Gov. Phil Murphy continues to be adamant that all students will be in their classrooms for the opening of school this year. When asked if he was reconsidering having a virtual option this coming school year that is being pushed by an online parent group, Murphy emphatically said “no.” The governor said the richer educational experience is in-person. “We fully expect to be back to school Monday through Friday, full days, as close to a normal school year as possible,” said Murphy at a press briefing July 26. “We know the results on virtual learning, there’s enormous learning loss. There’s no question where the richer educational experience is, and that is full on in-person.” North-JerseyNews.com
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended on July 27 that Americans wear masks indoors again, particularly in crowded indoor settings. The new indoor mask recommendations apply to vaccinated and unvaccinated people who live in areas where the CDC has classified COVID-19 transmission as “high” or “substantial”—a category that includes much of the South as well as Western states like Arizona and Wyoming. PoliticoNJ
New Jersey is still under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for the deaths of thousands of nursing home residents. DOJ informed federal lawmakers it has ended its investigation in Pennsylvania, Michigan and New York, but the investigation in New Jersey at the state-operated veterans homes at Paramus and Menlo Park under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act would continue. NJ.com
New Jersey business owners, trying to meet overwhelming demand with skeleton crews, called on lawmakers to shift incentives to encourage unemployed people to return to the workplace. They proposed the state provide employers with tax credits to offset hiring costs; reopen career centers to help jobless workers in person; and enforce rules that require people receiving unemployment benefits to actively seek work. New Jersey Herald
Twenty-five states have now taken away some or all of the extra benefits, but they have not seen an increase in employment, according to a study by an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The share of adults receiving unemployment benefits in the dozen states to take away benefits between June 12-19 fell sharply—by 2.2 percentage points, or a 60% reduction in unemployment rolls. But there wasn’t a corresponding increase in employment during the same time period. ROI-NJ.com
A recent FDU poll found the coronavirus pandemic continues to keep parents and guardians of children newborn to 36 months struggling to find childcare. Nearly 2 in 3 (65%) indicate their child under 36 months is in some sort of formal childcare. Sixty-four percent of those with a child in formal care reported that the child was out of child care at some point since January 1, 2021, due to the COVID pandemic, with the average time missed at 5.9 weeks. To manage this change, a plurality (38%) of these parents indicated they were able to work from home while their child was out of care. Thirty-six percent said they needed to take time off from work to provide care for their child. North-JerseyNews.com
North Jersey community colleges are using federal pandemic relief funds to forgive unpaid college tuition incurred during the pandemic. Bergen Community College in Paramus will use nearly $5 million in federal relief funds to erase outstanding balances that students owe the college and Hudson County Community College in Jersey City announced it had expunged more than $4.8 million in student balances. The Daily Record
New Jersey artists, projects and organizations were awarded more than $35 million in grants by the State Council on the Arts, a combination of an expanded allocation from the state and federal pandemic recovery funds. The arts council received $31.9 million through the state budget and $7.5 million from coronavirus recovery funds provided through Washington. The council will award the final $4.1 million later in the year as part of a new capital needs-based program. The biggest grants were $1.33 million each for the New Jersey Performing Arts, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and Newark Museum in Newark and $1.05 million for the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn. NJ1015.com
New Jersey has issued roughly 100,000 new permits since the state allowed residents regardless of immigration status to apply for driver’s licenses nearly three months ago, a jump of more than 65% from the same period in previous years. The increased number of applicants for driver’s licenses has also led to difficulties in getting appointments at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC), frustrating those seeking permits and licenses as the agency’s online appointment system showed very few available appointments at 23 MVC sites across the state that offer permits and driver’s licenses. Appointments for other services, such as license renewals, titles and registration were available. NJ Spotlight News
A New Jersey woman can leave up banners with obscenities to express her hostility toward President Joe Biden, a state court ruled on July 27. The ruling came after Andrea Dick of Roselle Park enlisted the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey to fight a municipal judge’s order that she take the banners off a fence outside the house where she lives with her mother or face $250 a day in fines. The borough attorney said the town will not appeal as the “continued attention garnered by the inappropriate display and the escalating costs to the taxpayers of continuing to litigate the matter causes far greater harm to the borough, as a whole, than good.” The New York Times
Police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 described a harrowing, violent confrontation with rioters, in testimony at a House select committee’s first public hearing July 27. The hearing represented the beginnings of the committee’s efforts to investigate the events on Jan. 6, when then-President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, temporarily interrupting the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the November election. Capitol Police officer Aquilino Gonell said that he and fellow officers were beaten repeatedly and that he thought he would die. “We fought hand to hand, inch by inch,” he testified. The Wall Street Journal
Rep. Mikie Sherrill will lead a task force on the Future of Work and Capitalism for the New Democrat Coalition, a group of centrist Democrats in the U.S House of Representatives. Sherrill’s task force will seek solutions to outdated systems and uses of new technologies as it considers ideas to create jobs and expand the skills of the American workforce. “Bolstering our workforce development efforts and growing the economic sectors of the future, like clean energy, are already central to my work in Congress,” said Sherrill. New Jersey Globe
Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Bill Pascrell are seeking to designate 23 miles of the lower Hackensack River as a federal Superfund site. If granted, the designation would provide access to federal funds to clean up the contaminated river and enable the federal EPA to begin the process of identifying responsible polluters to fund remediation. Pascrell credited Murphy Administration officials for their support, saying earlier leaders “dragged their feet” and “shrugged at the dilemma” while North Jersey communities suffered. “Once these efforts begin, our region will realize the powerful economic, environmental, and recreational benefits the Hackensack River has to offer,” said Pascrell. North-JerseyNews.com
Gov. Phil Murphy appointed two women to serve as superintendent and deputy superintendent of elections in Bergen County. Debra Francica, who has served as chief of staff for State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, and Jamie Sheehan-Willis, chairperson for the county’s Board of Elections, will fill the roles that were held by Patricia DiCostanzo and Theresa O’Connor for more than a quarter-century. The Record
And finally…New Jersey is re-naming Garden State Parkway rest stops after famous Jerseyans, including the one located in Montvale for actor James Gandolfini. NJ.com
