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Tonight on NJ Spotlight News, flash flooding.

The Jersey Shore hit with torrential rain on Sunday as communities around New Jersey are still reeling from last week's storms.

Now one New Jersey congressman is calling for FEMA's boss to be fired.

I'm just afraid that in our state and other places that could have potential disasters like a hurricane here, he's just going to be completely out of touch and ineffective.

Plus, Habba out?

After launching an investigation into the Murphy administration and butting heads with top New Jersey lawmakers, Trump's appointed U.S. attorney Alina Haba could be out of the job.

Also, New Jersey's Attorney General Matt Plotkin talks about the federal funding freeze's impact on the Boys and Girls Clubs here in Newark.

This isn't waste, fraud, and abuse.

This is real people being hurt by illegal actions.

And the state's cannabis industry is expanding, giving the green light to four consumption lounges.

They pulled up the screen with the consumption approvals and we went berserk in here.

Everybody was celebrating, jumping up and down.

NJ Spotlight News begins right now.

♪ ♪ From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Briana Vannozzi.

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

I'm Brianna Vanozzi.

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

First, another round of flash flooding hit parts of the state this weekend, this time along the Jersey Shore, where the National Weather Service says two to more than five inches of rain soaked places like Seagirt, Wall Township, and Manasquan early Sunday morning.

Flash floodwaters caused Route 35 just north of Route 71 in Belmar to close.

Floodwaters also covered First Ave on the eastern side of Seagirt for several hours and filled a synagogue in Lakewood.

Local officials in Seaside Heights reported calls for help with flooding, while towns including Spring Lake, Howell, and Jackson and Toms River were at risk due to flood-prone areas.

The intense rainfall hit as neighbors in North Jersey are still cleaning up from a devastating storm last week that wreaked havoc on communities, especially in Plainfield, where five people were killed just this month due to fast-moving storms, and hundreds of homes and businesses suffered damage.

Well, the benefit concert was held on Sunday at Plainfield High School to help the storm victims.

City officials say the event raised about $85,000, though the damage is estimated to be much higher, and recovery efforts could hit roadblocks due to FEMA's uncertainty at the national level.

After calls from members of the Trump administration to cut back or eliminate the agency altogether, Congressman Frank Pallone today officially called on the president to immediately fire the head of FEMA, citing what he calls a failed response to the deadly July 4th floods in Texas.

And he joins me now.

Congressman, thanks for coming on the show.

You sent a pretty strongly worded letter to the president, but why exactly are you calling for the acting administrator to be fired?

Well, every indication based on what happened with the floods on Independence Day in West Texas is that he's completely incompetent and unable to actually function as the FEMA director.

I mean, he didn't even send the rescue, search and rescue teams in until 72 hours after the flooding occurred.

There were 15,000 calls that went to the call centers from people who suffered during the flooding who got no response, right, because he had fired the contractor that answered the calls.

The man has no experience dealing with emergency management.

And frankly, Brian, I'm just afraid, you know, it's going to be hurricane season at its peak pretty soon in New Jersey and on the Atlantic coast.

He actually at one point quipped that he wasn't even aware of hurricane season.

So I'm just afraid that in our state and other places that could have potential disasters like a hurricane here, he's just going to be completely out of touch and ineffective.

But I wonder, Congressman, what assurances you have that the administration would appoint someone who, in your view, is more experienced, given that this is happening against the backdrop of FEMA potentially being phased out?

Well, that's the whole point.

I mean, I'm hoping that both the Homeland Security secretary and the president understood that in the aftermath of what happened in West Texas with this flooding that killed 135 people, a lot of them who were children, young children, that they would understand that FEMA needs to be more robust, that there needs to be a federal emergency management agency because the state can't do it on their own, that we need a weather service that will, you know, give advance warning of storms.

And so this is part of that whole effort to say, look, this director has to go, put somebody in who's going to actually know what they're doing.

But beyond that, have a robust FEMA and a robust federal emergency service, because otherwise, you know, what happened in West Texas could happen here in New Jersey if we had a major hurricane.

Yeah, I mean, certainly we saw some flash flooding play out on a smaller scale than it did in Texas, particularly in Union County, where several lives were lost.

And so I wonder then, given all that has been going on, I mean, they're sort of looking to reform this agency while also coming up against devastating storms, what this might mean for preparedness and safety for areas in New Jersey that are prone to being hit by these storms.

Well, it's a very dangerous situation.

The president goes back and forth, as does the Homeland Security secretary, in saying we should or we shouldn't have FEMA.

Most of this responsibility should be given to the states rather than the federal government.

You know, cutting back on the people that work there, cutting back on resiliency grants.

You know, we had the BRIC program that had grants for New Jersey for resiliency in a lot of coastal towns, including Highlands, one of my towns, that they've abolished.

And I'm just saying, look, you have to have somebody in charge who knows what they're doing.

But beyond that, you have to have a robust federal emergency management program.

And you can't keep cutting back on personnel and funding in order to guarantee that, you know, our safety.

If they're not going to respond to that, then, you know, we just have to say, look, you know, you're incompetent and you're not willing to do what's necessary.

But I'm still hopeful that somehow somebody in the Trump administration, including the president, is going to listen and say, look, we can't go on like this.

Congressman Frank Pallone, really appreciate your insight.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks, Brianna.

Some of the other headlines we're following tonight, family, friends and Fort Lee residents came out in support of Victoria Lee this weekend, honoring her memory and holding up signs in protest as they called for the police officer involved in Lee's deadly shooting last July to stand trial.

The rally comes after a grand jury decided not to indict the officer who shot and killed the 24-year-old in her home last summer.

That's when Fort Lee police responded to a call from a man who said his sister was having a mental health crisis and needed to go to the hospital.

Body camera footage from the incident showed officers trying to get Lee to open the door to the home.

When she didn't comply, officers eventually forced it open and fired a single shot, striking her in the chest.

Authorities said Lee was holding a knife, though her family maintains she dropped it before the door was opened.

During the weekend rally, Lee's family and loved ones called the grand jury's decision devastating and doubled down on their advocacy efforts to change how the police department responds to calls for help during a mental health crisis.

And there's more fallout over the Trump administration's plans to house immigrant detainees at a New Jersey military base.

All nine of the state's House Democrats and both U.S. senators have now signed on to a letter blasting the move to temporarily hold migrants at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, condemning it as an inappropriate use of military resources.

NJ Spotlight News broke the story on Friday that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sent a letter to Congressman Herb Conaway, whose district includes the base, that the government approved use of New Jersey's base and decided Indiana to help with its immigration crackdown, while pledging that it wouldn't negatively affect military training or operations.

But details are still unclear.

The administration hasn't said how many detainees would be held at either site, when they'd arrive, or how the locations will be operated.

The base has had a long history as a resettlement site.

It previously served as a temporary housing for thousands of Afghan and Kosovo refugees.

But Burlington County's All-Democratic Board of Commissioners criticized the plan and what it called overaggressive enforcement actions, saying there's no place for it in the state's military base.

Well, all 17 of New Jersey's federal judges met this morning to determine the fate of acting U.S. attorney Alina Haba, whose status remains unclear at this hour.

Haba's 120-day term expires tomorrow, and as first reported by NJ Globe, U.S. district court judges have a few options for what comes next.

They can vote by majority to appoint a U.S. attorney if no one else is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Or they can do nothing, which would automatically place first assistant U.S. attorney Desiree Grace into the job.

The judges, though, are facing increasing pressure from the White House after a top Justice Department official told the chief judge that President Trump has complete confidence in Haba, who also served as the president's personal attorney, and wants the judges to extend her time in office.

Senior political correspondent David Cruz takes a look back at her brief but eventful time in the seat.

We could turn New Jersey red.

Alina Haba was clear from the start.

The former personal attorney to the president saw her role here as the tip of a political spear, targeting Democrats, from Governor Phil Murphy to Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was arrested outside the Delaney Hall detention center during this demonstration.

Also indicted was sitting Congresswoman Lamonica McIver on assault and other charges stemming from the same incident.

While Haba's office rarely responds to state press, she is active on social media, using her ex account to clap back at Baraka and to announce the McIver indictment.

Everywhere you look since her appointment in March, Haba and the aggressive tactics of her office have been the topic of conversation.

They had no grounds to arrest me.

The charge was heinous.

It was an overreach.

And that's why they dropped it, because it was absolutely wrong.

I will not stand for it.

They will not intimidate me.

They will not stop me from doing my job.

I will continue to do what the people of the 10th Congressional District elected me to do.

Yes, that's Paul Fishman, a former U.S. attorney himself, standing next to McIver.

He's representing her in case you're into irony.

Haba has also announced that she's investigating Governor Phil Murphy for comments he made about harboring an undocumented friend in his home.

She's also sued several New Jersey cities for their sanctuary policies, announced an election integrity task force that progressives have criticized as voter intimidation.

Oh, and she also disbanded the office's civil rights division.

That's a lot from an office that usually doesn't make much noise.

I'm concerned about the way the office has been run.

I think politics being put ahead of public safety is not a good thing.

And the job historically in New Jersey, we've had very close relationships between the attorney general and the United States Attorney's Office across parties.

And that's for good reason, because public safety is the most important thing.

And when we politicize that, people get hurt.

The last U.S. attorney for New Jersey to have such a high profile was Bush 2 appointee Chris Christie.

He went on to serve two terms as governor and ran for president twice.

So is there a method to the Haba madness?

Maybe a run for federal office?

Maybe not so fast, says analyst Micah Rasmussen of the Rebovich Institute at Reiter.

Sometimes a firework is just a firework and it's intended for splash.

And I think that that's certainly been the case so far.

I know that they'd rather be discussing that stuff than Epstein or anything else that puts them on the defensive.

And so, you know, they feel that with someone like Haba, who is loyal and who is very close with the president, that they would have somebody who who is reliable in that way.

Administration officials had been signaling all week to the judges that Haba had the full support of the president.

Even as the judges, almost all Obama or Biden appointees deliberated today, there were calls for ethics investigations from the left and from the right, charging the other with rules violation for calling on the judge to decide in their favor as if politics had anything to do with today's decision.

I'm David Cruz, NJ Spotlight News.

Attorney General Matt Plotkin is hoping to show the human side of the federal funding cuts by touring the Boys and Girls Club in Newark earlier today to call attention to the Trump administration's decision to freeze billions of dollars administered by the U.S. Department of Ed, including nearly $160 million New Jersey typically gets for after school, summer and other programs.

Plotkin is part of a lawsuit aiming to block the cuts, which he and other advocates say will cause harm to students and force programs to shutter.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagas was there.

I want to become a pediatric orthodontist.

I'm taking a step forward and I'm moving into going to the Army tomorrow.

So this is officially my last day here.

And I've grown so much since I've been here.

I've met so many different people.

These are just a handful of the 60,000 young people who spend their summers and their after school hours at one of the many Boys and Girls Clubs around New Jersey.

They gathered today with New Jersey's attorney general and others to share their stories and to highlight the fact that funding for the programs that have changed their lives is in jeopardy.

Without the Boys and Girls Club, there's a lot of things in me that wouldn't have come out the right way.

I feel like, and I can speak on behalf of all our teens, we all go through things in our home life, in the work being kids in an inner city community.

And I feel like being able to go somewhere after school like that was mentioned before where you know it's safe and you know that you can go there and you can have fun and you can learn things that most kids aren't learning.

Families here pay $125 a month for their kids to attend.

That's because federal funding has subsidized many of the programs, not just here at the Boys and Girls Clubs, but at similar programs like the YMCA and others around the state and nation.

But that funding was frozen by the Trump administration earlier this summer, even though it's already been approved by Congress.

I just don't understand how you could look at what's happening here and say this isn't exactly what we want to support.

That we should be talking about doubling, tripling, quadrupling the amount of support we give to it, not illegally freezing the funds.

New Jersey lost $158 million out of a total $6 billion in the Department of Education funding that was frozen.

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Plotkin is leading a coalition of 24 states, all with Democratic leadership, in suing the administration for what he calls a morally indefensible attempt to undermine our best in the nation education system.

Anytime you take that kind of money out of the system, it's going to affect kids and families and people like this.

And I want people to see that this isn't waste, fraud and abuse.

This is real people being hurt by illegal actions.

The funding allows students to maintain academic instruction during the summer months and be introduced to STEM and other job readiness programs that set them up for success.

For example, a college-level coding program called SWIFT that middle schoolers are learning here.

We launched our app incubator last year where we take members and introduce them to SWIFT's UI and give them a platform in order to pitch their idea and then hopefully develop it until it gets on the app store.

We also are building a robotics club so to give them the opportunity to get outside of the club and go to other places and compete and learn new things about engineering and potentially turn it into a career some day.

We did an app through coding as well too.

It's a health fitness app that will be released very soon.

So it's about learning the basics but also how do we tie in the career and workforce opportunities as well too.

These advocates say without the funding for this program, these students not only lose academic opportunities but they become susceptible to engaging in risky behavior, even illegal activity.

We have national data that tells us through the America After 3 reports and through all the data that comes from Boys and Girls Clubs National, about how during the hours of 3 to 7, how youth are more likely to get involved in the juvenile justice system, how they are more likely to again engage in risky behaviors with alcohol and with drugs and things like that.

And so when they have this safe place to go, like brushes and the young ladies just sit here, that means that this is part of the prevention of those issues.

It's just something that keeps us well-rounded and also reminds us that even though we live in Newark, Newark is not the end and there are so many opportunities out there that we can achieve.

The lawsuit is seeking an injunction to unfreeze the funds that these programs so desperately need.

In Newark, I'm Joanna Gaggis, NJ Spotlight News.

In our Spotlight on Business report tonight, New Jersey's cannabis industry just hit a major milestone.

Regulators last week approved the state's first ever consumption lounges for locations where people who use recreational and medicinal cannabis can legally light up or consume edibles, much like you would at a coffee shop or a bar.

As Ted Goldberg reports, dispensary owners were ecstatic with the move, calling it a long time coming.

Ramez Maximus has big plans for the cannabis lounge coming to his dispensary in Newark.

This is going to be a beautiful glass door on this side that you'll be able to walk into the other side and consume, open your product, have somebody show you how to roll it, how to use it, if it's dabs, concentrates.

18 months ago, he applied for a license for a cannabis consumption area for Urban and didn't hear much of a response until last week's meeting by the state's Cannabis Regulatory Commission.

Chairwoman Wainu.

Yes.

The motion passes.

Urban was one of the first four dispensaries statewide to get approval for a lounge and the only one north of Trenton.

No heads up.

We were just watching the meeting like we always do, and then they pulled up the screen with the consumption approvals, and we went berserk in here.

Everybody was celebrating, jumping up and down.

We had no clue we were going to get approved.

Maximus says the fees and permits cost him about $50,000, and the build-out is between $200,000 and $300,000 for glass doors and proper ventilation.

So it's very similar to a cigar lounge.

So when you're sitting in a cigar lounge and somebody smokes a cigar, that's maybe, you know, the smell's a little different than something else.

So it's the same ventilation system, so you're not bothered by somebody smoking something right next to you that's maybe something you don't like or something too strong or too pungent.

It is always clearing out smoke, odors, and it's always pumping in fresh oxygen while maintaining temperature in here.

So it is a complicated system, but it is very necessary.

The state requires it.

Newark requires it.

Once it's done, people can get in with a membership or during special events.

They can bring in outside medical cannabis, but if they want recreational cannabis, they have to buy from him.

We at the commission are excited and look forward to these safe spaces opening up and operating responsibly to give people options for safe and responsible cannabis consumption.

We're blessed.

We're definitely, you know, it's been a tremendous thing for us to have, but there is a lot of other applicants that are waiting in other cities, and we're just kind of like, you know, we got there first.

So with, you know, big blessings come huge responsibility.

So we have to set the bar high and we have to make sure we do the right thing.

For a dispensary to open a lounge, they need the permission of the municipality where they're located, which Maximus secured from Newark.

He thinks a lot more dispensaries will open lounges in the future.

Everyone would love to do this in their dispensaries because it gives you a way to communicate and just be in touch with the customer and give them like visuals while we're explaining things.

But I think a lot of municipalities are no, and even the ones that are yes, like Jersey City has delayed the process and have not approved applicants.

There's applicants that are built out, ready to go, and the city is just delaying them.

Urban is a few miles from Newark airport and hopes that proximity leads to him seeing green.

To tell you the truth, with all the latest delays at Newark airport that have been excessive, it might actually be beneficial to us.

So we're, you know, not that we're excited for delays at the airport, but we have a choice for people for something to do besides just sit there and wait around for hours.

The four approved dispensaries have been given endorsements by the CRC, but still need to pass an in-person inspection before given the green light to light up.

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

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.

Halsey, a neighborhood built on hustle and heart.

The 2025 Halsey Fest schedule is available at HalseyNWK.com.

And finally, New Jersey's first lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, today, formally sealed her spot in state history with the unveiling of her official portrait, which will be displayed permanently at the statehouse.

It's her tradition that until now was reserved for former governors only.

But in 2023, Governor Murphy commissioned the portraits for lieutenant governors following the death of Sheila Oliver, creating a new precedent to give all those who hold the office the same honor.

Guadagno served for eight years alongside Governor Chris Christie, while also holding the role of Secretary of State.

Today, Christie, Murphy and other state leaders honored her as a trailblazer who made lasting contributions to New Jersey.

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 Van Osie.

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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