NJ Spotlight

WASHINGTON — For almost 20 years, the Passaic Valley Water Commission, a utility that provides water to roughly 800,000 people, has operated three open-air reservoirs in violation of a federal safety regulation. Now a proposal pending in a federal court in New Jersey would shield the commission from any liability if customers get sick from tainted water — and give the utility until 2054 to comply with the rule.

We bring you what’s relevant and important in New Jersey news and our insight. Watch as the NJ Spotlight News team breaks down today’s top stories.

We bring you what’s relevant and important in New Jersey news and our insight. Watch as the NJ Spotlight News team breaks down today’s top stories.

Eight weeks of frenzied campaigning start on Labor Day, with congressional candidates in New Jersey and around the country competing in the November midterm elections that will determine whether Republicans maintain House and U.S. Senate control. U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat elected in 2013, is challenged by Republican Justin Murphy, a former Tabernacle committeeman. This is not an election year for Booker’s colleague Andy Kim.

We bring you what’s relevant and important in New Jersey news and our insight. Watch as the NJ Spotlight News team breaks down today’s top stories.

The staffs of roughly 200 New Jersey school systems may not know their 2027 health benefits premium costs when open enrollment starts next month as a result of a bureaucratic stalemate. A proposed 34% rate increase in the School Employees’ Health Benefits Program would “bankrupt” small districts and interfere with the “thorough and efficient” education mandated by the state constitution, teachers union leaders argue.

WASHINGTON –In the waning days of the Biden administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration abandoned a proposal to protect the North Atlantic right whale — a powerful animal whose name comes from 19th-century whalers who deemed they were the “right” whale to kill due to their languid speed and ample blubber. The move, involving a limit on boat speeds, drew praise from many fishermen, who viewed the withdrawn proposal as clumsy and broad.

We bring you what’s relevant and important in New Jersey news and our insight. Watch as the NJ Spotlight News team breaks down today’s top stories. We’re in this together. For a better-informed future. Support our nonprofit newsroom.

File photo State lawmakers haven’t voted to raise individual income taxes this year, but many New Jersey residents could still be facing under-the-radar hikes as they’re getting walloped by inflation. These hidden tax increases, by some estimates, could be costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The root cause is something tax experts call bracket creep. It can occur when the general cost of goods and services goes up at a higher rate than any growth in individual wages.

Former White House chef Guy Mitchell, center, leading a demonstration with Newark Vocational High School students in 2024. Newark Vocational is among the schools for which a funeral director is planning business leadership courses. What, exactly, does a funeral home director know about running a restaurant? That’s what some experts are asking after the Newark school board unanimously handed a local mortician a $700,000 contract to train students in hotel and food-service business leadership.