City National Bank in Newark, the only black-owned bank in New Jersey, closed Nov. 1 after federal officials said it was losing money quickly due to unsafe or unsound practices.

The failed bank reopened that same day as Industrial Bank, a Washington D.C.-based black-owned bank. Customers continued using their accounts and cards with no interruptions, a bank associate said.

The Office of Comptroller of Currency acted after the bank “experienced substantial dissipation of assets and earnings due to unsafe or unsound practices," according to a press release. It also cited the bank’s failure to submit a capital restoration plan acceptable to the office.

A controversial state law Gov. Phil Murphy signed last year encouraging more New Jerseyans to vote by mail was just thrown out by a little-known but powerful state board.

Under the law, Garden State residents who voted by mail in 2016 or later automatically receive mail-in ballots from their county clerk for every subsequent election, unless they request to opt out.

But the New Jersey Council on Local Mandates invalidated the law Friday, ruling that it amounted to an unfunded mandate on the state’s 21 counties.

Gov. Phil Murphy and leaders of the state Legislature said they’re planning to act swiftly on new recommendations to overhaul how people are sentenced in New Jersey, where prisons have had the worst racial disparity in the nation.

Murphy said during a news conference in Trenton on Thursday that he supports calls to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug and property crime and to speed up when people convicted of second-degree robbery or burglary are eligible for parole in the Garden State.

The recommendations were detailed in a new report by the New Jersey Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission.

State Senate President Steve Sweeney said the joint panel he formed to investigate NJ Transit’s problems will be on an express schedule to have recommendations to Governor Phil Murphy in time to possibly be included in the next state budget.

Commuters got a rare chance to tell lawmakers in person Wednesday evening about their issues with NJ Transit on their home turf – steps away from the buses and trains that would take them home from Hoboken Terminal.

A steady stream of rail and bus commuters testified to the 8-member panel for about two hours straight about NJ Transits problems and some offered solutions. Another 40 people submitted letters ahead of time.

As the public stage of impeachment hearings open, the country is split down the middle, each side glaring across the divide with contempt, wondering how these wounds might ever heal.

The breakdown has left us paralyzed, unable to answer big challenges like climate change and immigration, or even to build a new tunnel under the Hudson River that is obviously and urgently needed. A great nation has been humbled by its own divisions, as the 2020 campaign promises to inflame them over the next year.

To supporters of President Trump, and to a handful of conservative Democrats like Rep. Jeff Van Drew, that offers good reason to cancel the impeachment hearings and leave Trump’s fate up to voters next November. “I think we want to heal the country, and try to bring it together,” says Van Drew (D-1st).