Essex County

Breaking news & local stories from Newark, East Orange, Irvington & more

The Federal Aviation Administration told airlines Thursday it is moving forward with plans to auction some of the carriers' takeoff and landing slots at three New York City-area airports.

The FAA said that in early January it will begin the process that airlines argue could lead to cancellations and be devastating to an industry already under pressure from weakening demand for seats.

APNewark Liberty International Airport

She stood over Billy's bed, holding his hand, rubbing his stomach. Billy said his stomach hurt bad.

"I know, Billy, I know," Gail Owens said to her son. She made her words soft and reassuring so he wouldn't be scared.

She was scared. For the week before he was admitted to the hospital, he had been sick. Billy didn't want to eat, not even his favorite food, cheeseburgers. He could not walk without becoming exhausted. His fingertips were blue.

Mitsu Yasukawa/The Star LedgerGail Owens, 32, of East Orange, becomes emotional during an interview as her son Billy Williams, then age 11, sits next with his doctor Rajiv Vermar at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in May 2007.

To remember and reflect on those who lost their lives last week during the Mumbai terrorist attacks, more than 100 mourners gathered in West Orange tonight for a memorial service.

The event at the Leon & Toby Cooperman Jewish Community Center featured speeches, prayers and the lighting of memorial candles and paid tribute to the 174 people who died, including Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah.

The couple, Israeli natives who lived in New York and moved to Mumbai five years ago, were operating an Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch outreach center in the Indian city.

Tim Farrell/The Star-LedgerRabbi Moshe Herson, dean of the Rabbinical College of America offers a prayer and speaks about the deaths in Mumbai at a memorial this evening in West Orange.

A Newark man who says he was wrongly convicted of a 1995 murder has lost another bid to win his freedom.

State Superior Court Judge Michael Casale denied Darrell Edwards' request for a new trial, rejecting arguments by a team of lawyers from The Innocent Project that he wasn't the killer.

Federal and local authorities today announced the arrest of nine alleged members and associates of the Crips and Bloods street gangs, who authorities say were involved in drug sales and violence in Essex County and South Jersey.

At a press conference in Newark, agents said the group was getting its drugs, mostly heroin but also crack cocaine, from a supplier in New York and peddling them from a base in Newark, Irvington and East Orange.

Six Montclair males - one just 11 years old - have been charged with two "senseless" bias attacks during which one of the alleged victims was punched, kicked and threatened with what appeared to be a shotgun, police said today.

"Information suggests that they were targeted," police Lt. James Carlucci said today. "These were two violent and senseless crimes."

A veteran Passaic County Sheriff's Officer pleaded guilty today to stealing cocaine from a department evidence room and selling it to drug dealers.

Alan Souto, 40, who was also a Haledon Borough councilman, admitted swiping more than 5 kilos before federal District Judge Jose Linares in Newark. He is a 20-year sheriff's department veteran and oversaw the evidence room from September 2006 until his arrest in March 2008.

Classes in one building at Montclair State University were canceled tonight after officials discovered fires in "multiple" trash cans, officials said.

Classes will resume Thursday morning as scheduled, they added.

The seven-story building, University Hall, was evacuated shortly after campus police received a call about 6:30 p.m., university spokeswoman Minne Ho said.