On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti. More than 200,000 people died and more than one million people were left homeless. Immediately after the quake, many Haitians in New York were unable to get in touch with their loved ones to find out if they were ok. For Stephanie Agustin, who works at Haitian Americans United for Progress in Cambria Heights, a relief agency for Haitians lving it took more eight months to learn that her half-brother, Jean-Michael Lamothe, was still alive. Comment.

Holy Cross has been a familiar, but unfriendly place for Joe Salerno — until now. Comment.

WHEELING, W.Va. — Corey Edwards believes Christ the King is the most talented basketball team in New York City. And it’s hard to argue, with up to six Division I players among its top eight players. Comment.

A South Ozone Park man was charged last week with pimping a runaway teen and could face serious jail time if convicted, the Queens district attorney said. Comment.

Jamaica Hospital is launching a special effort to help patients who suffer from arthritis pain with new equipment and diagnostic strategies and a new physician. Comment.

Ridgewood enjoyed blue skies and milder temperatures last week, but classes and daycare were suddenly canceled at Christ the King High School when a water main burst, but e-mail and social networking helped quickly notify the community. Comment.

State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) and state Assemblyman Edward Braunstein (D-Bayside) said they were focusing on the state budget and ethics reform after being sworn into office last week. Comment.

The parent coordinator at JHS 67 in Little Neck said school leaders were distressed to learn city officials did not inform them that mold was found and removed from the school over the winter break, but the city Department of Education said the agency had been in constant contact with the principal. Comment.

Construction work on the Fairway Markets project in Douglaston could begin as early as next month, provided city officials approve a request to place signs at the site that are larger than what the zoning currently allows for, Community Board 11 Chairman Jerry Iannece said Monday. Comment.

The cards and gifts Queens students and residents are donating as part of a Valentine’s Day drive not only help area veterans to have a happier holiday but remind the military men and women that they are remembered and cared for, former state Assemblywoman Ann-Margaret Carrozza said. Comment.

After more than six decades at its office on Northern Boulevard in Bayside, North Shore Animal Hospital is bidding adieu to the place that was once the only animal hospital for miles around. Comment.

ROCKAWAY — Police have asked the public for help in finding a missing senior citizen who was last seen in a Brooklyn hospital. Comment.

JFK AIRPORT — A Florida man was arrested last week for allegedly using a fake ID while going through security, the Queens district attorney’s office said. Comment.

LAURELTON — A Long Island motorist was killed early Monday morning while traveling on the Southern State Parkway, police said. Comment.

Sean Peace, the 22-year-old man accused of shooting livery cab driver Trevor Bell at least four times last month and robbing him of about $100, was arrested and charged with multiple felonies Tuesday, the Queens district attorney said. Comment.

A Laurelton couple is now feeling lucky and richer last week after they came in second in the Mega Millions jackpot. Comment.

City Comptroller John Liu, his state counterpart Thomas DiNapoli and representatives of other government pension funds across the nation are urging the largest banks to re-examine their procedures that cost not thousands of residents their homes. Comment.

The fight to save Jamaica High School from closing will be put under the spotlight — literally — this Friday with a special play depicting its fate as a Greek tragedy as more elected officials rally to oppose the city Department of Education’s plans. Comment.

Next week the doors at the Wonder Bread factory in Jamaica will shut its doors permanently after more than 100 years of operation, but City Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans) said he is not going to let the 200 blue-collar workers get immediately displaced. Comment.

The time for questioning her credentials is over. Cathie Black became the new city schools chancellor last week and we wish her well. The challenge she faces is enormous. The schools already under-financed will face budget cuts as the mayor and City Council look for ways to balance the city budget. Comment.

A 26-year-old Corona woman allegedly shook her 21-month-old nephew, who was recently entrusted to her care, and caused brain damage, the Queens district attorney’s office said. Comment.

A father of three died and three other construction workers were injured after a concrete wall crushed them on a site owned by notorious Flushing developer Thomas Huang in East Elmhurst Monday, a spokeswoman from the city Department of Buildings said. Comment.

City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst) and members of the civic organizations in the Elmhurst and Jackson Heights areas announced Friday that they had collected 100 bags of clothing and funding and encouraged residents to give more for those displaced by the five-alarm fire in a large Judge Street apartment house during the snowstorm. Comment.

Queens College’s Remsen Hall is set to receive a building award from the Queens Chamber of Commerce during a ceremony next week. Comment.

With the new year here, our local, state and federal governments could go a long way toward solving their fiscal problems if they would cut their expenses and deterred criminal activity. But with the economy down, there are less taxes being paid, so there is less money to spend. Comment.

City Council members prevented 20 firehouses from cutting their hours last week, which caused residents of Richmond Hill to breathe a sigh of relief. Comment.

Community Board 7 members voted unanimously at a Monday evening hearing to support renaming two northeast Queens corners after young area community servants who perished in the World Trade Center Sept. 11, 2001. Comment.

Religion, politics, law enforcement and Facebook have all intersected in an effort to stop loopholes from allowing convicted child sex offenders from working with youths. Comment.

The Macedonia A.M.E. Church in Flushing started out as a place for minority groups to gather and share their faith at a time when they were being persecuted across the nation. Comment.

Queens fire hydrants are repaired more speedily than those of any other borough in the city, an audit released last week by city Comptroller John Liu’s office shows, but not all hydrants are created equal. Comment.

Downtown Flushing’s skyline will gain two new towers if a pair of developers move forward with the plans they presented before Community Board 7 Monday night. Comment.

A registered sex offender was allowed to volunteer at St. Mel’s School in Flushing exposes a critical flaw in the state Sex Offender Registration Act. Joseph Denice was allowed to volunteer as a religious instructor at the Catholic school. He was dismissed when it was learned Denice is a registered sex offender who only recently got out of jail where he served a six-month sentence for repeatedly abusing a 12-year-old boy. Comment.

Even though it has been a full year since the 7.0-magnitude earthquake ravaged Haiti, killed thousands of its residents and left more than a million homeless, a Whitestone artist said the nation of her birth is still reeling from the devastation. Comment.

While his corruption may have overshadowed his 31-year state Assembly career, former colleagues of disgraced Richmond Hill Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio chose to remember him as an outspoken man who delivered for his constituents. Comment.

A year after a vicious 7.3-magnitude earthquake decimated Haiti and upended her world, Alexandra Cothia has learned to adapt. Comment.

One year after a devastating earthquake claimed about 200,000 lives in Haiti, the Caribbean nation is still far from recovering and one Queens man said he hopes to change this with the medical help and supplies he and his nonprofit plan to deliver later this month. Comment.

On Jan. 11 of last year, life at the offices of the Cambria Heights organization Haitian Americans United for Progress went on as normal: holding ESL classes, helping immigrants find resources and receiving counseling for the Haitian community. Comment.

City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) honored Rabbi Yossi Blesofsky, who founded the Chabad of Northeast Queens in Bayside, at the Council’s first meeting of the year last week and asked the religious leader to perform the ceremonial invocation and prayer at the event. Comment.

Stephanie Agustin spent eight painful months fearing the worst: that her half-brother died in the 7.3-magnitude earthquake that ravaged Haiti. Comment.

Members of the Bay Terrace Community Alliance have begun to collect signatures in support of the group’s push to separate themselves from Community Board 7 and join CB 11, President Warren Schreiber said this week. Comment.

Addison Reinoso-Xoyatla, the 3-month-old baby who sustained brain damage two days after the snowstorm and who was originally reported to have been injured because of slow ambulance response, may have actually been hurt after his baby-sitter shook him, the Queens district attorney’s office said. Comment.

As NYPD Lt. David Martelli wrapped up his midnight shift and stepped out of the 111th Precinct building one last time before retiring from the police force Tuesday, he was greeted by more than 75 police officers, family and friends who saluted and cheered the man they called irreplaceable. Comment.

REGO PARK — An M train narrowly missed a New Jersey man who jumped onto the tracks to retrieve his bag Dec. 5, according to the MTA. Comment.

ELMHURST — A 20-year-old man was arrested last week for allegedly doing drugs a block from an elementary school, the Queens district attorney’s office said. Comment.

REGO PARK — A Jamaica motorcyclist was allegedly killed by a hit-and-run drunk driver in Rego Park Jan. 10. Comment.

Let me see if I got this right. First, Mayor Michael Bloomberg cannot seem to get the snow cleared fast enough but is quick to shout down criticism. Now he has the garbage piled so high it poses a health hazard, at the very least. Comment.

Looking back on 2010, it is disturbing to see that crime has risen citywide and in Queens. Vehicle theft was up 11.9 percent boroughwide compared to rates in 2009. Homicide rates rose in 2010 citywide compared to 2009 rates. A scary fact is that two police precincts in Queens make up for 20 percent of the total rise in homicide citywide last year. Overall, murder rates are also up 13 percent for 2010. Comment.

Bravo to City Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) for proposing action on the issue of invasive exotic plants (“Gennaro’s new bill to propose invasive species board,” Fresh Meadows Times, Dec. 2-8). These plants, the Nazis of the vegetative world, were brought to our shores from foreign lands. Because their growth is unchecked here by natural controls such as disease or insects, these plants grow unfettered and quickly overwhelm whole natural ecosystems. Comment.

It is clear from anyone who lives in Queens that the city Sanitation Department failed miserably in last week’s snowstorm and did not follow its own operating procedures for snow removal, as it has done in other large snowstorms of the past. Comment.

The last blizzard was an unmitigated disaster, compounded by the fact that the city was so unprepared for this storm, although the administration knew for a long time that it was coming. An investigation into why so many neighborhoods were left stranded after last week’s winter storm is paramount, as a matter of public safety and health, regarding unplowed streets, abandoned vehicles, snowbound hospitals and garbage accumulation. Comment.

If it is true that there was a deliberate job slowdown by sanitation workers, as reported in the New York Post during the recent devastating blizzard because they were angry about layoffs and budget cuts to their department, there needs to be a thorough investigation as to why this was permitted. Comment.

In January 1935, College Point was in the news as fire swept the L.B. Kleinert Co. Factory at 26th Avenue between 127th and 128th streets. Starting in the acid room of the rubber manufacturing plant, the fire was discovered by a watchman at 2:30 a.m. The Flushing fire command was out on another call, so the assignment was handled by Battalion Chief Uhl of Bayside. Comment.

On a rare visit to midtown Manhattan, I was reminded of the wonderful Duke Ellington song “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.” This aging flack is grateful for any getting around he can do these days and a visit to the center of the center of the universe is always a joy for a native New Yorker. Comment.

Well, all the holiday hullabaloo is finally over, including the Salute to Sen. Padavan Party. The last item on the list was a trip to Washington, D.C., on the “Ackerbus.” Comment.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo pledged to cut the state’s $10 billion deficit without borrowing and to dissolve thousands of commissions and other bodies during his State of the State address last week. Comment.

Despite drawing barbs from outraged public officials, the Long Island Rail Road operated according to plan after it was slammed by the Dec. 26 blizzard, a spokesman for the transit agency said. The railroad’s response will hold up to an upcoming Metropolitan Transportation Authority inquiry, said Sal Arena, since the railroad’s procedures and reaction to the storm were separate from other departments’ like the subway system or other embattled agencies like the city Sanitation Department. Comment.

There were 2,200 people in a room in the New York State Convention Center in Albany to hear Gov. Andrew Cuomo give his State of the State speech last week and nobody had better seats in the house than a couple of high school seniors from Queens. Comment.

Elementary schools from Forest Hills and Woodside danced their way to a gold medal in Manhattan last Thursday night and Fresh Meadows took home the bronze in a citywide ballroom dancing competition. Comment.

Community leaders, elected officials and city workers are raising doubts about City Councilman Dan Halloran’s (R-Whitestone) claim that northeast Queens sanitation supervisors called for a work slowdown during the Dec. 26 blizzard and the storm cleanup. Comment.

Low-income residents of Queens want fresh, healthy food, based on statistics released by a citywide organization. Comment.

Queens elected officials, many of whom worked alongside U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), called for the government to crack down on the spread of guns to suspicious people and urged an end to the kind of hateful political rhetoric that targeted the congresswoman before she was critically wounded by a lone gunman. Comment.

The City Council held the first of a series of hearings into the city’s slow response to last month’s blizzard Monday afternoon. Comment.

Representatives from a real estate investment firm went to Community Board 2 last Thursday hoping to amend their already approved city Board of Standards and Appeals resolution and build a residential tower before a planned dormitory for CUNY students. But they ended up having CB 2 reject their resolution entirely. Comment.

A fire in an Astoria house claimed the life of a 66-year-old pizzeria owner and left his daughter hanging from a window before she was rescued by her brother, officials and an eyewitness said. Comment.

Carl Bartlett, Jr. was 14 years old when he discovered jazz. Comment.

Here’s a New Year’s treat for my loyal readers: a tale from the good old days, when the merits of two actors were seriously disputed, unlike today when many awards are given out for many reasons, comparative talent not necessarily being a major consideration. The soon-to-be-televised Golden Globes, for instance, voted on by fewer than 100 people, make a good show where we get to ogle the glamorous celebrities, but do we really get to know, or to care, who’s better? Comment.

While so many old-school places have given way to newer, trendier cuisines, Don Peppe, that bastion of red-sauce Italian, is still going strong. Whatever their secret, on a recent frigid Wednesday evening the place seemed recession-proof. Comment.