The House of Representatives recently passed the Asset Seizure for Ukraine Reconstruction Act introduced by Rep. Tom Malinowski, a bipartisan bill to allow the use of sanctioned Russian assets in the efforts to rebuild Ukraine. The money gained from selling assets confiscated by the U.S., including yachts, airplanes, fine art, and luxury villas valued at over $2 million, will be channeled towards providing military and humanitarian aid, post-conflict reconstruction, and technology to enhance the free flow of information for the Ukrainian people. “It is hard to imagine giving Russia’s wealth back to Putin while Ukraine lies in ruin and Ukrainians are burying their dead,” said Malinowski. North-JerseyNews.com
The United States has provided intelligence about Russian units allowing Ukrainians to target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war, according to senior American officials. The targeting help is part of a classified effort by the Biden Administration to provide real-time battlefield intelligence to Ukraine. That intelligence includes anticipated Russian troop movements gleaned from recent American assessments of Moscow’s secret battle plan for the fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The New York Times
Families in New Jersey have turned to a new refugee sponsorship program to rescue relatives from fighting in Ukraine. The Biden Administration launched Uniting for Ukraine two weeks ago, a program that invites Americans to sponsor refugees from the war for temporary admission into the U.S. Under the new program, Ukrainians with sponsors can get fast-tracked “humanitarian parole” status to enter the U.S. for up to two years. The Daily Record
Three of the largest cities in North Jersey will hold non-partisan elections the second Tuesday of May. Races in Bayonne, Newark and Paterson are the headliners for the eight municipalities in the North-JerseyNews.com coverage area that will have voters going to the polls May 10 to decide who will lead their hometowns. Paterson Mayor André Sayegh is running for re-election amid a field of five packed with current or past council members. Challenging him are current Councilmen Michael Jackson, Alex Mendez—both under indictment for election fraud— and Luis Velez. Former councilman Alson Goow rounds out the ballot. Meanwhile, Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis is running for a third term, being challenged by former ally City Council President Sharon Ashe-Nadrowski. North-JerseyNews.com
More than 500 people using mail-in ballots already have cast their votes in the five-way race for mayor in Paterson. Under state law, mail-in ballots must be postmarked by May 10 and delivered by the postal service to the Passaic County Board of Elections by May 16 to be counted. This year, Paterson residents have the option of three days of early, in-person voting this weekend on May 6, 7, and 8. Due to the different options and the Passaic County Board of Elections having until May 27 to complete its provisional ballot report, the official winner could possible not be known until the end of the month. The Record
Purchases of residential properties in Newark by corporate entities have caused rents to rise and owner-occupancy to fall, according to a new Rutgers study. To counteract these trends, Mayor Ras Baraka said initiatives being considered include fees and/or surcharges on landlords raise rents more than 5% a year in buildings with four or fewer units, which are not rent-controlled as well as deed restrictions placed on city-owned property and property owned by Newark’s nonprofit Land Bank to ensure they are developed by purchasers as affordable housing. NJ.com
Top U.S. banking regulators are poised to overhaul how banks lend hundreds of billions of dollars annually in lower-income communities, after scrapping a Trump-era revamp that had divided regulators and industry officials. The latest proposal to modernize rules for the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) aims to ensure lending to lower-income individuals and small businesses is distributed more evenly where banks do business. If the plan being proposed May 5 is finalized in the coming months, it would aim to spread online banks’ related activities nationally. Banks would be assessed for the CRA obligations even in areas where they don’t have physical offices, if they make a certain number of loans in a particular area. The Wall Street Journal
New Jersey education officials didn’t act May 4 to change new state standards on health and sex education, as Acting Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan said she “wholeheartedly disagrees” with critics who oppose the new standards. “It is a disservice and actively harmful to deny our students medically accurate, age- and developmentally appropriate information about their bodies, and about the personal and interpersonal relationships that shape childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood,” Allen-McMillan said. The acting commissioner stated that many critics of the new standards are “misguided or misinformed,” reminding board members the state merely sets guidelines for what concepts students should know and when. Allen-McMillan stressed local school boards are tasked with creating curricula based on the standards, including considering public input when doing so. NJ Spotlight News
Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez have co-sponsored a piece of legislation which would provide tax breaks to teachers while empowering development, retention, and recruitment programs to help address pay inequality for teachers amid their peers. Teachers across the country could get between $1,000 and $15,000 via refundable tax credits under the Respect, Advancement, and Increasing Support for Educators (RAISE) Act if enacted. “The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these hardships, leading many teachers to leave the profession. This legislation would help support educators by using the federal tax code to put more resources back in teachers’ pockets,” said Booker. “It’s time to reward our society’s unsung heroes by increasing teachers’ take-home pay.” North-JerseyNews.com
The Teaneck Board of Education has agreed to pay its departing superintendent $164,475 plus health insurance and unused vacation days under terms of their “mutually agreeable” separation agreement. Christopher Irving announced his June 30 departure in an April 8 letter to parents and staff as the district was closing for Spring break. The board last Summer considered suspending Irving for reasons it would not reveal at a series of public meetings but ultimately tabled the motion. The separation agreement is dated October 2021, and Irving’s signature on the agreement is dated Oct. 22, 2021, suggesting his departure was negotiated shortly after the motion was tabled. The Record
The Bayonne Board of Education has adopted its 2022-2023 operating budget. This year’s operating budget totals $170.8 million, an increase of $15.9 million from last year’s operating budget that is due to an increase in state aid. New expenses in the budget include an increase in staffing including six instructional coaches, a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, two behaviorists, and world language teachers. Other expenses include capital projects such as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) upgrades at Washington, Woodrow Wilson and Robinson community schools and the acquisition and renovation of St. Andrew’s School. Hudson Reporter
New Jersey on May 3 reported 12 new COVID-19 deaths and 2,729 new confirmed positive tests on the day confirmed deaths from the virus passed 1 million in the U.S. There were 579 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases across the state’s 71 hospitals and of those hospitalized, 65 were in intensive care and 28 were on ventilators. New Jersey’s statewide transmission rate was 1.19 with the positivity rate for tests conducted on April 28 was 9.3%, both increasing from the day before. North-JerseyNews.com
Assemblyman Hal Wirths (R-24) echoed other legislators who said the state’s labor department needs to improve customer service and direct communication with claimants, including at the state’s One-Stop Career Centers where state workers provide services to job seekers. “Two years and two months into the pandemic, I think that we definitely do need customer service in the One-Stops. You guys may not like to hear it, but I have more people call who are just lost,” Wirths told Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo during an Assembly budget hearing May 4. “There’s always going to be those folks that walk into a One-Stop who just need help.” New Jersey Monitor
April saw the nation’s employment level rise as the private sector added 247,000 jobs, according to a May 4 release of the April ADP National Employment Report. In terms of company size, small businesses fared the worst, losing 120,000 jobs. Medium-sized firms of 50-499 employees added 46,000 jobs, while large businesses gained a whopping 321,000 positions. Looking at where these positions were added, the service-providing sector led the way with 202,000 positions filled; leisure and hospitality saw a 77,000-slot increase, while education and health services saw 48,000 jobs added. ROI-NJ.com
Americans are resuming their prepandemic habits in going to concerts, hitting the gym and traveling. Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, said concert ticket sales were up 45% as of February 2022 compared with the same period in 2019; membership levels at gym chain Planet Fitness in January surpassed prepandemic levels; and over two million people traveled by plane each day on average between April 17 and 23, according to the Transportation Security Administration. That figure averaged about 2.4 million in 2019. Airlines, restaurants and child-care centers, which relied on government loans to stay afloat during the pandemic, are struggling to keep up with demand. The Wall Street Journal
Federal officials say it is unlikely there will be another Real ID extension, and warned New Jersey residents to get the enhanced drivers license now or risk not being able to board a flight. The current deadline for Real ID is May 3, 2023. “Travelers are not required to get a state-issued REAL ID, however, starting May 2023, if you typically use your driver’s license or non-driver ID to fly within the United States then you probably want a REAL ID,” said Thomas Carter, TSA’s Federal Security Director for New Jersey. NJ1015.com
As the ban on single-use plastic bags began May 4 at all New Jersey stores, shoppers had a mixed bag of reactions. Some were relieved New Jersey was taking more steps toward sustainability. Others said they were frustrated by the new rules or confused at what exactly the ban applied to. NJ.com
Republican Mayor Mario Kranjac has invited Twitter to relocate its corporate headquarters from San Francisco to Englewood Cliffs. “This is the perfect opportunity for Twitter to relocate to a community that unabashedly supports free speech and is located right next to the media capital of the world,” said Kranjac in a released statement. “Englewood Cliffs would be an ideal location for Twitter’s corporate headquarters especially as we are no strangers to hosting and maintaining some of America’s largest businesses.” NJ1015.com
A rainbow gay pride flag displayed outside a Sussex County church was set on fire for the second time late last month. Police are asking for the public’s help to find those responsible for vandalizing the flag hung outside the Sparta United Methodist Church, with the most recent incident occurring at approximately 12:30 a.m. on April 20. According to authorities, two “young adult males” entered the property from a wooded area behind the church and set the flag on fire using an accelerant. The crime was similar to the first one where parishioners who were arriving for Sunday services on Jan. 2 found the flag had been partially burned and melted. New Jersey Herald
A GOP debate to be the party’s nominee for the 5th Congressional District fell apart after the three leading candidates could not agree on the format. Nick De Gregorio, the only candidate to accept an invitation, will join New Jersey Globe’s David Wildstein and Save Jersey’s Matt Rooney May 5 at 8 PM to discuss his challenge to Rep. Josh Gottheimer. Two other candidates, Frank Pallotta and Fred Schneiderman, declined the invitation as they pushed for a debate that was in-person instead of being held over Zoom. New Jersey Globe
New Jersey’s 21 Democratic county parties collectively have nearly $3.3 million in cash on-hand after the first quarter, according to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, while their Republican counterparts have only $602,852. The combined $3.9 million across both parties is the largest first quarter total since at least 2012. Republican parties were not as far behind in fundraising for the quarter, raising $550,559 to the Democrats’ $796,084. But Democrats had such large warchest to begin with that their parties could spend more than $1 million during the quarter and still go into the 2022 midterms with a huge advantage. InsiderNJ
Jersey City rose 10 places to 36th among the nation’s 100 largest cities in the Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore Index. The ParkScore Index gave Jersey City’s 76 parks high scores for accessibility (97 out of 100 residents live within a 10-minute walk to a park), equity (82 out of 100; distribution of park and park acres according to race and income), splashpads (perfect 100 score 3.9 splashpads per 100,000 residents) and dog parks (84 out of 100; 2.1 dog parks per 100,000 residents). Washington, D.C. was No. 1, followed closely by St. Paul, MN. The Jersey Journal
And finally…Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie and Eminem are the latest inductees into (checking notes) the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. NJ.com
