On a day when the state posted disappointing jobs numbers, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he intends to ask the General Assembly next month to fund a successful private-sector program for the long-term unemployed and to ban help-wanted ads that discriminate against the jobless.
Mark Pazniokas
Mark is the Capitol Bureau Chief and a co-founder of CT Mirror. He is a frequent contributor to WNPR, a former state politics writer for The Hartford Courant and Journal Inquirer, and contributor for The New York Times.
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Malloy criticizes Metro-North on new outage
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy personally expressed his frustration Friday morning to the MTA’s chairman, Tom Prendergast, over the previous evening’s power outage that stranded commuters on all three major Metro-North lines. “The power outage on the New Haven Line last evening was totally avoidable and frankly, unfathomable given that it occurred due to inappropriate actions […]
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Rowland backs Jepsen’s settlement efforts
The lawyer defending former Gov. John G. Rowland and his budget chief, Marc Ryan, against a lawsuit by unionized state employees said Friday that his clients are now backing a settlement effort by Attorney General George Jepsen.
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Malloy, a year after Sandy Hook
It was dusk, nearly quitting time. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy leaned back in a wooden captain’s chair, about to end a week’s worth of unwanted interviews, all about a date that cannot pass too quickly, the looming anniversary of Sandy Hook.
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Foley tweaks Malloy with TV ad — in NYC
He’s not an official candidate yet, but Republican Tom Foley on Monday rolled out the first television commercial of the 2014 race for governor. With a big wink to the voters and media back in Connecticut, it airs exclusively – and ever-so-briefly — on cable in New York City. To make a point about Connecticut’s […]
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Connecticut General Assembly passes bipartisan gun bill
In emotional back-to-back debates, the Connecticut Senate and House overwhelmingly voted for one of the nation’s most comprehensive gun laws Wednesday and Thursday, a long-awaited response to one of the nation’s worst mass shootings, the Sandy Hook school massacre. The Democrat-dominated legislature passed the sweeping measure with significant Republican support, a rare bipartisan gesture on […]
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New Britain company soars with AR-15 sales — for now
New Britain — Mark Malkowski celebrates 10 years in business May 1. Under other circumstances, he might expect the governor to drop by to celebrate the unlikely story of the local kid who opened a factory at age 24 in a city desperate for jobs. That’s not going to happen. Malkowski, now a boyish 34, […]
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Through their grief, the people of Newtown speak
Newtown — In a hushed auditorium, harshly lit for television, the families and neighbors of Sandy Hook’s lost children told visiting legislators Monday night to take a stand against gun violence, not always prescribing how. “You are our elected officials,” said Nicole Hockley, who last held the hand of her 6-year-old son, Dylan, as he […]
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An elusive consensus on guns after Newtown
Not even among parents of the dead was there a consensus Monday on how the General Assembly should respond to the murders of 26 students and staff members last month at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Among the more than 1,300 people who lined up to testify on gun control, legislators invited three to skip the […]
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Connecticut’s complex relationship with guns
One was a Korean War veteran suffering flashbacks. Another was an old man who kicked his neighbors’ trash cans into the street and ranted at passing traffic. Some had spoken of violence against themselves or others in the face of foreclosure, divorce or illness. All had one thing in common. Their firearms were among 2,093 […]
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Public tears as governor describes ending parents’ wait
He came close Sunday on CNN. It finally happened Monday afternoon at the State Capitol: Gov. Dannel P. Malloy publicly wept for the first time since the mass murders Friday of 26 students and staff at an elementary school in Newtown. In a press conference, Malloy was asked how it fell to him Friday to […]
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Obama: “We can’t tolerate this anymore”
Newtown — The nation is not meeting its obligation to children, the president told a town in mourning Sunday evening. We’re not doing enough to keep our children safe, to let them know they’re loved, to give them a chance to live happy lives. “We will have to change,” President Obama said. He spoke at […]
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Gunman kills 26 students and adults at Newtown school
Officials shared no theories Friday night on what prompted a 20-year-old gunman to kill 26 students and adults at a Newtown elementary school, a national tragedy that left President Obama choked up and wiping away tears as he addressed the deaths from the White House. “I know there is not a parent in America who […]
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A federal boost for Connecticut’s education reforms
When it came time for U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to decide where he would make the announcement on which states landed an exemption to the federal No Child Left Behind requirements, he said Connecticut was the obvious choice. “Connecticut is absolutely a winner,” Duncan told a beaming Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in a crowded function room […]
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Minority legislators back Malloy — to a point
With time running short, the legislature’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus tried Thursday to nudge forward some of the education reforms that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy says are needed to turn around troubled urban schools. But the caucus, which includes 22 of the General Assembly’s 187 members, offered a mixed message at a press conference, […]