorers Community Awareness Day, held along Mosholu Parkway at Webster Avenue, on Saturday, May 3.

Fordham residents are hoping that community organizations create a unified plan for a youth center at the old Fordham Library within the month, as the city eyes the contaminated building for a possible animal shelter.

A thousand index cards, in groups of 10, connected by paper clips, were painstakingly draped from the third floor ceiling of PS 246 in Kingsbridge on May 2. The index cards were part of an effort by Pedro Cruz’s sixth grade class to honor the lives of children who died during the Holocaust.