Karin Robinson and Reana Mohammed felt the need to call a players-only meeting immediately following Mary Louis’ win over Francis Lewis Sunday. The girls basketball team was coming off a lopsided loss to Nazareth and was unhappy with their overall effort against the Patriots. The captains wanted to get everyone on the same page moving forward. Comment.

The city Department of Education announced last month that District 24, which includes many western Queens neighborhoods, will be getting money to add 2,000 additional seats in nine new schools for students in the area. Comment.

Sunday’s blizzard sent the borough into a tailspin, making it impossible for emergency vehicles to reach sick residents, slowing fire trucks trying to reach a five-alarm blaze in Elmhurst and leaving people stranded in buses and homes with no passable roads. Comment.

The 103rd Precinct has been hit with a string of homicides in 2010, but recent police statistics show the southeast Queens station house saw improvements in other crimes such as rapes, burglaries and assaults. Comment.

An employee of a Flushing bakery died during this week’s blizzard, authorities said. Comment.

City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) said streets in parts of Bayside, Whitestone and College Point had still not been plowed as of Thursday afternoon, leaving many residents unable to get to work or receive medical attention. Comment.

The city’s inadequate response to this week’s snowstorm left Queens hospitals facing incredible hardships as ambulances had to be towed while trying to cover medical emergencies and human chains were formed to get vital supplies into Flushing Hospital, a hospital spokesman said Thursday. Comment.

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — A Jamaica man was arrested last Thursday by upstate police for his alleged part in a jewelry store robbery, investigators said. Comment.

Two men were arrested over the weekend at John F. Kennedy International Airport for allegedly trying to bring a different type of white Christmas to New York, the Queens district attorney said. Comment.

A Bellerose club that residents and civic leaders say has been a nuisance in the community has been boarded up, but not for the reasons some had hoped. Comment.

Crime has hit southeast Queens hard over the last year and the officers at the 113th Precinct have been grappling with a large share of that surge, police statistics show. Comment.

The borough’s largest police station house has had a rough year dealing with violent crimes, but the 105th Precinct has made progress in some areas, police statistics show. Comment.

The bureaucrats in lower Manhattan want to close Jamaica High School and then reopen it with a new name. A teacher at this school has made a much more interesting suggestion. We hope the Department of Education is paying attention. Comment.

A Jersey City arrest led the Hudson County Narcotics Task Force to take in two Corona men who were allegedly planning to sell heroin, one of whom had his 5-year-old child in the backseat of a car while they had drugs with them, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said last week. Comment.

Despite minor opposition about the procedure behind it, Community District Education Council 30 voted 7-0 with one abstention last Thursday to rezone various public schools in the Jackson Heights area to include PS 280 on the map, a former Catholic School that was reopened by the city in September. Comment.

The New York Police Department’s 115th Precinct saw slight decreases in almost all types of crimes this year, with murders dropping from eight to three compared to 2009, according to statistics for the period ended Dec. 19. Comment.

A Hillcrest street will soon be renamed for Rabbi Sholem B. Kowalsky, the late spiritual leader of the Young Israel of Hillcrest synagogue, after Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed the distinction into law last week. Comment.

With many northeast Queens residents, particularly seniors, once again left without public transportation because the group van service that ran along the axed Q79 bus route ended last week, civic activists are calling on the city to quickly come up with solutions. Comment.

Glen Oaks Village President Bob Friedrich is fighting a possible $40,000 violation issued by the city to the co-op for poorly maintained sidewalks, saying there are no problems with the development’s sidewalks. Comment.

Members of the restaurant union gathered outside a Flushing restaurant last Thursday to stage a protest against its owners who they say have been using intimidation tactics against them. Comment.

State Assemblywoman Grace Meng (D-Flushing) is working once again to ensure the safety of New York’s youngest residents. Comment.

State Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Fresh Meadows) called on the producer of the accident-plagued “Spider-Man” musical to make the production safer before it goes on with any more shows. Comment.

The Flushing House is keeping its seniors engaged in all things technological with the help of a $5,000 state grant provided by state Assemblywoman Ann-Margaret Carrozza (D-Bayside). Comment.

The girlfriend of former state Senator Hiram Monserrate is living proof that no-good-deed-goes-unpunished. Karla Giraldo has filed a $35 million lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court against the Queens district attorney’s office and the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. She claims that LIJ doctors conspired with the police and DA officials to try to coerce her into implicating Monserrate in an assault. Comment.

This week’s blizzard cramped the style of New Yorkers from the Hudson to the Nassau County line, but northeast Queens residents and leaders say they were disproportionately neglected in its aftermath. Comment.

A Middle Village councilwoman wants puppies that are sold in the city to come with birth certificates in order to cut down on inhumane dog-rearing practices. Comment.

After being closed for almost two years for an extensive expansion, Astoria’s Museum of the Moving Image is prepared to get the cameras rolling with a suite of screenings designed to show off its new theater. Comment.

Queens commuter rail riders were left in a lurch for much of the aftermath of the blizzard of 2010, as Long Island Rail Road service ground to a halt Sunday night, only to slowly chug back to life Tuesday morning. Comment.

The thick blanket of snow that covered the Queens this week had residents furious at the pace of the city’s response, and borough politicians recalled a similar situation that occurred in 1969, when a blizzard took the city by surprise on former Mayor John Lindsay’s watch, Comment.

It is the day before Christmas Eve and Bayside resident Robert Sibrizzi is hunched over his computer looking at a digital representation of the 70,000 lights and hundreds of holiday decorations — including 10 mini Christmas trees and a glowing peace sign to honor the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death — in his yard. Comment.

The children at a holiday program at St. Mary’s in Bayside last week battled complex medical conditions, but that did not stop them from laughing and having fun as they spent their afternoon working on holiday crafts with students from Cardozo High School. Comment.

Elected officials announced they will be taking a long look at the city’s blizzard preparations because they contend the mayor dropped the ball and allowed the borough to suffer a winter paralysis after Mother Nature dumped more than a foot of snow on Queens Sunday. Comment.

Hundreds of commuters and airline passengers were forced to have a sleepover on the A train in the early morning Monday after they were left stranded for seven hours in Howard Beach by the monstrous blizzard that swept through the city. Comment.

Crime is generally down in the 111th Precinct this year with no murders reported, but there has been an increase in the number of rapes and felony assaults, according to statistics from the NYPD. Comment.

RICHMOND HILL—A suspect is wanted in connection with a break-in at a Laundromat earlier this month, police said. Comment.

RICHMOND HILL—Police were looking for a man they claim was responsible for two home burglaries at the end of the summer. Comment.

An open letter to Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo. Comment.

I attended the first of two performances of “How the Grinch Stole the Holidays” at William H. Carr JHS 194 in Whitestone last Thursday. If anyone wanted to see why we need to keep our music, art, etc., programs alive and funded in our public schools, you had to have seen Dec. 17’s final performance. Comment.

By now we have all read about the demise of the Q79 Group Ride Program. As one of the civic leaders who staged rallies and protests to save the bus line and have the Group Ride Program adopted for this route, it’s a sad day for our seniors and others that have no affordable transportation alternatives. Comment.

It is unfair that the teachers of the New York City public school system are still without a new contract. Teachers are still working under the old contract, which expired Oct. 31, 2009. Comment.

I do hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah and happy whatever other holidays are being observed at this time of the year. I hope that Santa was good to you and hope you received everything that you wanted and wanted everything you received. Comment.

January is a month not too many people are fond of. Why? Because they suddenly realize that they have become a year older; they have not attained the lofty goals they set down for themselves in 2010; they do not want Ol’ Man Winter’s icy fingers down their necks; the world remains in turmoil; and there is no cheerful holiday between Christmas and Valentine’s Day. This is the perfect time for me to perk up everyone’s spirits. Read the following tales and see if they do not lift your vim up a wee bit. Comment.

When the owners of a neighborhood bar say it is “the Astoria local,” they really mean it. Comment.

Walmart is comin’ to town if the company gets its way. Comment.

The Asian population of Queens makes up a significant portion of the borough’s diverse cultures and in an upcoming program Queens College students will get to explore that rich spectrum firsthand. Comment.

Sadness and uncertainty dominated the mood of not only the vendors but the customers Dec. 19 as the flea market at the Aqueduct Race Track in South Ozone Park sold its wares on one of its last days. The flea market now has closed to make way for a “racino” gambling facility. Comment.

A Kew Gardens martial artist wants to help kids fight life-threatening illnesses — literally. Comment.

A grand jury voted earlier this month not to indict one of two men who were charged with assaulting and robbing a Woodside imam in a bias hate crime, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said this week. Comment.

Patricia Seino has been surviving off of social safety net programs for the last 11 years, but not by choice. Comment.

Willets Point tenants had a rare opportunity last week to meet with city officials and hash out the details of their leases, address eviction notices some had received and ask any other questions about their status in the 62-acre area, which the city plans to transform into a $3 billion city development project. Comment.

Police shot and killed a Glendale man last week after responding to a domestic dispute call from the man’s mother, police said. Comment.

While the murder rate remains low in the Police Department’s 108th Precinct, incidents of crime increased by nearly 4 percent in 2010, with significant jumps in the number of rapes, robberies and felony assaults in the area, according to police statistics for the year so far. Comment.

For Jackson Heights photographer Adeet Deshmukh, taking pictures is all about symmetry. Last year he exhibited a series of black and white photos at the Jackson Heights café Espresso 77, which displayed his talent for shooting objects with proportioned lines across uncluttered backgrounds. Comment.