Friday Headlines: Okay, We’ll Give You That One Edition

Two Brooklyn men were sentenced to prison this week for orchestrating three staged crashes on New York City highways, giving Gov. Hochul a fresh opportunity to tout her controversial auto-insurance overhaul.

Jaime Huiracocha and Victor Murillo recruited participants to fake injuries and pursue fraudulent insurance payouts after deliberately causing crashes on the Belt Parkway and Nassau Expressway in 2024. One victim’s dashcam captured Murillo fleeing a crash in a waiting getaway car, helping investigators crack the scheme.

“Staged auto collisions not only terrify the drivers who are targeted, they put other motorists at risk,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.

Hochul has repeatedly pointed to staged crashes and insurance fraud as reasons New Yorkers pay high premiums, but Streetsblog has reported that the data do not support the governor’s suggestion that fraud is a major driver of insurance costs. Her reforms, enacted in this year’s budget, also reduce some legal protections for crash victims, even as the administration promises they will lower premiums.

Elsewhere in the Empire State:

• Buffalo’s school board unanimously approved a five-year, $80.9 million Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority transportation contract — about 60 percent more than the previous deal — after board members said they felt strong-armed into accepting terms that ask the district to help cover NFTA police, driver overtime and new electric buses. (BTPM)
• The ramps connecting I-90 and the Kensington Expressway will close this weekend, from Friday 6 p.m. through Monday 6 a.m., so crews can raise the Kensington overpass’s clearance and help prevent future bridge strikes. (BTPM)
• Fairport has opened a “Call for Projects” as it prepares its application for New York’s $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant, seeking public and private project ideas ahead of a Sept. 26 submission deadline. (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle)
• Ithaca’s Planning Board is asking for a deeper traffic study before advancing a proposed childcare and workforce-training center at the SouthWorks development on South Hill, after neighbors raised circulation concerns about the Turner Place and South Cayuga approach routes. (The Ithaca Voice)
• Oneida County sheriff’s deputies identified 51-year-old Daniele Muratore of Rome as the pedestrian killed on Route 13 in Camden after a Jeep rear-ended a Ford Focus that was slowing for him, spinning it into the shoulder. (Syracuse.com)
• GOP congressional candidate Peter Oberacker is facing backlash over a resurfaced 2015 Facebook post honoring his grandfather, who served in Nazi Germany’s military and was killed at the Battle of the Bulge; Oberacker says he now views the post differently given his work on antisemitism issues. (Hudson Valley One)
• A hidden camera found outside the Ulster County Area Transit building belongs to County Comptroller March Gallagher, who says it’s part of an audit into alleged falsified time records — but county officials say employees were recorded without their knowledge or consent. (Mid Hudson News)
• Former Woodridge village trustee and firefighter Ronald Kates, 81, was struck and killed by a car driver while crossing the street in front of village hall Wednesday. (Mid Hudson News)
• Street safety advocates staged a “die-in” outside New York City Hall after four New Yorkers — three on bikes, one on foot — were killed in hit-and-run crashes over five days, demanding a citywide safety plan from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration. (amNY)
• An MTA cleaner was stabbed in the arm at the Times Square station after confronting a man urinating on the platform; the suspect fled on a southbound 1 train and remains at large. (The New York Post)
• Voting rights groups and a coalition of Democratic attorneys general, including New York’s Letitia James, are suing to block a new federal rule letting USPS intercept and reject mail-in ballots that don’t match a state-submitted voter list or use unapproved envelopes. (State of Politics)
• DC 37 president Henry Garrido says his union helped block the state AFL-CIO’s endorsement of Brad Lander’s House bid, citing lingering anger over Lander’s comptroller-era audit recommending dissolution of the city’s Health Insurance Stabilization Fund. (Politico New York)