News

December 29, 2022 New Jersey has been contending with a healthcare workforce crisis, just as many other states across the nation. This crisis has prompted headlines such as "If You Get Sick in NJ, Are There Enough Health Care Worke...

December 28, 2022 On December 22, 2022, Governor Phil Murphy announced the appointments of 10 public members to the Opioid Recovery and Remediation Advisory Council. Established under Executive Order No. 305, the council will "provide recommendations for uses of the funds that the St...

December 27, 2022 On December 22nd, the U.S. Senate passed an amended version of the $1.65 trillion omnibus government spending package by a vote of 68 in favor and 29 against. This bill would fund the federal government through the end of the current fiscal year, as well as through F...

December 23, 2022 The U.S. Senate will vote tomorrow on a $1.7 trillion package that would fund the federal government through September 30, 2023. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (H.R. 2617, which is more than 4,000 pages) is known more simply as the Omnibus Budget Bill (Omn...

December 20, 2022 The Biden-Harris Administration released All In: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, which aims to reduce homelessness in the U.S. 25% by 2025. A fact sheet released by the White House states that the new plan outlines new strategies to preve...

December 19, 2022 On December 15th, the Biden Administration released a fact sheet on its COVID-19 Winter Preparedness Plan, focusing efforts on making vaccinations, testing, and treatments even more widely available and accessible as COVID-19 cases increase. As stated in the relea...

December 15, 2022 It was announced this week by lawmakers in each federal house and belonging to both parties that a bipartisan framework for a full-year, a Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) omnibus spending bill, has been reached. In September, Congress passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) that...

December 13, 2022 A new poll released by Rutgers Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling has found that a majority of New Jerseyans support expanding Medicare to all U.S. residents. Generally, Medicare is only available for those 65 and older ad individuals with disabilities, End-...

December 12, 2022 Pfizer's COVID-19 treatment pill, Paxlovid, was approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2021 and since then, nearly 6 million Americans have received the treatment for free, using stores of the medication purchased and distributed ...

December 8, 2022 On December 6, 2022, Georgia held a runoff election for one of the state's Senate seats, featuring candidates Senator Raphael Warnock (D) and Herschel Walker (R), after no candidate in the initial Senate election held on November 8, 2022 received more than 50% of the ...

December 6, 2022 The New Jersey Nurses Union (NJNU-CWA 1091) has announced approval of a new contract for 2023 for the approximately 1,400 registered nurses (RNs) at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center, an RWJBarnabas Health-owned hospital. This agreement, which includes wage increases ...

November 28, 2022 This time last year was the beginning of the largest surge of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., due to the Omicron variant. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that last year, for the week ending on November 24, 2021, the U.S. reported more than 6...

November 28, 2022 The Murphy Administration recently announced the availability of $16 million in grant funds to address the mental health needs of New Jersey students in higher education settings. The Office of the Secretary of Higher Education (OSHE) will administer these grants to ...

November 22, 2022 Last week, the individual who served as an anonymous whistleblower during the pandemic, drawing attention to the COVID-19 conditions at the New Jersey Memorial Veterans Home at Paramus, came forward and stated tha...

November 21, 2022 New Jersey has extended the application deadline for the new Affordable New Jersey Communities for Homeowners and Renters (ANCHOR) property tax relief program until January 31, 2023. The original application deadline was one month earlier, December 31, 2022. The exte...

November 17, 2022 The American Cancer Society's (ACS') Great American Smokeout Day is November 17, 2022. Smoking and tobacco use take a great toll on individuals with serious mental illness and substance use disorders. The Great American Smokeout provides an opportunity to raise awa...

November 16, 2022 Schools offering mental health days for students have become increasingly common over the past few years. As reported on washingtonpost.com, since 2018, more than 12 states have passed or proposed bills that would allow school districts to treat days missed for me...

November 10, 2022 As of this writing, 11 of New Jersey's 12 Congressional races have been called, with eight remaining in Democratic incumbent hands (Josh Gottheimer, Andy Kim, Donald Norcross, Frank Pallone, Bill Pascrell, Donald Payne, Jr., Mikie Sherrill, and Bonnie Watson Coleman)...

November 8, 2022 A report from the New Jersey Harm Reduction Coalition released last week has found that hospital charges for injection drug use-related infections totaled more than $1.0 billion dollars in New Jersey in 2019. This cost stems from more than 7,130 New Jersey residents w...

November 7, 2022 Cases of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), a respiratory infection, have continued to rise in New Jersey and across the country, particularly in children. As reported on nj.com, cases are up as much as 35% this fall in New Jersey. RSV has become the primary infectio...