“Believe me, nobody’s going to get naked if I’m spending the entire day with Prince Harry,” Christie joked during a radio interview. The governor also presented Prince Harry with a "royal fleece," a nod to Christie's much-parodied fleece that's "basically fused" to his skin:

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"I support responsible and cost-efficient election reform that increases voter participation because democracy works best when the most people vote," he said of the veto. "But this bill risks the integrity and orderly administration of our elections by introducing a new voting method and process."

From the Star-Ledger:

Christie, who is seeking re-election, raised the ire of unions and the Democratic Governors Association, who are backing his likely opponent, state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex).

"The governor’s veto shamefully silences the voices of an untold number of New Jersey families," New Jersey AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech said. The Democratic Governors Association immediately issued a statement likening Christie to what it called "shameless Republican governors restricting voting rights for partisan political gain," citing Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and others.

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From the Post:

The Garden State governor agreed to the operation at the urging of family and friends after turning 50 last September.

He told The Post he was thinking of his four kids and how it was time to start improving his health when he decided to have the procedure.

“I’ve struggled with this issue for 20 years,” he said. “For me, this is about turning 50 and looking at my children and wanting to be there for them.”

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In a first for the drug industry, Pfizer Inc. told The Associated Press that the drugmaker will begin selling its popular erectile dysfunction pill Viagra directly to patients on its website.

Men still will need a prescription to buy the blue, diamond-shaped pill on viagra.com, but they no longer have to face a pharmacist to get it filled. And for those who are bothered by Viagra's steep $25-a-pill price, Pfizer is offering three free pills with the first order and 30 percent off the second one.

Pfizer's bold move blows up the drug industry's distribution model. Drugmakers don't sell medicines directly to patients. Instead, they sell in bulk to wholesalers, who then distribute the drugs to pharmacies, hospitals and doctors' offices.

But the world's second-largest drugmaker is trying a new strategy to tackle a problem that plagues the industry. Unscrupulous online pharmacies increasingly offer patients counterfeit versions of Viagra and other brand-name drugs for up to 95 percent off with no prescription needed. Patients don't realize the drugs are fake or that legitimate pharmacies require a prescription.

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Hill pleaded guilty last year to not paying federal taxes on $1.8 million earned from 2005 to 2007. A judge two weeks ago said Hill had paid only about $50,000 of more than $500,000 she owes.

Hill said in an Internet posting that she has signed a recording contract with Sony that will help her pay her taxes.

She faces up to a year in prison on each of three counts. Her attorney is seeking probation for her.

The 37-year-old South Orange resident hasn't released much music since her 1998 solo debut, "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill," which has sold more than 10 million copies and won five Grammy Awards.

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A 200-page deposition recently uncovered some hilariously, absurdly bad love sonnets that the 77-year-old wrote to Hicks, which the Star-Ledger has generously quoted for your enjoyment:

From the Star-Ledger:

“Good morning flower,” Bowser writes in one missive. “Hope your day brings new hope, new meaning to those things so close to our hearts. Folks at Planning Board said hello.”

Later, he muses, “Love is in the air. Breathe it in deeply for distribution throughout the body and soul. Enjoy the day. Be in by 10 or 10:15.”

Bowser, who compared Hicks to "a beautiful fish he hoped to hook" said “I thought I was being poetic."

“I was feeling romantic," he said.

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Christie has been “working with Democrats and Republicans. Believing that as long as you stick to your principles, 'compromise' isn’t a dirty word,” the ad says.

”The most important thing he did has little to do with numbers, statistics or even politics. He made us proud to say we we’re from New Jersey,” it continues.

Watch:

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He continued: "You’ve got people suffering and you say to yourself, I’ve got to do my job. I say the same thing to all of them – put yourself in my shoes, and if you’re a responsible elected official, you would do nothing different.”

At the time, Christie sharply criticized House Speaker John Boehner and other House Republicans for holding up a vote on relief funds after the hurricane, meanwhile praising President Obama for his efforts in the state.

“Listen, I supported Mitt Romney and I was very vocal about it,” Christie added. “But the fact is, presidential politics was not the first thing on my mind that day. It was getting my state recovered and restored.”

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The New York Times reports:

The lawsuit, which could help Mr. Freeh recover money for MF Global’s creditors, blamed Mr. Corzine for ramping up a risky bet on European debt. While the bonds were not by themselves to blame for the collapse of MF Global, the wager spooked the firm’s investors and ratings agencies, pushing it further into a tailspin.

“Corzine engaged in risky trading strategies that strained the company’s liquidity and could not be properly monitored by the company’s inadequate controls and procedures,” Mr. Freeh said.

“Defendants, in their capacities as officers, breached their fiduciary duties of care, loyalty, and oversight over the company, and failed to act in good faith,” Freeh wrote in the complaint.

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Bloomberg News reports:

Christie said New Jersey’s gun-control laws are already considered the second-toughest in the nation by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. He cited the state’s assault- weapons ban, a seven-day waiting period prior to any firearm purchase, the third-strictest capacity laws on magazine capacity in the country and a one-gun-a-month law.

He is seeking to toughen laws by mandating that mental- health records are included in the instant background-check process at the time of a firearm purchase. He also is proposing bills to impose or strengthen criminal penalties for selling firearms to convicted felons, possessing a gun with the intent to unlawfully transfer, unlawfully possessing ammunition and engaging in firearms trafficking.

“Ensuring there are common-sense safety measures when purchasing guns is not enough,” Christie said Monday in a press conference. “We must address the many different contributing factors.”

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The woman, identified by local police as Ailina Tsarnaeva, told federal agents she had not been in contact with her brothers for years, according to Police Director Michael Indri.

"The main concern was to confirm that there was no contact made one way or the other, and I'm confident that the FBI has confirmed that," he said.

The woman's three-story brick building, across the Hudson River from New York City, remained cordoned off as federal agents searched the home and left with a computer and other electronics.

Early in the day, she spoke through a barely open door to News12 New Jersey and The Star-Ledger, telling them she was sorry for the families that lost loved ones "the same way I lost my loved one."

"I'm hurt for everyone that's been hurt," she told the TV station and newspaper.

Her brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed overnight in a shootout with police outside Boston. Her younger brother remains at large.

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The older boy is in serious condition.

Authorities are still investigating how the younger child obtained the .22-caliber rifle from his family's Toms River home Monday night.

Police Chief Michael Mastronardy says the children were outside the 4-year-old's home when the boy went inside, got the rifle and shot the 6-year-old about 15 yards away. It's not clear if the 4-year-old pulled the trigger or if the rifle accidentally discharged.

The parents of the 4-year-old were home at the time.

No names have been released.

The shooting comes amid debate over gun control laws in the wake of the Connecticut school shooting.

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Buono, a state senator, has had a tough time gaining any momentum in the race, with Christie enjoying overwhelming popularity that has sustained since Hurricane Sandy. But gay rights pose a tricky problem for the Republican governor. For example, Christie had to scramble to clarify his opposition to gay conversion therapy after commenting that “I’m of two minds just on this stuff in general." Buono called the remark "disgusting," while the DGA fundraised off of it.

From the Star-Ledger:

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When it comes to our recent financial implosion, this is easy enough to see, although great efforts have been expended trying to deny the self-evident.  “Man” did not bring the system to its knees; the country’s dominant financial institutions and a complicit government did that.  They’ve recovered, the rest of us haven’t.

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The school punished Rice in December, suspending him for three games and fining him $50,000.

Now that the video has gone viral, many — including the governor of New Jersey — are wondering why Rutgers let Rice keep his job at all.

Athletic director Tim Pernetti said Tuesday that the school was reconsidering its decision to retain the fiery 44-year-old coach.

The videotape, broadcast Tuesday on ESPN, prompted scores of outraged social media comments as well as sharp criticism from Gov. Chris Christie and Miami Heat star LeBron James. The head of the New Jersey Assembly called for Rice to be fired.

Pernetti was given a copy of the video in late November by a former employee. In addition to the suspension and fine, Pernetti ordered Rice to attend anger management classes.

In an interview with WFAN Radio in New York on Tuesday, Pernetti said university president Robert Barchi also viewed the tape last fall and agreed with the punishment.

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The genius of "Toms River" is that readers pretty much know who did it -- but will the perpetrators get caught? And if they do, what are the consequences? The suspense builds as Fagin, who directs New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program, traverses grand canyons of chemical, medical, and epidemiological scholarship, providing a surprisingly exciting tour through the yawning gap that separates cause from effect. "Toms River" will fill you with outrage: at the blatant abuses of the bad old days, the weak response of government and -- worst of all -- the knowledge that it could, and most likely will, happen again.

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From the Post:

The local lawyer told Dominican investigators that a foreign man, who identified himself as “Carlos,” had offered him $5,000 to find and pay women in the Caribbean nation willing to make the claims about Menendez, according to Jose Antonio Polanco, district attorney for the La Romana region, where the investigation is being conducted.

The details are sketchy and the lawyer, Melanio Figueroa, is unreliable, himself accused of paying the prostitutes to lie about Menendez. He also recently accused four news outlets, including the Caller, CNN, Telemundo and Univision, of pushing him to make up the allegations.

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"Governor Christie does not believe in conversion therapy," Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts wrote in a statement, the Star-Ledger reports. "There is no mistaking his point of view on this when you look at his own prior statements where he makes clear that people’s sexual orientation is determined at birth."

"I’m of two minds just on this stuff in general," Christie said earlier this week, regarding a bill that passed the state Senate that would ban the practice. "Number one, I think there should be lots of deference given to parents on raising their children. I don’t — this is a general philosophy, not to his bill — generally philosophically, on bills that restrict parents’ ability to make decisions on how to care for their children, I’m generally a skeptic of those bills. Now, there can always be exceptions to those rules and this bill may be one of them."

Christie clarified after his Democratic challenger Barbara Buono called it "disgusting," and the DGA started fundraising off of his comments.

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