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- Liberty Science Center laid off 37 employees yesterday as it, like other nonprofits, faces a tough donation climate. The layoffs, which affect more than a quarter of the staff, reportedly hit all departments at the organization and included a vice president. Back in November, when arguing before the City Council for a $2.5 million no-interest loan from Jersey City, the center’s president Emlyn Koster made the point that the museum employs more than 100 city residents, including 25 full-time staff. No word as of yet how many of those laid off were from JC.

- The Jersey City branch of Ready, Willing and Able is closing today. The program and shelter helped ex-offenders reintegrate into society by providing jobs, training, social services and housing. The program had a budget shortfall of more than $1 million as fewer people have donated during the economic downturn. The Jersey City Incinerator Authority is hiring on interim the Jersey City residents who were working for the organization picking up trash on the street. (Story is not online.)

- The New Jersey Historic Trust announced its recommended list for 2008 Historic Preservation Grants yesterday, and two Jersey City sites made the cut. The Ellis Island Recreation Building is recommended to receive $50,000 and the Ellis Island Hospital Building is recommended for $162,325. The sites will go before the Garden State Preservation Trust on March 11 for ratification and then move on to the Legislature for approval.

- Jersey Journal staff photographer Reena Rose Sibayan has a neat video of last weekend’s “Homeless for a Day” action by Ward C city council candidate Adela Rohena, NJ Action 21 director Narciso Castillo and Jersey City Peace Movement director Erik-Anders Nilsson.

- Cops say two Jersey City men were arrested Wednesday night after the children of one of the men told mommy that daddy had funny plants growing under lamps at his house.

In statewide news:

- Top state lawmakers say that NJ’s property tax rebates for senior citizens will be preserved this year, but other rebates are at risk in the wake of the budget shortfall.

- NJ had the biggest increase in jobless claims of any state during the week ending Feb. 14 — a jump of 2,093, which officials attributed to layoffs in the service, transportation and manufacturing industries.

- A plan allowing the long-delayed cleanups of most of the state’s 24,000 polluted sites to be outsourced to private engineering firms was unanimously approved yesterday by a special session of Assembly and Senate committees, sending the measure to the Legislature despite intense opposition from environmental groups.

- The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear a prosecutor’s arguments that bail can be increased for illegal immigrants in local custody who also have federal immigration detainers placed on them.

- A bill to suspend until mid-2010 the fee assessed on commercial and industrial developers to fund affordable housing cleared the Senate budget committee yesterday. It now heads to the full Senate.

- A measure to spur lending to small businesses and individuals by investing state funds in community banks was approved yesterday by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee.