The Queens Chronicle’s 13th annual Summer in the Borough Photo Contest is, like the 12th, a bit different from its predecessors.

We still want you to take your best shots of children playing, workers working, lovely landscapes, birds on the bay — whatever you think best says “summertime in Queens.” If you need some inspiration, check out last year’s winning photo, above, by Malgorzata Bartyzel of Woodhaven, and another fine 2020 entry, by Kathleen Lang of Elmhurst. Read more

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is expected to delay planned fare increases for bus and subway rides until at least 2022.

Bloomberg News and the New York Daily News both quoted Larry Schwartz, finance committee chairman for the MTA, as saying on Monday that the time is not right with the city’s economy still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic and mass transit ridership in the city still far below pre-Covid levels. Read more

More than 500 restaurants throughout the city will be participating in Restaurant Week this year, and 31 are from Queens.

The program, which will span five weeks this year, originally began in 1992 as a celebration of New York City dining, but this year the mission has changed. Following the pandemic, those participating in the program see it as an opportunity to make up for lost time. Read more

Eddie Earl loves Charles Park and wants the whole neighborhood to love it too.

Equipped with the notion that enthusiasm can be contagious, Earl hosted a park day last Saturday in which he invited residents of Howard Beach and beyond to bring sports equipment, picnics and crafts and simply enjoy the neighborhood’s federal park, which frequently is a source of complaints about trash debris and other forms of neglect. Read more

Scholar Studio, a free virtual tutoring program started by high school students, will return for its second year in August with middle-school math, history and computer science classes and Specialized High School Admissions Test prep.

“The summer was rolling around [last year] and a lot of our classmates and students from other places were going to attend prep classes, but with parents losing jobs and the pandemic going, it was not affordable or safe to go outside, so we thought we would expand what we do in our old middle school to the entire country,” said Xiaoshen Ma, a rising senior at Stuyvesant High School from Forest Hills. Read more

Covid-19 cases are up in New York City, with the Delta and Alpha coronavirus variants tied as the most widespread, and one Queens neighborhood is in the top four citywide for the highest positive cases.

Howard Beach follows Central and East Harlem, where 27 new people tested positive, and two Staten Island neighborhoods, in the last seven days of available data from the city Health Department. Read more

Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter detailed a new, $635 million post-pandemic school recovery plan last Thursday that promises significant changes for public school students.

The announcement provided concrete plans for how the officials will spend the infusion of federal stimulus funds earmarked for schools. Read more

The Queens Borough Board met in-person on Tuesday for the first time since the pandemic, and voted in favor of the city’s plan to add new regulations to hotel development.

The board also supported an initiative to ease restrictions on grocery store development in needed areas and an effort to lift outdated regulations on gyms and massage parlors. Read more

The eagles have landed in Howard Beach.

Boy Scout Troop 139, of Howard Beach, held an Eagle Scout Ceremony in Lindenwood Gardens last Saturday. Read more

Like many Italian enclaves around New York City, Howard Beach burst into green, white and red in response to Italy’s win in the European soccer championship last Sunday.

After Italy pulled off the victory through a one-penalty-shot lead, neighborhood residents flocked to Cross Bay Boulevard donning Italian flags and grouping along the sidewalk and in the median of the business corridor to celebrate, top. Read more

More than 40,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the Queens District Attorney’s Office to review the conviction of Chanel Lewis, who was convicted of the 2016 murder of jogger Karina Vetrano in Howard Beach.

The online petition was turned over Tuesday to DA Melinda Katz’s office by a group of criminal justice advocates. Read more

Drivers who usually take the eastbound Jackie Robinson Parkway and get off at Exit 6 in Forest Park for Metropolitan Avenue or Queens Boulevard will have to take a detour in the wee hours of the morning, and all day on weekends, for nearly two weeks.

The eastbound exit ramp will be shut down for roadwork from midnight to 5 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays, and midnight Fridays to 5 a.m. the following Mondays, the state Department of Transportation announced July 12. The closures were to begin “on or about” July 14 and run through approximately July 26. They may be rescheduled due to inclement weather. Read more

The George Seuffert Bandshell at Forest Park will host a summer concert series on Thursday nights through August.

The concert series, sponsored by the Forest Park Trust and Maspeth Federal Savings, got off to a rocky start when inclement weather canceled an Elvis tribute show planned for July 8, but the rest of the programming will feature rock, pop and Latin music spanning decades. Read more