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Tonight on NJ Spotlight News, Sanctuary List.

Several New Jersey cities that have already been sued by the Trump administration for their immigration policies are now officially being targeted by the DOJ.

Plus, senators split on funding for arms to Israel, with Senator Cory Booker voting to uphold the spending despite calls for an end to the war in Gaza.

That is the argument that Senator Booker will make and many Democrats will make, which is this is, Israel is a steadfast ally, has been for decades, and we need to use all points of leverage that we can.

Also, finding solutions for rising energy costs.

State leaders convene an emergency meeting to discuss how to lower your energy bill.

And septic cuts.

With funding for public transit in Pennsylvania in jeopardy, what does it mean for South Jersey commuters who cross the Delaware?

I take it every day, so I mean it'll add up over time.

And yeah, I hope that they don't do that or they figure something else out.

NJ Spotlight News begins right now.

♪ ♪ From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vanozzi.

Good evening and thanks for joining us on this Tuesday night.

I'm Brianna Vanozzi.

We begin with a few of today's top stories.

First, the U.S. Justice Department has released a list of states, cities, and counties that have been identified as sanctuary jurisdictions, and four New Jersey cities are on it.

Hoboken, Jersey City, Patterson, and Newark are being targeted for having policies that the Trump administration says interfere with federal immigration enforcement.

The list was published and updated in response to an executive order President Trump signed in April directing the DOJ to identify states and local areas the government believes to be violating immigration laws.

In all, 35 sanctuary jurisdictions are on the list, with the DOJ vowing to bring more lawsuits to stop others from rolling out sanctuary policies.

In May, the Justice Department sued all four of New Jersey's cities on that list, including their mayors and council presidents.

Lawyers for Hoboken, Jersey City, Patterson, and Newark all asked for more time to respond to the suit, giving them to the end of the month to figure out a way forward.

Also tonight, the feds are getting involved after a PATH train fire on Monday sent several people to the hospital and suspended service during the busy morning rush hour.

The National Transportation Safety Board says it's investigating the cause of the fire that broke out under a passenger train at the Newport station in Jersey City.

According to PATH police, the fire started at 6.19 a.m., spewing smoke through the train, forcing riders to evacuate.

Now nine people were hospitalized for smoke inhalation, and four others were treated at the scene.

Video taken by a commuter who evacuated that train showed flames shooting up from under there and heavy smoke throughout, causing a chaotic morning for commuters with three of the system's four lines shut down.

It didn't get much better today, either.

Delays continued as maintenance crews worked on the tracks near Newport.

The NTSB is also investigating a track fire that happened back on May 8th in PATH tunnels near the Grove Street station in Jersey City.

That sent five PATH employees to the hospital also during the morning rush.

And the folks at the Atlantic City Housing Authority are pushing back at the idea of a federal takeover, saying it would destabilize the lives of residents who live in public housing.

In a 15-page response to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development this week, the authority argued a takeover would derail recent progress made under a recovery agreement that began in January.

HUD declared the authority in "substantial default" last month, pointing to longstanding issues like heat outages, mold, and pest infestations, especially at Stanley Holmes Village, where, as NJ Spotlight News has reported, residents have sued over those conditions.

The city's housing authority leaders say many of the federal compliance issues have already been addressed, including restoring heat and hot water to all units and completing overdue financial audits.

The authority's executive director is instead calling for collaboration with the federal government, not a takeover.

Well, constituents and critics alike are calling attention to a key vote that took place in the U.S. Senate just before members left for summer recess, where New Jersey's senior U.S.

Senator Cory Booker voted to approve a massive U.S. weapons sale to Israel amid an ongoing war in Gaza that aid groups are calling a full-blown humanitarian crisis and a global debate about starvation, genocide, and accountability.

Booker's votes are in sharp contrast to his fellow New Jersey Senator Andy Kim, who's moved to block similar U.S. arms transfers and has spoken out about the dire circumstances Palestinians are facing.

Our Washington, D.C., correspondent Ben Hulak has been covering the votes closely and joins me now with the latest.

Ben, hey, it's good to see you.

I know folks have been on break for recess, so we appreciate you being here.

Let's just start with the vote itself.

What exactly did Senator Booker approve, and how important are these weapons in the context of this war in Gaza?

Right.

As you explained, this is an interesting comparison between the two men, Senators Booker and Kim.

So last week the Senate voted on actually two resolutions that would have blocked two separate batches of weapons.

One was largely assault rifles, 20,000 assault rifles that would go to Israeli police.

And then the second vote would have blocked a variety of bombs, a couple types of bombs, thousand-pound bombs going to the region, going to Israel itself, rather.

These fit a pattern.

In my reporting that ran today, that was published today, I looked at seven separate votes that the Congress has taken to block these weapons sales since the war in Gaza and the broader region began about two years ago.

So just sort of interesting bookended comparison between the two men.

Yeah, I mean, as you reported, Booker has defended this vote, other votes, saying that blocking these sales would essentially limit U.S. options for bringing the war to an end.

Is it sort of as he sees it, this broader humanitarian diplomatic strategy?

Is that a fair argument to be made?

I would defer to the foreign policy experts on that.

But just from my perch on Capitol Hill, Booker's that is the argument that Senator Booker will make and many Democrats will make, which is this is, Israel is a steadfast ally, has been for decades, and we need to use all points of leverage that we can.

I'm speaking sort of as a general Democrat, but this is not the way to go about it.

And I had an interesting conversation with Senator Kim last week after these votes, and he's taken a lot of criticism from for voting to block these weapons sales.

But his point was we've tried so much.

He said in Israel earlier this year he met with Netanyahu face to face and has tried to convey to the Israeli leader there that the humanitarian crisis has to come to an end.

Senator Kim, I should point out, is still in the minority, even of his own party, in voting to block these weapons sales, which also would have had to have gone through the House to ultimately block these deals.

But it's an interesting study in contrast, as I've said.

Would Kim go so far as to say that a genocide is happening, which few but other members of Congress have claimed?

I asked him that direct question, and he said no, but it was sort of an equivocating no.

Basically, he hasn't done the research to bear that out.

He does come from an academic background.

He worked at the State Department during the Obama administration and actually has written and studied and examined mass atrocities and genocide.

His answer to me was that's really a legal determination.

But I did ask him a follow up, which is what about war crimes?

And he said, almost certainly, highly likely, I think, were his words, are war crimes being committed in Gaza?

And I asked about starvation, which is a war crime under international law.

And his point was there are food trucks waiting to go into Gaza.

We can see them.

We can see the images.

We can see them from satellite data and shots from above.

War crimes, in his eyes, are almost certainly happening.

All right.

Ben Hulak, you can follow all of his reporting, including on this story, on our website, njspotlightnews.org.

Ben, thanks so much.

Of course.

In our Spotlight on Business report tonight, tackling New Jersey's electricity crisis.

The State Board of Public Utilities today hosted a technical conference, the first one in five years, with energy experts and consumer advocates coming together to figure out how to alleviate rising costs and bring more energy sources online.

It comes after grid operator PJM's latest capacity auction hit record highs for the second year in a row, putting the strain on ratepayers' bills.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagas joins us from today's conference.

Hey, Jo, good to see you.

So is there any relief in sight?

Yeah, Brianna, obviously electricity costs are top of mind for everyone after a rate increase of about 20 percent went into effect in June.

And customers actually haven't even started to feel that increase because the state delayed it until October when electricity usage usually goes down.

But there's been no shortage of finger pointing as to the why.

Republicans are blaming Democrats for their energy master plan.

Democrats have blamed PJM, the multi-state grid operator for the region, and PJM has blamed data centers.

But today felt a little bit different.

Industry leaders came together for the first time in five years to talk about the complexity of the energy market and to share ideas for how to ensure reliability while also keeping costs down.

Because rates have gone up a lot, there's a lot of discussion about this.

And you'll find people with simple answers.

There are not simple answers.

There are a lot of things we have to do from a lot of angles.

One of the challenges has been to forecast how much electricity we'll need.

And it's been complicated by the onset of data centers coming online and bringing a massive demand for energy from the grid.

There is a pressing need to get capacity online, to do it at a price that is reasonable for rate payers.

And it's a big question to figure out how to do that.

And it raises concerns about reliability, the energy being there when you need it, which the industry hasn't had to worry about for decades.

It doesn't surprise me that rate payers emphasize costs more than reliability.

I mean, I would too.

I do too right now because we've enjoyed 99.9 percent reliability for most of our lives.

I do think, though, if we continue on the track that we're on and reliability starts to suffer, I think people may have different responses to that survey.

And, you know, I just want to everybody should bear in mind that under the wrong set of circumstances, if we don't have electricity for a sufficient period of time, today, people actually die.

We haven't reached a point of critical supply in New Jersey, but there have been five demand days already this summer.

Those are days where energy reaches peak demand based on usage.

Because of the heat that we have seen this year and last year, and, you know, we have continued to see increases in heat going forward, we have needed a lot more electricity capacity than we have had in previous years.

And don't forget about those data centers driving much of that demand.

There's a supply crunch.

We're kind of seeing this condition where the demand and the supply are starting to cross or getting very close to it.

And so I think data centers could potentially be part of the solution through load flexibility, whether it be through an established PGN product like demand response, which is essentially an agreement to curtail load for a certain number of hours a year, or through alternative solutions that we could talk about with our stakeholders.

But beyond ensuring reliability, state leaders like Board of Public Utilities President Christine Gould-Sadovey are looking into the process for how market rates are set, arguing that clean energy sources need to be brought online faster.

The state is committed to our clean energy goals, and we want to make sure that we're meeting our new capacity with clean resources like solar and storage, and how we can best work with PJM to ensure that their market rules are not artificially changing the dynamics of resource adequacy, because that is what we have seen in the past, is we want to make sure that the rules in the market are reflecting real supply and demand, and that we are coming up with solutions to bring more capacity online as quickly as possible.

Now, getting energy online has been another hot-button issue.

I spoke to some environmentalists today who say that PJM isn't doing enough to get clean energy online.

Now, PJM's had a backlog of thousands of projects in what they call their queue, and these environmentalists say they've prioritized fossil fuel projects over clean energy like solar, which can actually come online very quickly.

But I also spoke to PJM representatives today who say that to accuse them of somehow slow-walking renewables is simply false.

They say actually 90% of the projects they've brought online in the last two years have been renewables.

Now, clearly, everyone does agree that there is much more work to be done as temperatures continue to rise and AI continues to expand.

On the campus of the College of New Jersey in Ewing, I'm Joanna Gagis.

Back to you in the studio, Brianna.

All right, Joanna, thanks for that report.

Support for The Business Report is provided by the Newark Alliance Presents the 2025 Halsey Fest, featuring the vibrancy of Newark's Arts and Education District and Halsey Street.

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Well, between those PATH train fires in North Jersey to looming service cuts for SEPTA transit riders in the South, there's no shortage of challenges lately for commuters just trying to get to work.

SEPTA, which handles southeastern PA's train and bus system, including for Philly, is facing a massive budget deficit.

Now, unless the state kicks in money to help, SEPTA is looking at eliminating all service in and out of Trenton, leaving a lot of Jersey commuters stuck.

Ted Goldberg caught up with riders who will have to rethink how they get to work.

Trenton's commuters are less than three weeks from upheaval, as a budget battle in Pennsylvania could lead to fewer trains and buses, along with more expensive rides to Philadelphia.

I hope that it doesn't happen, you know, and I hope that it all works out.

Without additional state funding, SEPTA, which manages Philly's trains and buses, says it faces a deficit of more than $200 million for the next fiscal year.

You have to cut pretty far before you start seeing any savings, so that's why we're going so deep.

Andrew Bush is a spokesperson for SEPTA.

He says SEPTA needs to take drastic steps to balance its budget, including raising fares by 20 percent across the board, implementing a 9 p.m. curfew on train service, reducing trains along the West Trenton line come August 24th, and eliminating the Trenton line entirely on January 1st.

The big impact is going to be on midday service.

That's running with headways of about two hours for both of those lines, and then the same thing for evenings and weekends.

So we've had to unfortunately kind of sacrifice that off-peak service to maintain some viable morning and evening rush hour services.

I take it every day, so I mean it'll add up over time.

And yeah, I hope that they don't do that or they figure something else out.

The Trenton line is one of SEPTA's busier lines, but SEPTA says it spends $65 million a year to lease train lines from Amtrak, and cutting that line means major savings.

The lines are profitable in the sense that they're making money.

Like all public transit, it needs to be heavily subsidized, because it's a public utility.

SEPTA's not unique in that regard.

SEPTA says ridership is almost back to pre-pandemic levels, but costs have gone up throughout the system.

We had issues related to homeless and vulnerable population on the system, so we invested in having social service specialists out to assist with that.

But we've also had to add more police.

We've fortunately been pretty successful in lowering the crime rate on the system, dropped by 33% last year.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro spoke about the funding fight at a separate event Friday, but wouldn't go into detail about negotiations.

I know how vital mass transit is to the economy of this entire commonwealth, and how vital SEPTA is for the vitality of these communities.

Finding that common ground, that's critically important.

It's taken longer than I would like, but I think we're going to get there.

We really hope that the Pennsylvania legislature comes together to fund SEPTA.

Trenton Mayor Reid Gashora is worried about how people in his city would handle commuting with the loss of an entire train line.

The alternative is buses, which will be even more congestion and added turmoil on the road.

So we really hope that they get it together, and there's a lot of commuters going into Philadelphia, and it's beneficial for both New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

If Pennsylvania doesn't fund SEPTA, commuters say they'll be left with no choice but to figure out new ways to get around.

I definitely have to get creative.

It maybe probably costs me more money, whether it be Uber or trying to find someone to ride share with.

I just don't know what to do right now to sort of just get to work still in a timely manner without having to majorly alter a lot of my schedule and life around it.

I would have to switch to Amtrak, which is incredibly expensive, and you plan ahead like crazy, and you're stuck to their times.

So it would be very much inconvenient for me.

While fewer trains would make life safer for animals near tracks, it would no doubt be a huge inconvenience for people throughout New Jersey trying to cross the Delaware.

In Trenton, I'm Ted Goldberg, NJ Spotlight News.

Ask any working parent and they'll tell you finding affordable, quality child care is a full-time job in and of itself.

Now state budget cuts are putting more limits on their options, including a freeze on new applications for New Jersey's Child Care Assistance Program that helps both providers and low-income families at a time when the cost of everything from groceries to gas is going up.

Raven Santana spoke with parents, child care advocates, and providers about the impact of losing this subsidy.

Across New Jersey, the joyful sounds of childhood play mask a growing crisis, one that could upend the lives of thousands of working families.

As of August 1, New Jersey's Child Care Assistance Program, known as CCAP, has slammed the brakes on new applications, putting affordable care out of reach for families who rely on it the most.

As of today, no new families can apply to the program.

Families that are currently in the program, if they wanted to add an additional child, they could not, and families at redetermination or renewal will face higher co-pays.

The reason?

A $30 million shortfall in the state budget, money that advocates say would have kept the program running at full capacity.

Now those left out say they'll have to make impossible choices.

An estimated 70,000 children currently benefit from CCAP, but without new entries, that number could steadily decline, leaving working families, especially mothers, at risk of falling through the cracks.

An increase in a co-payment for some families could mean deciding between do I eat today or do I not eat?

CCAP is administered through the state's Department of Human Services.

It provides direct subsidies to child care providers and supports families earning up to 200% of the federal poverty level, about $62,000 for a family of four.

The impact stretches beyond the home.

In a state already struggling with a worker shortage, advocates warn that these changes could hit businesses just as hard.

There is a workforce shortage.

This is only going to make it harder.

Families are really going to now have to decide between working or staying home.

And small and home child care providers are already feeling the strain.

In Tom's River, Michelle Stroud runs a home-based daycare.

She had no warning.

I had no time to plan, no time to tell the parents, you know, like what's going to go on.

Also, like, if you have a family that--let's say that his mother was pregnant.

She comes after, you know, deliver the baby, what, in December or September or whatever.

They're not going to put that child on his subsidy, so that means that she's going to have to end up pulling these two kids out so that she can stay home with them and not lose my kids.

If copayments are going up, then that's more money coming out of my household budget.

If I can't go to work, then I do not have food.

I can't feed my children.

If I can't feed my children, then I'm neglecting my children.

If I neglect my children, I'm at risk of others or the state getting involved.

And if the state gets involved, then what happens to my kids from there when my only desire is to make sure that they're well taken care of?

Tanisha Moses says the increase in copays could push her to the breaking point.

That ripple effect means that if she's unable to support us because she can't support herself, then we're not going to be able to support ourselves.

And then where does that leave the children, the most vulnerable population?

But I'm just going to have to take it day by day.

I might have to take a step back, you know, and try to figure out what else can I do.

But, you know, that would hurt my heart, you know, but what can I do?

Some legislators spoke out during a town hall about why the freeze would be detrimental to families and have pledged to work with Governor Murphy to revisit the funding gap, saying in a statement, "We are confident that together we can find a solution and support more children and families in every community."

But until then, the freeze remains, and its effects are already being felt across the state.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Reven Santana.

That's going to do it for us tonight, but a reminder, you can download our podcast wherever you listen and watch us anytime by subscribing to the NJ Spotlight News YouTube channel.

Plus, you can always follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky to stay up to date on all the state's big headlines.

I'm Brianna Vanosi.

For the entire team at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

Have a great night.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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