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New Jersey residents warned of potentially hazardous chemicals following fire and cleanup at former industrial site | CNN

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New Jersey residents warned of potentially hazardous chemicals following fire and cleanup at former industrial site | CNN




CNN
 — 

Residents and enterprise house owners in elements of Monmouth County, New Jersey, have been warned of doubtless hazardous supplies at a close-by former industrial web site after firefighters discovered leaking containers and supplies on fireplace on the location.

The US Environmental Safety Company has began overseeing the sampling and elimination of round 200 to 300 chemical drums and containers discovered on the former manufacturing facility in Howell Township, it mentioned in an April neighborhood replace. It isn’t but clear what sort of chemical substances the drums and containers maintain, the EPA mentioned.

EPA spokesperson Stephen McBay advised CNN Sunday there’s “no instant want for evacuations” because the company actively conducts cleanup on the web site.

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The cleanup comes after an area fireplace division found supplies burning inside an outdated metallic construction on the web site on February 9, the EPA mentioned. Firefighters discovered quite a few drums and smelled a chemical odor earlier than placing out the fireplace and referred to as in different businesses for assist in addressing probably hazardous supplies.

In March, the EPA mentioned the New Jersey Division of Environmental Safety assessed the location and located roughly “200 to 300 55-gallon drums and containers, a lot of which had been both bulging, rusting, denting, or leaking.”

The division then requested for help from the EPA, which mentioned it discovered “breaches within the entrance fence of the property and no fence securing another aspect of the property.” The EPA additionally noticed containers that had been leaking and labeled as hazardous supplies, it mentioned.

The positioning is the previous location of Compounders Inc., which manufactured chemical compounds, together with glues, adhesives, and asphalt supplies, in accordance with the EPA. Compounders operated till 2019. The present proprietor – who has not been publicly recognized – bought the enterprise in 2021.

When requested by CNN if prison fees are pending over the disposal of doubtless hazardous materials on the web site, the EPA’s McBay mentioned the company “doesn’t present data on ongoing or probably ongoing enforcement actions.”

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Resident and enterprise house owners inside a mile of the location had been despatched a letter on March 30 from the Howell Township Workplace of Emergency Administration, warning of potential hazardous supplies on the web site. Along with the massive variety of drums discovered, the letter mentioned authorities additionally discovered “spilled supplies on the bottom and open drums, in addition to strong waste.”

The letter included hyperlinks to Howell Township’s web site, with neighborhood updates on the EPA’s work on the web site. On March 9, recommendation was posted for evacuation routes across the 15 Marl Highway web site for use in case of an emergency occasion, equivalent to a fireplace.

Residents at a neighborhood assembly on March 21 had been advised the evacuation plan was created “out of an abundance of warning.”

There are at the least three faculties and two baby care facilities within the space, in accordance with an April neighborhood replace.

The letter from the township’s Workplace of Emergency Administration added, “We estimate the chance of a launch of any potential hazardous materials to be very low. In spite of everything drums are faraway from the property, an investigation will probably be ongoing with the State NJDEP and EPA to find out what, if any, impacts have occurred to groundwater, soil or floor water.”

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The EPA has positioned 24/7 safety on the property and mentioned it has put in a fringe fence “to make sure there is no such thing as a unlawful trespassing on or across the web site.”



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New Jersey

Three NJ lottery players won big playing Powerball last week

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Three NJ lottery players won big playing Powerball last week


Three lottery players in New Jersey won $50,000 or more last week playing Powerball.

The New Jersey Lottery announced Tuesday its weekly winners. Here’s a look at where these tickets were sold from May 6 to May 12:

  • $100,000, Powerball, May 8: sold at Xpress Mart on Main Road in Vineland (Cumberland County)
  • $100,000, Powerball, May 11: sold at Colonia Convenience Food Store on Inman Avenue in Colonia (Middlesex County)
  • $50,000, Powerball, May 11: sold at Krauszer’s Food Store on West Washington Avenue in Washington (Warren County)

More: Two NJ lottery tickets win $4.9 million Pick-6 jackpot at the same store

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New Jersey Lottery games



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New Jersey’s recreational marijuana industry is booming. Here’s what you need to know

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New Jersey’s recreational marijuana industry is booming. Here’s what you need to know


How much is marijuana taxed in New Jersey?

In addition to the standard 6.625% sales tax, a local municipality tax and cultivation and manufacturing taxes are levied on the products. The total tax ranges from 10% to 12%, which Rudder says is one of the lowest rates in the nation.

Can you not get hired or get fired for smoking marijuana in New Jersey?

Cannabis, unlike alcohol and most other drugs, can be detected in blood, urine and saliva tests, sometimes days and weeks after it is ingested, depending on the amount consumed, body metabolism and the level of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Rudder pointed out “the industry has been very supportive of trying to figure out techniques to make sure tests are more accurate.”

He said that, because cannabis is now widely accepted as medication for pain, anxiety and insomnia management, “a lot of employers, if they do have a drug [testing] policy program, they’re not including cannabis in that program anymore.”

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Rudder noted some companies follow stricter federal drug policies and mandates, which are more conservative because marijuana consumption is illegal according to federal law.

Companies have the right to create their own drug-use policy and, most, he said “recognize what cannabis is.” “If [workers] are showing up sober at work and test positive for something that may have happened a couple of weeks ago, that becomes a complicating factor,” Redder added. “So a lot of them are just not testing for cannabis whatsoever.”

Can you grow marijuana plants at home in New Jersey?

New Jersey residents cannot grow marijuana plants at home, but the concept is under consideration in Trenton. Legislation could soon be introduced to allow Garden State residents to grow their own weed crop. Rudder said patients using cannabis to treat medical issues “should have the opportunity to grow their own medicine.”

Cannabis has been utilized around the world for medicinal purposes for thousands of years, he said.

“That is something that is going to happen, it needs to happen,” he said. “It must happen, it should happen.”

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Can you travel with marijuana across state lines?

You are not allowed to carry cannabis from one state where it’s legal to another state where it is not, Rudder said.

So, if you’re a Pennsylvania resident 21 or older and you travel to Jersey to buy marijuana at a dispensary, you are not permitted by law to bring it back to Pennsylvania. But there is a loophole.

“There is no enforcement mechanism for that, so you’re not going to have DEA agents on the other side of the Walt Whitman Bridge ready to pounce on somebody that may have bought a few joints at a dispensary,” Rudder said.



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Jury selection starts in Sen. Bob Menendez's corruption trial • New Jersey Monitor

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Jury selection starts in Sen. Bob Menendez's corruption trial • New Jersey Monitor


Eight months after federal authorities indicted Sen. Bob Menendez in a wide-ranging corruption scheme, his trial got off to a slow start in Manhattan Monday, with the federal judge excusing almost a third of the 150 potential jurors called.

U.S. Judge Sidney Stein warned them the trial could last into the first week of July and briefly summarized the accusations in prosecutors’ 18-count indictment against New Jersey’s senior senator. Prosecutors say the senator accepted gold bars, cash, a luxury car, and more as bribes from three businessmen to disrupt several criminal probes and prosecutions, steer military arms and aid to Egypt, help one land a lucrative deal with a Qatari investor, help another gain a monopoly on meat imports to Egypt, and conspired to cover it all up as investigators closed in.

When the judge subsequently asked which potential jurors had substantial reasons they could not serve, dozens of hands shot up, and they were called one by one into a separate room for questioning by Stein and two members each of the prosecution and defense teams.

Some of those who sought an out cited scheduling conflicts, travel plans, and work or family obligations, while others told Stein they could not be fair. Some had very specific excuses. One juror told Stein he has an extreme fear of heights (Stein’s courtroom is on the 23rd floor, with windows overlooking the city).

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Another said she has a trip scheduled to Europe later this month and plans to see Bruce Springsteen in Spain.

Stein noted that Springsteen recently announced new tour dates.

“You could catch him, probably in Giants Stadium,” he said.

Another potential juror told Stein she’s a housing attorney who gets “worked up” when she hears about public corruption and called the case “triggering.”

Another said she recently became a children’s librarian in Greenwich, Connecticut, and fretted about a lengthy trial’s impact on her job, as she hasn’t passed her probationary period there. That prompted Stein to rhapsodize about being a children’s librarian in another life.

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“I’m telling you, that’s what I would do, children’s librarian,” he said.

Back in the courtroom, Menendez sat alone at a defense table and stared forward silently, his fingers steepled in front of him in the hushed courtroom. His co-defendants, businessman Wael Hana and real estate developer Fred Daibes, sat beside their attorneys at a separate table.

By mid-afternoon, Stein had excused 38 jurors from an initial pool of 100 and called another 50 people in for questioning. About a dozen are expected to be excused from that last batch when the initial round of questioning wraps up Tuesday.

It was an anticlimactic start for a trial that promises plenty of drama, given the more salacious parts of prosecutors’ indictment and the details that have emerged since — that the bribes typically went to and through the senator’s wife, Nadine; that he probably will blame her; that he used his powerful position as head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to act as a foreign agent; and that he may explain his hoarded riches as a trauma response to his father’s suicide and his family’s refugee experience.

The senator, his attorneys at his side, breezed past a mob of photographers and television journalists Monday morning on his way into the Daniel Patrick Moynihan federal courthouse, just two blocks from where former President Trump’s trial is unfolding.

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He wore a navy suit with his Senate pin on the lapel and went through security like everyone else, doffing his belt before walking through the metal detector. In the courtroom, he smiled and chatted with his attorneys as they waited for proceedings to start.

Before calling in prospective jurors, Stein scolded attorneys who filed a flurry of briefs and motions over the weekend.

“There’s been too much gamesmanship here, and I want it to end now,” he barked. “Everybody has to operate in good faith here. I’m not sure I’ve seen it.”

The trial resumes Tuesday morning, with attorneys expected to pick a jury from the remaining 100 or so potential jurors by interrogating them further on everything from their understanding of halal food to their thoughts on keeping cash at home instead of in a bank account to their perceptions of New Jersey residents, politicians, wealthy people, immigrants, Coptic Christians, Egypt, and more.

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