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A 19-year-old man has been charged with arson for allegedly sparking the massive wildfire in the New Jersey Pine Barrens that has torched 15,000 acres, prosecutors said. Joseph Kling, of Ocean Township, allegedly started a bonfire in the vast Forked River Mountains Wilderness Area with wooden pallets that exploded out of control when he did not properly put it out, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. Kling was taken into custody at Ocean Township police headquarters and taken to the Ocean County Jail, where he is awaiting his detention hearing.

This is getting whacked on a whole different level. John Alite, a former Gambino crime family enforcer-turned-mob turncoat now serving as a councilman in the sleepy New Jersey borough of Englishtown, was heckled during his first town hall meeting by a former underling of John Gotti Jr. However, Alite didn’t have to lay a finger on his critic — 39-year-old Christopher George of Huntington, LI — as dozens of townspeople shouted him down. George stepped up to a microphone and confirmed he once worked for “Junior” Gotti, Alite’s ex-best friend and the son of late Gambino godfather John Gotti Sr....

An incoherent New Jersey mom was allegedly caught on police bodycam video slurring her words after she drunkenly plowed into a truck with her three young daughters — and open bottles of wine — in her SUV. Megan Fackler, who admitted to working for the Garden State’s DOT, was arrested over the alleged drunken ordeal in Ewing Township, N.J., last October, newly released footage obtained by Transparency Bodycam shows. The mother had allegedly drifted into incoming traffic and crashed her 2020 Chevrolet Traverse into the truck after taking her kids — aged 8, 7, and 4 years — to dinner...

Gelinas is an information technology and security specialist who has worked for both Citigroup and Credit Suisse in prominent roles, according to Logically's investigation. He is reportedly in his 40s. Newsweek reached Credit Suisse for comment. CitiGroup were unable to be reached before publication. This story will be updated with any response.

President Donald Trump's longtime legal counsel and appointee as U.S. attorney for New Jersey announced Thursday she will launch a probe into Gov. Phil Murphy and Attorney General Matt Platkin over reports that state police were asked to ignore new immigration warrants. Alina Habba said on "Hannity" she decided to launch the probe following a Shore News Network report that an internal memo from New Jersey State Police (NJSP) Col. Patrick Callahan revealed Murphy and Platkin ordered that officers not pursue thousands of immigration warrants recently added to the National Crime Information Center. The move was reportedly meant to be...

An alleged sushi-slinging spy is in ICE custody. Ming Xi Zhang, known as “Sushi John,” the 61-year-old owner of Ya Ya Noodles in Montgomery Township, NJ, was arrested March 24 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark. Zhang was convicted in April 2024 of acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government and sentenced to three years’ probation. In May 2021, he pleaded guilty to having served as an agent of China in 2016 without notifying the U.S. Attorney General. ICE says he legally entered the U.S. in 2000 but later “violated the terms of his lawful admission.”...

A Democratic official in New Jersey and several reputed mobsters have been charged for their alleged roles in a major illegal gambling ring in the state, Democratic New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin announced Friday. Democratic Prospect Park Councilman Anand Shah, aged 42, is alleged to have illegally run poker games and a sportsbook tied to suspected members of the Lucchese crime family, one of the five major mafia families of New York, Platkin’s office announced Friday. The alleged mobbed-up gambling scheme operated out of restaurants and homes across the state and generated approximately $3 million in illicit cash. Today...

A teenage Bloods gang member, a sex offender and an alleged cop assaulter hiding under a bed were nabbed Wednesday in a multi-agency raid in Newark — led by the US Marshals with newly minted Interim New Jersey US Attorney Alina Habba in tow. The Post witnessed the arrest of Zakiyy Houser, 18, a gangbanger with a history of weapons charges wanted for aggravated assault after an incident in which he allegedly shot two people in Newark last month. Houser’s lengthy rap sheet includes a string of juvenile offenses across Essex County, New Jersey, among them conspiracy, possession of burglary...

PATERSON, N.J. ( — A Paterson police officer has drawn attention for wearing a Palestinian flag patch on his official uniform, raising questions about the appropriateness of displaying foreign national symbols while in service with a U.S. based law enforcement agency. Officer Adeeb Iqnies, who has served with the Paterson Police Department for three years, appeared in a video interview proudly displaying the Palestinian flag and speaking about his heritage. “I’m a Palestinian who loves my country as well as Palestine,” Iqnies said.

A New Jersey mayor accused of drunk driving allegedly drove her toddler home from day care on St. Patrick’s Day, nearly crashing on the road only days after resigning from her job with another town. Lumberton Township leader Gina LaPlaca was arrested for her alleged booze-induced stunt on March 17 after she picked up her 2-year-old son from day care. The 45-year-old Democrat was allegedly captured on video by another driver swerving all over the road, nearly crashing into a utility pole before the footage was shared with police, WPVI reported, citing charging documents. Police traced the car back to...

Chilling audio has revealed the moment a New Jersey woman begged 911 for help after her maniac neighbor shot her and her husband — asking dispatchers to tell her kids she loved them if she bled to death. Jill Kwatkoski and her husband, Tom, were left severely injured when their neighbor, John Adamo, 54, suddenly opened fire on them outside their Jersey Shore home on Tuesday afternoon after an apparent years-long feud, cops said. “Please get the cops here, I’m bleeding to death,” the distressed wife screamed in 911 audio obtained by NBC4. “I can’t leave my kids,” she continued....

The Secret Service is investigating after a New Jersey teacher allegedly threatened President Trump on social media. Fred Wilson, a special education and social studies teacher at Egg Harbor Township High School, allegedly wrote, “I think we are at the moment where assassination is at least a talking point,” on Facebook, according to the Secret Service and reports. The post first came under fire after a screenshot of his account was shared on the Libs of TikTok X account. “The U.S. Secret Service is aware of the incident involving comments made online by a teacher in the Egg Harbor Township,...

Never fear: Phil Murphy, defender of the downtrodden, is here! Embattled New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy recently suggested he and his taxpayer-funded security detail may have thwarted Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from arresting illegal immigrants congregating near his $10 million Middletown mansion. “There was a time when ICE was just randomly showing up on street corners and apprehending … brothers and sisters from the immigrant community,” Murphy said in press conference held a day after President Trump’s election victory. He claimed he caught wind of a neighborhood that was “at-risk” of an immigration enforcement sweep, and that he put...

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s political foes are urging ICE agents to “pay him a visit” and even calling for his potential impeachment after he bizarrely suggested he was harboring an illegal migrant in his home. “Phil Murphy just implicated himself in a crime! Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. It’s time for [ICE] to pay him a visit. When I’m Governor, everyone is getting deported,” wrote Republican former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac — who’s mounting a run for governor in November — on X on Monday night. Murphy jammed his foot squarely into his...

Allies of ex-Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) are reportedly angling to win a pardon for the disgrace pol from President-elect Trump. President Biden has apparently rebuffed the idea multiple times since the fall, forcing Menendez to set his sights on Trump — who he voted to convict during both of impeachment trials, sources told NBC News. Despite the bad blood, the former Jersey pol who awaits a Jan. 29 sentencing, is more confident that Trump will deliver mercy once he retakes the Oval Office — especially if he asks for a sentence commutation instead of a full pardon, the outlet reported....

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨 TRUMP: "I'm going to give you a report on drones about one day into the administration because I think it's ridiculous that they're not telling you about what's going on with the drones." From Trump War Room 7:18 PM · Jan 9, 2025

Disgraced former New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez should be thrown behind bars for at least 15 years for his “naked greed” in accepting a “hoard of bribes” — including gold bars, cash and gifts, federal prosecutors said. The 71-year-old Democrat is slated to be sentenced on Jan. 29 after he was convicted in July of accepting bribes in exchange for advancing the the interests of three Garden State businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar. The case is one of “rare gravity” — and “the first ever in which a Senator — or any other person — has been...

Call me old-fashioned, but I have always been under the impression that a minimum requirement for teachers would be basic literacy skills. But that's just some outdated mumbo jumbo, I guess. Because in New Jersey, they need teachers and they don't care if they can even read or not. A 6th-grade reading comprehension is NOT hard! Heck, there was a time when this was required to, you know, graduate to the 7th grade. But after years of schools just passing kids along, grade by grade, learning apparently nothing, now we have teachers who have teaching degrees and licenses but who...

A political war on the Hudson erupted Monday over New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and the MTA’s controversial $9 congestion toll. The MTA can now begin collecting the first-in-the-nation congestion fee on Sunday, Jan. 5, to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street — following a federal judge’s ruling in Newark. While Judge Leo Gordon said environmental mitigation concerns on the Jersey side of the Hudson have to be addressed, he chose not to issue a preliminary injunction to block implementation of the toll in his 72-page ruling. “The decision does not interfere with the program’s scheduled implementation this coming Sunday,...

Disgraced ex-Sen. Bob Menendez has asked to postpone his upcoming sentencing until after his cancer-ridden wife’s trial wraps up because the overlap “is too much to ask of any man.” The 70-year-old New Jersey Democrat who was forced to resign following his conviction this summer is scheduled to learn his fate on Jan. 29 where he will face what could amount to a term of life imprisonment. But his wife Nadine Menendez, 57, is slated to go on trial in the same case on Jan. 21 and his sentencing falling in the middle of her trial runs the risk “of...