Insurance companies and Medicaid would be required to provide coverage for testing and treatment of coronavirus in New Jersey, under bills being introduced in the Legislature.

The proposed action comes as a number of states — including California, Washington and New York — have ordered insurance companies to waive out-of-pocket costs for testing, amid conflicting signals from the Trump administration earlier in the week over who will pick up those costs.

The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance, meanwhile, said it is closely monitoring the situation with other state agency partners in connection with the outbreak of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

By Steve C. Gold

The new regulations proposed by Trump’s Council on Environmental Quality would actually prohibit agencies from analyzing indirect or cumulative environmental impacts from projects. Climate change, of course, is the biggest cumulative impact of all, Steve Gold says.

---

Fifty years ago, Richard Nixon signed into law the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), for the first time obliging the federal government to consider environmental damage when making decisions. Now the Trump Administration is proposing, by executive action, to deprive America of much of the benefit of this landmark law. The public can still weigh in on the proposed new rules, but only until March 10.

NEPA requires every federal agency to prepare an environmental impact statement for any proposed major federal action that would significantly affect the human environment. So when the Federal Highway Administration wants to fund the widening of Routes 1&9, or the Federal Aviation Administration wants to approve runway changes at Newark Airport, the agencies have to think about the environmental consequences of those actions. NEPA will not stop those projects from happening. But it will make sure that the federal agencies understand the environmental impacts and therefore have a chance to minimize the environmental damage.

For half a century, everybody has understood that a project’s “environmental impacts” go beyond its direct effects. If widening Routes 1&9 will attract new high-density development to the Meadowlands, NEPA says that the damage to the Meadowlands must be analyzed as part of the study of the road project. If runway changes at the airport are part of a larger expansion plan, NEPA says that the environmental impact of the runway changes must be analyzed in the context of the larger plan.

New Jersey likely has its first confirmed case of the coronavirus, the governor’s office announced Wednesday night.

The patient, a man in his 30s, has been hospitalized since Tuesday in Bergen County following a “presumptive positive result” of the coronavirus, which causes the illness COVID-19, Gov. Phil Murphy and acting Gov. Sheila Oliver said.

The announcement did not name the hospital or say if the man had traveled recently.

As Newark residents outside braved windy, chilly weather Wednesday morning, the feeling inside the Fresh Coast eatery couldn’t have been warmer.

As customers crammed into the warm Raymond Boulevard restaurant, they were greeted by what co-owner Daniela Hoyos described as a cross between Miami and California.

Along one fauna-colored wall, a large neon sign proclaimed “high tides and good vibes.” The bright colors stood out from the walls and furniture, and tiki-style lights hung above the bar where employees assembled made-to-order poke bowls.

By Donald Ayer, Tom Coleman and Christine Todd Whitman

President Trump’s lawyers will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that the president is absolutely immune from criminal proceedings. In their view, not only can the president not be indicted or prosecuted, he cannot even be investigated by law enforcement if he were to shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

---

President Trump is playing a shell game with the American people and rejecting the founding principle of this nation: We have a president, not a king.

In a case to be argued before the Supreme Court this month, Trump v. Vance, Trump’s lawyers maintain that the president is absolutely immune from criminal proceedings. In their view, not only can the president not be indicted or prosecuted, he cannot even be investigated by law enforcement if he were to shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, as one of Trump’s lawyers told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

This breathtaking claim is anathema to the fundamental principle that the law applies equally to everyone, from an ordinary citizen to the president himself. That’s why we have joined 34 other former Republican officials, members of Congress and legal experts in signing a friend-of-the-court brief filed on Monday in support of New York prosecutors seeking to subpoena Trump’s financial records.

An innocent man is seeking a measly $200,000 in compensation from the state for his wrongful conviction, and the half a lifetime of suffering that followed.

Yet even that much, he is being denied, somewhere in the bureaucratic mire of the Murphy administration.

Dion Harrell was accused in 1988 of raping a teenage girl. A stranger had dragged her into a parking lot for the attack, and she later identified Harrell, saying she’d seen him once before at the McDonald’s where she worked.

He had several alibi witnesses who said he’d been playing basketball at the time. No matter. His life was ruined. He spent four years in prison and more than two decades as a registered sex offender, jobless and ostracized.

By Brock Haussamen

Brock Haussamen's letter from Team Trump 2020: “Brock, did you see President Trump’s email? We showed him the first round of Patriots who entered to win the dinner with him….He asked us why you haven’t entered yet, but we didn’t know what to tell him. Please contribute ANY AMOUNT before 11:59 PM TONIGHT.

---

Since early February I’ve received solicitation letters from the Trump campaign that are intimidating, almost but not quite illegal, and probably very effective. The president’s flattering/bullying tactics seem to have reached out even to me, a life-long Democrat.

An early letter opened, “Brock, I just got out of a meeting with my team to discuss an upcoming trip to Palm Beach, Florida on March 6th, and I told them I wanted to invite YOU to join me….” It stresses that “All you have to do is contribute ANY AMOUNT and you’ll automatically be entered to win this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Buttons to buy for various dollar amounts and a deadline reminder of “11:59 PM TONIGHT” followed.

On February 19, Team Trump 2020 wrote me: “Brock, did you see President Trump’s email? We showed him the first round of Patriots who entered to win the dinner with him….He asked us why you haven’t entered yet, but we didn’t know what to tell him. Please contribute ANY AMOUNT before 11:59 PM TONIGHT…” And near the closing: “Don’t make us tell him you STILL haven’t entered – get on the list NOW!”