Just hours after Israel hit seven military targets in Iran, a man attempted to firebomb a synagogue in North Jersey. According to Bloomfield police, at roughly 3:00 a.m. the morning of Jan. 29, an unknown man attempted to vandalize Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield with a Molotov cocktail. Rep. Mike Sherrill said the fire did not ignite, and his attempt was unsuccessful. “Although I am grateful that damage was minimal and no one was injured, I am heartbroken and angry,” said Sherrill in a press statement. “Antisemitic hatred is on the rise in our state, our country, and around the world, and we all must work together to eradicate it.” North-JerseyNews.com
A drone attack on an Iranian military facility that resulted in a large explosion in the center of the city of Isfahan on Jan. 28 was the work of the Mossad, Israel’s premier intelligence agency, according to senior intelligence officials who were familiar with the dialogue between Israel and the United States about the incident. The facility’s purpose was not clear, and neither was how much damage the strike caused. But Isfahan is a major center of missile production, research and development for Iran, including the assembly of many of its Shahab medium-range missiles, which can reach Israel and beyond. U.S. officials said they believed this strike was prompted by Israel’s concerns about its own security, not the potential for missile exports to Russia to be used in their invasion against Ukraine. The New York Times
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to urge Palestinians and Israelis to de-escalate tensions after a rapid rise in violence in recent days as he travels to Jerusalem Jan. 30 for two days of meetings. Blinken’s visit follows a bloody weekend in Israel. On Jan. 27, a Palestinian gunman killed seven and injured three Israelis outside an East Jerusalem synagogue, the deadliest attack in Israel since 2008. On Jan, 28, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy shot and injured two Israelis. The attacks came after a military raid last week at the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank aimed at capturing militants that left 10 Palestinians dead. The Wall Street Journal
OPINION: The Battle Over Woke Education. Republicans, both locally and nationally, have made the push back against what they consider woke education parental rights a central tenet of their campaigns. From Florida where an AP class on African American History to Sparta where three faculty members who worked on student initiatives that advocated for race, sexuality and gender equality have left the district, the fight over what our children are being taught is not stopping any time soon. Far too often, educators, politicians and parents are talking past each other that fails to find middle grounds as each have viewpoints that are valid and could make for a better experience for students. Teachers should be given the latitude to go past the basics to take a broader look at all members of our society. We as a nation should want our educational system to push past just memorization and more toward the ability to think and question what we have learned, especially in increasingly complex personal subjects. North-JerseyNews.com
The Memphis Police Department is shutting down the specialized Scorpion street-crime unit whose members included former officers charged in the death of Tyre Nichols. The move to disband the unit came a day after the city of Memphis released video footage of the Jan. 7 traffic stop that led to the death of Nichols. The video, which authorities had warned would be brutal, showed several Memphis police officers repeatedly striking and kicking Nichols, including while he appeared subdued and defenseless. One of the officers also appeared to use a Taser on him. The Wall Street Journal
A New Jersey appeals court on Jan. 26 upheld the firing of a state Department of Corrections officer who made several online posts that were derogatory about race, the Black Lives Matter movement, and George Floyd, the man killed by police in Minneapolis in 2020. Samantha Chirichello was a corrections officer from June 2019 until December 2020 and worked at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Hunterdon County. The corrections department investigated her for her online posts after being tipped by a member of the public. NJ.com
A New Jersey man who joined a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Jan. 27 to more than six years in prison for using pepper spray to assault police officers, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick who would die the next day. Julian Khater, formerly of the Somerset section of Franklin Township, didn’t mention the death of Sicknick or address the officer’s family in a written statement he read aloud before U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan sentenced him to six years and eight months of imprisonment. New Jersey Herald
Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT) signed a bill that blocks minors from receiving gender-transition health care, the first such measure in the country this year in what is expected to be a wave of legislation by state lawmakers to restrict transgender rights. The law prohibits transgender youth in the state from receiving gender-affirming surgery and places an indefinite ban on hormone therapy, with limited exceptions. Cox said in a statement Jan. 28 that banning these treatments was necessary until more research could be done on their long-term effects. The New York Times
Jersey City police officers will put their de-escalation tactics to the test with a nearly $200,000 virtual simulator that will teach them better tactics to find peaceful resolutions in hostile situations. The city council recently approved by unanimous vote a resolution for the purchase of a virtual simulator training system from TI Training LLC to train police officers how to use force in appropriate situations. The cost of the five-screen, 300-degree simulator is $193,407. The Jersey Journal
A just released COVID fund allocations notice by the state treasury revealed the Murphy Administration used more than half a million dollars for state vehicles that has drawn the wrath of GOP lawmakers in Trenton. Assembly minority budget officer Hal Wirths (R-24) said the purchase of eight SUVs is “a stretch….It’s legal, but I think it’s not the intention of the federal law to buy vehicles, especially now. That’s what we’ve been so frustrated with, as budget officer, is the slowness of getting this money out,” Wirths said, referring to Republican complaints that the state government, controlled by Democrats, has been slow to appropriate federal coronavirus relief funds. North-JerseyNews.com
William Paterson University recently received $1 million in federal funding to support students whose finances were heavily impacted by COVID-19. The federal funding received will be used to support university students in numerous ways, including need-based scholarships; campus housing and meal grants; book and transportation grants; completion incentives/grants for students who were a year away from graduation and needed to discontinue their studies due to extreme financial difficulty; and on-campus support programming to ensure impacted students continue their studies and graduate. ROI-NJ.com
Open enrollment for Affordable Care Act health insurance plans offered on New Jersey’s marketplace will end Jan. 31 after a year that saw increases in enrollment nationally. Enrollment in plans offered through the Garden State’s marketplace rose slightly to 325,524 through Jan. 14, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance. By last January, 324,266 New Jerseyans had enrolled through the marketplace, a New Jersey official said. The gains lagged slightly behind increases at the national level, where enrollment rose 13% year-over-year through mid-January to a total of 16.3 million, but New Jersey’s final numbers will include 15 additional days of open enrollment. New Jersey Monitor
Rep. Josh Gottheimer has brought on a top Democratic strategist, Chelsea Brossard, to run his congressional office. A former regional political director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Brossard led the efforts to elect Democratic House members in six western states, managed digital persuasion campaigns for dozens of high-profile gubernatorial and congressional races across the U.S. during the 2020 midterms and was a senior director at Wavelength Strategy, a Washington political consulting firm. New Jersey Globe
After rising daily for weeks, gas prices took a pause over the weekend in New Jersey as the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline held at $3.45, according to AAA. The price is eight-cents a gallon higher than a week ago, and 17-cents a gallon more than a month ago. Last year at this time, Garden State residents were paying about $3.47 a gallon. While we have been enjoying a mild and relatively snowless winter in New Jersey, portions of the U.S. have some nasty storms to close out 2022. AAA says that contributed to a tighter supply, but other areas experiencing a mild winter “may have led to more drivers getting behind the wheel, pushing pump prices higher.” NJ1015.com
The cyclist struck by Jersey City Councilwoman Amy DeGise in a hit-and-run incident that garnered national attention plans to sue for $1 million for his injuries, according to the notice of tort claim his attorney has filed with Jersey City. Andrew Black, through his attorney, Christopher T. Karounos of the Brandon J. Broderick law firm, filed the notice Aug. 1, 2022. “Given the severity of the crash with the councilwoman and leaving the scene, ($1 million) was not thought unreasonable at the time the tort claims notice was filed,” Karounos said. The Jersey Journal
The Englewood school board has begun a superintendent search after the former district administrator Ronel Cook died in a car crash late last year. The Board of Education unanimously approved developing a contract with Ray & Associates Inc., an organization that specializes in school executive leadership searches. Board President David Matthews said the district ideally would like to get a superintendent in place to start by the end of June, but he recognized that it depends on a number of factors, including the quality of candidates, how long the interview process takes and whether a candidate needs to give notice to a former school district before beginning in Englewood. The Record
Parsippany Councilman Michael dePierro is bowing out of politics after nearly four decades on the governing board of Morris County’s largest municipality. dePierro announced he will not seek re-election at this week’s council’s meeting and stepped down as Council president, as scheduled, and handed the gavel to new President Loretta Gragnani. Gragnani, whose husband died in December, confirmed she will not seek re-election after two terms in office as well. New Jersey Herald
And finally…A too-early look at the Super Bowl matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs. The New York Times
