Brooklyn Angle: Michael Rakowitz’s Iraqi dates have finally completed a 6,000-mile, three-month journey from Baghdad to New York City — but it’s unclear if the fruit will make the last six miles to Rakowitz’s Atlantic Avenue store. Comment.

Brooklynites are rabid with gossip about some of their newest and most mysterious neighbors — raccoons. Comment.

Development: The BID bug is spreading deep into Park Slope. Comment.

Development: A group of Fourth Avenue activists wants the city to rein in development along a booming strip that was upzoned just three years ago to encourage the very boom that’s going on. Comment.

Jimmy Baldassano wouldn’t hurt a fly. Well, let me rephrase that: Jimmy Baldassano wouldn’t hurt a raccoon. And the next time you see one of those masked mammals while walking in Carroll Park or strolling through Park Slope, you can thank Jimmy. Comment.

Bridge ‘Park’: How will you get to the development site commonly referred to as “Brooklyn Bridge Park”? Practice. Comment.

Bay Ridge’s Victory Memorial Hospital declared bankruptcy last week amid scrutiny of the hospital’s compensation practices, and just two weeks before a state commission releases a much-anticipated report that is expected to recommend shuttering failing hospitals across the state. Comment.

Red Hook: Swedish furniture giant IKEA may soon find that assembling a new store in Red Hook is about as easy as assembling one of their chairs. Comments (1).

Atlantic Yards: He didn’t do it with a lawsuit. He didn’t do it with a rally. He didn’t do it by lobbying. In fact, he didn’t do anything at all — but Prospect Heights resident Raul Rothblatt managed to grind Bruce Ratner’s $4.2-billion Atlantic Yards mega-project to a halt this week because the state forgot to include his testimony in its final review of the development. Comment.

Atlantic Yards: With Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project just days away from approval by the Empire State Development Corporation, anti-Yards City Councilwoman Letitia James courted Ratner’s politically connected Madison Square Garden rivals.. Comment.

A proposed strip club on Fourth Avenue in Bay Ridge hasn’t opened yet, but the local community board is already looking for a way to keep the neighborhood fully clothed. Comment.

Editorial: We’ve certainly had our disagreements with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, but the Manhattan Democrat earned our Hero of the Week award for his righteous broadside against state development czar Charles Gargano on Sunday. Comment.

For a film festival that bills itself as the "transatlantic crossroads of independent cinema," programming features, documentaries and shorts made in the United States and Europe, it seems surprising that a first-time director from Windsor Terrace would beat the global odds and take home a gold statuette. Comment.

Brooklyn Arts Council celebrated 40 years of supporting the borough’s artists, arts organizations and community groups with its "Alive With Art" cocktail party at the Marriott in Downtown Brooklyn on Nov. 15. Comment.

For Jeff Lederman’s second eatery, he envisioned an informal place where diners could stop in for a small plate of something delicious. While his first business, Nectar, is a juice bar and cafe on Court Street, he wanted his follow-up to boast an Italian wine list at reasonable prices, many by the glass. And when he imagined the room, he knew it had to be inviting, so patrons would be comfortable lingering. Comment.

Cady McClain is used to having multiple identities. As the chameleon character Dixie Cooney on ABC’s “All My Children,” McClain has evoked more emotions in 13 seasons than most people experience in a lifetime. She has played a doting wife, a scandalous mistress, a protective mother, and just about every type of victim and villain that could possibly be conceived since she joined the cast in 1988. Comment.

Bill Charmatz, an illustrator whose drawings have appeared on the pages of "The New York Times Book Review," "Sports Illustrated," "Time," "Esquire" and other publications for several decades before his death last September 2005, began his career on the streets of Williamsburg. Comment.

Congregation B’nai Avraham in Brooklyn Heights hopes to lure neighbors into a dialogue about Jewish history and culture — as well as contemporary issues facing the community — with a film festival. Comment.

Convicted kitchen queen Martha Stewart has developed a craving for a Red Hook favorite: salty cake. Comment.

In 2002, I visited a restaurant in Williamsburg called La Brunette. It was a small place with a chic, modern interior. Although the eatery got a lot of hype early on for its hip ambience and consistently fine French-Caribbean menu, a few months later, it closed. Comment.

DUMBO: An existential conundrum is brewing in the neighborhood known as “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass”: what do you name a historic district whose name is a modern concoction? Comment.