Help is coming for a Jersey Shore town that's losing the man-vs-nature battle on its eroded beaches

NORTH WILDWOOD, N.J. (AP) — A long-running sandstorm at the Jersey Shore could soon come to an end as New Jersey will carry out an emergency beach replenishment project at one of the state's most badly eroded beaches.

North Wildwood and the state have been fighting in court for years over measures the town has taken on its own to try to hold off the encroaching seas while waiting — in vain — for the same sort of replenishment projects that virtually the entire rest of the Jersey Shore has received.

It could still be another two years before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection begin pumping sand onto North Wildwood's critically eroded shores. In January, parts of the dunes reached only to the ankles of Mayor Patrick Rosenello.

But the mayor released a joint statement from the city and Gov. Phil Murphy late Thursday night saying both sides have agreed to an emergency project to pump sand ashore in the interim, to give North Wildwood protection from storm surges and flooding.

“The erosion in North Wildwood is shocking,” Murphy said Friday. “We could not let that stand. This is something that has been out there as an unresolved matter far too long.”

Rosenello — a Republican who put up signs last summer at the entrance to North Wildwood beaches with Murphy's photo on them, telling residents the Democratic governor was the one to blame for there being so little sand on the beach — on Friday credited Murphy's leadership in resolving the impasse. He also cited advocacy from elected officials from both parties, including former Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Democrat, and Republican Sen. Michael Testa in helping to broker a deal.

“This is a great thing for North Wildwood and a good thing for the entire Jersey Shore,” Rosenello said.

The work will be carried out by the state Department of Transportation, but cost estimates were not available Friday. Neither the governor nor the mayor could say for sure whether North Wildwood will be required to contribute to the cost of the work, although Rosenello said the town has offered to make an unspecified contribution.

The agreement could end more than a decade of legal and political wrangling over erosion in North Wildwood, a popular vacation spot for Philadelphians.

New Jersey has fined the town $12 million for unauthorized beach repairs that it says could worsen erosion, while the city is suing to recoup the $30 million it has spent trucking sand to the site for over a decade in the absence of a replenishment program.

Rosenello said he hopes the agreement could lead to both sides dismissing their voluminous legal actions against each other. But he added that more work needs to be done before that can happen. Murphy would not comment on the possibility of ending the litigation.

North Wildwood has asked the state for emergency permission to build a steel bulkhead along the most heavily eroded section of its beachfront — something previously done in two other spots.

But the state Department of Environmental Protection has tended to oppose bulkheads as a long-term solution, noting that the hard structures often encourage sand scouring against them that can accelerate and worsen erosion.

The agency prefers the sort of beach replenishment projects carried out for decades by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where massive amounts of sand are pumped from offshore onto eroded beaches, widening them and creating sand dunes to protect the property behind them.

Virtually the entire 127-mile (204-kilometer) New Jersey coastline has received such projects. But in North Wildwood, legal approvals and property easements from private landowners have thus far prevented one from happening.

That is the type of project that will get underway in the next few weeks, albeit a temporary one. It could be completed by July 4, Rosenello said.

“Hopefully by the July 4 holiday, North Wildwood will have big, healthy beaches, and lots of happy beachgoers,” he said.

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FILE - Mayor Patrick Rosenello stands next to a destroyed section of sand dune in North Wildwood N.J. Jan. 22, 2024. On April 25, 2024, North Wildwood and the state of New Jersey announced an agreement for an emergency beach replenishment project there to protect the city until a full-blown beach fill can be done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that may still be two years away. Winter storms punched a hole through what is left of the city's eroded dune system, leaving it more vulnerable than ever to destructive flooding. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy speaks at a press conference in Berkeley, N.J. on April 26, 2024. A day earlier, his administration and the city of North Wildwood announced agreement on an emergency project to add sand to North Wildwod's critically eroded beaches, which have been the subject of legal and political battles for over a decade. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

FILE - This Jan. 22, 2024, photo shows a severely eroded section of sand dune in North Wildwood N.J. On April 25, 2024, North Wildwood and the state of New Jersey announced an agreement for an emergency beach replenishment project there to protect the city until a full-blown beach fill can be done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that may still be two years away. Winter storms punched a hole through what is left of the city's eroded dune system, leaving it more vulnerable than ever to destructive flooding. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)

FILE - Mayor Patrick Rosenello points to a destroyed section of sand dune in North Wildwood N.J., Jan. 22, 2024. On April 25, 2024, North Wildwood and the state of New Jersey announced an agreement for an emergency beach replenishment project there to protect the city until a full-blown beach fill can be done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that may still be two years away. Winter storms punched a hole through what is left of the city's eroded dune system, leaving it more vulnerable than ever to destructive flooding. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)

FILE - This Jan. 22, 2024 photo shows a severely eroded section of sand dune in North Wildwood N.J. On April 25, 2024, North Wildwood and the state of New Jersey announced an agreement for an emergency beach replenishment project there to protect the city until a full-blown beach fill can be done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that may still be two years away. Winter storms punched a hole through what is left of the city's eroded dune system, leaving it more vulnerable than ever to destructive flooding. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy speaks at a press conference in Berkeley, N.J. on April 26, 2024. A day earlier, his administration and the city of North Wildwood announced agreement on an emergency project to add sand to North Wildwod's critically eroded beaches, which have been the subject of legal and political battles for over a decade. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

FILE - This Jan. 22, 2024, photo shows a severely eroded section of sand dune in North Wildwood N.J. On April 25, 2024, North Wildwood and the state of New Jersey announced an agreement for an emergency beach replenishment project there to protect the city until a full-blown beach fill can be done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that may still be two years away. Winter storms punched a hole through what is left of the city's eroded dune system, leaving it more vulnerable than ever to destructive flooding. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)

FILE- Mayor Patrick Rosenello stands next to a destroyed section of sand dune in North Wildwood N.J., Jan. 22, 2024.. on April 25, 2024, North Wildwood and the state of New Jersey announced an agreement for an emergency beach replenishment project there to protect the city until a full-blown beach fill can be done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that may still be two years away. Winter storms punched a hole through what is left of the city's eroded dune system, leaving it more vulnerable than ever to destructive flooding. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump returns to his hush money trial Tuesday facing a threat of jail time for additional gag order violations as prosecutors gear up to summon big-name witnesses including porn actor Stormy Daniels.

An attorney for Daniels, Clark Brewster, told The Associated Press that the porn actor, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is “likely” to be called as a witness in the trial on Tuesday. Trump said earlier Tuesday that he was “recently told” who the witness would be on Tuesday and complained he should’ve been given more notice.

In the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, his then-lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about what she says was an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe in July 2006. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.

Daniels' testimony, even if sanitized for a courtroom setting and stripped of tell-all details, is by far the most-awaited spectacle in a trial that has toggled back and forth between tabloidesque elements and dry recordkeeping details. Her turn on the witness stand will represent a remarkable moment legally and politically, with courtroom testimony from an adult film performer about an intimidate encounter she says had with Trump adding to the long line of historic firsts in this case.

Trump and his campaign were reeling from the Oct. 7, 2016, publication of the never-before-seen 2005 “Access Hollywood” footage in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission. He spoke with Cohen and Hope Hicks, his campaign’s press secretary, by phone the next day as they sought to limit damage from the tape and keep his alleged affairs out of the press.

Cohen paid Daniels after her lawyer at the time, Keith Davidson, indicated she was willing to make on-the-record statements to the National Enquirer or on television confirming a sexual encounter with Trump. National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard alerted publisher David Pecker and then, at Pecker’s direction, told Cohen that Daniels was agitating to go public with her claims, prosecutors said. Daniels had previously sought to sell her story to another celebrity gossip magazine, Life & Style, in 2011.

The jury on Monday heard from two witnesses, including a former Trump Organization controller, who provided a mechanical but vital recitation of how the company reimbursed payments that were allegedly meant to suppress embarrassing stories from surfacing and then logged them as legal expenses in a manner that Manhattan prosecutors say broke the law.

The testimony from Jeffrey McConney yielded an important building block for prosecutors trying to pull back the curtain on what they say was a corporate records cover-up of transactions designed to protect Trump’s Republican presidential bid during a pivotal stretch of the race. It focused on a $130,000 payment from Cohen to Daniels and the subsequent reimbursement Cohen received.

McConney and another witness testified that the reimbursement checks were drawn from Trump’s personal account. Yet even as jurors witnessed the checks and other documentary evidence, prosecutors did not elicit testimony Monday showing that Trump dictated that the payments would be logged as legal expenses, a designation that prosecutors contend was intentionally deceptive.

McConney acknowledged during cross-examination that Trump never asked him to log the reimbursements as legal expenses or discussed the matter with him at all. Another witness, Deborah Tarasoff, a Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor, said under questioning that she did not get permission to cut the checks in question from Trump himself.

“You never had any reason to believe that President Trump was hiding anything or anything like that?” Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked.

”Correct,” Tarasoff replied.

The testimony followed a stern warning from Judge Juan M. Merchan that additional violations of a gag order barring Trump from inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses, jurors and others closely connected to the case could result in jail time.

The $1,000 fine imposed Monday marks the second time since the trial began last month that Trump has been sanctioned for violating the gag order. He was fined $9,000 last week, $1,000 for each of nine violations.

“It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent. Therefore going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction,” Merchan said before jurors were brought into the courtroom. Trump’s statements, the judge added, “threaten to interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue.”

Trump sat forward in his seat, glowering at the judge as he handed down the ruling. When the judge finished speaking, Trump shook his head twice and crossed his arms.

Yet even as Merchan warned of jail time in his most pointed and direct admonition, he also made clear his reservations about a step that he described as a “last resort.”

“The last thing I want to do is put you in jail,” Merchan said. “You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well. There are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last resort for me. To take that step would be disruptive to these proceedings.”

The latest violation stems from an April 22 interview with television channel Real America’s Voice in which Trump criticized the speed at which the jury was picked and claimed, without evidence, that it was stacked with Democrats.

Prosecutors are continuing to build toward their star witness, Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money payments. He is expected to undergo a bruising cross-examination from defense attorneys seeking to undermine his credibility with jurors.

Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the hush money payments but has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. The trial is the first of his four criminal cases to come before a jury.

Tucker reported from Washington.

FILE - Stormy Daniels arrives at an event in Berlin, on Oct. 11, 2018. Witness testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial is set to move forward again and all eyes are on who will be called next. An attorney for Stormy Daniels says the porn actor is expected to appear as a witness on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

Former President Donald Trump attends his trial at the Manhattan Criminal court, Monday, May 6, 2024, in New York. (Win McNamee/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump attends his trial at the Manhattan Criminal court, Monday, May 6, 2024, in New York. (Win McNamee/Pool Photo via AP)

Former President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before departing Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 6, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, Pool)