Welcome to the latest edition of the Bronx News Roundup. These are the Bronx stories we’re following today.

In his political gossip column, the Bronx Times‘ Bob Kappstatter unveiled some sharp behind-the-scenes criticism of Bronx County Democratic Committee chairman Carl Heastie. Kappy’s unnamed critics blasted the assemblyman for being out of touch and disengaged and basically failing to build the borough’s political power. He also angered other Democratic leaders when he sponsored a bill that would allow check cashing shops to charge exorbitant interest on so-called pay-day loans.

Kappy also discusses the governor’s decision to not hold a special election to fill the west Bronx seat (86th District) vacated by former-Assemblyman/informant Nelson Castro. Holding the special election would have filled the seat quicker, cost $350,000 to execute, and give more power to Heastie, who could almost hand-pick a successor. Now,  the seat will remain empty until the September primary and November general election. Either way, Kappy says candidates are lining up for a shot to replace Castro. Good stuff from the Kap Daddy.

The Bronx’s Van Cortlandt Park is home to a new $13 million cricket-reserved ground. The 3-year renovation opened Sunday and displayed the park’s 10 cricket fields with an array of league players and teams, along with diplomats from Carribean and South Asian countries, places where the game is favored.   

The new fields give the Bronx a total of 18 cricket grounds, making the borough’s cricket complex the largest in the nation. Read about the Bronx-based Common Wealth Cricket League and the New York Cricket League in this New York Times story.

Deeply proud to acknowledge her Bronx roots, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor told listeners of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature in New York City that she just wants to be called “Sonia from the Bronx,” the Washington Post reports.

Sotomayor’s best-selling memoir, “My Beloved World,” recognizes her hometown as a place of “hopes and struggles.”

The first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court told the audience that she returns to the borough to find “strength.”

The New York Post is reporting that prosecutors, with support from Bronx DA Robert Johnson, are offering misdemeanor deals to suspects of attempted murder cases in efforts to quickly reduce the backlog in the Bronx court system.

Executive assistant to the DA in charge of trials Robert Dreher denies the deals were offered in order to help decrease backlog, the Post also reported. Dreher provided the Post with several examples of these deals.

For example, Leon Ross, who was charged with attempted murder three years ago, pleaded guilty to a criminal possession of a weapon because an important witness got into legal problems himself.

Read about the other case deals at the New York Post.

The grounds of South Bronx housing project Forest Houses has been selected to temporarily house a public art project called “The Gramsci Monument.” The art work is last of a four-part series of monuments from Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn. According to the New York Times, the artist has received support from the Dia Art Foundation and chose the Forest Houses site because he wanted to create a new and different version of public art “based on love for a ‘non-exclusive audience’.”

And finally, Esquire‘s “Eat like a Man” blog takes a look at Belmont (aka the Real Little Italy), and other Bronx foodie treasures that often get overlooked in favor of our hipster borough brethren.

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