With varying degrees of faith and enthusiasm, 102 Democratic legislators this week embraced the gospel of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who preached long and loud that a record tax increase was good public policy. Now, they’re praying it was good politics, too. Malloy, 55, a freshman governor with an abundance of confidence and dearth of […]

With four nursing homes across the state set to close in the coming weeks, those responsible for figuring out where the more than 300 residents will move to are hoping to return as many as possible to their homes with continuing state support. “We want to send them back to where they were living before they […]

State leaders are poised to allow nonprofits to buy insurance through the state employee health plan, and the agency Patrick J. Johnson Jr. runs is in many ways an ideal candidate. The agency, Oak Hill, serves people with disabilities and has faced double-digit premium hikes in recent years. Its benefits package is considered high-end for […]

CVS Pharmacy has settled a complaint over the sale of food and medical goods past their expiration dates by paying a fine — and by inviting consumers to engage in a scavenger hunt over the next three years for goods that shouldn’t be on the shelves. Attorney General George Jepsen and Consumer Protection Commissioner William […]

Political attitudes have become more doctrinaire at both ends of the political spectrum, a new study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds, but the center is increasingly populated by voters whose views defy traditional conservative or liberal classification. In its first “political typology” study since 2005, Pew found the […]

Some surprising defections on the budget from Bristol and East Hartford, two blue-collar towns that did well under Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget, especially after the administration restored funding to reimburse them for a property-tax exemption on manufacturing equipment. In the House, Democrats Frank Nicastro and Chris Wright of Bristol and Jason Rojas of East […]

A three-year-old experiment to reshape teaching strategies and bolster achievement in the state’s neediest and lowest-performing school districts has produced promising early results, state officials said Wednesday. The Connecticut Accountability Learning Initiative (CALI) led to significant gains for minority students, low-income children and other groups that have lagged behind white and more affluent groups on […]

With a dozen legislators surrounding him, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed into law today a $40.1 billion biennial budget that remains incomplete unless his administration negotiates up to $1 billion in labor savings in coming days. Malloy signs the budget. Malloy sat down at a desk in the ornate Old Judiciary room to sign a […]

As history professor Matt Warshauer brought his sixth-grade daughter to Hartford this week to see an original copy of the Declaration of Independence, he lamented that students often know little about their government. A national study released today suggests that Warshauer is right. A U.S. government study on civics education reported only modest gains by […]

With final legislative passage of the $40.1 billion biennial budget by the House late Tuesday night, the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy now turns its attention to a significant missing piece of the fiscal puzzle — $1 billion in concessions and labor savings. The House Democratic leadership of Speaker Christopher G. Donovan and Majority […]

WASHINGTON–University of Connecticut officials are retooling their Washington lobbying strategy, drafting a new playbook that’s more defense than offense. Until recently, the university has focused on snagging earmarks, along with building support for increased research funding. But now, earmarks are banned. And other staple programs that UConn and similar educational institutions have relied on–from Pell […]

Young criminal offenders who are sentenced to jail often serve their time and win release, only to find that they can’t return to their schools–a situation that reduces the opportunity for them to straighten out their lives, advocates say. “It makes the choice of dropping out that much easier for them,” said Melanie Starks, a […]

U.S. District Judge Christopher F. Droney of West Hartford was nominated today by President Obama to the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. “At every step of his career Judge Droney has performed with excellence and unwavering integrity,” Obama said in a statement just issued by the White House. “I am confident he will serve […]