Anyone passing by the Brighton Beach/Coney Island area this weekend should pick up a copy of Bay News, a local Brooklyn publication that has some great coverage of issues affecting local residents. The cover story is almost impossible to miss: in about 40-point font, the front cover screams "STEM CELL RESEARCH: The Controversy Comes Home to Brooklyn." (Oh, and as a bonus, there's a color photo of Coney Island bathing beauties) Apparently, Representative Vito Fossella, a Bay Ridge-Staten Island Republican, held a press conference at a Brooklyn hospital to raise public awareness of the stem cell research issue. Big props to Representative Fossella -- he's one of about 50 House Republicans who broke ranks with President Bush and voted in favor of expanding public funding for embryonic stem cell research.