Hundreds of Connecticut high school students joined a nationwide demonstration demanding Congress and the president enact stricter gun control laws. It was the largest– but by no means the only — development last week that left President Donald Trump and his administration defending both his policies and his personal conduct.

There was considerable talk but no concrete action on resolving Connecticut’s ongoing budget crisis or responding to the nation’s growing insistence that Congress take steps to reduce gun violence in schools and elsewhere.

Gun violence – perhaps the most divisive and emotional issue in American politics today – dominated the public conversation with a new energy last week — from Fort Lauderdale to Connecticut to Washington, D.C.

The massacre of 17 people at a Florida high school cast another shadow of grief, disgust, frustration and anger over the nation last week. For Connecticut, it brought bitter remembrance of the equally horrifying killings at Sandy Hook elementary school more than five years ago.

Fairness, it is fair to say, is in the eye of the beholder; and last Wednesday, delivering his State of the State address, the beholder was Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

The state of the union is strong, President Donald Trump announced last Tuesday; but in both Connecticut and Washington, D.C., there was considerable debate about that. The big issue of the week here was the state’s transportation network – or more precisely, the lack of money to repair or improve it.

Questions about immigration reform and the fate of the so-called Dreamers lingered last week after Senate Republicans and Democrats reached a compromise agreement to fund the government for another three weeks. But effects of President Donald Trump’s policies and politics are being felt on many issues everywhere.

Connecticut residents woke up Saturday morning to a partial government shutdown when parties could not come to terms to keep it open. The impact will not be immediately felt everywhere, but will deepen as time without an agreement grows.

President Donald Trump’s offensive language and his mental state were hot topics last week nationally and here in Connecticut, where lots of candidates for governor, state attorney general and other high offices are emerging.

Nothing like the holidays to slow down legislative activity in Washington and here in Connecticut. Gov. Dannel Malloy, however, wasn’t spending much time sipping egg nog or roasting chestnuts.

It has been a taxing week in Washington – literally and, for some, figuratively – and not without its headaches in Connecticut, too. The big development, of course, was the Republican Party’s passage of a huge tax reform bill that will bring big benefits to business, some temporary relief to the middle class, and a projected $1.5 trillion in additional debt for a future Congress to worry about.

A contentious election in Alabama reverberated all the way up to Washington, D.C., and Connecticut; but the narrowing of the power balance between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate was only the warm-up for confronting difficult issues with more immediate impact on this state.

The tension between holding power and standing on principle came into sharp relief last week as the national #MeToo wave of intolerance for sexual harassment swept three members of Congress out of office.