By SAM SUTTON and MATT FRIEDMAN

01/26/2021

Politico

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy listens during his daily news conference. 

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With a Feb. 8 deadline looming, New Jersey lawmakers and Gov. Phil Murphy aren’t anywhere close to a final agreement to legalize cannabis after two previous deals fell through.

Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin don’t want Murphy to veto legalization and decriminalization bills that have been sitting on his desk since mid-December.

But if the Assembly holds a quorum as scheduled on Feb. 8, Murphy will be forced to either sign the legislation, let it become law without his signature or veto it. The latter option is almost certainly the one he’ll take.

By Nikita Biryukov, January 25 2021

New Jersey Globe

Bridget Anne Kelly.

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Bridget Kelly, the former Christie aide who sent the infamous “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email that energized the Bridgegate hearings, is making a return to public life with a run for Bergen County clerk.

Kelly, 48, enters into the race with a slew of disadvantages.

Though the U.S. Supreme Court vacated her conviction last May and those of others caught in the scandal, it did so because no money changed hands, as required for federal-program and wire fraud charges on which Kelly and others were convicted

Posted Jan 25, 2021

By Larry Higgs | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

A new NJ Transit articulated bus on the 39 route serving Newark and Irvington waits at a traffic light on Raymond boulevard last November. The 39 bus is one of 38 routes that could be redesigned as part of NJ Transits NewBus Newark project.

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Posted Jan 25, 2021

JOHN MOONEY, EDUCATION WRITER | JANUARY 26, 2021

NJ Spotlight News

Sept. 25, 2020 at Red Bank Middle School

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With everything else going on, New Jersey’s public schools are also about to enter a most-unusual budget season for the next school year, with a range of questions looming, both familiar and not.

A fundamental question facing them like never before, of course, is what will schooling even look like whenever New Jersey comes out of the pandemic.

But as local districts draft their budgets for 2021-2022, more familiar questions are arising over what share the state will bear of both existing costs and extraordinary ones.

So far, there have been few clear signals either way, as Gov. Phil Murphy starts finalizing his state budget to be presented a month away, on Feb. 23.

COLLEEN O'DEA, SENIOR WRITER | JANUARY 25, 2021

NJ Spotlight News

Jan. 20, 2021: President Joe Biden midway through signing many executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House.

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Protections for immigrants, more help for the state and for people reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, and a full U.S. census count of all residents are just some of the provisions of executive orders President Joe Biden signed during his first days in office that will impact New Jersey.

In his first 48 hours in office last week, Biden signed some 30 orders, many undoing changes made by President Donald Trump. Most of Biden’s moves last week have the potential for helping at least some in New Jersey, even if in only small ways, while others will have a direct and meaningful impact on residents’ lives.

On Friday, Biden signed an order implementing a number of financial assistance measures to help those struggling through the pandemic. Among its provisions, the order asks the U.S. Department of Agriculture to expand and extend benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which about 791,000 New Jerseyans receive, and requests the Treasury Department to speed stimulus payments to those who have not yet received them.

The president also issued an order that extends the pause on federal student loan payments without interest accruing through Sept. 30 for the hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans with outstanding loan debt.

Posted Jan 24, 2021

By Larry Higgs | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

LILO H. STAINTON, HEALTH CARE WRITER | JANUARY 25, 2021 

NJ Spotlight News

Jan. 8, 2021: Health care workers prepare to give COVID-19 vaccinations at the Morris County vaccination site in Rockaway.

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A confusing, disconnected sign-up system for the COVID-19 vaccine. Appointments that vanish in an instant. Anxiety and confusion over the process and timeline at nursing homes.

Gov. Phil Murphy insists he hears these concerns and understands the public frustration with the current pace of New Jersey’s immunization program. The problem is the federal government, Murphy said again last week, which failed to supply enough doses to the state or expedite the vaccine rollout in long-term care facilities.

“We completely get it, we completely understand the anxiety of so many residents who are waiting to be vaccinated,” Murphy said during a regular media briefing Friday. “But I cannot be any clearer — we built a vaccine infrastructure that can handle this job. We need the doses.”

By DANIEL HAN

01/22/2021

Politico

New Jersey has recorded more than 584,000 Covid cases since March and nearly 21,000 confirmed or suspected coronavirus-related deaths. 

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New Jersey health officials on Friday confirmed the state’s first two cases of the new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus that was first reported in the United Kingdom.

“Today, we are reporting that two confirmed, Covid-19 variant cases involving the B.1.1.7, or the U.K. variant, have been identified in New Jersey,” Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said during Gov. Phil Murphy’s regular press briefing in Trenton.