President Joe Biden demanded lawmakers respond to communities turned into “killing fields” by passing far-reaching limits on guns, calling on Congress to ban assault-style weapons, expand background checks and pass “red flag” laws after massacres in Texas and New York. During a national address June 2, President Biden offered that “if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21, strengthen the background checks,” he said. He called on Congress to “enact safe storage laws and red flag laws, repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability, and address the mental health crisis.” The New York Times
Sens. Bob Menendez and Cory Booker led a rally against gun violence at Memorial High School in West New York on June 2. The Senators held a private meeting with a group of student leaders to hear from them about the impacts of gun violence and what changes they hope to see. Menendez and Booker then joined with students, gun safety advocates, and elected officials, calling on their Senate colleagues to support a ban on “military-grade weapons” in addition to “comprehensive background checks.” Hudson Reporter
The gunman accused of killing his surgeon and three other people at a Tulsa hospital complex before taking his own life was a former resident of New Jersey, where he graduated high school and college before relocating to Oklahoma. According to his family, the gunmen lived in Newark until 2013 and seemed to change after a painful back condition and an unsuccessful operation. NJ.com
The polls open today for both Democrats and Republicans voting in their party’s primary to choose their nominee for their Congressional District. Five North Jersey Democratic incumbents are running—Rep. Josh Gottheimer, Tom Malinowski, Bill Pascrell, Donald Payne, Jr. and Mikie Sherrill—as Albio Sires has decided to retire after his term is up this year. A total of 12 Republicans are running to be the party’s representative in North Jersey as races in the 5th, 7th and 11th are seen as key to who will control Congress in 2023 and 2024. North-JerseyNews.com
Just 3.5% of New Jersey voters have cast ballots for next week’s primary election, according to an analysis by the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. But the 227,847 ballots already received represents a 4.4% increase over the total number of vote-by-mail ballots cast in the 2021 primary and a 387% increase over all VBMs cast in the primary in 2018. The votes cast so far is 30% of all votes cast in last year’s primary, including machine votes. Democrats are outpacing Republicans by a more than 3-1 margin on returned mail-in ballots, with 72% of all VBMs coming from Democrats. New Jersey Globe
Rep. Josh Gottheimer will push for three Bergen County water improvement projects to receive up to $52.8 million in federal grant funds to remove cancer-causing “forever chemicals. The projects, to receive the federal money through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, include $35.6 million to Fair Lawn, $16.4 million to Park Ridge and $800, 000 to Mahwah. “I’ve submitted these three new Community Directed Project requests to receive federal investment to improve their water treatment systems,” Gottheimer said. “I’m hopeful that…we’ll be able to claw back federal dollars from Washington to ensure clean water for our families.” The Record
The Murphy Administration is disputing that it made an improper transfer of $10 million in federal coronavirus relief money. At issue is the state’s nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services opinion that two transfers of $10 million each to the Excluded New Jerseyans Fund made by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs violated an agreement between Murphy and lawmakers made last year that the Legislature’s bipartisan Joint Budget Oversight Committee would have to approve the use of those funds. The deal set aside $200 million in federal funds that the governor could directly allocate to pandemic-related programs without legislative approval. But language in the bill states that those allocations are “not to exceed $10 million for each such eligible program.” NJ.com
The U.S. economy added 390,000 jobs in May, the 17th straight report of monthly gains, according to U.S. Labor Department. As of June 3, the unemployment remained at 3.6% for the third straight month, near a half-century low. Average hourly earnings for employees rose by 10 cents, or 0.3% on a monthly basis, and were 5.2% higher than a year earlier. The Wall Street Journal
New Jersey on June 2 reported 15 new COVID-19 deaths and 3,242 new confirmed cases. There were 928 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases as all 71 state’s hospitals reported, hitting a three month high. Of those hospitalized, 117 were in intensive care and 46 were on ventilators. New Jersey’s statewide transmission rate was 0.96 with the positivity rate at 16.1% for tests conducted on May 28. North-JerseyNews.com
A bill designed to implement a three-year program studying the use of electric school buses was passed by the Assembly, but not before it devolved into debate focused on mansplaining, learning loss, and even the Jetsons. The $35 million Electric School Bus Program would further efforts to develop a cleaner, healthier, and more efficient school transportation system, according to Democrats in Trenton who voted to pass the pilot program. But Assemblywoman Vicky Flynn (R-13) questioned why only $2 million was dedicated to studying learning loss and mental loss, and urged the Assembly to focus on these issues instead. The floor debate ended with Assemblyman Hal Wirths (R-24) rhetorically asking whether the people supporting the bill were driving electric vehicles themselves, telling them to put their money where their mouths were if they expected New Jersey residents to pay for “some Jetsons bus.” North-JerseyNews.com
Teachers and librarians urged lawmakers to advance a bill requiring all grades to learn about information literacy, which supporters say would help students “gauge the legitimacy of online sources.” The bipartisan measure sponsored by State Sens. Mike Testa (R-1) and Shirley Turner (D-15) would mandate school districts to begin incorporating information literacy into the curriculum for all grades, kindergarten through 12th grade. Lessons would include digital, visual, media, text, and technological literacy. The bill calls for the Department of Education commissioner and state librarian to create specific lesson plans for each grade level and conduct an annual review to ensure materials used in the classroom are up to date. New Jersey Monitor
The Assembly Education Committee recently advanced a bill sponsored by Assemblymen Jay Webber and Hal Wirths to allow all homeschooled students in New Jersey to participate in extracurricular activities in their hometown school districts. Parents would have to provide proof of residence, students would have to meet academic and other eligibility requirements, and comply with all extracurricular activity policies and procedures. Currently, the law allows school districts to include or exclude homeschoolers at their discretion. “This bill is really about fairness to all kids and families who choose to homeschool,” said Weber (R-26). “Right now, some homeschoolers get to play ball or sing in the school musicals, and some don’t, depending on where they live. That disparity needs to end.” North-JerseyNews.com
President Joe Biden has decided to travel to Saudi Arabia later this month to rebuild relations with the oil-rich kingdom at a time when he is seeking to lower gas prices at home and isolate Russia abroad. President Biden will add the visit to a previously scheduled trip to Europe and Israel, and comes after a group of oil-producing nations called OPEC Plus, led by Saudi Arabia, announced on June 2 that it would increase production modestly in July and August. The New York Times
Trustees for the Social Security Trust Funds said they anticipate that the program’s combined reserves will be depleted in 2035, one year later than projected last year. In its annual report, stronger-than-expected economic growth since last year has generated more in payroll taxes, which provide much of the funding for Social Security. People are also seeking the program’s disability payments at a lower rate. The Wall Street Journal
Authorities have five years to prosecute crimes involving DNA evidence once they possess both physical evidence and a suspect’s DNA, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled June 2 in a case testing state law on the statutes of limitations in crimes. Any delays in lab testing or “lack of clarity” in official policies on DNA samples do not give the government more time to prosecute beyond what state statute permits, the court said in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis. Statutes of limitations are intended to protect defendants from having to defend themselves after memories have faded, witnesses have died or disappeared, and evidence has been lost, wrote Pierre-Louis. New Jersey Monitor
Palisades Park Mayor Christopher Chung is looking for $25 million in damages in a defamation lawsuit he filed against his opponent in the upcoming primary election, the borough administrator and a Korean newspaper. The suit was filed against Chong “Paul” Kim, a councilman who is running against Chung for mayor in the Democratic primary, Paul Lee, Kim’s campaign manager, Borough Administrator David Lorenzo, The Korea Daily newspaper, and the paper’s reporter and general manager. The lawsuit does not give specific examples of defamation in any instance. The Record
John McCann, the former two-time GOP congressional candidate, was appointed to fill a vacant seat on the Oakland Borough Council last week. A Cresskill councilman from 2000 to 2006, McCann replaces Grant Van Eck, who resigned last month because he was moving to Bridgewater. New Jersey Globe
Hoboken’s Cannabis Review Board will be expanded to include four resident members after the City Council unanimously amended it June 1. The board is currently made up of three members: a City Council member, the director of Health and Human Services and the mayor or a mayoral designee. Two of the four new members will be appointed by the mayor and the other two will be appointed by the City Council. The Jersey Journal
And finally…The New York Rangers look to take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Final series when they face off against the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight at Madison Square Garden. The Record
