>> From NJ PBS studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News."

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

Tonight we're taking a look back at some of the stories and interviews we've been fortunate enough to bring you over the years.

One of the greatest privileges of this job is getting to tell someone else's story.

And in the 18 years I've been covering this state as a journalist, I've been trusted with stories of incredible loss, resilience, hope, and determination.

And while we do move on to the next big moment we need to cover, some of those people and moments stay with you forever.

So tonight I want to share just a few of those from my time here at NJ Spotlight News and take another look at the people who made them so memorable.

Stay with us.

Funding for NJ Spotlight News provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn more at RWJBH.org.

- Well, some know her as the feisty grandma who served in the New Jersey legislature, but former Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg spent her life as a no-nonsense advocate who wasn't afraid to take on the political establishment and stand up to bullies in the process.

From marriage equality to reproductive rights and her work uncovering the Bridgegate scandal, Weinberg's career was captured through the lens of the documentary, "Politics is a Mother, Raising Hell is Part of the Job."

It first premiered at the 2024 Montclair Film Festival, where I had the honor of moderating her panel.

Now it's streaming for free on Fawesome TV and Hoopla, with upcoming screenings at Montclair State University and the Englewood Public Library.

It was directed by Weinberg's daughter, Francine, who wanted to show that then, at 80 years old, a time when most women feel invisible, her mother was at her most powerful.

Take a look.

Francine, Senator Weinberg, thank you both for sitting down with me.

Francine, let me ask you first, why did you start capturing footage of your mother's career, of her at work?

What was your intended goal?

Well, I will say that this really started when I was about five years old.

And I am an observer of life.

And even at that young age, I would look at my mother and I would say, she is not like all the other mothers.

She was not a Girl Scout leader.

She did not join the PTA.

She did not take us to the park after school, including the smartphones.

I just knew someday this story needed to be told.

- Well, she didn't take you to the park because she was busy taking on the world and the New Jersey political establishment.

But did you envision it coming together in this format?

I mean, you take us through some of those early years and Senator, what was it like for you to see your work captured and encapsulated like this?

First of all, I have to make one editorial correction.

I did join the PTA.

I once even ran a PTA program.

So there are little moments that Francine might not have captured.

But this kind of evolved.

And somebody asked me just the other day, "How did you give permission to your daughter to do this film?"

And I said, "Well, I never really did.

She just put it in before I knew it, we were in the middle of a film."

So I'm very proud of her.

I'm very proud of the work that she did here, really on her own, the writing, the producing, everything but carrying the camera herself.

And it captures a snapshot of my career.

The issues around Bridgegate, which I guess is a snapshot maybe of the years I was in the legislature and a very interesting part of dealing with New Jersey politics as a woman and at that point in my career as an older woman.

The two big areas, and I don't want to give away the entire documentary, but of course the two big areas where you focus on are the work with marriage equality and then of course in investigating and uncovering the Bridgegate scandal.

I mean as a journalist it never really occurred to me, but Francine you point out in the film that when most are maybe considering retiring, your mom was really at the pinnacle of her career.

Why was it important for you to show that?

- Well, what I tell people is this is not a legacy project.

This is not a love letter to my mother.

There are a lot easier ways to do that.

This is a love letter to people, women, but especially women as we get older.

We are sort of, our voices are kind of invisible and we are made to feel invisible.

And my mother was almost 70 when she became a state senator.

She was almost 75 when she ran for Lieutenant Governor with John Corzine.

And she was almost 80 when she kneecapped, as I like to say, Chris Chrissy and his presidential aspirations.

And this is a love letter to all of those people who, if you want to take care of your grandchildren, I have no judgment.

Go ahead and do that.

But if you are called to do something, get in the game, because the world needs you, and you are not invisible.

LISA DESJARDINS: I mean, Senator, you have also been extremely vocal on situations with New Jersey transit.

I mean, there was the smart gun bills, you know, Planned Parenthood, reproductive rights, a whole feast, if you will, of issues and topics.

What do you think New Jersey is left with now that you have left the political scene in that way?

I mean, there's no Loretta Weinberg sitting in at New Jersey transit and Port Authority hearings anymore.

Well, I think there are people there to carry out this legacy.

It is having not only the passion for the issue you're trying to move forward, but the discipline to kind of stick with it.

Nothing in New Jersey worthwhile happens overnight, or at least very little worthwhile happens overnight.

Lots of things happen, but not necessarily things we want.

So it takes a discipline and I use marriage equality.

I was over the course of almost 20 years before we got from the beginning to, yes, marriage equality is the law of the land here in New Jersey.

So it's the ability to step over the roadblocks and keep pushing.

And there aren't, I guess, a lot of people who have that kind of discipline.

But there are people in the legislature, some I've worked with, that I keep on encouraging.

And I know it's not fun to go to Newark, to speak, to stand before the New Jersey Transit Board, particularly when you don't get warm welcomes at the other end.

It's not always fun to keep taking on the smoking lobby, like people are doing in the legislature right now, now it needs to be because who knows.

It's not always fun taking on the medical insurance companies to guarantee 48 hours for their new moms, but nothing in these areas ever came easily.

Senator Loretta Weinberg, Francine Weinberg-Graf, thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brianna.

Thanks, Brianna.

This next story is about one South Brunswick mom's personal fight to end cyberbullying.

Erin Popolo spent years meeting with elected leaders, traveling to Capitol Hill and advocating for children like her daughter Emily, who died by suicide in 2021 at just 16 years old after relentless bullying from peers who took to social media to target her.

Erin's mission is to prevent other kids from those same online harms.

She's still working tirelessly alongside other parents in their effort to get Congress to pass the Kids Online Safety Act, or COSA, which would, among other things, hold social media companies and platforms accountable for online harms to young users.

I spoke with Erin Popolo in 2024 about that work and her drive to help others.

I'm so happy to get a chance to sit down with you.

Since that time you've created Emmy's champions a foundation a nonprofit created a kindness fair.

You've met with folks in D.C.

Is it the advocacy work that keeps you going.

Yes.

It that it helps channel my grief into being something productive.

Otherwise I could kind of at the beginning after Emily died I was a bit big advocate for her to begin with because she was a special education student.

So my my advocacy was part of my identity.

So even so when Emily died I kind of lost that whole part of my identity and I needed something to channel my grief because I could just it was like you literally your life gets shattered.

I mean and you've met countless other families and parents at this point who have lived a very similar experience.

Yes yes.

And it's it's crazy.

But there is a whole underworld of bereaved parents that no one ever hears about.

And we all seem to find each other.

So when you meet with folks let's say in D.C.

Congress members and you're talking about this online safety act I mean of course there's been a lot more attention on this and on these tech companies in the last couple of years.

What's the message that you give them?

Well essentially the parents that I travel to DC with we all have lost a child to something related to social media.

So Emily was cyber bullied.

I know parents who their children have died by taking a social media challenge or picking up drugs that were laced with fentanyl through Snapchat or Instagram.

So we all have been.

Our children have been harmed by something online.

And so we are focusing on making social media.

Social media is not going anywhere.

But we need to make it safer for these kids to navigate because right now it is a free for all.

And you know it they just cannot navigate it by themselves.

We really want the the the social media companies to be a little bit more responsible for what's being put up on their platform.

Right now the COSA act it's been passed in the Senate.

It has not yet been posted for a full vote in the House, although it made it through Frank Pallone's committee for markups.

It did.

What do you want to say to those lawmakers who are not posting this bill?

Honestly I want to say that you know if it was their child that had been harmed I'm sure it would have been out for a full you know for a floor vote already but it's not because I you know there's you know tech has spent 51 million dollars just this year in lobbying against us I mean we're 20 parents who go to DC you know and you know we talk to lawmakers and tell them our horrific stories and these tech companies are coming in with all this money behind them.

We, you know, it's, we're, it's hard to fight that.

You know, it's really, it's not about red or blue.

It is about, you know, the kids.

This is about keeping our children safe.

I already paid the ultimate price for putting my child on social media.

You know, I don't want anyone else to have to walk this, this path because it's terrible.

It is life shattering.

It alters your entire life.

And I don't-- you have a young child.

I don't want you to have to worry about this 10 years from now.

I want there to be things in place so that when you get there, that this is something that is manageable for these kids.

Erin, thank you for sharing your story.

And of course, for keeping Emily's memory alive and the advocacy work that you're doing.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you, I appreciate it.

- More than two years have passed since Princeton native and former Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gushkarevich, was arrested in Russia on espionage charges.

He was the first American journalist to be arrested on such charges since the Cold War.

It was a story we here at NJ Spotlight News covered extensively.

Grishkovich was working for the journal's Moscow Bureau and on assignment when detained, that arrest galvanized journalists and leaders across the globe calling for his release, which would eventually happen after being held for nearly 500 days.

Evan recounts his story in a new book that's out today.

During the heart of the Free Evan movement, though, I got a chance to speak with some of Gershkovich's closest friends about their efforts and why they refused to give up hope.

Michael and Jeremy, I'm so honored to get a chance to talk to you both.

I know communication has been limited with Evan, but have you been able to share letters?

And what can you tell me about how he's holding up, Jeremy?

Yeah, so we have been able to write to him and we get letters back from him.

The process is a little bit stilted.

The letters are translated into Russian.

They're read by the FSB and the prison readers before they get to Evan.

And he can write back to us.

He handwrites the letters in Russian.

They're translated by a group of friends.

These are foreign correspondents in Moscow and in Europe who speak both languages.

And they get back to us.

And so, look, we're talking to him.

We know his spirits are remarkably OK, almost a year into the process.

But it is a bizarre situation, almost being a pen pal with your friend in 2024.

And because of the dual translation, sometimes things get a little bit lost.

But there's enough in there to know that we're talking to him.

And we're very thankful for that.

That's a tough game of telephone to play.

And, Michael, one I'm sure you never imagined having to do when you met Evan, which, correct me if I'm wrong, was on a soccer field in Princeton when you guys were kids.

Yeah that's right.

We were eight years old.

His dad was our coach and he named the team after his favorite Russian Premier League team which is Spartak Moscow.

So we were Spartak.

And yeah I mean Evan was the same then as he's been my whole life since I've known him.

He sounds like a really brave guy.

And from what I can tell from how his family is holding up they seem incredibly courageous.

Have you been in contact with them.

Yeah we have.

And I would completely second that characterization.

They've been incredibly strong really risen to the occasion and have been amazing advocates for him.

His story has released.

And I think part of that is the strength that Evan is exuding.

I think a lot of people have sort of noticed or commented on how he's sort of comforting his friends and family in his letters and his communications, even in, you know, when he appears at court and is cracking a smile and sort of projecting strength and poise.

Jeremy, I mean, you and Evan met in college.

You're also a journalist.

Was he aware of the inherent dangers?

Because Russia has not been a friendly place for journalists for many years.

I don't think Evan was naive to the risk that his reporting carried.

I do think that the level that it's gotten to was something that he never expected, nor I ever expected.

You know, when we were living together in Brooklyn, we had a lot of long, late night conversations about his taking his first job in Russia at the Moscow Times.

He felt like this was his calling.

He felt that Russia was retrenching from the Western world and that someone who was both fluent in the language and fluent in American culture and Russian culture could be the person to help bridge that gap.

And so he went over there, not as an adversarial person, but for love of the Russian people to try and understand who he was.

His parents immigrated from the former Soviet Union.

And so look, I think this was a calling to him.

I think he was absolutely willing to accept some level of risk to do his job.

And he did his job very well.

However, did he expect it to rise to this occasion?

Did we all expect it to rise to this occasion?

No.

And I think you kick yourself over some conversations you had when you're saying... Like what?

Well, you know, we talked about that it might be dangerous for him to go to Russia, that reporting on the Kremlin could be risky at this time, especially with the objectivity and truthfulness that he wanted to report with.

So look, like we had a lot of conversations about that.

We would talk through Twitter DMs just about the riskiness of what he was doing.

I mean, he early on in the Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he posted, you know, scenes from the front in Belarus.

Like, he was breaking these big stories about troop movements, and obviously you worry about that.

Three months before he was captured, I'll say, he was in New York in October, and, you know, we were just like, sitting around at a friend's apartment, he talked about how he would get tailed on some of his stories.

And you're thinking to yourself, like, that doesn't sound so good, you know, but I'm sure- But you never imagined he'd be in this position or that you all would be sitting here talking about him?

No, not at all.

And I think the worst we thought, would he get kicked out of the country and have a good story to tell about it.

Did I think he would be put first into solitary confinement into one of Russia's most notorious prisons?

Absolutely not.

This has risen to a level that's frankly unacceptable.

And I think, again, while he wasn't naive, he did not expect.

Can you share, if he's told you throughout your correspondence, what he's doing to pass the time?

I mean, he gets an hour, as I understand it, outside of his cell.

But when you are in this prison, you never see the other inmates.

And you can speak to it better than I that he's a very outgoing person, someone who seems to thrive on being social.

Do you know what he's been doing to keep his spirits up?

Yeah, so with the things we're happy to share, he does have a cellmate now, and so he can chat with someone, though the Forteva, just excuse the pronunciation, is a notoriously isolating prison.

It's designed to isolate prisoners and to wear on their mental state.

He at least has someone he can talk to.

His legal team is able to enter the prison at least every two weeks, and they talk for a long time.

The stories we hear is that they're laughing the whole time, which I think goes to Evan's spirit, that he's reassuring everyone else but himself.

He's working out.

He has a book of bodyweight workouts that he's doing push-ups and things like that and trying to stay fit.

And there's a TV with some Russian TV channels.

They watch some random whatever's on daytime Russian television.

Keeping his mental and physical strength up.

But yeah Michael as we near as we are at this one year mark what do you want the world to know about Evan?

Well just that he's an incredible guy that he is brilliant.

He cared about the mission of being a journalist and sort of his unique ability to translate the Russian culture and experience of sort of everyday people to a Western audience.

And that's really what his reporting often focused on was just sort of daily life.

We're missing him, but we're also missing out on the incredible work he would be doing on this story.

Yeah, well said.

And he's still bringing all of you guys together, even from so far away.

Michael Vannitali and Jeremy Burke, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And finally tonight, more than a decade ago, we first brought you the story of John Francisco, a college student whose life changed in an instant after a traumatic brain injury left him paralyzed on one side of his body.

When we first met John, he was fighting to regain the most basic things many of us take for granted, but he never gave up.

A decade later, we are looking back at his story and the remarkable progress that began with those first painstaking steps toward recovery.

Take a look.

We last caught up with John Francisco 16 months ago.

The Rider University student survived a traumatic brain injury.

He was paralyzed on the right side of his body, missing half his skull, unable to speak or swallow.

What a difference a year can make.

I've made a great amount of progress.

I used to not be able to walk.

I know my voice isn't like perfect yet, but I couldn't even talk a while ago.

So I've come a long way, and I'm going to keep going a long way.

He's gone through intense physical, occupational, and speech therapy at JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute to get him here.

The things you take for granted, as simple as tying my shoe and putting it on, I'm happy and excited I can do these things by myself now.

The hard part is that the external community often looks at brain injury like it's a fractured leg, you know, like it's a bone fracture, where, you know, you have six or eight weeks of therapy and you get better.

>> Traumatic brain injury, once thought to be permanent, takes years for recovery.

Johnny underwent 11 months of swallowing therapy using a combination of methods including neuromuscular electrical stimulation.

>> Take a sip of the water and I want you to swallow hard and fast and I want you to really push to swallow.

>> And with each swallowing test that we did, his swallowing changed and he was able to have honey thick liquids and then nectar thick liquids and then finally in March of this year he was able to do thin liquids, which was fantastic.

>> But to provide that constant, coordinated care, doctors say it's not always easy to get insurers and the medical community at large on board.

>> Traumatic brain injury isn't an event that happens to someone like a broken bone.

It's a disease process.

And we know for sure that people after traumatic brain injury, besides their initial recovery being long and needing a lot of intensive therapies, that they're going to need some medical follow-up and supervision and therapies over their lifetime.

Those timid baby steps have turned into a full-on sprint.

Johnny is now enrolled in an online course through Ocean County College.

With help from a cognitive therapist, he hopes to be back on a campus by the fall.

I offer support and reinforcement of compensatory strategies to help him do well with his online course.

I wanted to test myself, and instead of telling the teacher what happened to me and stuff, I wanted her to put me at the same level as everyone else so I could see where I'm at.

And so far I'm doing great.

I have a B+, and I'm at the same level as everyone else in He'll need to keep up with his therapies and visit Dr.

Greenwald once every three months.

I feel like I have my Johnny back, yeah.

I didn't think I was, wasn't, but yeah.

He's my Johnny.

Time we have, Mom says, but not another Johnny.

In Edison, I'm Brianna Vannozzi, NJTV News.

That's going to do it for us.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

For the entire team at NJ Spotlight News, thank you for being with us tonight and all of these nights.

We'll see you back here for one more time tomorrow.

NJM Insurance Group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

(laughing) Is that... Wow!

[laughing] It's gonna be okay.

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