Friday’s Headlines: Here’s a Great Fundraising Idea Edition

As we’ve been mentioning this month, we’re in our annual fundraising drive — and people have already been so generous and selfless.

Now, it’s time to get something back for your altruism. Starting today and continuing through the end of the month, anyone who contributes $500 or more will get a personal ride-along with our editor as he goes out and repairs defaced license plates or uncovers covered plates, as he’s been doing in his “criminal mischief” series all year.

And any contributor hitting four figures will get the ultimate prize: a personalized verse in a new recording of the Jimmy and the Jaywalkers’ hit, “Criminal Mischief” (which, you’ll recall, the New Yorker called an “earworm”).

Kuntzman made the announcement on the Streetsblog X feed yesterday after catching a placard perp in Lower Manhattan:

So whaddya say? Click the donation icon above and get ready to commit “criminal mischief” with the man himself.

And before we get to today’s headlines, let’s honor yesterday’s donors: Thanks, Ross! Thanks, Benjamin! Thanks, Joseph! Thanks, Carol!

Want your name added to that list? Give today! Thanks.

In other news:

• Mayor Adams’s taxpayer-funded press office put out a list of statements from union, business and political leaders pushing back on a recent poll showing him with historically low approval ratings. The statements do not quite read as genuine:

• A 20-year-old Maspeth driver faces a slew of charges after striking at 3-year-old in a Flushing hit-and-run last month. (Gothamist)
• Curbed reviewed the new fare gates at Sutphin Boulevard.
• The Times finally got on board the bus rapid transit bandwagon (though it was the paper’s enlightened interactive desk, not the car-centric Metro section, that did the piece).
• Speaking of buses, we covered the increasing number of assaults on their drivers, and on the drivers’ colleagues underground.
• Pro-transit Jersey City mayor picked up his first challenger in 2025 gubernatorial — state Senate President Steve Sweeney. Anti-congestion pricing demagogue Josh Gottheimer reportedly waits in the wings. (New Jersey Globe)
• The Daily News and Streetsblog both covered the arrest of the truck driver who killed Brooklyn nanny Arcellie Muschamp.
• The Brooklyn Eagle cheered the passage of favorite son Lincoln Restler’s bill to streamline the process of installing bike lanes.
• Bus depot workers working without heat made a settlement with the city. (The City)
• We enjoyed Tracey Tully’s New York Times story about how badly New Jersey cops are trained, but Komanoff pointed out that she glossed over the traffic enforcement BS, which he’s been all over for 20 years.