NYC RFD: NYPD Bowls, Kids Fail, Gay-Bash in S.I., Rapist At Large

The NYPD is reaching out to kids of South Asian, Guyanese, and Caribbean descent with a cricket league, reports the New York Sun. They've had so many applicants they've had to turn kids away. Normally the slow-paced British pastime makes baseball look like cage fighting, but the cops' young charges play a quicker version called "Twenty20," which we guess is like speed chess, and the NYPD supplies "colorful team jerseys."

Epic Fail: A City program paid thousand-dollar bribes incentives to kids who did well on their Advanced Placement exams, and the number of kids who passed the AP actually went down, per the Times. The right-wing Manhattan Institute mocks the result, which is puzzling, as the initiative is privately funded, which we thought they liked. Other school systems report good results from similar programs, so maybe New York just has to jack up the prize money.

In Stapleton, Staten Island, on July 29 James Champagne beat an unidentified man, telling him "We don't like faggots on Barker Street." Champagne may have anticipated a charge of second-degree aggravated harassment (a misdemeanor), but he was probably surprised to also receive arraignment for a hate crime (a felony). Staten Island has an Anti-Bias Task Force and takes these things seriously, reports the Staten Island Advance.

Yesterday Queens police revealed the disappointing news that the 15-year-old they were looking at for the recent string of rapes in the borough was not their man. This morning, says NY1, there was another attempted sexual assault in Queens. The incident occurred at 3 am near the F train station at 168th Street and Hillside.