Author: ECCYC

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Matriarch, maven … murderer?

To celebrate Mother’s Day, here’s a look at New Jersey mothers from film and TV — emphasis on fiction — who make us laugh, smile, cringe and cry.

Here’s looking at you, Livia Soprano. And you, Karate Kid mom Lucille LaRusso. And you, Mrs. Voorhees (who advocated more for her son than the “Friday the 13th” mom?!?).

They may scare or horrify, take up weapons or sling emotional insults, but they might also save the day.

They’ll even haunt from beyond the grave … because a mother’s work is never done.

Livia Soprano

This Mother’s Day and every day, never forget that “It’s all a big nothing,” courtesy of the mother of all mothers: Tony Soprano’s mom.

Livia was a dispenser of sage wisdom and depressive episodes. (Or, as her grandson A.J. put it, “you’re old and have wisdom and stuff.”)

The “Sopranos” character, played by Nancy Marchand before her death in 2000, was at the heart of the series, starring Park Ridge’s James Gandolfini and inspired by series creator David Chase’s relationship with his own mother.

Sure, Livia conspired with Uncle Junior and had Tony convinced they were going to kill him — but the bonds of family are apparently stronger than hit jobs. Laila Robins and Laurie J. Williams played young Livia in flashback episodes, and Vera Farmiga played her in the 2021 prequel film, “The Many Saints of Newark,” which tracked the making of young Tony (Michael Gandolfini) before he became a North Jersey mob boss.

So, “what makes you think you’re so special?”

Maysa Hassan in ‘Ramy’

Maysa, Ramy’s mom in the Hulu series “Ramy,” just wants her son to settle down with a nice girl and find stable employment.

“I told you if you finished the pre-med classes, you would be running the brain surgery at Hackensnack hospital,” she tells him in the first season of the dramedy, starring Rutherford’s Ramy Youssef, who won an Emmy for the role.

Maysa, played by Hiam Abbass (”Succession”), has some of the funniest and most cringeworthy lines in the show about Ramy and his Egyptian American family, and she’s much more than just a concerned/nagging mom.

With Maysa’s two kids now grown, she has more time alone at home, but her husband Farouk (Amr Waked) vetoes her suggestion that she join an exercise class. So she takes on a job driving for a ride-share service, with interesting — and sometimes disastrous — results.

This North Jersey mom, a proud immigrant who is both worldly and frequently lonely, multilingual and misunderstood and unappreciated, loves her family and is full of heart. She also gets in trouble for her lack of a filter, extending unsolicited criticism not just to her family, but complete strangers. See Maysa-centric episodes “Ne Me Quitte Pas” (season one) and “They” (season two) for a closer look at Ramy’s mother.

Sometimes Jersey moms just have to tell it like it is.

Prymaat in ‘Coneheads’

Maybe she would rather be on Remulak, her home planet, but Prymaat is determined to make New Jersey a suitable home for her daughter in the 1993 movie “Coneheads.”

And when need be, she serves as the family’s voice of reason.

The character, played by Jane Curtin, was born in the Coneheads “Saturday Night Live” sketches with Dan Aykroyd, who plays Prymaat’s husband Beldar. After the couple gets stranded on Earth, they’re forced to make a life among the “bluntskulls” while they wait for a return trip (their cover story is they are from France). That lands them in suburban Paramus, where they build a happy home for their daughter, Connie (Michelle Burke).

Being a parental unit is never easy, even when achieving stability and contentment.

But when Beldar goes off the rails to discipline a teen Connie — father doesn’t always know best, cone or not! — Prymaat is there with a rational perspective. She is also a whiz in the kitchen, cooking up all the favorites, like flattened chicken embryos, seasoned patties of ground animal flesh and seared strips of swine flesh.

Mrs. Ferd Junko, Melvin’s mother in ‘The Toxic Avenger’

“Melvin, dear, are you all right? Is anything the matter?”

Mrs. Ferd Junko, mother of Tromaville gym janitor Melvin Junko (Mark Torgl), might not have any idea what is happening to her son in the bathroom, but even if she did, she can’t help him once his skin has been incinerated after a dip in toxic waste. A bandage won’t fix this one. His flesh is quaking. His hair is falling out in clumps. Even his skull is changing shape.

“Are you OK?” she asks again. “Melvin, dear, are you all right?”

No, Mom, he’s not OK. He is becoming the Toxic Avenger.

Sarabel Levinson played Melvin’s mom in the 1984 classic B-movie, which starts with the transformation of “98 pounds of solid nerd” to a musclebound superhero born of green sludge, one destined to fight crime in New Jersey.

Still standing outside the door, hearing him roaring as he undergoes the grim metamorphosis to become Toxie, she reaches the wrong conclusion about her “little Melvin.”

“He must’ve finally reached puberty!” she says, clasping her hands with a smile. Later, Melvin’s mother kicks him out when he tries to come back home in his new form, so he goes to live in a junkyard. Rent is not cheap.

Rene Petty in ‘New Jersey Drive’

Some moms just know. Moms like Rene Petty do, anyway.

Jason Petty (Shar-Ron Corley) is a Newark teen joyriding with his friends in stolen cars in the 1995 film “New Jersey Drive.”

“We were just trying to make our mark in the world, find something we can call our own,” he says in the Spike Lee-produced film, directed by Nick Gomez.

Daily life for Jason and his friends means having to dodge racist cops who threaten and beat them.

But Rene Petty, played by Gwen McGee, has no tolerance for his behavior or what he does with his friends.

She doesn’t hesitate to slap him in front of those friends, including Midget (Gabriel Casseus), whose car theft activities soon turn into carjacking.

Rene’s tough love is rooted in her keen awareness of the dangers facing her son from police, who won’t hesitate to shoot.

“I don’t want to get that call, OK?” she tells Jason, referring to someone else in the neighborhood who was just shot by officers.

Jason denies that he was there at the time. But the truth is that his mother was right to worry.

Mrs. Voorhees in ‘Friday the 13th’

Mrs. Voorhees wasn’t going to let it happen again.

She lost her son Jason to a drowning at New Jersey’s Camp Crystal Lake after two counselors neglected their jobs.

Now she’s out for revenge.

“Jason should’ve been watched every minute,” Mrs. Voorhees says in a key scene. “He wasn’t a very good swimmer.”

Pamela Voorhees, played by Betsy Palmer in the 1980 horror classic, “Friday the 13th,” is fixated on her child, decades after his (apparent) death.

Voorhees can’t get the vision of Jason flailing in the water, crying out for help, out of her mind. She even hears him call to her.

She won’t let the camp (the real-life Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco in Hardwick) reopen. She just can’t, knowing what happened.

Knife in hand, she’d rather bump off each counselor, one by one, blaming them for her son’s death back in the ’50s.

“Oh, my sweet, innocent, Jason,” she says in her big reveal as the killer. “My only child.”

Lucille LaRusso in ‘The Karate Kid’ movies and ‘Cobra Kai’

Talk about a Jersey mother with staying power.

Lucille LaRusso, Daniel LaRusso’s mother in “The Karate Kid,” played by Randee Heller, was there for the first run of the movie franchise. And decades later, she is there again in the revival series “Cobra Kai.”

Lucille and Daniel, played by Ralph Macchio, move to Reseda, Los Angeles from Newark in the 1984 hit movie when she gets a job offer on the West Coast.

But Lucille is a mom who gets it.

After Daniel comes home battered by bullies, fed up and longing for home, his mother doesn’t dismiss his feelings. She listens.

The addled teen maintains that he needs some quality karate lessons to defend himself from the locals.

“Fighting doesn’t solve anything,” Lucille says.

“Oh, well neither does palm trees, Ma,” he says, taking a shot at his mother’s decision to pursue a change of scenery.

“That’s not fair,” she replies.

“Yeah, well, like it was fair coming out here without asking me how I felt about it, right?” he says. “That was really fair.”

Instead of launching into some “What I say goes because I’m the parent” speech, Lucille carefully considers her son’s comment.

“You’re right,” she says. “I should’ve asked.”

Lucille pledges to help figure out a way forward with her son, who wants nothing more than to forget L.A. and go home.

Thankfully, Mr. Miyagi happens to be listening, and the rest is “Karate Kid” history.

Now, Macchio and Heller are back in “Cobra Kai,” the series that revived the franchise, as Daniel, a father and karate teacher, and Lucille, a grandmother. The show, created by Jersey’s own Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald, is going strong on Netflix four seasons on, with a fifth on the way.

Carmela Soprano in ‘The Sopranos’

Sure, Livia is the show’s original matriarch.

But Carmela Soprano holds down the fort when things fall apart.

Carmela, played by the Emmy-winning Edie Falco in the HBO series, is much more than Tony Soprano’s long-suffering wife and mother to A.J. and Meadow. She’s often at the very heart of “The Sopranos,” key to the family life Tony tries to keep separate from the grisly tasks of his job in The Family.

Ensconced in her suburban palace, she is largely isolated from the many unsavory parts of Tony’s position. But she sometimes struggles with the source of Tony’s income. In this, she serves as something of the conscience of the show, though she largely accepts her role.

Carmela is a firm mom with a soft spot for her kids. She visits Meadow at college to bring her ziti, sausage and clean laundry (and have lunch with the dean, who is expecting a financial contribution), all while getting slammed by her daughter for “whatever bullsh-t accommodational pretense you got worked out with Daddy.”

Like any parent, she had highs and lows, but it’s her marriage to Tony that is a continual menace, especially given his many extramarital activities. Carmela brings us to the height of her joy and the depths of her despair and anger and everywhere in between. But after years of looking the other way — and routinely accepting gifts from Tony, his way of trying to “buy” her silence — she draws a line.

At one point, she calls him out and sends him packing.

“I might actually have gone on with your cheating and your bullsh-t if your attitude around here had been even the least bit loving, cooperative, interested,” she tells Tony in one episode.

Divorce is on the table, but it doesn’t happen. Carmela continues to devotedly care for her husband in sickness and health, including his brush with death.

Video contains profanity

Marj Wiener in ‘Welcome to the Dollhouse’

Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo) must endure all the indignities of Benjamin Franklin Junior High only to come home and face her parents, who don’t seem to care all that much for her, either.

The 11-year-old, derided as “Weiner-dog” at school, can’t seem to catch a break, not from her bullies, not from her teacher, and certainly not from her mother in “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” the 1995 dark comedy from Newark native Todd Solondz, set in the Jersey suburbs.

Angela Pietropinto plays Marj Wiener, Dawn’s mother. She always favors her younger daughter, Missy (Daria Kalinina), who prances around in a tutu and can seemingly do no wrong. But Dawn, the middle child, can never do right. When she tries to stand up for herself at school in the face of nonstop bullying, she mistakenly hits a teacher in the eye with a spitball.

“I was fighting back,” she explains in a meeting with her parents and the school principal.

“Whoever told you to fight back?!?” Marj blares.

Mrs. Wiener even commissions her other children to demolish Dawn’s beloved backyard clubhouse.

Mrs. Baskin in ‘Big’

Josh Baskin is 12 when his wish to be “big” transforms him into an actual adult in the form of Tom Hanks.

All hell breaks loose when Josh (David Moscow), in this bigger body, attempts to return home in “Big,” the 1988 hit comedy set in Cliffside Park.

His mother, played by Mercedes Ruehl, abandons her vacuum and frantically backs away. Josh tries to explain the impossible, that a Zoltar machine at a carnival granted his wish. He flashes his boy’s underwear as proof.

“Bastard, what did you do to my son?!?” she says, threatening Hanks with a knife.

Her confusion and panic is more than understandable, and she admirably goes to bat for Josh, who will spend quite a while in his new adult body.

“Where is my child?” she rages, chasing him with the blade. “Where is my son???”

Sherry in ‘Sherrybaby’

New Jersey mother Sherry Swanson is in recovery from heroin addiction and trying to get close to her young daughter after her release from prison in “Sherrybaby” (2006), written and directed by Mountainside’s Laurie Collyer.

Sherry, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal in a Golden Globe-nominated performance filmed in Essex County, is dismayed to find her daughter now calls her “Sherry.”

The stress of starting over and trying to overcome people’s low expectations puts her at risk of relapse.

Cassidy in ‘The Wrestler’

Marisa Tomei plays a stripper in “The Wrestler” (2008) opposite Mickey Rourke’s aging professional wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson.

Tomei, in her Oscar-nominated role as Cassidy, is a devoted mother to her 9-year-old son.

Cassidy, aka Pam, becomes something of a love interest for Randy, a customer at the club, but also serves as a motherlike figure to the broken fighter from Elizabeth.

She both encourages him to reunite with his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood) and discourages him from returning to the ring because of his heart condition.

Ultimately, though, Cassidy is always going to put her son first.

Rosalyn in ‘American Hustle’

Rosalyn Rosenfeld, Jennifer Lawrence’s character in “American Hustle,” isn’t winning any parent of the year awards when she defies her husband’s advice for a new kitchen implement.

“Don’t put metal in the science oven!” she says in the 2013 film inspired by the Abscam FBI sting. In Lawrence’s Oscar-nominated performance, she’s mocking her husband, Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), who recently introduced a microwave to their home with the important warning.

But Irving isn’t there to stop her. She shoves a foil-covered aluminum tray in the microwave, which promptly becomes a ball of flames.

“Another fire!” cries her young son, Danny.

“No, Danny, not that one,” Rosalyn says. “That one’s empty, we gotta use the big one!”

Somehow she turns this incident around and uses it to insult her husband, saying she heard that microwaves can sap the nutrients from food.

“It’s empty, just like your deals,” she tells him. “Empty, empty!”

Olivia in ‘The Station Agent’

Patricia Clarkson plays Olivia Harris, a mother grieving her young son, in “The Station Agent,” a film set in Newfoundland, New Jersey.

Mendham’s Peter Dinklage stars as Fin, a Hoboken railroad enthusiast who inherits the Newfoundland train depot in the 2003 indie film, written and directed by New Providence’s Tom McCarthy. He wants to be alone, but Olivia finds him by nearly running him over with her car.

Olivia’s marriage to her husband, David, has collapsed under the weight of her grief and depression, but she forms a bond with Fin and several local friends, including food truck vendor Joe, played by Union City’s Bobby Cannavale. They all seem to be in transition, starting or ending various parts of their lives. As Olivia mourns her son, Emily, a local librarian who Fin meets, is set to become a new mother.

Video contains profanity

Wanda in ‘WandaVision’

Does being a mother count when your children are the products of your own brain?

Marvel superhero Wanda Maximoff thinks so, enough to dream up a whole domestic life in fictional Westview, New Jersey in the 2021 Disney Plus series “WandaVision.”

Wanda, aka Scarlet Witch, played by Elizabeth Olsen, is joined by her love and fellow Avenger Vision, played by Paul Bettany. Even though he died in real life, they construct a new story with their “children” in Wanda’s idealized, decade-hopping Westview, which is contained in a huge bubble that investigators are trying to crack in the real world.

This mother has the whole world on her shoulders, literally, since her family’s fate is directly driven by her wants and desires, whether that means a black-and-white ’50s sitcom or ’90s suburbia.

However, control has its limits. There is bound to be a disturbance in her utopian vision, which frays at the edges … and everywhere else.

Portia in ‘Admission’

Tina Fey is Portia Nathan, a Princeton University admissions officer, in the 2013 rom-com “Admission.”

The film co-stars Passaic’s Paul Rudd as John Pressman, a teacher who brings Jeremiah, a child prodigy, to her attention. He wants to go to Princeton, and suddenly his case becomes all the more compelling when John tells Portia that the student is supposedly her biological son. Portia put her child up for adoption in college.

Now her job is at risk when she bends the rules to consider Jeremiah and his subpar transcript for admission.

Lillian Gilbreth in ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’

Before there was Gabrielle Union and Zach Braff, before there was Bonnie Hunt and Steve Martin, there was Myrna Loy and Clifton Webb.

Loy and Webb, stars of the first screen adaptation of “Cheaper by the Dozen” (1950), played Montclair’s Lillian Moller Gilbreth and Frank Bunker Gilbreth, parents of a brood of 12.

Loy is Lillian, a psychologist whose expertise compliments her husband’s skills as an efficiency expert keeping the family on schedule. In the film, she recalls the beginnings of their large family.

“You set the actual target, dear,” Lillian tells Frank after having a baby son. “Six boys and six girls. I believe you even made a memorandum of it.”

The 1950 comedy film is a work of fiction but uses the names and backstory from a real-life Jersey family, since it is based on the semi-autobiographical 1948 book “Cheaper by the Dozen” by two of Lillian and Frank’s children, Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription.

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup on Twitter.

The Atlantic City Public Schools system has a serious problem on their hands and that they must find a way to get it under control without delay.

We urge New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and the state of New Jersey to intervene immediately.

A shocking video has been sent to us from a parent of a student who attends the Atlantic City public schools system.

I am sending the video directly to Governor Murphy so that he is immediately apprised of this deeply troubling situation. He would want to know. He must know that this is presently going on.

The video features two children fighting. They are wearing boxing gloves. That appears to be the only “care” taken during this serious incident that took place off of school grounds … but, reportedly involves an Atlantic City public schools staff member, who is serving as the “referee of this unsanctioned bout.

We simply can’t publish the video (which is about 35 seconds in length), as it involves underage children. However, we have been advised that the video has been posted on social media.

What we can tell you is that it is deeply disturbing at so many levels.

The two students are participating in a violent boxing match … resembling the famous Brad Pitt movie “Fight Club.”

The two children are fighting on grass in a residential neighborhood in Atlantic City.

The two children are surrounded by many other students, who appear to form a makeshift circle, enclosing the two minor children combatants.

I took still photos during my watching of the video (in order to observe details) and you can readily see 10 or more spectators (of student age) all filming the fight from their smartphones.

It is hard to process that an adult would willingly participate in something like this.

Our multiple Atlantic City sources have advised that the two students allegedly had a problem with one another in school.

There are still details which must be learned, but, we have been told that this organized, off-school premises fight was established with advanced planning efforts … in an attempt to resolve the matter outside of school.

On the video, one of the spectators is yelling for the two children to hit one another, while repeatedly using the “N Word.”

This is not just a case of ‘kids will be kids,’ as an adult male … who we have been advised is an Atlantic City Public School’s staff member is directly participating and officiating this level of violence.

Atlantic City Superintendent of Public Schools, La’Quetta Small must regain control of the schools that she is responsible to lead.

We have been sent multiple other fight videos, from physical altercations that are happening on a regular basis directly inside the schools.

Again, with many students gathering around to witness and egg-on these pop-up fights.

We have been apprised that one of the parents (of the two fighters) will be asking this Monday, May 9, 2022 for the alleged staff member appearing on the ‘Fight Club’ style video to be terminated from his public employment for his alleged direct involvement.

In the form of this open letter … Governor Murphy, Atlantic City Schools state monitor and the Commissioner of Education, please intervene as soon as possible, before something even worse takes place.

SOURCES: Atlantic City Public Schools parent & video of an incident involving two children.

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Our Revolution New Jersey Endorses Karol Ruiz and

Sandra Wittner for Dover Board of Aldermen

DOVER – On Friday, May 6th, Our Revolution New Jersey, the state affiliate of the largest grassroots funded progressive organization in the country, Our Revolution, is endorsing Karol Ruiz and Sandra Wittner for Dover Board of Aldermen. 

Both Karol and Sandra are proud members of Our Revolution who are running a progressive campaign focused on affordable housing and sustainable redevelopment that respects the local river.

Karol Ruiz is a Dover homerenter, community organizer, and movement lawyer running to serve the Dover community as a Third Ward Alderwoman. For over 20 years, Karol has fought for immigrant justice, criminal justice reform, and the right to healthcare, including the right to access an abortion.

Sandra Wittner currently serves as First Ward Alderwoman in Dover. She is a daughter of Colombian immigrants, a mother of two young children, and a frontline healthcare worker. Sandra has contributed to the advocacy efforts for universal pre-k, a federal $15 minimum wage, and Medicare for All.

“Karol and Sandra are progressive champions. They will continue to partner with Dover’s working class community to advocate for environmental preservation and reparation with responsive and transparent governance in both English and Spanish. They are committed to advance all Our Revolution issues at the local level, while contributing to Our Revolution efforts at the state and national level, particularly the push to cancel student debt and pass the Medicare for All and the Green New Deal” said Our Revolution’s national organizing coordinator Anna-Marta Visky.

Our Revolution New Jersey will be recruiting volunteers and mobilizing members to get out the vote.

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A Lacey Township man is heading to prison for running a drug facility out of a home in Forked River where he was dealing a plethora of dangerous drugs including marijuana and cocaine.

For running a Controlled Dangerous Substance Production Facility out of a residence in Forked River, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer announced Friday that 22-year old Andrew Bradley has been sentenced to ten years in New Jersey State Prison.

Bradley previously entered into a guilty plea of Maintaining a Controlled Dangerous Substance Production Facility on February 11, 2021.

His nefarious activity carried on for three years, Lacey Police Detectives learned through their investigation, and between 2017 and 2020 Bradley was dealing cocaine and marijuana out of the home.

Bradley was pulled over by Lacey Police Detectives on October 1, 2021 and was detained.

When Lacey Police Detectives then executed court authorized search warrants along with the Stafford Police K-9 Unit on Bradley’s vehicle and residence in Forked River.

They then found undisclosed amounts of cocaine, psilocybin mushrooms, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), dimethyltryptamine (DMT), marijuana including tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), drug paraphernalia, and equipment and supplies indicative of manufacturing and distributing cocaine — just from his residence.

Bradley was arrested and then brought to the Ocean County Jail, but was then released due to the guidance of New Jersey’s Bail Reform Law.

Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer said that Ocean County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Kristin Pressman, Ocean County Senior Assistant Prosecutor Ashley Angelo, and Ocean County Senior Assistant Prosecutor Meghan O’Neill handled the case on behalf of the State.

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While the Native Plant Society of New Jersey (NPSNJ) has been around since the mid 1980s, the Hudson County Chapter of the organization was recently founded last summer by Co-Leaders Kim Correro, Lorraine Freeney and Dawn Giambalvo.

Since then, the organization has been active in the Hudson communities, educating and providing resources to promote the planting of native plants in the area. The Hudson Reporter recently caught up with Correro about the local chapter of NPSNJ.

“It happened during the pandemic in that period when we were all quarantined in the house,” Correro said. “We only had our backyards and our parks. So what we would do is meet up and walk into the park and look at the birds. We would look at the plants.”  

Soon, that interest turned into action. Correro, Freeney, and Giambalvo reached out to create the local chapter of the NPSNJ.

“One day, we came across the Native Plant Society of New Jersey and decided to call them up,” she said. “There was no Hudson County Chapter. They had Essex, Bergen, Passaic and Cape May chapters, but there was nothing in our area. We just thought we needed to have an organization like that here. So we asked if we could start the chapter, they were extremely welcoming, and it’s taken off from there.”

From pastime, to passion

Following that, Correro and the other founders have grown passionate about native plants in Hudson County.

“I can’t say enough great things about the Native Plant Society,” she said. “Our mission is to educate people on the importance of native plants. It’s such a great opportunity to heal the planet, one park at a time, one plant at a time.”

And the Hudson County chapter of the NPSNJ has definitely been active within its first year of inception.

“We hit the ground running and we’re really excited about it,” she said. “We have our own gardens that we work on. We’ve been planting all the time.”

The local chapter’s main goal is to educate and provide access to the native plants to communities.

“It’s really important to us, as a local chapter, to find ways to bring plants to the people here and make them accessible to plant in the parks and the community green spaces where people gather,” she said.

Part of those efforts include an inaugural native plant sale at the Secaucus Green Festival on May 7 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Following that, the group will hold a special Mother’s Day planting on May 8 at Lincoln Park West from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and they will partner with the Bayonne Nature Club for a nature walk in Rutkowski Park on May 9 at 6:30 p.m..

Participating in #HudsonGives 

These events will be followed the group’s participation in #HudsonGives, a 24-hour online fundraiser meant to benefit nonprofits. For more information, go online to: hudsongives.org/organizations/native-plant-society-of-new-jersey-hudson-county-chapter.

The funds raised during this event will go toward planting native plants in up to ten parks and community gardens in schools in Hudson County including: Lincoln Park West in Jersey City; Rutkowski Park in Bayonne; Triangle Park in Jersey City; Meadlowlands Park in Secaucus as part of a Rutgers Environmental Steward project; Dickinson High School in Jersey City; Canco Park in Jersey City; P.S. 5 in Jersey City; 4H Community Learning Garden (Girl Scout Troop 12026 native pollinator garden); The Ethical Community Charter School; West Slope Community Garden; and Resilience Adventures in Hoboken.

“We have about ten different parks and community gardens in schools that we are going to be raising money for that day to be able to purchase plants and native shrubs for their garden projects,” she said. “Our hope through this fundraiser is to raise $5,000. If we can raise that, we will be putting plants into maybe all of these parks.”

Native plants facilitate native wildlife in the area. As the already-urban Hudson County further redevelops, native plants are key to maintaining local ecosystems, Correro said.

“With urbanization and development, especially in the cities, we are losing our birds,” she said. “They’re not migrating through as much as they used to do because we’re putting up so much development. But with more parks and more people becoming educated about native plants, these parks are doing what they can to restore important habitats. It’s really critical for our birds and pollinators.”

‘Saving the planet, one park at a time, one plant at a time’

Additionally, planting native plants can positively impact the environment at a time when climate change is the biggest issue facing the planet.

“Native plants are good for the environment, air quality, and pollution,” she said. “When we have big rainstorms and flooding, native plants should help soak up some of that rainwater and pollution that will end up in our local streams and ponds. So it’s important that we educate our municipalities.”

Correro credited working with the town of Secaucus as being a leader when it comes to their support of planting native plants. She also credited other towns such as Jersey City and Bayonne for looking to do the same, highlighting the growing importance of promoting and preserving native plants and native wildlife.

“I don’t know what we would have done if we were not able to go into the parks during that time,” she said. “We’ve always been gardeners but this period was very educational in learning how the ecosystem works and understanding how the biology, how the biodiversity works, and how the birds and the pollinators need to have these plants. If you plant it, they will come.’

The Hudson County Chapter of the NPSNJ will hold another native plant sale in June, followed by another in the fall. For more information, email Hudson@npsnj.org or following them on Instagram at @npsnjhudsoncounty.

For updates on this and other stories, check www.hudsonreporter.com and follow us on Twitter @hudson_reporter. Daniel Israel can be reached at disrael@hudsonreporter.com. 

MORRISTOWN — Two young men have been arrested after from Tuesday’s reported sex assault and attempted robbery along a Morris County trail.

Morris County Prosecutor Robert Carroll announced that 18-year-old Lizandro Osorio-Mejia has been charged with two counts each of aggravated sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual contact —while a 17-year-old male has been charged with robbery and theft.

A woman reported being attacked in Morristown on the Traction Line Recreation Trail on Tuesday afternoon.

Both men — strangers to the victim, police said — were detained on Thursday, hours after police shared surveillance images with the public, asking for potential tips.

“Thank you to all our law enforcement partners at the state, county and local levels, without whom such a through and swift investigation and arrests would not have been possible,” Carroll said.

“I also thank the public and our local/regional media for their vigilance and helping to get the word out. It is this due diligence and communication that enables law enforcement to most effectively protect the public,” he continued.

Erin Vogt is a reporter and anchor for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach her at erin.vogt@townsquaremedia.com

Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.

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Food Security Champion Speaker Coughlin Commends Biden, Booker for Renewed National Focus on Combatting Hunger Crisis

(TRENTON) – This week the White House announced it will host the first Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health in over 50 years. In response, long-time New Jersey food security champion Assembly Speaker Craig J. Coughlin (D-Middlesex) issued the following statement:

“No one should have to feel the pang of hunger or have the first and biggest challenge on any given day be how to feed your family. Yet, more than 38 million Americans – including almost a million New Jerseyans – face that reality. I commend President Biden for bringing this issue to the fore nationally and thank Senator Booker, whose congressional leadership has motivated renewed focus. It is my hope New Jersey’s policy approach can be a model for others.

“Throughout my speakership, working with several partners, I have prioritized the fight against hunger and as a result we have seen 17 bills signed into law. Among them, a measure creating the nation’s first executive-level position dedicated to coordinating food security initiatives, a grant program to boost campus resources and support for food insecure college students, a program to eliminate food deserts, streamlined access to SNAP, expanded eligibility for free school meals.

“Dedicated in this fight and knowing the grave economic impact of the pandemic, we also nearly tripled our financial support for food distribution centers over the course of our last five state budgets. With more bills making their way through the Legislature, New Jersey is on course to feed every child, who needs it, breakfast and lunch at school.

“The White House conference on hunger, nutrition and health marks an important step forward. Far too many are still left dangerously vulnerable by hunger and poor nutrition, so the need to convene leaders and stakeholders across agriculture, health, education, and more to address one of the most fundamental challenges facing our communities has never been greater.

“Holistic health and success begin with being well nourished.”

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New Jersey on Friday reported eight COVID-19 deaths and 3,387 new confirmed positive tests as the FDA puts a stop to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in fear of possible blood clots.

U.S. regulators on Thursday strictly limited who can receive Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine due to a rare but serious risk of blood clots.

FDA officials said in a statement that they decided to restrict J&J’s vaccine after taking another look at data on the risk of life-threatening blood clots within two weeks of vaccination.

The state’s seven-day average for confirmed cases increased to 2,480 on Friday, up 20% from a week ago, and up 133% from a month ago. That is the ninth day in a row the seven-day average has reached over 2000.

Hospitalizations, which typically lag about two weeks behind case trends, have also been on the rise in the last week.

There were 590 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases across 69 of the state’s 71 hospitals as of Thursday night. Two hospitals did not report data.

Hospitalizations still remain significantly lower than when they peaked at 6,089 on Jan. 10 during the omicron wave.

There were at least 131 people discharged in that same 24-hour period ending Thursday night, according to state data. Of those hospitalized, 72 were in intensive care and 30 were on ventilators (two fewer than the night before).

New Jersey’s statewide transmission rate was 1.2 on Thursday. When the transmission rate is over 1, that means each new case is leading to at least one additional case and the outbreak is expanding.

The positivity rate for tests conducted on Saturday, the most recent day with available data, was 13.41%.

The state on Friday also reported 1,018 probable cases from rapid antigen testing at medical sites.

After months of all of New Jersey’s 21 counties being listed as having “low” transmission rates, eight counties are now at “medium,” according to the updated guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Based on community levels determined April 28, Atlantic, Bergen, Cape May, Essex, Somerset, Middlesex, Mercer and Morris counties now have “medium” transmission levels Healthy people in the low and medium areas are no longer recommended to wear masks.

The BA.2 strain of COVID-19 has been spreading in New Jersey for weeks, though at much lower rates than the omicron surge in December and January. Officials have said the omicron “stealth” subvariant appears to spread more easily but generally does not cause more severe illness.

For the week ending April 16, BA.2 accounted for 97.2% of the positive tests sampled (up from 88.9% the previous week), while the omicron variant accounted for 2% of positive tests sampled.

TOTAL NUMBERS

New Jersey has reported 1,964,833 total confirmed COVID-19 cases out of more than 17.6 million PCR tests conducted in the more than two years since the state reported its first known case March 4, 2020.

The Garden State has also recorded 316,822 positive antigen or rapid tests, which are considered probable cases. And there are numerous cases that have likely never been counted, including at-home positive tests that are not included in the state’s numbers.

The state of 9.2 million residents has reported 33,482 COVID-19 deaths in that time — 30,436 confirmed fatalities and 3,046 probable.

New Jersey has the eighth-most coronavirus deaths per capita in the U.S. — behind Mississippi, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia and Arkansas — as of the latest data reported Monday. Last summer, the state still had the most deaths per capita in the country.

The latest numbers follow a major study that reveals even a mild case of COVID-19 can significantly affect the brain. Long COVID — the term commonly used to describe symptoms stemming from the virus long after a person no longer tests positive — has been found to affect between 10% and 30% of those who contract the infection, regardless of whether they have a mild or serious case.

VACCINATION NUMBERS

More than 6.86 million of the 8.46 million eligible people who live, work or study in New Jersey have received the initial course of vaccinations and more than 7.78 million have received a first dose since vaccinations began here on Dec. 15, 2020.

More than 3.5 million people in the state eligible for boosters have received one.

SCHOOL AND LONGTERM CARE NUMBERS

For the week ending April 24, with about 58% of schools reporting data, another 3,212 COVID-19 cases were reported among staff (983) and students (2,229) across New Jersey’s schools.

Since the start of the academic year, there have been 109,723 students and 31,356 school staff members who have contracted COVID-19 in New Jersey, though the state has never had more than two-thirds of the school districts reporting data in any week.

The state provides total student and staff cases separately from those deemed to be in-school transmission, which is narrowly defined as three or more cases linked through contact tracing.

New Jersey has reported 653 total in-school outbreaks, including 4,538 cases among students and staff. That includes 20 new outbreaks from data reported last week.

At least 9,041 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to state data.

There were active outbreaks at 226 facilities, resulting in 2,559 current cases among residents and 2,511 cases among staff, as of the latest data.

GLOBAL NUMBERS

As of Friday, there have been more than 516 million COVID-19 cases reported across the globe, according to Johns Hopkins University, with more than 6.2 million people having died due to the virus.

The U.S. has reported the most cases (more than 81 million) and deaths (at least 996,986) of any nation.

There have been more than 11 billion vaccine doses administered globally.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Deion Johnson may be reached at djohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DeionRJohhnson