The research team’s final report will include analysis of the number of qualified minority-, women-, veteran- and/or LGBTQ-owned businesses ready and available to do business and contract with the agency in each market sector and an assessment of its historic utilization of these businesses in similar contracts.

"By encouraging sourcing from N.J.-based wholesalers, a greater percentage of the funds will stay in New Jersey and support local job creation and business growth,” reads a memo from the Agency's board. “Over time, these subsidies can help provide N.J.-based manufacturers and small wholesalers with the scale they need to compete more broadly in the PPE marketplace."

The move also applies to controlled dangerous substances, and is consistent with guidance from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, which issued a temporary waiver allowing a practitioner to prescribe a Schedule II CDS through telemedicine without an initial in-person examination.

The list now stands at 31 states, along with Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

The state's system has been fraught with delays stemming from the historic demand for benefits and the agency’s dependence on a 60-year-old computer language known as COBOL.

Legislation that advanced out of the Senate Labor Committee would set aside $1.5 million per year from a federal allotment of money at the state's labor department for the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program.

Though the governor revealed renewed lows in the state's transmission rate on Monday, he also cited multiple establishments for their failure to keep patrons on entrance lines in masks and socially distanced.

Under an executive order signed by the president, the federal government would pay 75 percent of the cost for extending the supplemental weekly payments, now $400 instead of the previous $600, while states would be responsible for the remaining 25 percent.

“So what this bill does is give an extra amount of money for workers to be able to purchase health care,” said Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg. “Where employers are supplying health care, it is so paltry and so expensive that it’s almost beyond the ability of these people to pay for it.”

“The number one priority of this program is to offer much-needed relief to small landlords, who will in turn pass along the benefits to their tenants who are also fighting to stay afloat in the midst of this ongoing public health and economic crisis,” said Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver.

The Supreme Court takes up the Murphy administration’s borrowing plan in a case with wide-ranging fiscal and political implications.

Sixty-three percent of those phoned answered the call, accordin to the state. But, 20 percent would not pick up, State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said.