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And by the PSEG foundation.

Briana: Tonight on "NJ Spotlight News" -- All eyes on Israel, as a deal to release the only living American hostage is put on the table by Hamas.

Plus, shutdown showdown.

Congressman Andy Kim is a no, but will any other Democrats flipped to approve the funding bill and keep the government from shutting down?

>> Donald Trump is already shutting down our government, look what he did to the Department of Education just the other day.

Briana: Also that USTA cuts more than $20 million in funding from local farms here in the Garden State, leaving schools and pantries searching for healthier meals.

>> We have to take this challenge, face it head on and look at the silver lining which is another reminder that we need to build better systems locally.

Briana: And researchers discover a rare species hanging out on the jetties at the Jersey Shore.

NJ Spotlight News begins right now.

♪ Announcer: From NJ PBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight news" with Briana Vannozzi.

Briana: Good evening and thanks for joining us on this Friday night.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

We began with a few of today's top headlines.

First, Hamas says it is prepared to release the last living American hostage being held in Gaza.

That's Edan Alexander.

According to reports, the agreement also includes releasing the remains of four other hostages said to be dual nationals.

The details are minimal at this point, but Hamas claims to have received a proposal from mediators.

It's unclear what the militant group may be demanding in exchange.

The Israeli Prime Minister's though had a different take today, casting doubt on a deal being imminent, saying Hamas has continued to reject proposals as the two sides try to work out a second phase of a cease-fire in Gaza.

If released, Edan Alexander would be the first male soldier released from captivity.

The Alexander family, which splits its time between New Jersey and Israel, has been very vocal in their calls for all of the remaining hostages to be set free.

In a recent interview with NJ Spotlight News, Edan's father said they are staying hopeful, but know their son is just hanging on at this point.

Also tonight, hundreds of family and friends and members of law enforcement came together in Newark earlier today for the funeral of police Detective Joseph Azcona.

The 26-year-old was fatally shot in the line of duty one week ago.

Officers from local, county and state law enforcement age and law enforcement agencies lined the streets during the summer procession then carried his flag draped casket from the hearse and up the stairs of the for basilica of the Sacred Heart.

The mayor joined mourners inside for the funeral service, where Azcona was posthumously promoted to Sergeant.

The five year veteran of the force was part of a special intelligence unit investigating suspects reported to have illegal weapons when he was gunned down before he could even step out of his police cruiser.

Another officer was also shot and wounded but is expected to recover.

A 14-year-old has been charged with murder in the assaults.

Governor Murphy ordered all flags to fly at today to honor him, he was member for his bravery and Dedication, a young man who went to work a week ago but never returned home here but it's down to the wire for the U.S. Senate to vote on a spending bill to avert a government shutdown.

Now just hours away from a midnight deadline.

Democrats had planned on blocking the bill.

It needs 60 votes to pass.

But in a surprise move Thursday night, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's said he would support the measure and said "while the Republicans' bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much worse."

Warning it would give President Trump full authority to keep the federal government closed and never reopen it.

But other Democrats, not seeing it that way, sparking outrage within the party today, which sees this as their only chance to push back at President Trump .

The stopgap spending bill needs at least seven Democrats across the aisle for it to overcome filibuster and pass.

Both of New Jersey's Democratic U.S.

Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim said they will be voting no.

On this week's episode of "Chat Box" with David Cruz with David Cruz, Senator Tim explains why.

>> It basically just hands up pile of money over to Donald Trump.

What it's doing is it is keeping the funding levels -- some of the funding levels from before, but it is not a clean CR.

It's increasing some of the military spending without direction.

It's cutting for instance provisions that would help support community health centers.

Which are incredibly important in New Jersey.

I visited one just the other week in Monmouth County.

What we worry about is our ability to provide the critical services that are out there.

And again, we see right now Donald Trump, whenever he has a chance, is trying to screw over people who are not loyalists or supporters to him and that -- and this would allow him to direct the money where he wants.

David: The Senate needs 60 votes.

That's like six or seven Democrats that are needed to vote with Republicans.

Do the Republicans have that support?

>> They don't have that support.

They don't have the support at this time.

That's why we are saying let's move forward with the 30 day extension.

Again, that is something the Republican chairwoman of Appropriations, Susan Collins, has talked about as a path forward.

I believe that is the best way to be able to keep this going.

Because I don't want to see a shut down.

I was a civil servant working for the government through two different shutdowns in the past.

Working not sure if and when I will get my paycheck.

We know how critical services are there.

What we see now is frankly a total disregard -- Donald Trump is already shutting down our government.

Look what he did to the department of education just the other day.

Cut 50% of the staff there at the Department of Education.

Has worked his way through so many other aspects of trying to cut just this.

And I want to express to the people of New Jersey this is not about efficiency.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump are demonizing public servants and what they are trying to do again is make these cuts and not be fiscally responsible and lower government spending.

In fact, what they are trying to do is create enough space for them to put in trillions of dollars of tax cuts that are going to favor the wealthiest people in this country.

And that's what we need to stop.

All you're doing is handing a pile of money to Donald Trump to do whatever he wants with it.

And that's what's so dangerous because we have seen the retribution that he takes.

We know that New Jersey would get screwed over if Donald Trump gets to do whatever he wants alongside Elon Musk.

And you have to ask yourself why they are doing this.

It's because of two things -- one, they are trying to give massive tax cuts to billionaires and the biggest corporations at the expense of the American people, and two, typing simultaneously -- it's happening simultaneously to the president affecting so many of our families in terms of affordability by increasing our cost of living because of these insane tariffs he has tried to all over the country, all over the world.

Those are the types of things we are trying to stop.

To make sure that we can focus on affordability, help lower costs in a way that Donald Trump is not doing.

In fact, he is tanking our economy right now and saying we could very well end up in a recession.

Well, that is on him.

Briana: You can catch David's entire interview with Congressman Andy Kim this weekend on "Chat Box" Saturday at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. right here on NJPBS.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it will cut two pandemic era programs that provide more than $26 million in funding for New Jersey schools and food banks to buy food directly from local farms and producers.

It is part of what the agency says is a "return to long-term fiscally responsible initiatives."

But advocates at other experts warn the decision could be devastating for children, their families, and farmers.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagis reports.

>> This is a super important program to all of us, and we want to make sure everybody understands it is not just a cut in funding, it's a loss of value.

Reporter: That cut in funding was just announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, bringing a stop to two food purchasing programs, one called local food purchase assistance or LFPA and the other called Local schools cooperative agreement.

Both provide fresh food to schools and food pantries.

>> If you have an opportunity to see what we do, I think you'd understand why this is so important.

We are bringing in broccoli, tomatoes, beef and pork and chicken, all grown locally, and cooking from scratch in schools or using them to teach kids how things are grown.

Reporter: Sal Valenza works as a food service director in schools across Hudson County and is also the policy director for the school nutrition Association of New Jersey, where his members include school food management companies and food service directors in schools.

The $26 million in total federal funds help them get those fresh foods into school cafeterias for kids who depend on those meals daily.

>> I serve 4500 meals a day at schools.

That's a good amount of produce to purchase.

For us, we need to make sure the farmers understand what we need and are able to produce that.

The federal funds help that happen.

They help the farmers be able to afford to sell to us.

Reporter: In the two years the program has been found, it's been a huge boon for the farming industry here in the state says Devon Cornia head of the Northeast farming Association of New Jersey, and some have already made investments counting on those dollars.

>> That's allowing beginning farmers to step in really expand their operations with confidence.

It's allowing existing farmers to either diversify what they are growing and marketing or lean into these markets and supply more food to food banks and food pantries and support their bottom line.

Reporter: One food pantry and -- in Orange, MEND, meeting essential needs with dignity, has used the LFPA funding to expand their home meal delivery program being a healthy foods twice a week to 220 families in Essex County who cannot otherwise get to a food pantry.

>> It is often grandparents taking care of grandchildren.

Families with young children.

People that have mobility issues, transportation challenges.

And quite honestly, people with young kids, it is hard to load up your family and get on a bus and get to a food pantry.

So folks that really have a hard time accessing fresh and healthy food and really have health and food needs that they need to meet.

Reporter: There are those who say that we need to cut federal spending and programs like this have been on the table.

What do you say to those who say this is an area where we should be cutting?

>> I say this is a classic example of trying to fix something that is not broken.

If you're going to invest in something at the government level, it would be investing in the health of our communities and especially our children.

So, I would look elsewhere.

>> Why you would eliminate a program like that, I am still trying to get my head around that.

Reporter: Felix Donato's family are multigenerational farmers, he's the head of a cooperative that helps farmers distribute their food to various markets and communities.

He says the program has been a game changer for farmers and the community.

>> It's basically a twofold program, it is helping these insecure families get these healthy food choices.

These healthy food choices, they are going to protect you from infectious disease, from chronic disease, and now you have a program that was doing that, plus that was helping our local agricultural community, which they need help a lot of times when it comes to distribute in -- distributing their product.

Reporter: The current funding for both runs out in October, the pantries and organizations that depend on it will be funded until then.

Many facing cuts say they will find a way to feed the hungry, even when the funds run out, but how, they don't know yet.

In Orange, Joanna Gagis, NJ Spotlight News.

Briana: As the White House eyes big changes to environmental rules and regulations, New Jersey's Board of Public Utilities is preparing to release a draft of the Murphy administration's updated energy master plan.

It's a blueprint for transitioning the state to a 100% clean energy economy by 2050.

That is something?

?

-- That is something the governor vowed to do when he first took office.

Business, labor and environmental groups got to weigh in on the state progress and next steps to bring an hours long virtual meeting Thursday where they learned the state has made a lot of progress in areas like reducing emissions from the transportation and building sectors and boosting community solar.

But the state will have to ramp up new policies at a much quicker speed if it wants to hit its target.

To talk about it, I'm joined by Ed P., Executive Director of the league of conservation voters and Eric Ford, President of the New Jersey energy coalition.

Good to see you both.

Ed, let me start with you, what did you hear in the presentation yesterday that made you feel like New Jersey is on the right track toward achieving some of these goals?

>> The energy master plan is a really important roadmap for us for how we are going to go clean energy that is affordable that can help us to create good local jobs right here in New Jersey that can't be outsourced instead of importing dirty oil and gas energy from neighboring states and also have energy independence and combat climate change which is wreaking havoc.

Last year was the hottest year on record.

We are seeing our seas rise.

All kinds of devastation and destruction.

We have forest fires in New Jersey all fueled by our addiction as George Bush said to oil.

Clean energy is cheaper than oil and gas.

Solar is the cheapest energy right now.

It saves money on the backend.

Avoiding these climate impacts.

Briana: The affordability issue is one that always comes up and in particular right now given the rising cost of energy and what we know is coming down the pike for homeowners, renters in the next few months in terms of what it will cost a cool and heat their homes, what did you take from this plan and what do you feel needs to be shifted?

>> Listening to it, I think one of the things that needs to be heavily focused on is making sure reliability is there and affordability is a part of it.

We are making sure that as we go down this path, currently presented -- as currently presented, we are taking into consideration making sure the lights are staying on.

70% of homes are heated by natural gas today.

If you were to tell someone you need to switch over, there first -- their first question is what does it cost?

What is that cost like?

If you think about where we are at now with the market, the high prices, how do we handle that?

We did not get here overnight.

It did not happen in the last year.

It was a slow walk that last year became fast.

-- in the last year became fast.

The market construct that we have right now is the one that we have to deal with.

We saw the capacity prices going up.

In a sense dealing with a market like that, that means it's a signal to builders to go ahead and think about what else we need to be bringing on.

One thing to think about and the -- in the energy master plan is the amount of generation we have lost in the last seven years which is about 4100 megawatts of power.

Now we import 4300 megawatts of power.

Thinking about how we build generation state, how we got that bill quickly, and what is a long-term plan going to look like?

Briana: Demand without sourcing, in sourcing some of her energy needs -- our energy needs, if we are going to get there, we need to significantly ramp up electrification across pretty much all of our sectors and ensure that the grid can handle that.

Are we on the right path?

>> There is no doubt the right way forward is clean energy because it's the cheapest.

In fact, the last auction jacking up our rates 20% across the state is a result of the fact that the regional utility grid denied clean energy projects that are cheaper from coming on line.

In fact, if 30% of those projects had been approved, the increases would have been 63% less.

New Jersey's waiting for 80 projects to come online and 96% of them are clean energy projects that are cheaper.

The people who vote are the oil and gas companies that are producing this energy.

It's a secret vote.

It never gets released.

And they vote on their own projects that are more expensive and we pay the price on the front end, on our bill.

On our health, cancer and heart disease.

Also for climate change.

And we are not creating the jobs in our state.

This is power coming in from outside.

Briana: One of the progress numbers that we got was if electrification does speed up at the rate that the plan calls for, we would see a net of about 54,000 jobs.

So a good thing for labor groups.

Or, are you saying we have already got more to do to support our current energy infrastructure?

>> With that question, do we have enough?

Adding more people to the work force is very important.

I know over the 30 years I've been a part of this, there's been a concern and need and desire to get more people into the industry.

There's a large significant amount of people that work on the -- in the energy industry today who can retire today.

So not just traditional but getting people involved in other areas are very important.

It's a great growth opportunity.

Energy is the number one driver of the economy.

Right?

The jobs, the microeconomic impacts that happen.

It's very important.

Briana: Let me just get very quickly final thoughts -- quick final thoughts.

I will start on the barriers that you see ahead.

>> Donald Trump's clean energy ban is a big barrier, they are doubling down on oil and gas, looking to line the pockets of oil and gas CEOs, make those shareholders rich.

We've got secret votes happening a the utility grid that doubles down on things that are more expensive.

We are being forced as ratepayers to pay for infrastructure that we don't need that's very expensive for the oil and gas industry.

People have to speak up and say we want clean energy to protect our health, create these good local jobs which are careers in our state and also attacks climate change and addresses that and creates energy independence.

Briana: Very quickly your final thoughts?

>> You look at the cost to build the stuff these days, that is the number one driver.

You saw Orsted pulled out and that was based on economics.

That was before the new administration.

So thinking about that.

Affordability and reliability.

The number one thing is thinking about how we make it affordable to build the projects, getting the permitting quicker and getting those projects online, I think those are the areas we should really focus on.

Briana: Eric and Ed, thank you so much to you both.

While it may not be summer just yet, there are new visitors from far away who have arrived at the Jersey Shore.

A Monmouth University stood has stumbled upon invasive and enemies making their home on local beaches.

The sea creatures are originally from the rocky coast of the British Isles.

So how they got here and how they might affect New Jersey's coastal ecosystems is still unclear.

Ted Goldberg went down the shore to learn more.

>> It's kind of crazy.

I still find it hard to believe.

Reporter: A year and a half ago, Diedrich Bowman stopped by the beach for a homework assignment.

What he saw that day led to him being published in an international science journal for being the first person to document an invasive species of anemone and North America.

>> I went a step further, and I wanted to identify everything that I was seeing, and I found this anemone that I did not know what it was, and I started doing some research online.

I found out what it was, but I could not find any information of it being in the U.S. >> This is the first time I've given a homework assignment that's led to a peer-reviewed publication and the discovery of a newly introduced marine species, for sure.

Reporter: Monmouth Professor Jason Adolph is proud of Bowman's work.

He was the guy who assigned homework in the first place.

>> He did the research and came back and said, "I think this is introduced, I think this is invasive," and it all snowballed from there.

We contacted collaborators of the U.K. to do genetic testing.

Reporter: There are more than 1000 species of anemone worldwide, and a few of them have been a part of New Jersey's ecosystem for a while.

The bee lit anemone sparked a little bit of confusion before Bowman's work was published.

>> The taxonomy of this specific species of anemone seems to be somewhat of a mess.

There was disagreement about whether a number of different morphological types should be included in one species or separated out into different species, so there was a time where we are not quite sure what we were looking at.

Reporter: What they are looking at is the bee lit anemone, which has been seen on New Jersey's jetties for about four years, but has only now been proven to be a unique species.

It is an invasive species, and the next question is, how it will affect the waters on the shore?

>> That's kind of a difficult question.

I think it definitely will affect it obviously.

But simply by looking at some of the behavior we are noticing here compared to their native ecosystem, they behave somewhat differently.

We are seeing them a lot like very close together, whereas in England and northern Europe, they are spread apart.

Reporter: The anemone retracts tentacles when there not enough water around so they don't look like what you might imagine.

They tend to live in crevices and wedge themselves into the space between white barnacles and black mussels.

>> They are competing against mussels for space and they are pushing them out.

That is the only thing that I can say for certain is the effect.

I am sure also competing for food.

>> From where they are found on the rocks, they are definitely competing with the mussels and in some cases competing the -- out competing the mussels for that kind of lower, wetter location on the rocks there.

Reporter: Bowman is a senior at Monmouth University.

He is putting this discovery high up on his resume and hopes it will help his career.

>> When people try to work with this anemone in the U.S. they will have to credit our publication.

Yeah, that's just a great thing for my career.

Obviously, it is sad to see organisms invading areas where they are not supposed to be ecologically, but for my career, I think it is a very big step.

>> We do value that and we try to encourage our students to get involved in research and published but the fact is it is very hard and to lead a paper to publication the way Diedrich did takes a lot of commitment and time.

Reporter: Commitment and time that helped Bowman get published and put the bee lit anemone squarely on our radar.

I am Ted Goldberg, NJ Spotlight News.

Briana: That's going to do it for us this week.

But before we go, a reminder you can download our podcasts wherever you listen and watch us any time by subscribing to the NJ Spotlight News YouTube channel.

Plus, you can follow us on Instagram and blue sky stay -- to stay up-to-date on all the state's big headlines.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

For the entire team at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

Have a great weekend.

We will see you right back here on Monday.

>> New Jersey education Association.

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More information is online at NJrealtor.com.

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Committed to delivering clean reliable American-made energy.

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>> Have some water.

>> look at these kids.

What do you see?

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