New Jersey
The O'Toole Chronicles: Newark Liberty’s new Terminal is ‘Best in the World’ – New Jersey Globe
The newspaper headline read: “Expect That Airport at Newark Will Be Model for Other Cities.” The date was September 12, 1928. It was prophetic.
On Wednesday, Newark Liberty International Airport’s new Terminal A was announced as the Best New Terminal in the World, just one month after receiving a coveted five-star rating, both from Skytrax, the preeminent aviation industry ratings firm.
As Chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and as a native New Jerseyan, it was a great honor for me to be part of the Port Authority team, which also included Chief Operating Officer James Heitmann, Director of Aviation Redevelopment Jacquelene McCarthy, and Aviation Operational Standards and Compliance General Manager Frank Radics, that accepted these awards at the 2024 Skytrax World Airport Awards in Frankfurt, Germany.
The annual Skytrax award ceremony is known within the international aviation industry as the industry’s equivalent of the annual Academy Awards for achievements in filmmaking. Receiving these two exceptional recognitions for Newark’s Terminal A is more than winning an Oscar; it is like winning an Oscar AND a People’s Choice Award, with the former being decided by industry experts and the latter, by passengers.
The Skytrax ratings are considered a global benchmark of airport excellence, based on a detailed audit and an assessment of an airport’s product and front-line service standards. A coveted five- star terminal rating recognizes airport terminals that provide exceptional standards of facilities and staff service to customers across all front-line areas of the airport environment.
The designation as Best New Terminal in the World is the result of comprehensive surveys taken between August 2023 and March 2024 from passengers worldwide. Passengers evaluated their experiences, from airport facilities, staff service and customer experience ranging from check-in, arrivals, transfers, shopping, security, and immigration through departure at the gate.
Industry experts thought Terminal A was exceptional. Passengers thought Terminal A was exceptional. As Sally Field once famously said after winning her second Oscar, “You really like me.” Experts and passengers “really like” Newark’s Terminal A.
And there is much to like.
The $2.7 billion, 1-million-square-foot, 33-gate Terminal A is the Port Authority’s largest single investment in New Jersey, the largest design-build project in New Jersey state history, and its construction generated more than $4.6 billion in regional economic activity, creating more than 2,500 jobs.
Inside, Terminal A offers passengers world-class lounges, as well as food and retail offerings that include local shops with roots in Newark, Elizabeth, and Jersey City. In addition to world-class
customer amenities, the customer experience is enhanced by an inspiring and uplifting public art program, featuring dozens of local artists. Both the concessions and the art installations provide a distinct “New Jersey” sense of place – a signature feature of Port Authority redevelopment programs.
With both the five-star rating and the Best New Terminal in the World award, Newark’s Terminal A is a part of an elite group of just two terminals at just two airports in North America that I am proud to say are both Port Authority airports.
Terminal A joins LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B as the only two airport terminals in North America awarded the highest five-star rating by Skytrax. There are only four five-star airport terminals in the world, and two are at Port Authority airports!
This is an extraordinary accomplishment.
This is a tribute to my partner at the Port Authority, Executive Director Rick Cotton, whose leadership and integrity has ensured that the Port Authority’s historic $30 billion investment in rebuilding all three of the region’s major airports simultaneously has remained on track, even during the global pandemic.
This is a tribute to the leadership of the Port Authority Board of Commissioners who have remained committed to rebuilding our legacy infrastructure assets.
This is a tribute to the leadership of the governors of New Jersey and New York who are supporting these investments in both states, recognizing the vital importance of regional infrastructure investment.
This is a tribute to the Port Authority’s partner at Newark Liberty’s Terminal A, Munich Airport NJ LLC, the operator of the new terminal.
This is a tribute to the 8,000-person workforce of the Port Authority, who are the human structural steel that make everything possible.
This is a tribute to leadership of the 23 unions that represent the majority of the Port Authority’s workforce.
These two extraordinary recognitions – a five-rating and being named Best New Terminal in the World – represent an extraordinary turnaround for Newark Liberty. It is also an extraordinary return to the glory that once was Newark Metropolitan Airport, the first commercial airport in the nation.
Look for more to come at Newark Liberty as the Port Authority delivers a new AirTrain; plans for a new Terminal B; and opens an intermodal transit hub that will connect neighboring communities to the airport, to midtown Manhattan, and to economic opportunities across the region – all part of the comprehensive EWR Vision Plan that will re-envision Newark Liberty International Airport for the 21st century.
The 1928 headline read: “Expect That Airport at Newark Will Be Model for Other Cities.” Well, it is.
Kevin J. O’Toole is the Chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
NJ pastor on trying to bring young people back to religion
Amid a growing number of people leaving religion, Rev. Preston Thompson of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Englewood is trying to bring young people back.
Michael Karas, NorthJersey.com
Last June, the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark launched a review called “We Are His Witnesses,” which aimed to consider potential consolidations or closures of some of its 211 North Jersey parishes.
But amid confusion and pushback from many parishioners, Cardinal Joseph Tobin said Wednesday that the archdiocese will now extend its review to allow for further study and conversations.
In a letter published on the Archdiocese website March 4, Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, noted the challenges remain the same: a steady decline in membership and a shortage of priests projected to grow worse in the coming years. He did not specify how much longer the process would take but said he would have more to announce in June.
The largest of New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses, the Newark Archdiocese serves approximately 1.3 million people in Bergen, Essex, Hudson and Union counties.
Story continues after gallery.
Some parishioners, Tobin wrote, “came to believe — incorrectly — that the overall goal of We Are His Witnesses is to close churches. That has never been the purpose.
“This work is not driven by downsizing, but by mission: by the call to strengthen parish life so that it can truly form disciples and reach those who are not yet engaged in the life of the Church.”
The program’s aim is not to close churches, but to “strengthen parish life” he added.
He said a follow-up announcement would come on June 12 but reassured parishioners that “there is no need to fear that an immediate and wholesale closure of parishes will be announced.”
‘The Church is not a museum’
Current circumstances demand Church leaders to make difficult decisions, he said. “The challenges we face are real: fewer priests, fewer people in the pews, communities that look very different than they did even a generation ago, and financial strain. Ignoring the changed landscape does not preserve parish life; it weakens it. The Church is not a museum to preserve what it once was,” he wrote.
The initiative kicked off last summer, with meetings at churches around the region to allow parishioners to offer feedback. Many expressed fears about their future of their church, Tobin said.
Parishioners at many of the meetings and in letters to Tobin expressed concerns about the program. As a result, Tobin concluded that “it is clear that the communities of the Archdiocese need more time for honest discernment. We are extending this phase of our work to allow for deeper reflection and broader consultation throughout our local Church.”
“This is not a pause in mission. It is a call to take the mission seriously and to ask ourselves, with renewed honesty, what it means to be a missionary Church today.”
Msgr. Richard Arnhols, pastor emeritus of St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Bergenfield and a member of a committee of pastoral leaders helping to guide the review, said that, “Based on the input from the priests and people of the parishes which took place last fall, Cardinal Tobin has approved a period of additional study and reflection before any decisions are made.”
The first step is further conversation among parish priests, which will take place this month, he said.
Gregory Hann, a religious instructor at St. Vincent Academy in Newark, applauded Tobin’s decision. “If we continue to do things the way we have been doing them, we become a stagnant Church and we allow the comforts of our culture and the outside to keep us from moving from the Cross to glory.”
Nicholas Grillo of Bloomfield, a parishioner who attended several listening sessions at Holy Rosary Church in Jersey City, approved of the decision. “Hopefully the pause will give them time to reevaluate this going forward,” he said.
He added that it was a “waste of money” to pay large sums of money to a consultant that “doesn’t understand the intricacies of the Archdiocese of Newark,” he said, referring to the Catholic Leadership Institute, a Pennsylvania group that the archdiocese has engaged.
Instead, Grillo suggested, “they should put together a group of lay parishioners and priests from the diocese who can collaborate on a better path forward.”
THE SCOOP
The Devils began their season-high seven-game homestand with a decisive victory over the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night. The win was their second consecutive victory after picking up a win in St. Louis earlier in the week.
There’s not a lot of runway left in the season, and stringing together a run of victories is at the top of their minds. New Jersey is 11 points out of the final Wild Card spot, and 13 out of third in the Metropolitan Division. Tuesday will mark the Devils final game before the NHL Trade Deadline, which is on Friday at 3 p.m.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are having a down year, based on where the expectations were set heading into the season. The Leafs have struggled to gain any traction in their season and sit just two points ahead of New Jersey with 64. Toronto is 12 points out of third in the Atlantic Division, and nine points out of a Wild Card spot.
The Leafs have a tendency to give up an abundance of shots to their opponents, ranking first in the league in shots against, per game with 31.8, which bodes will for a Devils team that averages 29.4 shots per game, ranking sixth in the league. Despite their overall struggles, the Leafs do have the league’s fourth-best penalty kill, working at an 83.1 percent efficiency.
New Jersey
Former Lumberton, New Jersey, mayor Gina LaPlaca pleads guilty to 2025 DUI, sentenced to treatment program
A former mayor in Burlington County, New Jersey, pleaded guilty to DUI and child endangerment charges after a 2025 traffic stop, according to prosecutors.
Lumberton Township committee member Gina LaPlaca, 46, was indicted last spring on child abuse charges after county prosecutors said she was observed driving drunk with her young child in the car, while serving as the township mayor.
Police arrested her at her home after reviewing video from a witness showing her swerving out of her lane and nearly hitting a utility pole. Lumberton police discovered her blood alcohol concentration was .30%, over three times the legal limit of .08%.
On Monday, LaPlaca was sentenced to three years in a diversionary program for first-time offenders after pleading guilty to driving under the influence and a fourth-degree child abuse charge. As part of the plea deal, LaPlaca will avoid jail time as long as she abides by the terms of the program.
Under the terms of the Pretrial Intervention or PTI program, she must attend regular Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and comply with any requirements set by the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency.
Judge Craig A. Ambrose also ordered LaPlaca to have an ignition lock device on her car that will prevent it from starting up if the driver has consumed alcohol. She said in court she had already installed one in October 2025, the county prosecutor’s office said.
If LaPlaca violates the terms of the PTI program, she could be prosecuted for the child abuse charge.
LaPlaca completed an intensive treatment program in May 2025 and said in a statement that she is “fully committed to my recovery” and is doing the “daily, intentional work” that comes with it. She apologized to Lumberton residents while acknowledging a private struggle with alcohol addiction that was no longer private.
“The weight of my actions is something I carry deeply,” she said in a statement shared on social media. “What I did was wrong. It was dangerous. It was inexcusable. I drove while intoxicated with my child in the car — a choice that could have caused irreversible harm. That reality is something I will live with, and learn from, for the rest of my life.”
LaPlaca served as mayor through 2025 but remains on the township committee. Terrance Benson was sworn in as mayor of Lumberton this year.
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