The Bronx Loses Its Only Bookstore

The Bronx is home to 1.5 million people, two hundred thousand public-school students, eleven colleges and universities, and a single general-interest bookstore-a Barnes & Noble, located in the Bay Plaza shopping center, in Co-op City, in the northeast section of the borough. The chain arrived there in 1999, after Stephen B. Kaufman, then an assemblyman living in Throgs Neck, grew tired of driving to the Barnes & Noble in Yonkers to purchase books he couldn't find in one of the borough's two small independent bookshops, both of which have since closed down.

Three Westchester School Districts Report Chronic Absenteeism

The data, pulled from a federal report, shows that Mount Vernon, Yonkers and Peekskill have students who are chronically absent, said lohud.com. Mount Vernon reported an absenteeism rate of 33.3 percent, Yonkers was 24.9 percent and Peekskill reported 30 percent, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights that was examined by the Westchester Children's Association, added lohud.com.

Man Draws 22-Year Sentence For Kidnapping, Sex Trafficking Westchester Teen

A Yonkers man was sentenced Thursday to more than 22 years in federal prison for his role in kidnapping and forcing into prostitution a 19-year-old Mount Vernon woman, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Clydedoro Graham, 28, was convicted in November 2015 of kidnapping, conspiring to engage in sex trafficking and attempting to engage in sex trafficking.

Westchester Man Pleads Guilty To Grand Larceny, Misconduct

William Ahern, an Armonk resident and owner of A Plus Transportation, has pleaded guilty to scamming Yonkers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by billing the city for non-existent bus services. Yonkers resident Anna Sollozzo, a former transportation supervisor for the city's Board of Education, is in prison after pleading guilty to grand larceny and tax fraud in a bus services scam.