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Published January 11, 2022

Photo by Kate Sade on Unsplash

Why are employers having so much difficulty hiring and retaining workers? What is driving America toward irreversible polarization? And how can our health care system better protect expectant mothers—especially Black women—from the dangers of high blood pressure? Rutgers experts explore the issues.

Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, employers of both low-wage and professional workers are still struggling to hire and retain employees. Marketplace spoke with Carl Van Horn, a professor at Rutgers’ Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. “People have gotten accustomed to working from home, working wherever they want to work, whenever they want to work,” Van Horn says. “You’re gonna have to let workers do what they want to do if you want to retain them or attract them to your company.”

Marketplace | Employers struggle to hire and retain workers almost two years into the pandemic

John Farmer Jr., director of Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics, writes a Star-Ledger op-ed reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection. “The drift toward authoritarianism, on the one hand, and chaos on the other, will continue…until we address the structural underpinnings of polarization,” says Farmer. “What the country needs, in other words, is not a revolution of the left or the right but the restoration of an even-handed public square.”

NJ.com | Former AG: Our democracy remains in peril

UPI reports on new Rutgers research showing chronic hypertension is contributing substantially to maternal deaths in the United States, with particular risk among Black women. The study’s lead author, Cande Ananth, chief of epidemiology and biostatistics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, says, “Women need good and timely initiation of prenatal care during pregnancy, but importantly, preconception care to diagnose and treat increased blood pressure prior to pregnancy is very important.”

UPI | Deaths among pregnant women with high blood pressure are soaring

A New York Times tribute by Rutgers University–Newark professor Salamishah Tillet highlights the significance of Sidney Poitier’s acting career and the power of his “slap heard ’round the world” in the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night. “For a generation of African Americans,” writes Tillet, “Virgil Tibbs was a revelation. He was practicing self-defense, while the movement leaders championed nonviolence. He channeled Black rage in an era of racial forgiveness. And as played by Mr. Poitier, Tibbs was so dignified and charismatic onscreen—the embodiment of Black excellence—that stereotypes about Black inferiority…appeared completely absurd and antiquated.”

New York Times | Tributes to Sidney Poitier pour in from Hollywood and beyond

 

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