South Queens News

The city Department of Education announced Tuesday that it will significantly expedite the removal of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from city schools from the original 10-year deadline to three and a half years from now — a total of five years from the project’s 2011 start date.

The announcement came as a result of a settlement between the city and the activist organization New York Communities for Change, which sued the city last fall to move up the project after PCBs were found leaking from lighting ballasts in dozens of city schools, including IS 204 in Long Island City.

A former Woodhaven church is being renovated and will reopen as a day care center for children with developmental disabilities.

Christ Congregational Church at 85-27 91 St. has been closed for several years and is now being renovated by a Nassau County-based group called Kings Point High.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will close down one lane on the Queens approach to the Whitestone Bridge around the clock beginning on June 1.

MTA officials said the lane closure is necessary to begin the next phase of the $109 million reconstruction of the approaches to the 74-year-old bridge.

The Long Island Chapter of the Knights of Columbus, which includes councils from both Brooklyn and Queens, held its Annual Charity Ball at Russo’s on the Bay in Howard Beach on Saturday May 18.

The event raised $7,500 each for two organizations: Faith in the Future, which helps poor families afford a Catholic high school education for their children, and Mercy Homes, which aids young children and young adults who are mentally and emotionally impaired with housing and education.

Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Rockaway Park) visited tornado-ravaged Oklahoma on Wednesday to share his experiences in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and help out victims who seven months ago sent help to Queens.

Goldfeder, whose own home was damaged in Sandy, as was more than 85 percent of his district, contacted Oklahoma State Rep. Paul Wesselhoft, who represents the city of Moore, Okla. in their state Legislature and offered to visit.

• Breaking

A St. Albans man who engaged in a one-hour felony spree in February 2010 was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison last week on charges that included the attempted murder of a police officer.

Darius Lowery, 25, was one of two men convicted in March in connection with a rampage that went through three precincts and involved a stolen car, a home invasion robbery, an armed street robbery and shots fired at officers Steven Betts and Shawn Phillips during a brief but wild car chase.

• Breaking

Gov. Cuomo announced Thursday morning that A train subway service will be restored to the Rockaways on May 30, just over seven months after Hurricane Sandy destroyed tracks across Jamaica Bay and seriously damaged two stations.

The historic Forest Park Carousel, which has survived fire, closure and bad management in the past, may finally be heading into a safer position than the tenuous one it lived under for decades.

The carousel, built in 1903, will be considered for landmark status after the city Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to schedule a public hearing on the proposal.