The Bronx Ink

Residential customers in the Bronx and throughout New York are getting some relief from Con Ed, according to NBC New York.

The power company reported that on average gas heating bills will drop 3.8 this winter compared to last year.

The company has 1.1 million customers in the Bronx, Manhattan, Westchester County and parts of Queens. About 279,000 of them use gas for heating in their homes.

A citywide five-kilometer breast cancer walk attracted tens of thousands of participants including in the the Bronx, NY1 reported.

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 5K walk were held at Orchard Beach in the Bronx and at parks throughout the four other boroughs last Sunday.

Both organizers and breast cancer survivors said early detection using mammogram tests after the age of 40 increase the chance of survival by 98 percent.

Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx is facing accusations of misplacing the ashes of a local grandmother, according to the NY Daily News.

Elisabeth Delfini’s family claimed that Woodlawn lost her ashes in February and then lied about the loss.

The alleged mishap is the second at a major Bronx cemetery in the last year. Recently, St. Raymond Cemetery was accused of burying the remains of a woman in the wrong grave.

Fashion website Styleite reports about Calvin Klein talking about his childhood in the Bronx during the 1940s.

The son of Jewish-Hungarian immigrants, Klein said he was lucky to have parents who encouraged him to pursue his passion. Klein graduated high school from the Bronx’s High School of Arts and Design.

During the interview Klein revealed that another celebrity designer, Ralph Lauren was his neighbor. Klein said Lauren’s fashion sense was “peculiar” even then.

The mother of Bronx native and University of Arizona basketball forward Kevin Parrom has died, ESPN reports.

The announcement came just a few weeks after the 6-foot-6 junior Wildcat returned was injured following a Sept. 24 shooting in the Bronx. During that incident Parrom was shot in the leg.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with Kevin and his family at this most difficult time,” Parrom’s coach Sean Miller said in a statment. “I have never been around a young person who has dealt with more hardship in such a short period of time than Kevin.

As part of a year-long effort to collect the Bronx’s Latino history, the Bronx County Historical Society has installed a new exhibit featuring vintage photos, vinyl records of Latino music and old newspapers, the NY Daily News reports.

“We want to open up a dialogue about this,” Angel Hernandez told the newspaper. ”We want to give people the opportunity to speak up and become a part of Bronx history.”

Today, Hispanics make up 53.5% of the borough’s population, up from 48.3% a decade ago, according to the latest government census.

A report published in NYTimes revealed there have been 1,250 accusations of test tampering or grade changing across city schools since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took control of the public schools system.

Of that number, 14 cases had been substantiated including one against a teacher at Middle School 219 in the Bronx. The teacher received a 90-day suspension without pay after investigators claimed he had written answers on the back of paper rulers for the eighth-grade math examinees. The teacher has denied the allegations.

In another case a Bronx assistant principal at the High School for Contemporary Arts was found of tampering with student answers on the June 2008 algebra Regents exam. The assistant principal had been dismissed.

A Bronx bridge project, which has languished for years due to a legal fight between Amtrak and New York State’s Department of Transportation, could finally become a reality,  thanks to the intervention of the federal government.

According to the NY Daily News, the bridge over an Amtrak rail line will eventually connect two new waterfront parks located in Hunts Point and West Farms Square. It will serve pedestrians and cyclists in the area.

Rep. Jose Serrano (D-South Bronx) asked the the U.S. Department of the Interior to broker a meeting between the state transportation office and Amtrak, which has reportedly refused to cooperate with the project, now costing taxpayers $150 million.