🚨 over EMS group funding

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A statewide EMS task force formed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks is facing a shutdown in the fall because it’s running out of money.

Lilo Stainton has the details on the task force, which most recently helped prepare for any emergencies at the World Cup and also handled responses to the July 4 storms and heat wave that caused extensive damage and a handful of deaths.

The task force’s leader says it asked for money in this year’s state budget, but it was left out.

“This is not a warning bell ringing. This is an emergency siren blaring,” one advocate told lawmakers.

State Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R), who has lambasted his Democratic colleagues for filling the state budget with pork, criticized his colleagues for putting pet projects ahead of the task force’s needs.

“Emergency preparedness should come before one dime of pork, and it didn’t,” he told Lilo. “The priority was pork over preparedness.” 

Read more from Lilo.

Economy: Gov. Mikie Sherrill appeared in Newark Thursday to sign a bill aimed at banning “surveillance pricing,” which critics say retailers use to boost prices for specific customers based on their personal data. “Surveillance pricing weaponizes your data against you,” Sherrill said before she signed the bill at a Newark grocery store. “Companies figure out where you live, where you shop, and even what you’re Googling, and they use that data to calculate specific, often higher prices for items you need without your knowledge.” Business groups say the bill could lead stores to halt loyalty programs and other perks that lower prices for enrolled customers.

Court: New Jersey joined other Dem-led states in suing the Trump administration again over the president’s push to link federal disaster relief to his preferred immigration and election security policies. “FEMA always supported all states, until President Trump started trying again and again — and now again — to use Homeland Security and disaster-prevention funding as a political weapon to force states to comply with his unrelated political priorities,” New Jersey Attorney General Jen Davenport said.

Commentary: I have some thoughts on this week’s big news out of Trenton, that thousands of non-citizens were registered to vote because of what Sherrill called a mistake by the administration of her predecessor, Phil Murphy: “Like an apparently dead victim at the end of a slasher film who rises once again for a final jump scare, Phil Murphy has reached out from his post-governorship life to kick New Jersey Democrats right where it hurts one last time.”

Health: Death rate data from all 50 states from 2015-2025 shows New Jersey has the biggest drop, at 8%, per Tim Henderson at Stateline. Stephen Crystal, director of Rutgers University’s Center for Health Services Research, told Tim New Jersey has gained by expanding health care for low-income residents. “New Jersey has been doing this for a long time, and you’re seeing the effects in the lower mortality rates for the big killers,” he said.

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