New Jersey
2-year-old NY boy, 8-week-old NJ girl die hours apart after being left in hot cars during heat wave
A 2-year-old boy died after he was left in a hot car in New York on Monday — hours after an 8-week-old girl met the same fate in New Jersey, marking the 11th and 12th hot car fatalities in the US this year, according to officials.
In the latest tragedy, 28-year-old father Avraham Chaitovsky left his infant daughter in a vehicle for “an extended period of time” in Lakewood Township amid a sweltering summer heat wave, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Officers responded to a report of a child in cardiac arrest near New Egypt Road around 1:45 p.m. Despite lifesaving efforts, the 8-week-old baby was declared dead on scene, according to police and prosecutors.
Chaitovsky was inside of the Kollel Cheshek Shlomo synagogue while his daughter was trapped in the hot car, News 12 New Jersey reported.
The father was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child.
He was taken to the Ocean County Jail and additional charges may be forthcoming, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Meanwhile, shortly before 7 p.m. the same day, officers in Monticello, New York responded to a 911 call of a child in cardiac arrest inside a vehicle located outside Sleepy Hollow Apartment Complex, police told News 12 Westchester.
First responders were not able to revive the 2-year-old boy, who was pronounced dead at the scene by the Sullivan County coroner. It’s not clear how long he was in the vehicle.
The Post has reached out to Monticello police for more information.
Temperatures topped 90 degrees in the tri-state area on Monday as blistering heat has suffocated most of the country.
Monday’s tragedies are the 11th and 12th confirmed deaths of children left in hot cars in the nation this year, according to national nonprofit Kids and Car Safety.
Last week, a 5-year-old twin died in Nebraska after his foster mom left him trapped in a vehicle for seven hours in 89-degree heat while she went to work at a nail salon, police said.
Earlier this month, a 2-year-old girl died after her 37-year-old father left her in the brutal Arizona heat for hours as he played video games. He was charged with murder.
A total of 29 children died from hot-car related deaths in 2023 and another 36 died in 2022, according to the organization. The average number of US child hot car deaths is 38 per year.
Kids and Car Safety Director Amber Rollins told The Post on Wednesday that a majority of hot car fatalities involve loving, caring parents who slip into “autopilot mode” that leads to the child being left behind in the car.
“It’s really the product of the right circumstances. These cases, almost all of them, are very much the same,” Rollins said.
“The number one contributing factor is sleep deprivation, which is par for the course for parents of young children, combined with a change in the normal daily routine,” she continued. “A lot of these parents aren’t even used to having a child yet, and the first few months are brutal.”
Some safety tips the organization recommends to ensure the children are accounted for include getting into the habit of putting an item that’s necessary to a parent’s day — like a work laptop or wallet — in the backseat.
“The idea is that its training you of getting into the habit of opening the backdoor everytime you leave the vehicle,” Rollins said.
It’s also recommended that parents keep a “reminder item” like a large stuffed animal in their vehicles that “lives in the backseat of your car.” When the children are in the car, parents should put the item in the front as a visual cue to remind them their child is there.
Kids and Car Safety helped pass federal legislation as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act which includes a mandate for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to issue federal safety regulations to the auto industry on technology that automakers must put in vehicles to prevent hot car deaths.
Rollins said safety standards were supposed to be submitted last fall, but they still haven’t issued it. They’ve repeatedly pushed back the deadline, with the agency announcing just last week they’d need until April 2025.
“Meanwhile, every week, children continue dying, families continue burying their children and it’s unacceptable,” she said.
Since 1990, at least 1,095 children have died in hot cars, about 88% of whom were 3 years old or younger, according to the organization.
New Jersey
World Insurance Acquires Van Syckel Insurance of New Jersey
World Insurance Associates announced that it acquired the business of Van Syckel Insurance of Bound Brook, New Jersey on August 1, 2025.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Van Syckel Insurance, which was started in 1865, is managed by Ryan Van Syckel, the great, great grandson of the founder.
The agency provides home and auto insurance, flood insurance, workers’ compensation and business insurance.
World Insurance, based in Iselin, New Jersey, serves clients from more than 300 offices across the U.S. and U.K.
Topics
Mergers & Acquisitions
Auto
New Jersey
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New Jersey
NJ Transit Midtown Direct diverted into Hoboken Terminal, causing delays
NEW JERSEY (WABC) — It was a frustrating morning for some commuters on NJ Transit after Midtown Direct rail service was diverted into Hoboken Terminal.
Delays of more than 30 minutes were reported by passengers and the transit system.
NJ Transit rail tickets and passes are being cross honored by NJ Transit and private carrier bus and PATH at Newark Penn Station, Hoboken, and 33rd Street-New York.
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New Jersey
N.J. lawmakers, advocates exploring different ideas to save NJ PBS
From Camden and Cherry Hill to Trenton and the Jersey Shore, what about life in New Jersey do you want WHYY News to cover? Let us know.
A legislative committee held a hearing this week to reimagine the state’s only public television station, so it can stay operational and continue to provide local news, sports and arts programming for New Jerseyans. NJ PBS announced in September that it will cease operations next summer because of drastic state and federal funding cuts,
NJ PBS, which airs local and national news as well as community and educational programming, used to be known as New Jersey Network. After lawmakers ended public funding for the media company that was run by the state in 2011, WNET in New York City reached an agreement with New Jersey to operate the network, which was renamed NJ PBS.
Bipartisan support
During the 90-minute session, organized by the Senate legislative oversight committee, legislators from both sides of the aisle spoke in support of maintaining public television in the state. Republican Assemblywoman Aura Dunn, who served as the director of federal policy at the Association for America’s Public Television Stations for almost a decade, said for many children and new American citizens, PBS is their first classroom.
“For families that can’t afford private pre-school or expensive streaming service, public television is the only consistent source of educational content in the home,” she said.
Dunn said many parents have told her that Sesame Street was more than just a show.
“It was a trusted partner in their child’s early development, and a critical educational lifeline,” she said.
Democratic Assembly majority leader Lou Greenwald said the power of local news informs and inspires.
“When we invest in honest, reliable, community-based information, we empower people, we bring them into the process and we start to build something that we’ve lost far too much of in recent years, trust,” Greenwald said.
He told the panel that as news organizations have become smaller, with fewer reporters in New Jersey and other states, residents have fewer options to learn what’s going on in their towns.
“It’s about democracy,” said Greenwald. “It’s about community and it’s about a shared truth, in an age when truth is increasingly up for grabs.”
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