Superior Court judges across the state left their courtrooms Monday to take part in a training instituted after several judges were slammed for comments they made regarding sexual assaults.

The judiciary announced the training Friday, describing it as a “mandatory full-day educational conference focusing on the areas of gender violence and bias.”

The announcement made no mention of the judges’ comments that precipitated the training. The Judiciary on Monday did not disclose the training’s exact location, citing security concerns.

The PARCC was the only objective measure that told us the truth about whether kids were really learning what they needed to.

The test uncovered achievement gaps inside of districts, huge disparities between black and white students in Montclair and South Orange-Maplewood that civil rights advocates are now challenging. The ACT or SAT won’t tell you that.

It was also a check on grade inflation. Kids can graduate with passing grades and still be unable to pass a 9th grade level test. They land in deep water in college.

Junius Williams still has the map of Route 75, a proposed six-lane highway that never happened in Newark nearly 50 years ago.

“We stopped that highway," said Williams, Newark’s city history. “That was my favorite campaign."

At the time, Williams was director of the Newark Area Planning Association (NAPA), a grassroots organization that raised hell in 1968 to fight against the transportation project to connect Route 280 and Route 78.

Essex County’s powerful executive, Joe DiVincenzo, has just agreed to bring on a panel of outside experts to oversee his jail in Newark, after an outcry over inhumane conditions and alleged abuses.

His lockup is one of the biggest in the nation with a multi-million-dollar contract to hold immigrants for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Now, he says he’s placing it on the cutting edge of incarceration reform.

It’s great to see the county executive take steps to invest in oversight, along with other local officials. That this was in reaction to intense public pressure does not make it any less valuable.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Cory Booker has yet to get more than 3 percent support in most polls of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. But he will have to poll at least 4 percent in four different surveys over the next two months if he is to reach the stage for the party’s December debate.

The Democratic National Committee said Friday that candidates wishing to qualify for the Dec. 19 debate at the University of California, Los Angeles must receive at least 4 percent in at least four polls conducted nationally or in the early primary and caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Candidates can also qualify by polling at least 6 percent in two surveys in the early states.

The federal monitor overseeing the Newark Police Department was repeatedly denied reports and video of the police chase that ended when an officer fatally shot a driver in January.

The media received body camera footage of Officer Jovanny Crespo shooting at the vehicle before the city or police department gave it to Peter Harvey, a former New Jersey attorney general who was appointed in 2016 to oversee sweeping reforms at the department.

Harvey outlined the denials in his ninth quarterly report that is part of Newark’s consent decree, an agreement the city entered into after a U.S. Department of Justice review found a pattern of unconstitutional practices within the police department. Each report examines progress the police division has made in reforms.