The Record and NorthJersey.com lose even more readers in 2018, Gannett says

The Record of Woodland Park and the Hackensack Chronicle, a free weekly that no longer has its own staff, and reprints stories and photos from the daily newspaper. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Readers are fleeing The Record of Woodland Park and NorthJersey.com as if they were a sinking ship.

As of Dec. 31, 2018, daily circulation of The Record was 68,630, compared to 91,032 at the end of 2017.

The numbers include visitors to The Record's digital news site, NorthJersey.com, Gannett said in its 2018 Annual Report.

Sunday readership was 90,352, including visitors to NorthJersey.com, compared to 97,149 at the end of 2017.

That's a loss of 22,402 readers daily and 6,797 readers on Sunday in 2018.

'Bergen, N.J.'

The Record is listed 8th among Gannett's "major publications and their affiliated digital platforms." 

That means the once-great local daily newspaper published in Hackensack is ahead (in daily readers) of only The Des Moines Register and the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, N.Y., but behind both in Sunday circulation.

The annual report lists the location of The Record as "Bergen, New Jersey."

Under bylines in the print edition, The Record is referred to as "North Jersey Record."

End of 2016

At the end of 2016, readership of The Record and NorthJersey.com was 235,681 daily and 147,609 on Sundays, according to the 2016 Annual Report issued by Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain.

Gannett bought North Jersey Media Group from the Borg family in July 2016 for $39.3 million in cash.

NJMG published The Record, Herald News, (201) magazine, North Jersey.com and about 50 weeklies.

Layoffs

More than 350 NJMG employees were laid off eventually.

Retaining such veteran columnists as Mike Kelly, Charles Stile and John Cichowski apparently had no effect on keeping readers.

The error-prone Cichowski retired this year after writing the Road Warrior column for more than 15 years. 

Meanwhile, platforms for local news, including TAPIntoHackensack, may be drawing readers away from The Record and NorthJersey.com, which have cut municipal news drastically.

Read: Gannett admits circulation

 dropped dramatically after 2016 takeover

Read: What the Borgs started at The Record

 Gannett finishes with a vengeance

First, the Borgs screwed Hackensack; now, they've turned their backs on sub veterans

The USS Ling, stuck in the muck of the Hackensack River, in April 2016. The wealthy Borg family have washed their hands of saving the World War II submarine from being scrapped or sunk for an artificial reef. Below, the Ling in a photo made today, weeks after vandals flooded the vessel with Hackensack River water.

Editor's note: On Sept. 14, 2019, a group of submarine enthusiasts launched an effort to repair the USS Ling and move the submarine to a proposed naval museum on the Ohio River in Kentucky. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The Borgs are back in Hackensack. 

The onetime owners of The Record are planning to develop nearly 20 acres along River Street -- land they held onto after selling the family publishing company and its many daily and weekly newspapers to Gannett for $39.3 million in cash in July 2016, and laughing all the way to the bank.

But they've washed their hands of the USS Ling, the World War II submarine that has been tied up to their property since 1974 under a $1-year-lease with the New Jersey Naval Museum.

Then-Publisher Stephen A. Borg of Tenafly ended that lease in 2016, claiming the sub wasn't on family property.

A few weeks ago, vandals "cut locks and opened hatches to flood the submarine" with Hackensack River water, The Record reported in a story that was reprinted in the Hackensack Chronicle on Aug. 24.

Reporters Melanie Anzidel and Rodrigo Torrejon made no effort to contact the Borg family for comment about the vandalism or the sub's future.

The damage may be beyond repair, they reported.

Abandoned Hackensack

No one has ever measured the full economic and psychological impact of Stephen Borg's money saving decision to shut down the 150 River St. headquarters of The Record in 2009, and essentially abandon Hackensack, where the once-great local daily newspaper had prospered for more than 110 years.

Most employees were scattered to a Rockaway Township  plant, where The Record and Herald News had been printed since 2006; and to cramped offices in a Garret Mountain office building overlooking Route 80 in Woodland Park. 

Then, Hackensack restaurants like Naturally Good and other businesses on and near Main Street closed, and those that remained open, like Solari's, a onetime Borg favorite, struggled.

The decline in Hackensack news was easy to see, as was the increasing focus on Passaic County and Paterson, even though those stories were of little interest to the majority of readers in Bergen County, one of the wealthiest in New Jersey.

To save money, The Record stopped printing separate Local sections for news from Bergen and Passaic counties, cramming everything into one thin edition.

Downsizing

In 2008, Borg triggered the biggest downsizing in The Record's history, targeting the oldest and highest-paid newsroom and photography employees.

Then, the Borgs delivered the final blow, selling North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, to Gannett, which eventually laid off more than 350 NJMG employees.

See: Gannett admits 

circulation dropped dramatically

See: Borgs take money and run,

 staffers brace for Gannett's ax

See: Editors do their best
 to screw old people

Luxury units

On Aug. 3, the weekly Hackensack Chronicle, which no longer has its own staff, reprinted another story from The Record, reporting the buildings at 150 River St. will be taken down this month.

Employees of the Vannuzzi Group, a demolition and recycling company based in Kinnelon, have been stripping the buildings since late April.

The property, which is in a flood zone, was assessed for $24,947,400, and Macromedia Inc., a Borg family company, has been paying $790,053.40 annually in taxes, according to NJParcels.com.

The project includes 600 luxury residential units -- 100 less than city planners had envisioned -- a public plaza and river walk, and retail along River Street, The Record's story said, quoting a Macromedia spokesman.

Poor editing

The story, by Melanie Anzidel, is an example of how poorly The Record is edited more than 2 years after the Gannett purchase:

"The former headquarters of The Record newspaper ...," the story begins.

But the reporter apparently was worried readers wouldn't know what "former" means, so she added the headquarters were "once housed at 150 River St. in Hackensack."

Here's the lead paragraph in its redundant entirety:

"The former headquarters of The Record newspaper, once housed at 150 River St. in Hackensack, is slated for demolition."

The Ling

Bob Sommer, identified as a Macromedia spokesman, said the New Jersey Naval Museum was "evicted," and agreed to vacate by Aug. 14.

But, Sommer added, the submarine "is not part of the redevelopment project, and its removal, which ... could cost millions, is not part of the eviction," The Record said.

"This was a despicable act," Sommer said of the flooding of the submarine, and the theft of plaques valued at more than $10,000, adding he hopes police make arrests and that the suspects are convicted and punished "to the fullest extent allowed."

3 developers

Macromedia is expected to partner with the Hampshire Real Estate Cos. and Russo Development to build on The Record site.

Jon F. Hanson, chairman of Hampshire, and Malcolm A. Borg of Englewood, former chairman of North Jersey Media Group, are close friends who once co-owned a private jet.

See: The Record's ghosts will be buried

 under new housing

Demolition is near for landmark building where The Record and NJMG once thrived

The building at 150 River St. in Hackensack, where The Record and parent company North Jersey Media Group operated until 2009, is being prepared for demolition. The fourth-floor newsroom of the once-great local daily newspaper afforded a sweeping view of the Meadowlands, an elevated section of the New Jersey Turnpike and the Manhattan skyline.

After moving The Record and NJMG to Woodland Park in 2009, the Borg family leased parking spaces in Hackensack to Bergen County and Hackensack University Medical Center. Printing of The Record and Herald News were moved to an NJMG printing plant in Rockaway Township in 2006. 

 -- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

The end is near for the landmark Hackensack building that once served as headquarters for The Record and publisher North Jersey Media Group.

A cyclone fence encircles the building at 150 River St. and two other structures, and employees of a demolition and recycling company were seen working there today.

The city of Hackensack adopted a redevelopment plan for the property and adjacent land that includes up to 700 residential units, 70,000 square feet of retail and a 1.35-acre hotel site.

They would transform the abandoned buildings into a "mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented riverfront project" to support the revitalization effort downtown, city officials said.

The project will be the terminus of Atlantic Street, providing a direct link from Hackensack University Medical Center past the Performing Arts Center and Atlantic Street Park to the Hackensack River, the officials said.

Demolition 

At the city Building Department, an employee said I had to fill out an Open Public Records Act request for information on whether a demolition permit has been issued for the property, and when the buildings are scheduled to be torn down.

The Borg family retained ownership of 19.7 acres along River Street after selling "certain assets" of North Jersey Media Group to the Gannett Co. in July 2016 for about $39.3 million in cash.

Those assets included The Record and Herald News, about 30 weekly newspapers and (201) magazine.

In addition to 150 River St., the land includes 80 River St., and 62 and 70 Bridge St. (Heritage Diner, U.S.S. Ling and former naval museum).

The 150 River St. property, which is in a flood zone, was assessed for $24,947,400, and Macromedia Inc. has been paying $790,053.40 annually in taxes, according to the njparcels.com website.

This 3-story section of the building at 150 River St. contained the executive offices at the end of a hallway decorated with art. A private dining room and then-Publisher Malcolm A. Borg's personal chef were used to entertain the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and other guests.

Trump's crazy train or daily D.C. shit show has the world mocking the United States

Graffiti on a building in Mary Ellen Kramer Park at the Great Falls in Paterson.

In N.J., The Record reduces

Bergen County news even further

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's note: The Celebrity Birthdays feature on Page 6BL in today's Better Living section notes "film producer Harvey Weinstein is 66." I guess even sexual predators deserve a listing. See a reader's comment at the end of this post.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A cornered President Trump is lashing out again on Twitter at Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a fellow Republican.

Mueller is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, as well as the finances of the Trump Organization, the 500 real estate and business entities of which the president is the sole or principal owner.

Late Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, less than two days shy of McCabe's retirement.

Like fired FBI Director James Comey, McCabe has handed over to Mueller memos documenting his conversations with the president.

Meanwhile, "60 Minutes" plans to air an interview with adult film star Stormy Daniels next Sunday.

She has offered to return $130,000 in hush money she was paid to keep quiet about her affair with Trump in 2006 after Melania Trump gave birth to their son, Barron.

Daily shit show

What a daily shit show Trump is putting on in Washington, D.C., turning our democracy into a laughing stock around the world.

No president has been tarred with so much scandal or has proven to be such a loose cannon -- insulting others and praising himself in an endless stream of lies the news media seem obsessed with spreading around the world.

'A scam ... a fraud'

Also on Friday, The New York Times and The Observer of London reported a voter-profiling company called Cambridge Analytica "harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission...."

"The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump's campaign in 2016."

"This was a scam -- and a fraud," the social network said in a statement.

Editorial cartoonist Kevin Siers of The Charlotte Observer commenting on the firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon Mobil.

Rick McKee, editorial cartoonist at The Augusta Chronicle, capturing the chaos of the Trump administration.

Many observers are betting the meeting between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un will never come off or that the two leaders are so illegitimate, nothing will come of the summit, says editorial cartoonist Nate Beeler of The Columbus Dispatch.

Local news?

I could not find a single local-news story from Bergen County in The Record's Local section on Saturday, with the exception of a police brief on a missing Paramus woman.

This from a local daily newspaper that began life as The Bergen Record, and is still called that by many older readers, decades after it became just The Record.

On Sunday, even Mike Kelly's column on the Opinion front (1O) was about Paterson.

The Record's local-news operation was on life support when the Gannett Co. took over from the Borg family in July 2016, and slashed the payroll of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of daily and weekly papers, and (201) magazine.

Now, residents of the 70 Bergen County communities can go days or weeks without seeing any news of their town.

Legal marijuana?

Gannett's reporting is weakest when trying to predict the future, as James Nash did on Sunday's Page 1.

Nash questioned whether the state Legislature will approve a bill to legalize marijuana by the June 30 deadline, and if it does, whether the state can develop rules by July 1, 2019, when weed would be sold to anyone.

Instead of speculating about the future, why doesn't Nash and other reporters write balanced stories seeking opinions on each side of issues such as legal marijuana, taxing millionaires and so forth.

Bylines

In redesigning The Record's print edition, Gannett eliminated the "by" in reporters' bylines.

Now, a reporter's name appears in boldface type and the publication appears next to it.

But "The Record" has been eliminated in favor of a fictitious publication, "North Jersey Record."

So it's no surprise #gannettruinedmypaper is appearing more and more on social media.

On Clinton, food shopping and more, my local newspaper delivers a warped reality

A BRIDGE TOO FAR: This is what the project to replace the Midtown Bridge linking Hackensack and Bogota looked like on Saturday, above and below.

NOVEMBER OPENING: Officials of Bergen County, owner of the bridge, closed the two-lane Hackensack River span on March 16, and said the work would take about 242 days. The new bridge is scheduled to open "on or about" Nov. 13.

Gannett lays off a dozen more

 at The Record, other papers

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

I've updated this report with a comment about Montvale's controversial decision to approve a zoning change for the construction of a Wegmans supermarket, first proposed more than 5 years ago. See "comments" section at the end of the post.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I'm still shaking my head in disbelief over The Record's double-barreled assault on Hillary Clinton, and her book on the 2016 presidential campaign she lost to serial liar and con man Donald J. Trump. 

The Opinion front of my local daily newspaper was covered on Sunday with two negative pieces on Clinton, one by Carl Golden, who is identified as a "guest writer," and the other by Columnist Mike Kelly.

Golden's piece is no surprise coming from a former journalist who served as the mouthpiece for two of the worst governors New Jersey has ever had -- Republicans Tom Kean and Christie Whitman -- but the Woodland Park daily concealed his background. 

New low for Kelly

Readers already know about Kelly's deep conservatism, and his persistent criticism of then-President Obama in pieces he wrote during the 2016 campaign based on interviews with unemployed factory workers.

But his Sunday column is a new low in misogyny for Kelly, who likens the Democrats to the fictional Corleone crime family.

What a laugh riot. 

Inexplicably, Kelly compares Democrats to family patriarch Michael Corleone, saying they "want out of the Clinton 'family'" just as the gangster wanted out of plotting murders and bribing politicians.

Nonsensical

Hillary Clinton is never going to run for office again, so his premise makes no sense.

"And just as the party is trying to reshape itself, here comes Hillary Clinton with a memoir that practically demands Democrats stop and look backward at the goat rodeo that was her campaign, " Kelly insists (Sunday's Opinion front).

"Goat rodeo"? What the F is that? We know Kelly is no prose master, but how obscure can you get?

Clinton has plenty to complain about -- from Russian meddling in the election to millions of Democrats and Bernie Sanders supporters either not bothering to vote or voting for Trump.

Then, there was her victory in the popular vote, but her loss to Trump in the antiquated Electoral College.

Yes. She was robbed.

Grocery wars?

The Record's two-part series, "GROCERY WARS," on Page 1 today and Sunday is just window dressing for shameless pandering to Wegmans, a supermarket chain that is expected to advertise heavily in the newspaper.

On Sunday, Staff Writer Joan Verdon reported breathlessly that Wegmans, which is opening a store in Montvale next week, has a "cult-like following," but could face tough competition in Bergen County.

Verdon's first three paragraphs are just bad journalism:

First, she reports company Chairman Danny Wegmans "fell in love" with the family farm on the site, and "dreamed" of the DePieros continuing to run the farm and its "down home" store even after the new supermarket opened.

But Verdon knows that hasn't been in the cards for a couple of years, so why does she try to soften readers' hearts with this sentimental claptrap?

Far-off Montvale

If you read to the end of her story, you find out the chairman of Wegmans picked the borough on the New York State border, instead of central Bergen County, because "I was trying to get near my sister," who lives in Suffern, N.Y., and "wanted a store near her."

Give me a break. 

Does Danny Wegmans really expect residents of Hackensack to drive nearly 17 miles on the congested Garden State Parkway and pay tolls to shop at a 108,000-square-foot behemoth he put near his sister's house?

I visited an even bigger Wegmans in Woodbridge in 2011 and 2012, and was shocked at the high prices for fresh, wild-caught fish, and at the mediocre prepared food:

Do we need a Wegmans in Bergen County?


Truth is, we already have two Costco Wholesales, two Whole Foods Markets and plenty of ShopRites and H Marts in Bergen County, and we don't really need Wegmans.

The long-delayed opening of Wegmans might be a shot in the arm for the paper's advertising department, but it's a non-event for tens of thousands of food shoppers.

The Montvale Wegmans was first proposed more than 5 years ago.

More flawed coverage

Sunday's paper also included a special section called "New Jersey Eats" or what the cover said are "51 restaurants you must try."

This is hardly an exhaustive list, missing many of my and, I am sure, your favorites.

Bergen County, the paper's home, is lumped into "North Jersey," and only 7 Bergen restaurants are featured.

But Morris County gets two full pages in the 12-page section.

Dumb column

Staff Writer John Cichowski has been banging out the Road Warrior column for 14 years, and he long ago ran out of anything to say about his commuting beat.

More evidence of his column being on life support was Sunday's pathetic piece on "parking karma." 

He claims a Maryland woman, Beverly Silverberg, can "almost always find a parking space" near where she and her husband are going, whether in Rehobeth Beach, Del., or even Manhattan.

What incredible B.S.

More layoffs

Unfortunately, Cichowski and Kelly survived the latest layoffs at North Jersey Media Group, which publishes The Record, Herald News, (201) magazine and about 20 weekly newspapers.

"Newspaper giant Gannett staged a 'mini bloodbath'" at NJMG last Thursday, Keith J. Kelly reported in the New York Post.

About a dozen people were laid off at The Record, the second-largest daily in New Jersey, and other newspapers.

Among them was John Brennan, a news and onetime sports reporter with 30 years' experience who covered the Meadowlands, including the incomplete Xanadu shopping and entertainment complex.

Two editors, Debra Lynn Vial and Carla Baranauckas; and Heather Zwain, a fashion writer, also were laid off.

Those layoffs are on top of about 350 others in two previous waves since Gannett bought NJMG from the Borg family for $40 million in July 2016.

See: A 'mini bloodbath'

With Gannett in charge, Record readers are ones sweating out a 'Summer of Hell'

Cartoonist Bill Day throws cold water on denials by Dictator Vladimir Putin that Russia didn't interfere in the Nov. 8 election to help Donald J. Trump get elected president. See more of his cartoons at PoliticalCartoons.com.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Let's cut to the chase:

Extensive track work in New York's Penn Station began Monday, but delays for NJ Transit commuters didn't approach the many "Summer of Hell" predictions by editors, reporters and columnists at The Record of Woodland Park.

In fact, the doomsday headlines, stories and columns that started appearing more than a week ago turned out to be greatly exaggerated.

One possible reason Monday's commute wasn't a complete disaster is that July is a prime vacation month, and there may be far fewer North Jersey residents commuting into the city every day.

Driver oriented

Still, the Woodland Park daily hasn't paid this much attention to NJ Transit's rail operations in years.

In the past decade, transportation reporters and columnist were far too lazy, refusing to ride NJ Transit trains and buses and report on deteriorating service:

Rail and bus riders couldn't find rush-hour seats in the morning, and delays for commuters catching buses home reached crisis proportions.

As far as John Cichowski, The Record's so-called commuting columnist, was concerned, those commuters could just go to hell.

He was far too busy writing about monster potholes, confusing road signs, long lines at the Motor Vehicle Commission and other columns aimed only at drivers.

Maybe those columns were payback to all of the auto dealers and manufacturers whose ad revenue keeps the newspaper afloat.

Christie cuts

The New York Times -- not The Record -- was the first to report Governor Christie cut state subsidies to the state's mass transit agency by more than 90 percent.

That forced a fare hike and service cuts, and delayed rail-safety equipment that could have prevented a fatal crash in NJ Transit's Hoboken terminal last September.

See: A cautionary tale of neglect

Christie's first blow against mass transit -- unilaterally killing work on two Hudson River rail tunnels in 2010 -- became a he said/she said story on whether New Jersey would get socked with cost overruns.

The GOP thug also nearly bankrupted the state Transportation Trust Fund, which finances road, bridge and rail improvements. 

'Summer of Hell' 

The first Page 1 story equating $40 million in track work in New York's Penn Station with doomsday for commuters ran on July 2.

A news story by Staff Writer Abbott Koloff ran under these headlines:

"NJ Transit, commuters

brace for rough ride"

"Penn Station project

has folks scrambling"

That was followed the next day, July 3, with a second news story, and a rare column on mass transit by John Cichowski, aka The Road Warrior, who invoked "musical chairs."

"North Jersey commuters faced

with options, none of them great"

"Tune up for musical chairs

 on commute"

In another front-page story on Saturday, Editor Richard A. Green revisited the track repair project after the derailment of an NJ Transit train:

"Work on tracks

begins Monday"

The next day, Sunday, more than half of the front page was covered with two stories on the "difficult underground work" and the "political divisions" behind failures at Penn Station.

The all-caps headline:

"TROUBLE ON THE TRACKS"

The first "Summer of Hell" reference appeared on Monday in the headline over another Cichowski column.

In case you missed that, "Summer of Hell" appears again on Page 1 today in the awkward headline over a Mike Kelly column:

"'Summer of Hell' 

luckily misses that mark"

Equally awkward and just as baffling is the headline over the main news story on today's front page:

"MANY COMMUTES

AVOID THE CHAOS"

Commuters can avoid chaos, but not "commutes." Similarly, "Summer of Hell" can't miss a mark.

On the Local front today, another news story and column pull back from the doomsday predictions that have been running for more than a week:

"IT COULD BE WORSE"

"Buses offer

some value

over trains"

Gannett Co. laid off more than 350 employees at North Jersey Media Group, and that precipitated a decline in accuracy, as well as the quality of writing and editing, headlines and photo captions. 

Clearly, it's readers of The Record that are in for a "Summer of Hell."

Readers hit 'corporate greed' at Gannett

Ex-staffers cried in their beer at Clifton pub

As Trump destroys our democracy, Page 1 buzzes with bees, sports, truckers in L.A.

STUCK IN HACKENSACK: A tour bus blocked two lanes of River Street today after the back of the vehicle got hung up as it was leaving the parking lot of the shuttered New Jersey Naval Museum and USS Ling, a World War II submarine that is itself stuck in the muck of the Hackensack River.

ABANDONED PLACES: A couple who got off the bus said they were on a tour of "abandoned places," including the submarine. They said the old headquarters of The Record, which the Borg family abandoned in 2009, wasn't part of the tour.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

The Russian election-meddling investigation continues to expand -- even as President Trump calls the actions of his own Justice Department "phony" and "sad."

The Liar-In-Chief also accused Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein of leading a "witch hunt."

Given the non-stop madness, mayhem and alternative facts that have marked the Trump administration since Jan. 20, can a once-respected newspaper like The Record of Woodland Park continue to fill Page 1 with fluff?

Father's Day feature

Today's front page is an emphatic "yes."

There are three major elements, plus a photo referring readers to a heart-warming Father's Day feature about father-son and father-daughter restaurant teams (1A and 1BL).

As our nation's capital burns, Editor Richard A. Green buzzes about the unusually high mortality rate of honeybees in the Garden State.

The Record has never reported in any comprehensive way on heart disease, the nation's No. 1 killer, or the obesity epidemic.

Instead, Green and other editors prefer medical miracles or, as in the case of today's Page 1 sports column, a medical freak -- a retired coach with "idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis," an incurable disease.

Inexplicably, the third major story on Page 1 today focuses on a truck driver in the port of Los Angeles who takes home "as little as 67 cents a week," according to a USA Today investigation.

A story reporting Trump's tax-overhaul plan "is on life support" appears on Page 4A.

'National nightmare'

Way back on the Opinion section front, Columnist Mike Kelly says, "The national nightmare has struck the national pastime," an awkward reference to last week's shooting of a GOP congressman on a baseball practice field.

Why didn't Green -- who laid off more than 350 employees but spared Kelly and other veteran columnists -- run this gun-control column on Page 1?

Just the day before, Kelly's column demonizing Cuba for giving asylum to the killer of a New Jersey state trooper ran at the top of Page 1.

ON BORG-OWNED PROPERTY? When the Borg family of Englewood, Tenafly, Manhattan and the Hamptons sold North Jersey Media Group to Gannett Co. for more than $40 million last July, they retained nearly 20 acres along River Street in Hackensack to develop into apartments. The Borgs dispute the USS Ling is on their property, and a $1-year-lease was terminated in May 2016 by then-Record Publisher Stephen A Borg. The family claims the sub is stuck in the river, which they don't own.

TAKING A BREAK: Members of the tour group purchased food at the New Heritage Diner, and took shelter under a tree as they awaited the arrival of a heavy duty tow truck to free the bus.

Grocery 'earthquake'?

This morning, I braved the parking-lot puddles and potholes to go shopping for fresh fish, fruit, rice and other items at the H Mart in Little Ferry.

But I didn't see any signs of the "earthquake rattling through the grocery sector" predicted by an analyst in The Record on Saturday.

In a front-page story, the paper's retailing reporter claimed "traditional supermarkets" have a big reason to worry now that Amazon is expected to merge with Whole Foods Market, the dominant player in organic and natural food.

At the Korean supermarket, some of the prices were so low I can't imagine how Whole Foods or Amazon's online grocery service could possibly match them.

A 15-pound bag of Kokuho Yellow Label California-grown white rice was only $6.99, whole fresh wild-caught porgy were $1.99 a pound, and five bunches of scallions were 99 cents.

I munched my way around the store with free samples of fish cake, tofu, noodles, broiled fresh cod, fried mussels, sliced boiled octopus and other Korean food.

Try that at Whole Foods.

Do we need a bunch of big new supermarkets?

A virus is killing farmed tilapia

A box of 14 to 16 achingly sweet Ataulfo or Champagne Mangoes was $9.99 today at H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike, Little Ferry.