♪♪ >> From NJPBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Brianna Vannozzi.

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagas.

Brianna Vannozzi is off.

>>> Coming up from Delaney Hall to the proposed Roxbury Detention Center, ice activity is back in the spotlight.

And later for some, it's a miracle drug.

Others are seeing side effects.

We look at the health benefits and risks of using GLP-1s for weight loss.

But first, Spain wins the World Cup Final in New Jersey.

But how did NJ Transit score?

And the host committee will get a tally on their performances next.

Funding for NJ Spotlight News provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn more at RWJBH.org.

The World Cup is officially over.

Spain took the title of World Cup champions over Argentina in a match played right here in New Jersey on Sunday.

A match that capped weeks of excitement for the biggest sporting event in the world.

Over the last month, we've seen hundreds of thousands of fans pour into the New Jersey, New York area for the eight games that were played here.

Many stayed at hotels and enjoyed restaurants in the region, and thousands made their way to MetLife Stadium.

Now, NJ Transit was responsible for getting many of them there and back, and after the final, CEO Chris Calore declared the agency's performance during the tournament a victory.

But it's unclear how much it cost the state and when the final numbers will be tallied.

For more on that, I'm joined by Colleen Wilson, transportation reporter for The Record at NorthJersey.com.

Colleen, it's great to see you.

Oftentimes it's the teams working off the field that make these matches such a success.

How do you rank, how do you rate what we saw in terms of the preparation and preparedness for this World Cup final?

Yeah, it took years and years of work.

I mean, this has pretty much been in the works since even the Christie administration, the final year of the Christie administration, when you really think about it.

So it was a really exciting day for New Jersey and New York, New York City specifically.

So, yeah, I mean, they did great.

They got 80 more than 80,000 people to attend.

every single or almost every single of the eight matches that took place at New York, New Jersey Stadium, or as most people know, at MetLife Stadium.

So it was a really, really cool event for the two states and cities.

NJ Transit CEO Chris Calori came out and said that the curse of the 2014 Super Bowl is over.

Who knew that that was a curse that was going to haunt us for maybe more than a decade to come.

But we really didn't see the type of crashes that we saw in terms of transporting people out of the stadium, at least.

Were there any hiccups?

What do you make of him saying that that curse is over?

-Yeah, you know, look, what happened in 2014, to remind people, is that New Jersey Transit expected to move, you know, about 15,000 people.

Their system, their train system can handle anywhere from 10,000 to 12,000 people an hour, but 28,000 people took it to the Super Bowl that year, and then 36,000 or 35,000 people took it home.

So they got completely inundated and crashed from that.

Now, they safely moved all of those people, but it took several hours.

So that's what everyone remembers.

They remember the headlines.

They remember it being just kind of the butt of jokes for many years.

And there were other events before and since that had not as bad a problem, but definitely some other similar issues of moving lots of people on a system that's just designed for 10 to 12,000.

So they really, really did not want to repeat that.

And so a lot of planning and shifting and rethinking and retooling went in to coming up with a way to do that, and in a cost effective way, as much as could be considered.

Now we are still trying to figure out all the costs.

In fact, they are still, Chris Glory has said, they are going to be tallying up all the costs and sending a bill to the appropriate venues, including the host committee, for discounts and other things that it says it would honor, up to $3.6 million.

So yeah, it was exciting for them.

Yeah, you raise a couple good points.

And one of the things I can't help but think about is that they, NJ Transit set a rule that you had to leave the game, you had to leave the match in the same way that you got there.

And I wonder if that isn't one of the lessons learned from that 2014 Super Bowl.

They know what they're planning for both ways because they know how many tickets they've sold.

There are a lot of costs to tally.

I know it's going to take weeks.

But Chris Glory came on our air and said that the one place he's not going to ask to get money reimbursed is from New Jersey taxpayers, from the governor, from the state budget.

Where is that money going to come from if they didn't cover the costs of what it took to provide security, to reroute trains, and as you said, discounts for riders who were disrupted, whose commutes were disrupted because of the matches?

Yeah, so that's right.

And he's been extremely consistent on that message, that he's not going to go to the legislature, he's not going to go to the commuters with a surcharge or something like that, and he's not going to cut service.

So what that looks like, I'm not exactly sure.

We haven't really gotten details on that.

However, I will say, so the Governor Sherrill gave New Jersey Transit a historic amount of aid, state aid this year for their 2026-2027 budget, and included in that actually was an additional $20 million from the general fund that she did not initially propose in March.

So they already got another little boost there that should help them, and especially because by my math, my calculation, based on the number of people that they transported at each match, they ended up with about a $13 million revenue gap from what they expected if they had sold out every single match, which maybe they didn't expect to sell every single match but to get pretty close and they did not get that close, they probably moved about on average 23,000, 24,000 people of the 40,000 they expected to sell out.

So that helps cover that a little bit at least.

You mentioned they'd be going to the host committee.

No, you said FIFA.

I want to bring up the New York, New Jersey host committee because you recently wrote about, perhaps you'd call it a snafu, with their tax status.

It seems a little wonky at first, but it actually could have some real implications when it comes to transparency for New Jersey taxpayers.

What happened there?

Yeah, you know, basically what happened is that nonprofits in New Jersey have to file and register with the Attorney General in order to solicit funds and to essentially operate.

The New York New Jersey Host Committee, which is a 501(c)(6), did not do that.

They did do that for their 501(c)(3), which is their foundation, but that is a wholly owned entity of the 501(c)(6).

So that is something that we wanted to highlight.

And I think one of the most important pieces of information about that.

And as we talk about tallying the numbers, as we talk about, was this a benefit and a boon to New Jersey, or was this, you know, a money pit for New Jersey?

You, these documents that they were supposed to file include information on that, their revenues, their fundraising partners, their salaries, you know, how they spent money.

That is all included on that and that's information we will get sooner if they are filed in a timely way as compared to their federal tax filings, their 990s, things like that.

We won't know what their 2026 990s, which is when I would think some of the bulk of that fundraising took place until, you know, fall 2027.

So it's so important that we understand that information sooner rather than later.

And I know the host committee will, as they've told me, will come out with, you know, more reports, some kind of information about what they did and the work that they did and how they accomplished that.

So we look forward to that.

But certainly want to see, you know, all the T's crossed and the I's dotted when it comes to registering and having all those documents in place.

Switching gears just short short time left, but the new e-bike law went into effect yesterday.

What can you tell us about what riders should know?

Yes, wow there's a lot to unpack there.

So the big thing to know is that this new e-bike law created a new classification system for e-bikes in New Jersey.

Essentially if your e-bike has a motor and or a throttle and it goes anywhere between like 15 and 28 miles an hour, it now requires registration with the state and you have to have a driver's license or an e-bike permit or an e-bike license issued by the motor vehicles commission to to legally ride that.

And if it goes and you have to be you have to be 15 years old right is that right to ride that?

That's right that's right you have to be 15 you have to wear a helmet there are several new regulations there you also have to have insurance for certain types of e-bikes.

Yeah for the higher speeds I know you also have to register and and you have to carry insurance yes?

That's right.

We don't have a lot of time left I just this is kind of a yes or no has the state outlined any clear enforcement penalties that will be in place for failure to comply?

There are some nominal fees, but there could be summonses, there could be other tickets, depending on the severity of the compliance.

You know, it's really unclear how that's going to go.

All right, we'll keep at it.

I know you will too.

Colleen Wilson, Transportation Reporter with the record at NorthJersey.com.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Immigration enforcement has become a flashpoint again, as two more individuals were recently shot and killed during an ICE enforcement operation.

And we're hearing reports that the FBI may no longer investigate confrontations with immigration officers.

Here in New Jersey, plans are now back on for a detention facility at a warehouse in Roxbury.

All the while, advocates continue calling for the closure of Delaney Hall in Newark, where they say detainees are facing abusive conditions and violations of their rights.

The ACLU of New Jersey is among them and we're joined now by senior policy analyst Ami Kachalia.

Ami, thanks so much for taking some time to talk to us.

We've seen no shortage of headlines in the news lately, whether it be shootings of individuals during an ICE enforcement operation or the New York Times reporting that the FBI will no longer investigate confrontations with immigration officers, I should say that the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security have denied that as being true.

But you take issue overall with some of the things we've seen here in New Jersey when it comes to ICE enforcement and specifically Delaney Hall.

What are your concerns there?

You know, what we've seen at Delaney Hall over the last year really should alarm all of us.

Delaney Hall is an immigration detention center here in New Jersey that was opened last May.

It's actually the first immigration detention center that was launched during the second Trump administration.

And since the very beginning it's been a mired in controversy.

We've heard about people who are detained there being subjected to spoiled food, to lack of air conditioning or heat.

We've heard about a lot of filth there and severe medical neglect.

It is, like many immigration detention centers across the country, known for abuses there.

And as we saw earlier this year, people inside Delaney Hall actually took a part in a hunger and a labor strike there to protest the conditions that they were experiencing.

These conditions are not just at Delaney Hall, I should note.

They're at the same time as this hunger strike and labor strike took place, there were at least five other hunger strikes taking place at detention centers across the country.

For people who are-- - I have to ask you, we've heard what you just claimed disputed by many people, including DHS officials, including representatives, Republican representative Jeff Bandrew went inside, said this place is clean, it's nice, the food is great.

Even some Democratic representatives who've gone in and have said they're just not seeing all of what's been alleged by detainees.

My question to you is how do we ensure that what's happening inside is following food safety protocol, that that immigration enforcement inside is following the Constitution?

How do we get this type of assurance?

That's a great question and really at the heart of this is this question about accountability, right?

One piece that's so important here is for there to be continued robust oversight of Delaney Hall and of other immigration detention facilities.

We've seen over the last year the government tried to say that oversight is something that members of Congress cannot engage with, but members of Congress have an authority to conduct visits to immigration detention centers to make sure that they are everything there is done in accordance with the law.

And so if anything, what we need right now is stronger oversight over facilities.

Over the last couple of months, we've seen a number of members of Congress here in New Jersey make visits to both Delaney Hall and to Elizabeth Detention Center, both of which are facilities in New Jersey.

Again and again, we have seen members of Congress come out and share what they have learned, and it has always been really alarming information about both the conditions inside in terms of food and heating and medical access, but also really concerning information about retaliation and abuse that people inside are facing.

For example, we heard that after the hunger strike and the labor strike, a number of people inside the facility were transferred out.

So if anything, our response to what we're hearing about inside Delaney Hall and other facilities has to be more oversight, more accountability.

We need to make sure that there's a light that's shone on what's happening there so that we can then take action to ensure that people are not being kept in these inhumane conditions.

Are you calling for a complete closure of Delaney Hall?

We are, yes.

We are calling for a closure of Delaney Hall.

We're calling really for an end to immigration detention across the country.

There is not, you know, for years and years and years, even before Delaney Hall was opened, we have heard about poor conditions at immigration detention centers across the country.

We've heard from people who are detained or who have been detained about what they've experienced.

And there's both these conditions that we've talked about, but we've also heard about people being denied access to due process, right?

People being moved away from their families, people being moved away from their attorneys.

And having seen some of this, it's really important to make sure that as a state and as a broader community, we're doing what we can to make sure that everyone has safe conditions in which to live.

And importantly, that they also have access to their constitutional protections.

- Yeah, I wanna ask you about that because DHS continues to say that individuals do have and will have due process.

What proof do you have that people's civil liberties are being violated?

- That's a great question.

When it comes to due process, we have seen again and again that there are obstructions that ISIL put up in place to make that keep people from accessing their due process.

One piece of this of course, is that in response to the hunger strike and the labor strike that took place, people have been transferred away from Delaney Hall, farther away from both their attorneys and their families.

But it's also just the nature of immigration general, detention generally.

So for example, people who are in immigration proceedings are not guaranteed a public defender in the way that we see in the criminal system.

And so for many people who are in detention, they don't have access to an attorney.

And the very nature of being detained means that they're not able to actually fight their case in the way that they would if they were not detained, right?

They have a harder time accessing resources.

They might not be able to put all their paperwork together to fight their case.

And so in some ways, being detained is in itself creating obstructions to people's ability to access due process.

One thing we've also heard about is that people are coerced into signing voluntary departure paperwork that they don't really understand because it's not translated into their language.

I just have to put into context, when we look back at President Obama's term over eight years, he deported three million individuals.

He was called the "deporter-in-chief."

This is not necessarily a partisan issue.

Do you believe that any immigration enforcement should exist in our country?

I think that we have a very broken immigration system, right?

We see this both in terms of enforcement and detention, and you're correct that this is not a new issue.

But what we do see right now in terms of immigration enforcement is a different kind of enforcement.

So one thing I'll say, right, is that between January last year and March of this year, over 11,000 immigration arrests were made by ICE, and that is about three times as many as we saw in the preceding period before then.

We're also hearing about violence, we're hearing about masked agents, we know that people's due process is being violated, in some cases ISIS even saying things like we don't need a warrant, and so you know what we're seeing right now is an escalation and an increasing normalization of violence and an attempt to erode people's rights.

All right we have to leave it there.

Ami Kachalia, senior policy analyst for ACLU New Jersey.

Thank you so much, appreciate your perspective today.

Of course, thanks for having me.

You may know them as Ozempic or Wachovia, but weight loss drugs that fall into the GLP-1 category are growing in popularity.

GLP-1 stands for glucagon-like peptide 1, and it's a hormone that regulates appetite and blood sugar.

But there's still a lot of questions around how they work, who should take them, and what side effects they may have.

Lucky for us, we have a doctor to call on to answer those questions.

I recently spoke with Dr.

Kirtanakase Virapu, who's the director of the Center for Metabolic Health and Weight Management at the RWJ School of Medicine at Rutgers University.

Doctor, it's so great to have you with us.

I want to better understand how does a GLP-1 work in the body?

Can you just break that down for us a little bit?

Yeah, no, that's a great question.

So the first GLP that's been approved is semaglutide.

It's glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist.

So it's essentially a molecule that goes and binds at the GLP-1 receptor and then causes all of these downstream effects.

Notably, its impact on appetite, its impact on inflammation, its impact on weight loss, all of these things, and slowing down the way food moves through your GI tract, all of those things are impacting weight and metabolic risk in such a positive way.

- You say it's positive.

I know there are some concerns about side effects, although overwhelmingly they are becoming more popular and more and more medical professionals are recommending them.

I do wanna understand who is the best candidate if we're talking about slowing down digestion, if we're talking about slowing down appetite?

- Yeah, so I always like to think of, when we think about medications, we have to follow guidelines and FDA-based indications.

So right now, it's preferred therapy in certain populations.

So populations with patients with type 2 diabetes, right?

These agents are first line alongside other agents, especially in those patients who are at high risk for cardiovascular disease.

They're also approved for sleep apnea, fatty liver, specifically those with scar tissue from the fat in the liver.

And then anyone who's had a cardiac event, someone who's had a heart attack or stroke, to decrease the risk of these redeveloping.

And so there's certain populations where this medication can be super helpful.

And, you know, the benefits definitely outweigh any of the risks.

Now that's not to say that there aren't certain patients that we should be very cautious in, right?

Anybody who has a family or personal history of medullary thyroid cancer, or this disease called multiple endocrine neoplasia type two.

Anyone who's trying to get pregnant, is pregnant, or breastfeeding, we want to be very cautious with these medications.

They're contraindicated in those patients.

Let me ask you this.

We have heard some of the side effects.

In some cases, there's bowel blockage.

In other cases, we've seen something called ozempic phase where you get sagging skin and sagging muscles.

Muscle loss, I know, is another one.

At what point does the benefit outweigh the risk?

And is there any mitigating factor to how to minimize some of those risks?

Yes, and I think it's really important to note that it's like any medicine, right?

There's risks and benefits.

There's always side effects with any medications.

And so not any different.

The biggest side effects are all GI, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation.

About 40 to 70 percent of patients will have those side effects.

That's a lot of patients will develop that, but most patients have very transient or short-lasting symptoms that typically their body gets used to over time and they shouldn't have an issue.

However, I will say this, it's really important they see a physician who's trained in administering these medications so that we can prevent these side effects from happening and then control them if they do.

And the same thing with those epic phase, right?

This muscle mass loss, this idea that anytime you lose weight, whether that's through diet and exercise, through these medications or surgery, 25% of that weight loss is from muscle.

And the only way to prevent that or slow that down is to be sure that someone is eating appropriately and moving appropriately.

So you need to what does that look like?

So what does that eating appropriately look like?

Just kind of quickly work a new laundry list.

Yeah, absolutely.

So you know, the just over general we say in terms of protein, you want to be consuming at least one gram per kilogram, at least and it's hard for a lot of people to do even that.

And then we want to talk about fiber, right, so that we're allowing good gut motility, that's 25 grams a day at least.

And then we want to be sure that people are doing resistance training.

This idea that they're working their muscles and then they're also consuming the proteins that together they're going to build more muscle in their body.

And that's something we keep tracking.

- An interesting, let me jump in here, an interesting positive side effect that we've been reading about is this impact potentially on people who struggle with addiction and that these medications can actually reduce or even perhaps eliminate addiction.

What is the science behind that?

Is that evidence-based yet?

- So there are a lot of ongoing studies about the role of these medications in patients with alcohol abuse history.

And we are seeing very positive results in the preliminary data.

Now the science is still being understood.

We think that there's probably a role in the dopamine receptors in the brain that affect the reward pathways.

So similar to how someone, you know, was having those pathways activated by food, was having those pathways activated by a particular substance.

So it might be impacting both of those.

But I think it's still, we're still waiting on more data about the science behind it all.

I have also seen that some folks are microdosing this, that they're taking very small doses and maybe it's someone who's not struggling with obesity but just wants to lose a little bit of weight.

Is that advisable?

Are medical professionals overseeing that type of treatment?

So it is not FDA approved.

And so right now, most physicians aren't recommending it.

However, you know, we all know that are there patients that come to see me that are doing this?

Yes.

And I'll tell them the same guidelines is that we don't have data on what happens if someone who doesn't have an elevated BMI or all of these metabolic conditions, what that does to the body, we don't know.

And so there is a risk that you are running that you may develop long term side effects to these medications that we just don't know yet.

Now, there are patients who can't tolerate full dose.

And so sometimes they take a lower dose for a longer period of time.

So we will recommend.

But are not routinely recomme learn and study as this m some light on it for us.

University.

Thank you.

Th That's going to do it for tonight.

I'm Joanna Gaggis for the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.