The Jersey City Independent "

- - The state has lifted a freeze on more than $12.4 million in N.J. Council on the Arts grants; local organizations affected are the Jersey City Museum, Schola Cantorum on Hudson, the Actors Shakespeare Company at NJCU, the Thomas A. Edison Media Arts Consoritum, which puts on the Black Maria Film Festival, and Hudson County’s office of Cultural Affairs, which then distributes smaller grants to scores of arts organizations in Jersey City and around the county.

- More than more 60 agencies are working with the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program to restore the Hudson-Raritan Estuary, a 25-mile area around the Statute of Liberty.

- A deckhand on a tugboat was crushed to death when he became tangled in ropes being used to tow another vessel in the Hackensack River yesterday.

- Jersey City’s Winston Trumpet, a former drug addict and dealer, now teaches convicts and former convicts how to apply for jobs as part of his work with the Friends of the Lifers Youth Corporation on MLK Boulevard. The Star-Ledger has his amazing story as part of its “I Am New Jersey” series.

- A third victim has been named in the case of a 19-year-old Bayonne man charged with being drunk when he plowed a car into a group of people earlier this year in Jersey City.

- A new 7-Eleven store is coming to Journal Square, at the corner of Bergen and Sip Avenues.

- Dislocations takes a look back at the decade of “increments, incidents and implications” in Jersey City.

In statewide news:

- Bond ratings of New Jersey municipalities are being reduced faster than in any other state.

- With large shortfalls in the state’s depleted unemployment-insurance fund fund, the state’s labor commissioner says New Jersey needs to let an automatic tax increase take effect July 1 to rebuild reserves. Once the fund recovers, a process likely to take several years, taxes would begin to fall to previous levels.

- New state rules and pending legislation seek to give further protection to tenants in buildings facing foreclosure. State Supreme Court rules that went into effect last month bar a final judgment of foreclosure until the foreclosing creditor has notified tenants of their right to remain in the property. Meanwhile, a legislative proposal, which is awaiting a floor vote in both houses, would require another notice after the property is sold that specifies to whom tenants should pay rent.

- The Record has a profile of Loretta Weinberg, the state senator pushing to get a marriage equality bill passed in Trenton.

- New Jersey’s National Guard soldiers are adjusting to life back home, and facing a bleak outlook for employment.

- Plenty of football fans were out at Giants Stadium yesterday to bid farewell to the 33-year-old arena, which will be replaced with a $1.6 billion, 82,000-seat stadium. Too bad they had to see the Giants’ embarrassing loss to the Panthers by a score of 41 to 9.

- A New York Times reporter goes all-in as a worker at a New Jersey Wal-Mart store to see what it’s like.

- A pair of lawmakers are hoping to stop unsolicited text message advertisements from being sent to state residents by sponsoring legislation to heavily fine violators.

- In the “who knew” department, the Record takes a quick look at Camden’s very important role in the history of the record player.

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