The Bergen Record

CLASHES SPUR NEWARK CURFEW

Newark enacted a mandatory curfew for the half-mile surrounding the federal immigration detention center Delaney Hall starting Sunday, May 31, at midnight, after a night of unrest when three people were arrested. The curfew will remain in effect from...

WORKING HARD FOR THE MONEY

The highest-paying jobs in New Jersey are packed into a narrow corner of the labor market. The top of the wage scale is dominated by medicine, with nine of the top 10 spots taken by professionals commonly found in hospitals, surgical centers and...

Legacy of love

In 1970, Ed and Sue Goldstein’s 3-year-old daughter, Valerie, was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a form of bone cancer. Six painful years followed as the family discovered how few services New Jersey offered for children with cancer. ● “There was only...

Advocates say ICE beat hunger strikers

Delaney Hall, the immigrant detention center in Newark, cemented its imprint as a symbol of the division of two sides of the immigration debate May 28, as advocates protested, Democratic politicians soapboxed and ICE supporters planned...

Is Mejia too liberal? Voters will decide

In three months, Rep. Analilia Mejia has gone from insurgent to incumbent – and now, chief target – in North Jersey politics. Mejia was the unexpected winner in an 11-way special Democratic primary in February, then easily beat a Republican challenger...

SANCTUARY STANDOFF?

Markwayne Mullin, then a sitting Oklahoma senator in the Republican Party, courted his colleagues cautiously after President Donald Trump nominated him to serve as U.S. secretary for Homeland Security earlier this year. Mullin pitched himself to his...

Sherrill turns up the heat on ICE

The welfare of inmates being held by federal authorities at the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark remains a top concern as a hunger strike at the facility continues, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said on Tuesday, May 26. Speaking a day after U.S. Sen....

DOLLARS AND SENSE

Several North Jersey counties have seen an uptick in the number of properties with price reductions – when a seller lowers the asking amount after it’s been sitting on the market – at the start of 2026. Most recently, Morris County had 124 properties...

Remember and honor

There is no print edition of the paper today, but you can find puzzles, comics, national news and sports here in the eNewspaper.

SPICE OF LIFE

Job calls for all you can eat

SEA GIRT – A herd of goats is munching invasive species and nuisance plants near Wreck Pond, where the animals are tasked with eliminating poison ivy, Japanese knotweed and other plants so New Jersey native greens can thrive. This “targeted” goat...

Miracle on 34th?

The Trump administration and Amtrak announced a master developer team to lead the redesign and construction to expand New York Penn Station, the busiest transportation hub in North America. “We are one step closer to delivering a world-class travel...

Revenue

Trenton lawmakers heard updated revenue projections from the New Jersey state treasurer and the Office of Legislative Services on Tuesday morning as more than a month of hearings on the state’s next budget draw to a close. Officials from the state...

Can Dems capitalize on Kean’s absence?

U.S. Rep. Thomas H. Kean Jr. has been absent from Congress for the past two months for an undisclosed medical issue, but the two-term Republican was very much in the room at the Democratic debate for the 7th Congressional District primary on May 12 in...

High gas prices hit summer travel

On a quick trip to Florida recently for a family matter, Donna Skettini of Butler and her husband opted to go the cheaper route. They drove the entire distance and took a lower-price hotel. “As long as they’re clean, I’m good,” she said of the hotel....

Congratulations and good luck?

Gap years and career pivots are replacing plans to move out and take a traditional job for newly minted college graduates, as Rutgers, Montclair State and other New Jersey universities celebrate commencement in May. The impact of inflation, economic...

March follows Sousa’s lead

“So the very first thing you do is break the rule of a march,” said Rick Summers. It’s also, apparently, the second thing I do. And the third thing I do. Not a very good start. But it turns out that Summers, who is orchestrating my “USA TODAY March,”...

Trump leaves Beijing for U.S.

BEIJING – President Donald Trump left China on May 15 with no major breakthroughs on trade or tangible help from Beijing to end the Iran war, despite two days spent heaping praise on his host, Xi Jinping. Trump’s visit to America’s main strategic and...

RISING UP?

The proposed ban on bromated flour in New York may be the best thing to happen to New Jersey’s pizza since sliced bread. Oh, yeah, we’ll also get to the bread. While many of the Garden State’s pizzaiolos say they already use flour that isn’t treated...

FUELING DEBATE

President Donald Trump says he wants to suspend the federal gasoline tax for a period of time, but Gov. Mikie Sherrill is skeptical about making a similar move for New Jersey’s gas tax – and some experts say it would not likely provide economic relief...

SURGING FUEL COSTS LIFT PRICES IN APRIL

Americans already struggling with affordability saw prices rise again in April as surging oil costs stemming from the Iran war kept driving up prices at the gas pump and affected supply chains for other goods. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer...

DEADLY GUNFIRE ROCKS PATERSON

Two men were killed and four others injured in a shooting the night of May 10 at one of Paterson’s most violent street corners, according to the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office. The shooting around 8:30 p.m. left a 43-year-old and 29-year-old, both...

NO RELIEF

As budget pressures hit North Jersey’s public schools, teachers and other staff are losing their jobs — a clear sign of the painful choices districts must make as inflation, spiking health insurance costs and other expenses test their financial...

RIPPLE EFFECT

For 21 years, Maribel Urbina drove a 54-passenger school bus. ● She navigated New York City streets and suburban roads. She ferried students to and from Dwight-Englewood School. She shuttled them on school trips, to theaters and zoos. ● She loved her...

New home turf

With the World Cup just weeks away, work began on Thursday, May 7, to lay the grass playing surface at MetLife Stadium in exactly the way the international soccer organization FIFA requires. ● The MetLife field is typically turf, as Giants fans know,...

Iran assessing U.S. framework for peace

Iranian officials were reviewing a U.S. framework for peace talks after President Donald Trump threatened to resume airstrikes on the Middle Eastern country unless it agrees to a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz. “If they don’t agree, the...

FAN FESTS WILL ‘SHOWCASE’ STATE

New Jersey will spend millions to fund dozens of public fan experiences and community events for the FIFA World Cup in June and July. At an event in Pennsauken on May 6, Gov. Mikie Sherrill named 34 organizations that will organize and execute fan...

PAIN beyond the PUMP

The Iran war has been joined by a number of other factors – including the switch to a pricier summer gasoline formula – to send gas prices to their highest point since 2022, and some analysts say increases could continue well into the summer travel...

Forever Sterling

Naturally, you could never bring yourself to delete a voicemail because of… that voice. And that big, familiar baritone – the casual sound of summer, the narrator of so many signature Yankees moments from their last great baseball era – would now and...

‘EVERYONE LOST THEIR HOME’

Hala Ghanem’s family home was a stunner: a three-story coastal residence built from pale limestone and topped with terracotta tiles, with verandas that overlooked the Mediterranean and fertile green hills thick with citrus and pine trees. ● She spent...

The picks are in

EAST RUTHERFORD – John Harbaugh wants the New York Giants’ roster to reflect the player profile he believes can win in the NFL, especially in the NFC East. Bigger. More powerful. Edgier. And that goes for every position. The Giants already had that at...

ICE asks judge to reject blocking of Roxbury center

The Trump administration has asked a federal judge to reject efforts by New Jersey and Roxbury Township to block a proposed immigration detention center in Morris County, saying their warnings about the project were premature. In a legal brief filed...

100 and counting

Anew New Jersey governor’s first 100 days in office are always marked by symbolic beginnings. ● Gov. Mikie Sherrill hit that threshold on Thursday, April 30, and while her administration is proceeding through the normal rhythms of Trenton’s budget...

Song of solidarity

“We Are The World” helped the starving children of Ethiopia. “That’s What Friends Are For” was the music industry’s answer to HIV. But “I Wish,” a new global anthem from a Bergen County philanthropist and musician, addresses a present-day crisis that,...

Uneven playing field for NJ?

New Jersey and New York are hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup jointly – but perhaps in name only. The most recent document affirming that hosting responsibility, an agreement signed in November 2025, indicates that each side will have to pay its own...

MAN CHARGED WITH ATTACK ON TRUMP Administration plans reassessment of security protocols

WASHINGTON – The suspect accused of opening fire outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner over the weekend is being charged with trying to assassinate President Donald Trump. Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, is also charged with...

Bergen lawmaker seeks weed-killer ban

Tim Lockard worked in the automotive industry for nearly 30 years, from the age of 17 until he had to retire after being diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s disease at 44. The Jackson resident believes the condition was caused by exposure to a...

What that jingle is hiding

Lakewood-based Kars4Kids, cemented in the brains of millions by that ubiquitous radio jingle, has built a multimillion-dollar fundraising empire based on the simple premise of car donations to benefit children. ● While that happy jingle burrows into...

‘STOP STOP STOP’

In just 2 minutes and 30 seconds, a combination of radio problems, confusion and conflicting instructions became contributing factors in a fatal plane-vehicle collision that took place at New York’s LaGuardia Airport in March, according to a...

DELIVERING A BIG PITCH

A s New Jersey prepares to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, soccer passion reached a new level at the official grand opening of the RWJBarnabas Health Red Bulls Performance Center. Mayor Donna Guariglia was among a VIP list of speakers at the April 22...

Working to solve a history mystery

As New Jersey communities prepare to mark 250 years since the nation’s founding, a team in Sussex County is working to tell a history that stretches back nearly 50 times further. Inside the Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, archaeologists,...

PIE IN THE SKY

Three miniature pizzas flew through the sky on April 20, as popular thincrust joint The Columbia Inn and the Dexa drone delivery service joined forces to complete the first autonomous drone pizza delivery in the Northeastern United States. Taking off...

Suspect pleads not guilty in 1990 killing

The North Carolina man charged with the killing of a Vernon woman in the summer of 1990 has pleaded not guilty. Robert William McCaffrey Jr., 54, appeared before state Superior Court Judge Janine Allen in Sussex County on the morning of April...

Keys to longevity

Time, for Dorothy Bullock Schroth, is of the essence. ● Not her own time. Though anyone turning 100 years old – as she is April 20 – thinks about that. ● But Schroth happens to be a piano teacher. At age 100, she’s still teaching. She’s taught in...

Climbing back from 'learning loss'

Iran declares Strait of Hormuz reopened

Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz “completely open” to commercial vessels April 17 – then threatened to again close the global shipping lane if the United States did not end its blockade on Iranian ports and ships. It was the latest back-and-forth...

Survive and advance

Voters in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District were due at the polls on April 16 to choose their new representative in Washington, a successor to Mikie Sherrill, who left the seat to become governor. But for the victor, a win will be the political...

Woman recounts ‘ICE dungeons’

Before she spent a year detained by ICE – her name in headlines, her likeness a symbol for unjust detentions – Leqaa Kordia lived a quiet life in Paterson. Her home, often called “Little Palestine,” with its signs in Arabic, Palestinian flags hanging...

NJ Transit unveils new double-decker trains

A new era of train cars has arrived at NJ Transit’s Meadowlands maintenance complex to replace 1970s-era equipment and, ideally, kick-start more reliable commuting for the agency’s weary and frustrated commuters. Before the end of the year, 40 new...

A quest for trust

It’s been seen hundreds of times in movies and on television. The harried and overworked public defender comes rushing into a courtroom, barely willing to represent the client and not remembering their name. They fumble through a hearing or a trial,...

Grief, defiance remain

On a busy corner in South Paterson, a mural stretches along the side of a neighborhood bakery, turning an ordinary block into a quiet act of remembrance. ● It depicts a boy riding a bicycle, a small Palestinian flag trailing behind him. He glances back...

COMMON THREAD

In January 1926, a single firing inside Botany Worsted Mills set off a walkout that shut down much of Passaic’s textile industry. ● By the time it ended 13 months later, 16,000 workers had joined the strike. Police had clubbed picketers in the streets,...

Trump says victory is near in Iran war

On Day 33 of the war with Iran, President Donald Trump declared victory was at hand. Almost. In a prime-time address from the White House on April 1, Trump extolled what he called “swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield” −...

DUMPING GROUNDS

The Ford Motor Company would be required to clean up contaminated groundwater at the Ringwood Superfund site, advancing a phase of work that has remained unsettled for years, under a proposed federal settlement filed in March. The agreement, filed in...

HUNDREDS IN THE STREETS

Bundled up against an unseasonably chilly spring morning on March 28, hundreds, many holding anti-Trump signs, gathered in Morristown in front of town hall for the third round of nationwide No Kings rallies. “Stop the Trump War Machine” and “Let’s...

Braced for impact

At the height of the Cold War, federal officials drew maps that told Americans where to go in case of a nuclear attack. In Passaic, one of those places was a library. Inside the Reid Memorial Library, a fallout shelter sign still lists a capacity of 90...

Welcome to JERSEYWOOD

Texas has oil. Pennsylvania has coal. ● New Jersey has film. ● Movies are our natural resource. It’s what we’re rich in. ● Between the scenic locales, the concentration of tech people and the proximity to two of America’s great cities, the Garden State...

Six Flags to showcase Boardwalk-style rides

JACKSON – If you can’t make it to a Jersey Shore boardwalk this summer, Six Flags Great Adventure has another option for you. The amusement park is unveiling “Shoreline Pier at The Boardwalk” for the 2026 season, featuring whirling rides; disco fries...

Sherrill picks fight with Trump over rules for ICE

President Donald Trump put socalled sanctuary cities and states on notice when he retook the Oval Office last year, signing executive orders threatening to withhold federal funding, threatening prosecution of local officials who refuse to cooperate...

FATAL FLIGHT

The takeoff from Essex County Airport in Fairfield looked routine. John F. Kennedy Jr. was flying a small plane toward Massachusetts with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, on July 16, 1999. Hours later, the plane...

A real boring job

NEWARK – The Gateway commission overseeing the Hudson River rail tunnel project plans to start operating its tunnel boring machines close to schedule even though construction was halted amid the federal government’s pause on funding. James Starace,...

PILOTS DEAD AFTER JET, TRUCK COLLIDE

Two pilots were dead, dozens of people were injured and New York City’s LaGuardia Airport was closed March 23 after an Air Canada Express jet hit a fire truck on a runway there late on March 22, officials said. An Air Canada Express CRJ-900 plane was...

Will nominee for DHS visit NJ?

Someday soon, perhaps, likely new U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former plumber and onetime popular host of a home improvement show, will travel to Roxbury to determine whether a planned immigrant detention center has the proper...

Gen Z is drinking less than other groups. The reasons why may surprise you.

When Nick Graziano steps outside, he assumes he’s on camera. ● “Whenever I leave the house, in the back of my head I’m always acting as if I’m being recorded,” said the 21-year-old senior at Montclair State University. ● For his parents’ generation,...

Jersey Shore oyster farmers struggling

Few people were looking forward to spring more than Dale Parsons, a fifth-generation bayman and oyster farmer from Tuckerton. Parsons is trying to put his oyster farm back together after what was probably the most disastrous winter he’s endured as a...

White-collar pink slips

Service sector employment in North Jersey and the larger New York City metro area fell for the seventh month in a row, and the state workforce has shed nearly 4,000 jobs so far this year, according to data released March 17 by the New York Federal...

STATE KICKS IN

The regional host committee for the 2026 FIFA World Cup will receive another $20 million in taxpayer dollars from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. The money was earmarked for the agency by former Gov. Phil Murphy as one of his last acts...

‘Unimaginable toll’

Leqaa Kordia of Paterson, a pro-Palestinian protester who demonstrated at Columbia University in 2024, was released from immigration detention on March 16 after a judge set bond and federal authorities declined to block the order, ending a yearlong...