The Morning Briefing - January 15, 2016
RAHWAY - If you're looking for some top-grade, Broadway-caliber entertainment this weekend, why trudge into New York? See "MLK: The Nightmare After the Dream," debuting tomorrow at the Union County Performing Arts Center. And what a cast: Writer and Poet Elliot Fant as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Assemblyman Jamel Holley as Andrew J. Young Jr., Elizabeth Police Officer Isa McClendon as Coretta Scott King, Hudson County Freeholder Bill O'Dea as Lyndon B. Johnson, and Elizabeth Councilwoman-at-Large Patricia Perkins-Auguste as Dorothy I. Height, with a support cast from United Youth of New Jersey. Sen. Ray Lesniak will be handed a lifetime achievement award for his support of social and civil rights. It all goes down at 6 p.m. tomorrow; you can buy tickets at ucpac.org. See this play before it becomes an international sensation.
NORTH JERSEY - Politicians continue to tinker with a proposed constitutional amendment to bring long-awaited casinos to North Jersey. The latest version prioritizes Atlantic City casino operators for the prize, but only gives them a 60-days to apply, instead of the original 180 days, to force their hand. Developers are eyeballing Jersey City and the Meadowlands Racetrack, and must spend at least $1 billion. But, their investment needs to be at least 72 miles from Atlantic City - (how did they come up with that?) - with $200 million initially pumped into Atlantic City to help rebuild the kingdom.
HACKENSACK - It has to be Bergen County's worst kept secret: Sheriff Michael Saudino is expected to switch from Republican to Democrat at a 3 p.m. press conference on the courthouse steps, the Record reports. Two-term Saudino had a series of run-ins with former Republican County Executive Kathleen Donovan and he privately backed her 2014 Democrat opponent James Tedesco, who ended up winning. County GOP Chairman Bob Yudin yesterday called Saudino's defection "an unprecedented betrayal of trust." All wish the sheriff well, sure, sure. Yet expect some Republican revenge.
NEWARK - It sounds like a "good-for-the-goose, good-for-the-gander" dispute. Nearly 100 taxi drivers held boisterous protests yesterday outside Liberty International Airport's Terminal B demanding that drivers for Uber and Lyft comply with the same rules they do for background checks and insurance. Taxi drivers say these ride-share services should not be dispatched inside the airport and chanted "Uber must go!" A spokesman for Uber says the taxi industry is just trying to drive its safer, more affordable competitors out of the state. State Sen Ronald Rice reintroduced a bill this week to ensure Uber and Lyft play by the same rules as taxis and limousine services. We will probably be hearing more about this, so sit back and enjoy the ride.
TOMS RIVER - Most public school districts don't stop kids from dressing as the gender they most closely identify with. But Toms River's school board may soon take its acceptance of transgender students a step further - just like Cherry Hill recently announced. Toms River school officials are weighing the controversial policy that would allow transgender students to use opposite-sex restrooms and gym locker rooms, a move permitted under federal education law, CBS reports. But, the proposal has an opponent with Ocean County's "Move the Earth Ministries" gathering petition signatures and railing against it, saying the policy could jeopardize district's 16,980 students' safety and privacy rights. Let's remember: mixing politics with schools does little to get Jane or Johnny into Harvard.
DOWN THE SHORE - Better get your fill of saltwater taffy and skeeball. A top University of Miami scientist - media-nicknamed "Dr. Doom" - says rising sea levels will put the Jersey Shore waist-deep in water within 50 years. Harold Wanless recently told a Toms River confab that the world's barrier islands, including everything from Sandy Hook to Cape May Point, will be "unlivable" by 2065, the Asbury Park Press reports. Wanless claims it's too late to stop rising sea levels and we are "just throwing money into the ocean" with new seawalls and beach replenishment. Critics, including politicians, business leaders and other scientists, say Wanless is all wet. But this may be a good time to snap up some future beachfront property in, say, Freehold.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
BURLINGTON, VT - Maybe we should build a wall from Canada, too. Border Patrol agents busted a 21-year-old Canadian early Wednesday, dragging a sled loaded with 182 pounds of Xanax pills in 300 vacuum-sealed bags. The haul has a $1.6 million street value, the Burlington Free Press reports. Despite the man's winter-white camouflage clothing, authorities found Cedrik Bourgault-Morin after he tripped an electronic sensor in woods not far from the Quebec border. He faces a $250,000 fine and five years in federal prison and has to sacrifice all those anti-anxiety pills he could really use about now.
PENSACOLA, FL - Video of an all-girl trio's bouncy, bubble-gum-pop song honoring GOP presidential megalomaniac Donald Trump has gone viral and sparked a backlash for its threat-laced lyrics. The preteen "USA Freedom Kids" - clad as patriotic cheerleaders - debuted "Freedom's Call" before 10,000 Trump fanatics packed into the Pensacola Bay Center on Wednesday. Among the eye-popping lyrics: "Enemies of freedom face the music, come on boys take 'em down/President Donald Trump knows how to make America great/Deal from strength or get crushed every time." Slate Magazine says we may all soon be singing this ditty "in our mandatory labor camps." On Twitter it got called "disturbing and creepy," "something out of North Korea," and "a reminder of Hitler youth," among a slew of other unprintable things. Check it out here.
BURNS, OR. - Instead of blankets, beef jerky and cigarettes, anti-government militants holed-up in the Malheur Wildlife Refuge got care packages full of sex toys, phallic-shaped candy and nail polish. Running short on supplies since their Jan. 2 occupation began, the armed militiamen asked other patriotic supporters to send them stuff like clean socks, batteries and Miracle Whip. Most of the response they got came from pranksters trying to get a rise out of them with enormous dildos, women-size thongs and hate mail. Militia spokesman Jon Ritzheimer called the gag gifts "hateful stuff" and "really ridiculous." And he should know all about ridiculous.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 1559 that England's Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminster Abbey. Her daughter is now queen.
(OK, ok. That may not be completely correct. But it sure feels like Queen Elizabeth II has been around for a few centuries.)
WORD OF THE DAY
Incarnadine (in-KAR-nah-dine) - noun
Definition: Having the scarlet color of flesh.
Example: During last night's GOP debate, Donald Trump's cheeks were particularly incarnadine.