The MTA bus routes that slowed down after cameras began ticketing double-parked drivers

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ⛅ Partly sunny, chance of afternoon thunderstorms, highs in the mid 80s.

It's Monday in New York City, where bus speeds have mostly increased across the 67 routes where the MTA is using bus-mounted ticket-issuing cameras.

But on at least nine of those routes, average bus speeds have actually slowed slightly. 

During a reporter's recent visit to several bus routes in the Bronx, an explanation was hiding in plain sight: Dozens of illegally parked drivers were popping their trunks or hanging towels over their license plates to evade the ticketing cameras.

Here's what law enforcement said it's doing to crack down on these drivers.

And here's what else is happening:

• Extreme heat, wildfire smoke, flash flood warnings, a deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak and a rise in tick-borne illnesses are all hitting New York this summer. Experts say climate change is likely to make these kinds of plagues more common.
• Suffolk County police arrested three people after what they described as a street takeover in Hauppauge involving at least 200 ATVs, dirt bikes and motorcycles.
• Police have arrested a Bronx man in the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Jacob Freytes, who authorities said was an innocent bystander when gunfire erupted outside a Mount Eden bodega Saturday evening.
• Car owners in Prospect Heights have become notorious for not moving their cars for twice-weekly street sweeping. Will they comply with a pilot program that's bumping alternate-side parking down to one day a week?
• Longtime opponents of helicopters in New York City are hoping Mayor Zohran Mamdani will keep his campaign promise to restrict flights from city-owned heliports.
• Authorities said a 29-year-old man died after he was found unresponsive in a holding cell at a Bronx courthouse following his arraignment last Friday.
• An advocacy group for New York’s taxi drivers is calling for stricter safety measures after two cabbies were shot in Brooklyn within the last two weeks.
• Congrats to these five people who beat the .004% odds to win the raffle for an official Knicks-themed Department of Sanitation trash bin.

• The White House isn't allocating money to new transit projects the way it used to before Donald Trump was president.
• A New York Post reporter encountered some guys allegedly selling poodle puppies illegally out of strollers in Manhattan.
• Some New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized apartments make six-figure salaries.
• The Mamdani administration is beefing up the city's bureau dedicated to coastal resilience and flood mitigation.
• Some beachgoers are calling for a boycott of the late-to-open Rockaway Ocean Club at the old Jacob Riis Bathhouse. 
• Between kids on GLP-1s and kids with nut allergies and asthmatic kids struggling with wildfire smoke, summer camp doctors have been busy this season.
• New Jersey's "best" burger looks fine.
• Even in the Hamptons, leaf blowers are not magically quiet.