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Tonight on NJ Spotlight News, a dangerous heat wave is gripping the state.

A heat advisory is in place for almost every county through Wednesday.

Plus, NJ decides 2025 the gubernatorial tickets are set for the upcoming election that's now less than 100 days away.

Also, tax hikes in the governor's new budget are set to take effect later this week.

What will it mean for your wallet?

The taxes have increased pretty dramatically over, say, the last two decades when it comes to cigarette taxes specifically.

And that's corresponded with a reduction in smoking in New Jersey.

And influencing adoptions.

Content creators descend on a Newark animal shelter to help get dozens of animals adopted.

I love dogs more than people, and animal rescue is literally the single most important thing in the world to me.

I wish people would stop going to breeders and would give rescue dogs a chance.

NJ Spotlight News begins right now.

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

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

I'm Brianna Vanozzi.

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

First, a triple-digit heat wave is rounding out this final week of July.

Temperatures soared across the state today with forecasts calling for highs in the mid to upper 90s today, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

But it'll feel more like 100 degrees when combined with the intense humidity.

Those are dangerous conditions to be outside in, especially for young kids, the elderly, and people with health conditions.

The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for every county except Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, and Salem.

That advisory is in place through 9 p.m. Wednesday.

Now, Newark declared a code red alert in the city, and cooling centers around the state have been open for people who need access to air conditioning.

Anyone looking for a cooling center can find a list on nj211.org.

Even if the heat isn't a factor for you, the hot, sunny days are always making it easier for smog to form, worsening New Jersey's air quality.

That was also a concern over the weekend as the state dealt with wildfire smoke blowing through the region from Canada.

Also tonight, outrage is erupting here in New Jersey and globally over starvation in Gaza, after images of malnourished Palestinian children and adults began circulating, including young babies.

At least 14 people died of starvation in just the last 24 hours, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Protesters rallied in Jersey City's Riverview Park on Sunday to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis, banging empty pots and pans meant to symbolize the suffering from hunger there.

They're calling on Israel to allow aid trucks into the Gaza Strip to provide food and other necessities.

Now, that aid has begun slowly trickling in thanks to a temporary pause in the fighting, but the U.N.'s aid chief is warning it may be too little too late, and cautioned that the next few days will be "make or break" for any humanitarian efforts.

Israel has denied allegations of blocking aid from getting to Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying plainly there is no starvation in Gaza, and President Trump today appeared to publicly disagree with that, promising the U.S. would set up food centers in Gaza and acknowledged that Israel has "a lot of responsibility" for limiting aid to the region.

New Jersey's U.S.

Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim issued sharp statements over the weekend where they argued that countering Hamas to release remaining hostages doesn't warrant blocking life-sustaining aid for civilians.

And a pressure campaign over frozen education funding appears to have broken the ice.

The Trump administration said on Friday it'll release billions in federal education department money that's been put on hold for weeks, including roughly $143 million for K-12 schools in New Jersey.

Those dollars were supposed to be available to state education departments on July 1st, but the administration alerted schools just days prior so the White House could conduct a review of how the money was being spent.

That got fierce pushback from members of both parties in Congress, and State Attorney General Matt Plotkin led a coalition of two dozen other states suing the White House over the move.

The funding freeze affects five New Jersey programs, including money for migrant education, professional development, and English learner services.

Summer and after-school programs, though, were also in limbo, and the Trump administration in mid-July said it was releasing those funds.

It's unclear whether New Jersey's Department of Ed has been able to access that money.

A spokesperson for the agency tells NJ Spotlight News they're looking into it.

With less than 100 days to go before the November general election, the gubernatorial candidates and their newly announced running mates were out campaigning over the weekend, hitting local diners and knocking on doors, hoping the lieutenant governor picks will help stir up enthusiasm and votes as we head into the fall.

Senior political correspondent David Cruz takes a closer look at the Democratic and Republican tickets.

The rollout for the lieutenant governor candidates was a contrast in campaign styles.

Republican Jack Cittarelli held an old-school rally at a Morris County bar, albeit with coffee and donuts and not much beer.

Democrat Mikey Sherrill, on the other hand, took to Twitter to make her announcement a couple of days later, then hit the road with her pick this weekend.

But what does it say about the roles these candidates will likely play as the campaign rolls on?

Are you better off after eight years of Phil Murphy as your governor?

No!

Are you better off after 25 years of Democrats controlling the state legislature?

No!

Are you better off after six years of Mikey Sherrill in Congress?

No!

Republican Jim Gannon is the Morris County sheriff, a former beat cop from a law enforcement family.

He'll hammer home a nativist law and order theme.

We'll repeal the dangerous, dangerous sanctuary state, and we'll take the handcuffs off our police and restore law and order.

Joe Caldwell has degrees from Princeton, the Wharton School, and Seton Hall University.

He's founded a charter school, run the eastern section of the United States Tennis Association, and is pastor at Covenant United Methodist Church in Plainfield.

He's been a board of ed member in New Brunswick and served in education posts in state government.

He's also black, which in the world of politics is called balance.

I think a lot of people expected that Jack Ciatarelli might pick a woman to be his running mate.

He did last time in Diane Allen.

He decided not to this time.

My guess is that he just felt that there were other aspects that outweighed those considerations.

Probably the law and order argument is a big part of it.

My sense is I think Jim Gannon being a pretty popular sheriff in the backyard of Mikey Sherrill's legislative district probably has a lot to do with the two.

In your mind, does this ticket represent the diversity of New Jersey?

I think it does.

How so?

We've got two white guys.

We're men of the people.

One of them's a cop.

We're men of the people.

Longtime Caldwell friend and Democratic strategist Jeanine LaRue chuckles at that answer, because in the end, few voters will consider who the gubernatorial candidate's number two was.

I don't look negatively at the fact that Ciatarelli selected law enforcement.

I was glad that in the case of Mikey Sherrill, and the truth of the matter is if she had chosen not to select a person of color, that would not have been a bad message for me either.

I look at candidates.

What I am excited about what our candidate, Mikey Sherrill, has done is that she has really shown that she will think out of the box.

If you had to contrast these two picks, you'd have to say that Gannon, a Morris County stalwart, represents a philosophy that state government is part of the problem, while Caldwell, whose public life has mostly been spent in and around it, represents the position that government can be part of the solution.

I'm David Cruz.

NJ Spotlight News.

Well, it's been more than two weeks since a PATH train derailed while pulling into the Hoboken station, causing a series of disruptions since then, and riders say they want answers.

Thousands of daily commuters are still dealing with the ongoing delays, crowded trains, and packed platforms as crews work to restore full service.

Raven Santana has more on the repair timeline and from passengers who say the disruptions are taking a serious toll on their commutes.

It's so sweaty.

It's very unpleasant.

As if the summer isn't uncomfortable enough, Hoboken commuters say their daily PATH ride has become downright miserable.

I'm sure it was faster.

I have to transfer at Newport, so that also adds a little extra time, because then I have to wait for the next train, and then that's the one that's delayed.

For more than two weeks, Hoboken PATH riders have endured a ripple effect of delays and packed platforms, resulting in growing commuter outrage, all triggered by a train derailment at the station on July 12th.

We were waiting for a long time for the light rail.

Officials say crews have been working around the clock on emergency repairs, focused on a key piece of infrastructure known as the Hoboken interlocking, the very system that directs PATH trains onto the correct tracks.

Ironically, the same interlocking system had just undergone a 31 million dollar overhaul this past winter.

I've been sitting on the train for maybe 10 minutes waiting for a signal to get into Hoboken.

Officials say the interlocking failure is directly tied to the recent rehab project, and it's now causing major service disruptions.

Since the derailment, rush hour service has been slashed.

Trains that once arrived every four minutes are now crawling in just once every ten.

At a recent Port Authority meeting, officials apologized for the delays, and say they're working to find out what happened with the faulty switch as they work to repair and restore service.

I want to apologize to PATH riders who have been inconvenienced by disruptions to service.

I want to assure everyone that the agency is working as hard as possible to get service restored.

So we are treating this switch failure as an emergency.

We've been working around the clock.

I think the very next day, the manufacturer was on site.

We brought in all of our external consultants, but this is a safety item.

It's something that as much as we would like to fix it overnight, you have to do the proper analysis so that we get it done right.

But for many riders and Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bala, who spoke at the meeting, those apologies fall flat.

We were told that the replacement parts need to be fabricated and installed a second time, which won't be until Labor Day.

What assurance do we have that the PATH will stick to this timeline?

What assurance do we have that newly installed parts will not also malfunction?

What will be the timeline for installation of these replacement parts, and will this create another disruption similar to the February stoppage?

When we got to the World Trade Center station, the platform was so crowded that when they opened the door, crowds are surging at us.

And what happened is that a lady fell, and we were telling her, "Hey, please, do not-watch out."

They were not listening to us, because the thing is that this environment that's been created, it is creating this Hunger Games mentality to get on the train.

I'm hearing everything from disappointment to frustration to complete outrage and exhaustion about constant, unreliable PATH service, constant delays, disruptions that come on at a moment's notice.

And really from the standpoint of the average commuter, it's completely unacceptable.

Bala says the issue goes deeper than one switch.

It's about a systematic failure in transparency and accountability.

I don't know as the mayor how the budget is generated and passed for the Port Authority, which is billions of dollars invested in mass transit.

So there has to be a much more transparent budgetary process this fall that integrates public engagement.

The Port Authority warns that delays could stretch through Labor Day as repairs continue.

But with rising pressure from commuters and elected officials alike, many are calling for more than just patchwork fixes.

They want reform.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Raven Santana.

In our Spotlight on Business report, smokers in New Jersey will be shelling out more money every time they buy a pack of cigarettes or a vaping cartridge starting later this week.

It's just one of several new taxes going into effect across the state as part of the latest budget agreement that's expected to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

So where's the money going and how will it affect you?

Our budget and finance writer John Reitmeyer is with us now to unpack the numbers and, of course, the politics behind the new taxes.

John, welcome.

Thanks for coming in.

What is changing for smokers and vapers on August 1st?

How much more will they be paying?

So depending on which tobacco product you use, the per cost of a pack of cigarettes is going up.

It will now be $3 in New Jersey.

And then what's becoming increasingly popular is the vaping devices.

And depending on which product you're using, the cost of what's known as liquid nicotine is also going up by about the same percentage as you could use that per pack cigarette increase, which went up from $2.70.

So that all starts on August 1st, and it is part of the agreement at the end of June that lawmakers and the governor reached as they enacted a new state budget.

So how much more revenue is that going to bring in, and what's the goal here?

Is it just getting that revenue?

Is there also a little bit of discouraging smoking, a little bit of both?

Probably a little bit of both.

The taxes have increased pretty dramatically over, say, the last two decades when it comes to cigarette taxes specifically, and that's corresponded with a reduction in smoking in New Jersey.

So there's probably some public health benefits as well as the state needing the money.

So this has been, and some of the other tax hikes that were enacted or coming into effect this month, follow a similar path where the state needs more money.

It spends more than it takes in in annual revenues, even with these tax hikes, but it bridges the gap a little bit closer.

But something that's occurred while Governor Murphy has been in office is it seems like there's been this attempt to do targeted tax hikes.

So rather than something across the board, say, like increasing the sales tax that everyone pays, you see taxes increased on specific products or going after specific things such as online gambling, online sports betting.

That's a new tax that went into effect.

It's like you knew what I was going to ask next.

What other taxes are we talking about?

So that's one of them.

That's already in effect in New Jersey.

There are new rates now, new fees being assessed on what I've been writing as high dollar real estate transactions.

It's really homes or commercial properties over $2 million in value.

We already had a fee for over $1 million in New Jersey.

Now they've created what's a new graduated scale for over $2 million.

That's generating several hundred million dollars in new revenue, as is the higher tax on online gambling and online sports betting.

The higher taxes on cigarette products is a more modest amount of revenue coming in.

And there's a new, an increased assessment for hospital and ambulatory care admission fees that have also gone into effect.

And that's generating millions of dollars in new revenue.

Yeah, a little harder to wrap your head around that than, say, a tax on a pack of cigarettes or a million dollar home, which they raised to $2 million because it's anymore a million dollar home seems to be more commonplace.

In many parts of New Jersey, so part of the debate Murphy had originally sought, it has been called the mansion tax historically, to increase the mansion tax.

But where lawmakers landed, and lawmakers have the constitutional authority to set these taxes, they landed on a higher fee at the $2 million and over threshold versus...

So where's all this money going?

What's it being earmarked for?

Do we know?

Most of it goes into the general fund of the state budget, which means it's pretty much available for any purpose that New Jersey spends state tax resources on.

So some of this can be for hospitals.

Some of this can be for other big state departments, like Department of Health.

It really runs the gamut, but it's the general fund of the budget.

Which is where the waters can get a little murky.

I mean, we've heard over the many years, folks who want to see specific appropriations when there are new taxes, and not just into the general coffers, because there's a little bit of a history of money taken paying Peter to rob Paul.

Absolutely.

And this can... Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

We've had this in New Jersey, absolutely, where the only way there's a political appetite for a new revenue source is if you promise to dedicate those revenues to a specific purpose that most people can get behind.

The reason we have an income tax in New Jersey is that money is constitutionally dedicated to going to either public education or property tax relief.

All right.

You can read all of John Reitmeier's reporting on the new taxes going into effect at the end of this week on August 1st, and all of your continued budget coverage at our website, njspotlightnews.org.

John, thanks so much.

You're welcome.

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 tonight, using social media to create social good.

A dedicated volunteer at the Associated Humane Society in Newark put out a call to action asking content creators from all over to come together in support of the local animal shelter, hosting a creator day for social media influencers to share the stories of Pets Up for Adoption with the hopes of helping each one find its forever home.

Senior Correspondent Brenda Flanagan reports.

Social media influencers on a mission toward the Associated Humane Society's animal shelter in Newark, walking through a barrage of barking from more than 160 dogs desperate for attention.

These content creators found a packed shelter every kennel occupied.

The idea of mobilizing social media comes from volunteer Olivia Marcus, an Instagram icon with 80,000 followers of her own.

She figured fellow influencers could help dogs like Titan, who's languished here for more than a year.

We want them to feature a lot of the long term residents, the ones that have just been waiting for their story to get told and have been in the shelter for hundreds and hundreds of days.

And also some of our little stars, like there's some really fun cats and kittens in the cat room.

Some 200 cats here also need fostering or forever homes.

Kitties like seven year old Luna, surrendered by an owner with Alzheimer's.

She comes off as a little bit timid, but once you get to know her, she is the absolute sweetest.

And she's next to some kittens, so she easily gets overlooked.

Summer's kitten season, so the cat room's crammed with more cuteness than it can handle.

Pet surrenders far outnumber adoptions.

For many influencers, the shelter's request for help hit home.

I've had four family pets that were all rescues.

I've had two senior cats that were rescues.

These animals are amazing.

They deserve homes.

And I feel like they're just sitting here and you don't know.

So trying to get more awareness would be awesome.

About 40 TikTokers and Instagrammers from Jersey and New York signed up.

The tour left some a little shaken, and many noticed most of the dogs here are pit bulls.

A lot of pit bulls, which makes me really upset.

I love a bully.

I feel like they're very misunderstood.

And I think when it comes to a lot of apartment buildings, too, they're one of the breeds that aren't allowed.

They're so sad in the eyes, and it makes me so upset because they just all deserve a home.

Amongst the cats, it's the older surrenders who often get passed by.

I want to have a cat.

My apartment's not cat friendly, but I just wanted to be here to be of support if I can.

This is Rock.

He was surrendered.

The epidemic of surrendered pets isn't just a New York problem.

Last week, New York City's animal shelters suspended intake for the first time ever.

They simply ran out of kennels.

So we are seeing increased cost of veterinary care, increased cost of pet food, increased cost of housing, and a lack of pet-friendly housing in the entire nation.

There are breed restrictions in apartments for renters.

There are weight restrictions.

Hey, buddy.

Sit.

Featured dogs got to go for walkies, where creators recorded content and gave lots of treats, including whipped cream pop cups.

I love dogs more than people, and animal rescue is literally the single most important thing in the world to me.

I wish people would stop going to breeders and would give rescue dogs a chance.

Oh, my God, he's so friendly, and he's good with also kids.

It's very important when they're good with kids.

They're good to adopt.

Are you going to try and get her matched up with someone?

I mean, I'm definitely going to put her on-I have five social media pages.

As a result of Friday's outreach, a flood of posts over the weekend.

[Music] I need you to stop scrolling for a second so we can help out this kitty.

This is Tails, and he's often overlooked at the shelter because he actually has no tail.

Under new management, the shelter's strong focus on adoptions reflected in the numbers.

According to the animal rights group Best Friends, Associated Humane Societies in Newark achieved a nearly no-kill status between June 2024 and this past May by saving some 90 percent of the dogs and cats here.

They're hoping to make it 100 percent.

I'll be sharing more stories of the pups that I met.

With a little help from their new influencer friends.

In Newark, I'm Brenda Flanagan, NJ Spotlight News.

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 Vannosi.

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

Have a great evening.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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