With a federal grant of $354 million for congestion pricing secured, plans are already under way how to spend the money to be raised by the toll, if approved. Among them, the MTA is considering diverting New Haven Metro North service through the underused northeastern Bronx Amtrak line and to build three stations: Co-op City, Parkchester and possibly Hunts Point.

It becomes more and more clear with each passing day that outright lying, half-truths, inefficient engineering, poor planning, and politically-influenced decision-making by the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) have turned the construction site of the Croton Water Treatment Plant in Van Cortlandt Park into an unmitigated environmental disaster that is costing taxpayers billions of dollars and needlessly wasting precious natural resources.

The Citizens Committee for New York City is sponsoring the fifth annual Quality of Life Survey Saturday, Sept. 8 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at the Bronx Library Center at 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. off Fordham Road. Residents will be polled about their top concerns to guide government officials as they work to improve quality of life in the area. For more information, call (646) 262-0484.

Just after midnight last Wednesday night, neighbors on Reservoir Place, a block away from Williamsbridge Oval Park in Norwood (and around the corner from the offices of the Norwood News), were disturbed to find a small army of cops and a group of Asians standing in front of a row house on the block.

When police arrived on the scene, Nino Ganan was still breathing and struggling for his life after being shot twice in his back and once in the leg. But by the time medics arrived moments later, the husband and father of two had succumbed to his wounds and died.

Subway riders looking to get home on the D train were turned away last Friday evening from Norwood down to at least Yankee Stadium following a death at the Fordham Road station.

The Bronx Museum of the Arts is to host Cuban avant-garde artist Quisqueya Henríquez for her first major appearance in the United States in an exhibit called The World Outside from Sunday, Sept. 16 through Jan. 27, 2008, with an open house Sept. 16 from 2 to 6 p.m.

Friends and relatives of the five Norwood siblings who were killed in a horrific car accident last month gathered Friday night to say final goodbyes at McCall’s Bronxwood Funeral Home on Bronxwood Avenue in Wakefield.

Looking back on his early life – cycling in and out of prison as a drug dealing, crack-addicted young hustler – Stanley Richards can still remember his Riker’s Island inmate number: 2418616600.