Updated with new information throughout. An application to double the maximum number of students at Central Jersey College Prep Charter School was approved March 1 by the state Board of Education.

Feb. 21 Halakkuma Patel of Lawrenceville was cited for careless driving after his car rear-ended one driven by Tarra Wilson-Torrise of Jackson. Wilson-Torrise said she was entering the Pleasant Plains and Claremont roads intersection, then stopped for traffic when her car was hit. Sihan Cheng of Somerset was cited for failure to yield the right-of-way after her car collided with …

Bridgewater, NJ – The Somerset Patriots have announced that Major League infielder and former New York Met Zach Lutz has been signed for the 2017 season.  

The 20-year-old township man wanted for a January Dewald Avenue shooting has surrendered, authorities said March 1. Jaki Hooks-Lewis turned himself in at 2 p.m. Feb. 28 while at his lawyer’s office in Newark, according to a press release from the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office.

The $59.3 million budget introduced Feb. 28 by the Township Council carries something that hasn’t been seen in quite a while: a decrease in the local portion of the property tax rate. The decrease is slight and varies depending upon whether a property has been reassessed in the last year, but it’s a decrease, nonetheless.

Work on the Route 518 bridge is expected to resume this week, nearly two weeks after contractors found traces of a possible carcinogen in the ground around the construction area. Workers found creosote, a wood preservation chemical, in the ground and water near the bridge earlier this month. Work was immediately stopped so that an environmental plan could be created …

Area residents who want to defeat a proposed natural gas compressor station must remain engaged and fight it at every level. That was the word from a panel of activists gathered Feb. 27 at Sampson G. Smith Elementary School in a forum hosted by the township’s newly formed Task Force on Compressor Station 206.

The Franklin High School Lady Warriors dominated the Dickinson Rams Feb 27 in a 70-52 win in the first round of the NJSIAA sectional tournament. The Warriors next play North Hunterdon High School on March 1, after their victory over Franklin arch-rival Piscataway.

Bridgewater, NJ – The Somerset Patriots have announced that 2015 Atlantic League Champion and four-year Patriots catcher Adam Donachie has been signed to a new player/coach role for the 2017 season. This will be the first time in Somerset Patriots history that the team will have a player/coach on the roster.  

Update: Central Jersey College Prep Charter School would be interested in paying to have its students participate on the school district’s sports teams, the charter school’s principal said. CJCP CEO Namik Sercan made the comment after the Feb. 25 round of open house presentations at the school.