Miscellaneous
February 22, 2018 Rain with temperatures falling from the upper 40s to the mid-30s. NJ STUDENTS HOLD WALKOUTS OVER SCHOOL SHOOTINGS In solidarity with students in Parkland, Florida, students across New Jersey staged walkouts from school Wednesday to demand action on gun control, NJ.com reports. Schools in Manahawkin, Voorhees, Hazlet and Middletown were among the places where students and faculty protested. Meanwhile, New Jersey teenagers are planning to participate in a national walkout planned for March 14, The Record reports. Gov. Phil Murphy has said the state Education Department will issue guidelines to schools so students can safely protest on that day. CAMDEN COUNTY FILES RACKETEERING SUIT AGAINST OXYCONTIN MAKERS In what is being called a legal first, Camden County has filed a racketeering lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, the company that makes the opioid drug OxyContin, and three members of the Sackler family, who own the company, ROI-NJ reports. The defendants “executed an epic scheme to deceive doctors (and the public at large) into believing that opioids can be prescribed for long periods of time, with little to no risk of addiction; a blatantly false premise,” the suit contends. Over-prescribing of opioid drugs has led to the heroin epidemic, and Camden County says its police have been left to deal with addicts and overdoses. $130 MILLION PLAN FOR FORT MONMOUTH FALLS THROUGH A $130 million deal to redevelop an 89-acre tract at the shuttered Fort Monmouth in Eatontown has been called off, the Asbury Park Press reports. The plan called for Paramount Realty Service of Lakewood to redevelop the land into a mixed-use town center called Freedom Pointe. After a year of negotiations, the fort’s redevelopment board and the developer were unable to reach a final agreement. Negotiations will be opened with the second-ranked bidder for the tract. PROTEST PLANNED AT RUTGERS OVER MINIMUM WAGE Student groups and unions are planning a rally and march Friday at Rutgers in New Brunswick to call for a $15 minimum wage for all university employees, MyCentralJersey.com writes. The event, set to begin at 1 p.m. in front of the Brower Commons dining hall, is part of several nationally coordinated days of action. Friday's action is being organized by the Rutgers chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops and the union that represents Rutgers professors. THINK TANK RECOMMENDS WIDENING OF NJ SALES TAX New Jersey Policy Perspective, a progressive think tank, says in a new report that the state should significantly expand the list of services that would be subject to sales tax, NJ Spotlight says. The new report on state tax policy says that widening the list of taxable services would increase revenues and add equity to the sales-tax structure as the state’s service sector expands. Want more? Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.