More than half of New Jersey’s registered voters disapprove of a proposed merger of Rutgers-Camden with Rowan University, according to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released Tuesday. According to the poll, 57 percent of 914 adults interviewed by phone between Feb. 9 and 11 oppose the plan. Twenty-two percent support a merger and 21 percent are unsure. “Gov. Christie’s plan may be the most unpopular idea he has put forward to date,” said Rutgers-Eagleton Poll Director David Redlawsk, a professor of political science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Calling the numbers “stunning” in their “deep dislike” of the proposal, Redlawsk added that even Republicans did not line up behind the governor. The university’s Board of Governors will meet on the Camden campus today to hear comments on the merger plan. A student/faculty rally is also planned before the 1:30 p.m. session.
Primus Green Energy hopes to break ground next year on commercial plant. It may only amount to a drop in the bucket for a nation as thirsty for oil as the United States, but a Hillsborough company is betting it can convert wood pellets and other biomass into a renewable gasoline. Primus Green Energy, an 11-year-old company, already has produced fuel samples from a pilot plant located in a three-building complex off of Route 206, just north of Princeton. It now is building a demonstration plant at the facility and hopes to break ground next year on a commercial plant. http://bit.ly/xliEJs
New Jersey announced a milestone Thursday in the long journey to convert the state’s hospitals and physicians to electronic medical records: Nearly $40 million in federal incentive funds is flowing this week from Medicaid to the first 70 healthcare providers in New Jersey to go digital. Over the next decade, state officials estimated that 3,000 providers would receive up to $500 million in Medicaid incentive payments to help defray the cost of installing the computers and software that will maintain patient records - prescription medications, lab tests, exams, surgery - in digital files that ultimately will be accessible via the Internet, anywhere in the world. http://bit.ly/zcUb0W
Two neighboring New Jersey universities are scrubbing bathrooms and other facilities after suspected outbreaks of Norovirus sickened more than 140 students in the last two weeks. Despite flare-ups at Princeton and Rider universities, the intermittent appearance of the highly contagious bug — often called "stomach flu" — is usual for this time of year in nursing homes and cruise ships, doctors say. Rider University cleaned its residence halls and buildings on its campuses in both Lawrenceville and Princeton yesterday, after 44 students were sent to the hospital with the suspected virus, which causes diarrhea and vomiting, nausea and stomach cramps. http://bit.ly/weokIA
Legislation that would let gay couples marry in New Jersey was passed Monday by the state Senate but would need to add three supporters to overcome Gov. Chris Christie’s promised veto. The Senate passed the bill, 24-16, adding 10 supporters since the bill failed 14-20 in January 2010. If the Assembly passes the bill, Thursday, it would head to Christie, who has said he will veto it. Such a veto could be overridden by a two-thirds vote in each house of the Legislature, meaning 27 votes in the Senate, any time through January 2014. http://on.cpsj.com/xLImA0
Rep. Rob Andrews used political contributions to make multiple trips to Los Angeles that coincided with recording sessions there for his teenaged daughter, campaign records show. A Washington-based watchdog group on Wednesday renewed its call for an independent audit of Andrews’ campaign spending. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) said an FEC review was needed to determine whether Andrews’ trips were personal in nature.Andrews’s spokesman Fran Tagmire on Wednesday said the campaign’s spending practices “are fully legal and proper.” http://on.cpsj.com/x3o486
They'll start showing up next month on farms across New Jersey. Thousands of seasonal workers will plant fields and trim trees, then tend and harvest crops during the spring and summer. Up to 180 work at Joe Marino's Sun Valley Orchards in Swedesboro, Gloucester County, and many - including migrant farm hands from Mexico - earn $7.25 an hour, the state and federal minimum wage. They would see their paychecks increase under a proposal by Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver (D., Essex) to boost the state minimum rate to $8.50 and to tie it to the consumer price index, which measures the cost of living. Oliver says the move would provide "livable wages for the lowest-income earners," while helping the economy by increasing consumer spending. About 40,000 New Jersey residents currently earn the $7.25 rate. http://bit.ly/yhxQOR
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