In the news, June 21-28

Participants in this year's Fish Parade make their way up Lafayette Avenue on June 19th.

Starting July 5, 16 lucky teens will build a wooden rowboat, take it on a five-day trip and get paid for it, as Rocking the Boat launches its summer program.

Another 20 youngsters will explore the estuaries surrounding the Bronx, learning navigation techniques and working to improve the ecological health of the Bronx waterways in the Hunts-Point-based organization’s on-water summer program. Details are here.

A Book Fair on the sidewalk in front of the Bronx Museum on the Grand Concourse at 165th Street this weekend has been organized to call attention to the absence of bookstores in the Bronx. The fair, on Sunday, June 27, from noon-5 p.m., will feature books, magazines and comics, along with authors and artists.

The owner of a real estate firm that managed the four-building apartment complex on Manida Street known as “Hunts Point House of Horrors” because conditions were so terrible there has been ordered to jail for allowing dangerous conditions to persist in another Bronx building.

Sam Suzuki, the owner of Hunter Property Management, sought at one point to buy the buildings on Manida Street from Ocelot Capital Group, which owned them as part of a portfolio of Bronx apartments, all of which were allowed to deteriorate until conditions became shocking. Although he failed to acquire the local buildings, he did purchase six Ocelot buildings, including one on East 172d Street, which racked up 691 violations. A Housing Court judge said he had ignored his orders to correct the most hazardous.

The latest issue of the Norwood News showcases the classroom of the teacher who wants to create a new Hunts Point High School for Sustainable Development. At Discovery High School in the old Walton High School building, Steve Ritz’s students have grown vegetables on the “green walls” of their classroom, harvested them and are eating them. His students were recently hired by the town of Scarsdale to teach its middle schools students about green walls and green roofs.

Assemblyman Michael Benjamin won’t challenge Congressman Jose Serrano this year, but won’t rule out a run in 2012, when new district lines are drawn. Benjamin is giving up his seat in the State Legislature.

One of the culprits in a scandal that has cast a shadow on Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo and City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo is headed to a federal pen for the next 10 months. Margarita Villegas pleaded guilty to embezzling $50,000 from a non-profit housing corporation that manages low income apartments. Next up, Richard Izqierdo Arroyo, who admitted stealing $115,000, some of which prosecutors say went to the assemblywoman and councilwoman, his grandmother and aunt, respectively.

Police making a drug raid killed a man who opened fire on them from an apartment at 822 Faile Street the morning of June 24.