Category Archives: News you should know

The United States Postal Service—that slow, steady, rain-or-shine institution that has carried your birthday cards and your electricity bills and your grandmother’s fruitcake for two centuries—is being turned into an armed courier for the very weapons that are already slaughtering our children in their schoolrooms. For the first time since Calvin Coolidge sat in theContinue reading “Madness in the Mail: Trump’s postal service plans to deliver death to your doorstep”

The scene outside Delaney Hall had all the markings of a moral test. Citizens, residents, neighbors—some from New Jersey, others from well beyond its borders—had gathered to protest a facility they call a concentration camp. The target of their anger was a 1,000‑bed center operated by the private prison company GEO Group on behalf ofContinue reading “Sherrill’s not on our side, as evidenced by State Police deployment”

By David W. Stowe, Michigan State University As July 4, 2026, approaches, Americans will be paying more attention than usual to events of 1776: the year the American Colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. Public historians, including filmmaker Ken Burns, have tried to offer a more inclusive view of the American Revolution, highlighting lesser-knownContinue reading “America’s musical founding father: ‘Liberty songs’ helped fuel the Revolution”

Dr. Adam Hamawy secured a Democratic congressional nomination and will join Rep. Analilia Mejia in Washington in January. Party leaders described the two wins as among the few bright spots for progressive Democrats in a primary season otherwise marked by victories for more established machine candidates. Progressive Democrats won three of four Piscataway Township councilContinue reading “Progressives score few wins primary elections across New Jersey”

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on Tuesday demanded the immediate shutdown of Delaney Hall, a privately run concentration camp for victims of the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown, as the city filed a lawsuit seeking to close the facility over what he called systemic health and safety failures. At the same hour, New Jersey Attorney GeneralContinue reading “Newark Mayor & Attorney General file separate lawsuits to close ICE concentration camp”

In another step limiting media access at the Pentagon, the Defense Department has announced that its press office, which was previously an open room where reporters could stop by the desks of military public affairs officials without escorts, is now classified and off-limits to journalists. Acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez confirmed the move, sayingContinue reading “Pentagon bans journalists from press office, designating it a classified space”

The Trump administration is facing simultaneous crises on multiple fronts, including a retreat from a proposed $1.776 billion draw on the Treasury, the collapse of negotiations with Iran, and a severe hemorrhage of professionals needed to operate the federal government. Iran announced Monday it is cutting off message exchanges with the United States through mediatorsContinue reading “Trump retreats on demand for dollars as Iran deal collapses, chaos deepens”

By Stephanie Armour The Trump administration’s deep cuts to federal health agencies have become a political liability after a deadly outbreak of hantavirus aboard a cruise ship and the spread of an even more fearsome disease, Ebola, in Africa. At least that’s the way many Democrats see it. They have seized on the situation toContinue reading “Amid Ebola, Hantavirus outbreaks, Democrats decry Trump’s health cuts”

Tuesday, June 2, is primary election day in New Jersey, and for those who have had their fill of the same old, the ballot offers a few points of interest. Four Republicans are vying for the long-shot right to unseat Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, while a much larger and more telling drama is unfolding downContinue reading “Today, June 2, is primary election day in New Jersey as 52 seek nods for Congress”

Alex Hydrean, the husband of New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District Democratic frontrunner Rebecca Bennett, draws a six-figure salary from Republican President Donald Trump’s Department of Energy. A longtime Texas Republican who changed her party in 2016, Bennett owns stock in the world’s largest fossil fuel polluters and has invested up to $120,000 in contractors forContinue reading “Rebecca Bennett’s husband is a Senior Manager in Trump’s Energy Department”

The indictment of Raúl Castro landed on Cuban Liberation Day, a date heavy with symbolism for exiles who have waited three decades for justice over the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown. Unlike his hawkish father, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence at the Allenwood minimum-security federal prison in Pennsylvania, when Congressman Rob Menendez, Jr.Continue reading “As Trump sees Cuba confrontation, meek Menendez stands apart from father’s fury”

A federal court ordered the Trump administration to immediately pause all activity related to its $1.776 billion so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” barring the administration from transferring money, processing claims, or distributing payments while the court considers plaintiffs’ challenge to the program. The order comes just one week after a coalition of individuals, organizations, and government accountabilityContinue reading “Court blocks law-breaking Trump administration’s $1.776 billion heist”

New Jersey Gov. Rebecca ‘Mikie’ Sherrill on Saturday blamed out-of-state agitators for violent clashes outside an ICE concentration camp, a day after she deployed state troopers on horseback who launched tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash-bang grenades against demonstrators demanding the facility’s closure. Five of the six people arrested during Friday night’s confrontations outside theContinue reading “Governor blames ‘outsiders’ for Newark clashes after tear gassing protesters”

The same week President Donald Trump huddled with top aides in the Situation Room, unable to announce an end to the war with Iran, the price of gasoline in the United States was still 46% higher, the Strait of Hormuz remained blocked, and a quiet battle equally as destructive as any bomb was playing outContinue reading “Trump’s sabotage of any Iran deal has real-world consequences for American workers”

Six months after Hurricane Melissa churned through the Caribbean with 145-mph winds, New Jersey Gov. Rebecca ‘Mikie’ Sherrill quietly decided to give coastal developers another year to build at sea level. The ocean is not waiting for the public comment period to close. The Democratic governor is planning to delay landmark climate rules that wouldContinue reading “Sherrill, Scutari leading Democratic retreat from fight against climate change”

They rise like mirages on the edge of the Pinelands: windowless industrial cathedrals humming with the ghost traffic of the internet. Data centers. And New Jersey is building them as if the future ran on nothing but air and goodwill. It does not. The truth, arriving late and unwelcome, is that these facilities drink electricityContinue reading “New Jersey must do more to protect residents from AI & crypto data centers”

The Trump administration has again helped itself to an artist’s work without asking. This time the music belongs to Boards of Canada, a reclusive Scottish electronic duo whose new album arrived Friday. The White House social media accounts posted a 15-second video Thursday showing windblown American flags, a Border Patrol boat, what appears to beContinue reading “Scottish electronic duo denounces White House for using their song without permission”

The situation in the Middle East is growing more dangerous by the day, and yet the American people are being served a diet of convenient fictions. We are told that this is a religious war—Shia against Sunni—or a clash between democracy and autocracy, or worse, simply a battle between good and evil. But the reality,Continue reading “A Volatile Triangle: Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia—and the truth most Americans miss”

In New Jersey’s 8th Congressional District, Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. has turned politics—the family business—into the art of audacious grift. If anyone believes there is daylight between the disgraced former senator now sitting in federal prison and the congressman fighting to keep his seat, they have not been watching where the money flows. The appleContinue reading “Forget sins of the father: Menendez Jr. is selling his soul to the same corrupt bidders”

By Annie Persons, University of Virginia If you follow the Trump administration’s social media posts, you might spot its new mascot: a cartoon lump of coal with big eyes and babylike features. “Coalie” sparked a backlash almost as soon as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum debuted it for the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation EnforcementContinue reading “Trump’s new ‘Coalie’ mascot and myth of ‘clean, beautiful coal’ have a long history in advertising”