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      in Elections

      As Heat Wave Bakes New Jersey, Residents Asked to Reduce Water Use

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      The intense and unusually early heat wave that has blanketed much of the Northeast for the past week continued on Sunday to scorch New Jersey, where excessive heat warnings or heat advisories were in effect in most of the state, according to the National Weather Service.Temperatures throughout the region were more than 10 degrees above average on Sunday, according to Joe DeSilva, a meteorologist with the Weather Service. Trenton, the state capital, reached 98 degrees — just two degrees shy of the city’s hottest recorded temperature, last logged in 1952, he said.The worst of the sweltering heat should be over by Sunday evening, Mr. DeSilva said, though temperatures were expected to remain in the 80s in the coming week.Officials in numerous communities urged residents — especially older people, homeless people and those with chronic health conditions — to prevent heat-related illness by staying hydrated, using air-conditioning, limiting strenuous physical activity and wearing loose, light-colored clothing. Pet owners should also monitor their animals for signs of overheating, such as excessive panting, drooling and lethargy, officials said.The state’s Department of Environmental Protection encouraged New Jerseyans to take advantage of the Chill Out NJ tool, an online map of public places where people can find air-conditioning, pools, splash pads, beaches or shady parks.The lengthy heat wave also prompted officials in some places, including Pennsville Township, Moorestown and Vineland in South Jersey, and Ridgewood, Denville and Butler in North Jersey, to announce mandatory or optional water restrictions, asking residents to refrain from washing their cars or watering their lawns. And at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, a National Women’s Soccer League game between Gotham F.C. and the Washington Spirit on Sunday was moved to 6 p.m. from 1:30 p.m. because of the heat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      NJ Transit Disrupted for Many by Disabled Train at Penn Station

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      New Jersey Transit service into and out of the Midtown Manhattan transit hub was suspended and commuters were rerouted to buses and the PATH train. Amtrak reported 90-minute delays.New Jersey Transit service into and out of New York’s Pennsylvania Station was suspended Tuesday morning for about an hour and all Amtrak trains passing through the station were delayed because of overhead wire issues and a disabled commuter train on the tracks, train officials said.Service for New Jersey Transit was restored shortly after 9 a.m., but riders heading to and from Penn Station were still experiencing lengthy delays. Officials had diverted trains bound for Manhattan to Hoboken, N.J., and directed travelers to take the PATH train or buses instead. The station in Hoboken quickly became overcrowded, according to pictures posted on social media, as commuters tried to make their way to work.The disruption ruined the morning commute for thousands of New Jersey residents as the delays rippled out along the various rail lines in the state. Some riders reported being stranded at stations, waiting more than 45 minutes for their trains to arrive.The problems on Tuesday came on the heels of major rush-hour delays at Penn Station earlier this month, caused by an inspection of tracks owned by Amtrak. Service was significantly delayed for more than an hour.Service was also disrupted in May when an overhead wire used for traffic signals fell and struck a cable in Kearny, N.J., that provides electrical power to trains on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Trains were halted on Amtrak and New Jersey Transit in both directions between Penn Station and Newark, and delays stretched to more than four hours.On Tuesday, frustrated commuters used social media to complain about the delays, ask for updates and request refunds.“Without a doubt, delays are frustrating for everyone involved, including us,” Amtrak Northeast wrote in response to one post. “Regarding compensation, your full trip must be completed before we can take this into consideration.” More

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      in US Politics

      Businessman testifies he promised Bob Menendez up to $250,000 in bribes

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      A New Jersey businessman took his star turn on the witness stand on Friday in the bribery case against US senator Bob Menendez, telling a jury he believed he had a $200,000-$250,000 deal in 2018 for the Democrat to pressure the state attorney general’s office to stop investigating his friends and family.Jose Uribe testified in Manhattan federal court in the afternoon, providing key testimony against Menendez and two other businessmen charged in a conspiracy along with Menendez’s wife. Next week, Menendez’s lawyers will get to cross-examine the naturalized US citizen.“Next week we get the truth,” Menendez said just before stepping into a car that carried him away from Manhattan federal court, where he has been on trial for the last month.Uribe, 57, who pleaded guilty to charges in a March cooperation deal, was the star witness for the government in its bid to win a conviction against the senator, who once held the powerful post as chair of the Senate foreign relations committee. He was forced out of the position after he was criminally charged last fall.Menendez, 70, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he accepted gold bars, cash and a luxury car in return for doing favors for the businessmen. Two businessmen and Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, also have pleaded not guilty. Nadine Menendez’s trial has been postponed until at least July after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.Uribe testified that he had been close friends with Wael Hana, who is on trial with Menendez, when Hana told him in early 2018 that New Jersey state criminal investigations swirling around the trucking business of a friend of his and Uribe’s own insurance business could be largely put to rest if he was willing to spend $200,000 to $250,000.Uribe said Hana told him that he would go to Nadine Arslanian (her name before she married the senator), who had begun dating Menendez that year, and then “Nadine would go to Senator Menendez”, although Uribe did not testify about how the couple could resolve multiple investigations.Uribe said he held a 13 July 2018 political fundraiser for Menendez, which the senator attended, raising $50,000. He said he attended an afterparty with Menendez and Arslanian that included cocktails, along with “some laughs, some jokes and some dancing”, but there was no mention of the work he expected Menendez to do on his behalf.View image in fullscreen“It was a crowded and loud place,” Uribe said.He said his confidence that the deal was working faded in the fall when an investigator from the attorney general’s office asked to interview his employee.“I was not happy,” he said.Assistant US attorney Lara Pomerantz showed jurors a series of text messages between Uribe and Hana in which Uribe pressed his friend to get the senator to stop the criminal investigations.“Please be sure that your friend knows about this,” Uribe wrote to Hana in one text.Pomerantz asked whom he was referring to as “your friend”.“Senator Menendez,” Uribe responded. Hana, according to the texts, responded: “I will.”Hana arranged for Uribe to have dinner with Menendez and Arslanian at a restaurant in October 2018, but Uribe testified there was no mention of the deal.“Nothing was discussed there of value, I will say,” Uribe testified. “It was a … pointless meeting.”Uribe said he began communicating directly with Nadine Arslanian in March 2019 and promised that he would buy her a car if she delivered on the deal to get the senator to shut down New Jersey criminal investigations.“She agreed to the terms,” he said.When the prosecutor asked Uribe what he understood the terms of the deal to mean, he said he understood that Nadine Arslanian would contact Menendez and get him to use his “influence and power to do anything possible to stop and kill” the investigations.On Thursday, former New Jersey attorney general Gurbir Grewal testified that Menendez in an early 2019 telephone call and in a September 2019 office meeting tried to talk to him about a criminal investigation. Grewal said he followed his policy and refused to do so, telling Menendez to contact defense lawyers so they could reach out to trial-level prosecutors or the judge.Uribe, of Clifton, New Jersey, pleaded guilty in March, saying during his plea that he gave Nadine Menendez a Mercedes-Benz in return for her husband “using his power and influence as a United States senator to get a favorable outcome and to stop all investigations related to one of my associates”.Uribe was accused of buying the luxury car for Nadine Menendez after her previous car had been destroyed when she struck and killed a man crossing the street. She did not face criminal charges in connection with that crash. More

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      in Elections

      Jose Uribe Expected to Testify in Menendez Trial

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      Jose Uribe is cooperating with the government. Prosecutors say he sought Senator Robert Menendez’s help to stave off fraud investigations into two allies.Until recently, Jose Uribe was an obscure New Jersey businessman who had been caught up in what prosecutors say was a sprawling and lucrative bribery scheme involving Senator Robert Menendez and others.But after Mr. Uribe pleaded guilty in March to trying to bribe Mr. Menendez and agreed to cooperate with the authorities, he vaulted into a more prominent position: star government witness.On Friday, Mr. Uribe is expected to testify against Mr. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, in Federal District Court in Manhattan, prosecutors said, as the senator’s corruption trial ends its fourth week.The senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, are charged with conspiring to accept cash, gold bullion and other bribes collectively worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for Mr. Menendez’s agreement to direct aid to Egypt and to meddle in criminal cases in New Jersey. One of those cases involved Mr. Uribe.Who Are Key Players in the Menendez Case?Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his wife, Nadine Menendez, are accused of taking part in a wide-ranging, international bribery scheme that lasted five years. Take a closer look at central figures related to the case.Prosecutors say Mr. Uribe, a former insurance broker who worked in the trucking industry, sought the senator’s help to stave off criminal investigations the New Jersey attorney general’s office was conducting into two of Mr. Uribe’s associates. In return, an indictment says, Mr. Uribe helped to buy Ms. Menendez, then the senator’s girlfriend, a new Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible worth more than $60,000.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      Prosecutors Use Menendez Couple’s Texts to Depict Them as Collaborators

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      Senator Robert Menendez is accused of bribery and corruption. His lawyers have attempted to shift the blame to his wife, Nadine.In January 2019, Senator Robert Menendez placed a seven-minute call to New Jersey’s attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, in what prosecutors say was an effort to quash an insurance fraud case.A New Jersey businessman, Jose Uribe, had been desperate to make the fraud charges disappear, prosecutors say. He had turned to Nadine Menendez — who married the senator the next year — for help.In the hours and days before the senator’s call, there was a flurry of communication between Ms. Menendez, Mr. Uribe and a second businessman who is charged with the senator and his wife in an elaborate bribery scheme. Ms. Menendez would often contact the senator soon after texting with the men, sometimes using an alternate phone that the couple referred to as her “007” phone.The messages were shared Wednesday with jurors over hours of testimony from an F.B.I. special agent during the fourth week of Mr. Menendez’s bribery trial. The agent was responsible for verifying the accuracy of a chart summarizing more than 1,100 pieces of evidence, including emails, texts and voice mail recordings.Taken together, the messages appeared to be part of the prosecution’s effort to undercut a central element of Mr. Menendez’s defense: that he and his wife lived largely separate lives, and that he was unaware of her interactions with the men now accused of bribing the couple in exchange for political favors from the senator.Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York took pains on Wednesday to instead present the senator and his wife as close collaborators who spoke regularly and were intimately involved in mundane details of each other’s daily lives.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      Rush-Hour Delays Again Hit New Jersey Transit Commuters

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      A track inspection held up travelers for more than an hour, two weeks after a suspension of service stopped all Amtrak trains into New York’s Penn Station.Another round of delays at New York’s Pennsylvania Station on Wednesday night gave commuters flashbacks to the meltdown two weeks ago, when fallen electrical wires in New Jersey forced Amtrak to suspend train service on the entire Northeast Corridor between New York and Washington for most of the night.Wait times this time around were not as severe. Trains leaving Penn Station for New Jersey faced 45-minute delays starting at 5:16 p.m. because of an inspection of tracks owned by Amtrak in Secaucus, N.J., according to an Amtrak spokesman.Large crowds gathered inside the station after 6 p.m., as at least 10 New Jersey Transit trains were unable to depart on time. Only one Amtrak train was delayed by 33 minutes, said Jason Abrams, an Amtrak spokesman. The track inspection was complete by 6:25 p.m., Mr. Abrams said, and service began to return to normal.The delays are an “ongoing issue,” said Antonio Shaw, 33, who arrived at Penn Station at 5:45 p.m. for a train to Rahway, N.J. “It’s frustrating as a commuter,” he said.The Northeast Corridor is the busiest section of passenger rail track in the United States. The section between Newark, N.J., and New York includes some of the nation’s oldest train infrastructure, including rail yards in Kearny, N.J., and a pair of tunnels under the Hudson River, which were built to service the original Pennsylvania Station in New York, which opened in 1910.Parts of the line are failing. In 2014, Amtrak said it would be forced to close at least one of the tunnels by 2034 because of damage caused by age and chemicals left behind by floods from Hurricane Sandy in 2012.At least in part because of that aging infrastructure, commuters who rely the most on train lines using the Northeast Corridor face the most frequent delays. New Jersey Transit lines that don’t use the corridor, including the Main-Bergen and Pascack Valley Lines, arrive at their destinations on time more than 95 percent of the time, according to the agency.The New Jersey Transit line from New York to Trenton, N.J., follows the Northeast Corridor the entire way. It has the agency’s second-worst performance, with 86.6 percent of its trains arriving on time.At Penn Station on Wednesday evening, commuters said they were growing tired of trains running late.“It has been insane the past six weeks,” said Annika McTamaney, 23, a New Jersey resident who canceled a date on Wednesday because of the delays.Aimee Ortiz More

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      in Elections

      New Jersey Primary Election Results 2024

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      Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press.Produced by Michael Andre, Camille Baker, Neil Berg, Michael Beswetherick, Matthew Bloch, Irineo Cabreros, Nate Cohn, Alastair Coote, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Leo Dominguez, Andrew Fischer, Martín González Gómez, Will Houp, Junghye Kim, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Jasmine C. Lee, Alex Lemonides, Ilana Marcus, Alicia Parlapiano, Elena Shao, Charlie Smart, Jonah Smith, Urvashi Uberoy, Isaac White and Christine Zhang. Additional reporting by Felice Belman, Kellen Browning and Patrick Hays; production by Amanda Cordero and Jessica White.
      Editing by Wilson Andrews, Lindsey Rogers Cook, William P. Davis, Amy Hughes, Ben Koski and Allison McCartney. Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press. More

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      in Elections

      Andy Kim Wins New Jersey Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate

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      The victory makes Mr. Kim a favorite to replace Mr. Menendez’s father, Senator Robert Menendez, who is on trial, charged with corruption — a detail that became central to his son’s re-election race.Representative Andy Kim, a lawmaker who has turned New Jersey politics on its head since entering the race to unseat Senator Robert Menendez, won the Democratic nomination for Senate on Tuesday after a campaign marked by a watershed ballot-access ruling.The victory makes Mr. Kim, 41, a favorite to become New Jersey’s next senator. He would be the first Korean American to be elected to the U.S. Senate.“I’m humbled by the results,” Mr. Kim said at Terhune Orchards in Princeton, where his supporters had gathered to celebrate. “This has been a very challenging and difficult race, a very dramatic one at that, and one that frankly has changed New Jersey politics forever.”The results, announced by The Associated Press minutes after polls closed, capped a tumultuous campaign that began a day after Senator Menendez, a Democrat, was accused in September of being at the center of a sprawling international bribery scheme.The senator’s criminal case thrust his son, Representative Rob Menendez, 38, into a suddenly competitive race for re-election to a second term. But the younger Menendez managed to hold on, winning a Democratic primary over Ravi Bhalla, the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., by a decisive margin.“This is about showing that you’re resilient in the face of challenges,” an exuberant Mr. Menendez told supporters crowded into a beer hall in Jersey City, N.J.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More