Washington – A year and a half after the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Justice Department has given the town of Newtown a $7.1 million grant to support victims and their families, first responders, and community members. This is the latest of several federal grants the town has received to cope with […]
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Posted inHealth
Early pregnancy blood test reducing need for amniocentesis
A simple blood test is transforming the world of prenatal screening, offering women a risk-free way to learn about fetal abnormalities early in pregnancy.
Posted inHealth
Digital town hall: Caregiving and aging in Connecticut
Connecticut officials describe it as the “silver tsunami:” The state’s population of seniors is forecast to rise dramatically in the next decade, while the working-age population declines. That’s expected to bring a growth in the need for caregivers — both people who take care of others professionally and those who do it free, out of love or obligation, for friends or family members.
Posted inNews
Supreme Court rules ‘straw purchases’ illegal
Washington — In a rare blow to the gun lobby, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled gun buyers must report when they buy firearms for other people – even if they are legal gun owners.
Posted inPolitics
CT AFL-CIO mocks Foley: ‘Did I say something funny?’
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley was greeted with derisive laughter Monday as he told the Connecticut AFL-CIO that his call for a “Wisconsin moment” was simply a plea to end one-party Democratic rule in Connecticut, not to undermine collective bargaining rights.
Posted inPolitics
Candidate quits state Senate race to save marriage
David A. Roche of Bristol, the president of the Connecticut State Building and Construction Trades Council, tearfully told the state AFL-CIO political convention Monday he is ending his state Senate campaign to work on saving his marriage.
Posted inHealth
Insurance Department schedules hearing on Anthem’s proposed rate hikes
The Connecticut Insurance Department is holding a public hearing on the proposal by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield to raise premiums for its health plans starting Jan. 1, 2015.
Posted inPolitics
Tom Foley: A very, very careful GOP frontrunner
Republican Tom Foley addresses the Connecticut AFL-CIO today with one likely goal: Assuring labor he is miscast by Democrats as the next Scott Walker, the GOP governor who curtailed collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin.
Posted inNews
Washington Watch, Week of June 15
House and Senate will face a lot of pressure this week to agree on a final veteran’s health care bill. But that debate is likely to be overshadowed by events in Iraq.
Posted inPolitics
Obama nominates N.H. counsel to federal bench
President Obama on Friday nominated Victor Bolden, a former top NAACP lawyer who has been the corporation counsel in New Haven since 2009, as a U.S. District Court judge.
Posted inPolitics
Meraviglia tapped to succeed Stebbins at CT state police commander
A 28-year veteran of the Connecticut state police, Brian F. Meraviglia has been named to replace retiring Col. Danny Stebbins as commander of the division. Dora Shriro, commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, announced the appointment Friday. She also named Maj. Warren “Butch” Hyatt Jr. to succeed Meraviglia as lieutenant colonel of the state police division.
Posted inNews
CT lawmakers have little appetite for U.S. involvement in Iraq
WASHINGTON – Most lawmakers are urging caution on how the United States should react to an insurgency by Muslim radicals in Iraq, and members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation are no exception.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Neglected bridge makes deferred maintenance a losing bet
By making replacement of an 118-year-old rail bridge a second-term funding priority, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy took a gamble won by other governors, but not him. The odds of winning federal funding to fix the malfunctioning bridge are slim, which makes deferred maintenance — a quiet crisis plaguing the length of the Boston-Washington rail corridor — into an urgent election-year issue in Connecticut.
Posted inPolitics
AFT looks past tenure flap, endorses Malloy
AFT-Connecticut, one of the state’s two major public employee unions that represents teachers, has formally endorsed the re-election of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a first-term Democrat whose relationship with teachers has been rocky.
Posted inMoney, Politics
McKinney vs. Barnes: Apples & oranges, busway & bridges
Sen. John P. McKinney, a Republican candidate for governor, linked the state’s failure to maintain a Norwalk rail bridge Thursday to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s decision to greenlight construction of the Hartford to New Britain busway.
The governor’s secretary of the policy and management, Ben Barnes, said the Senate minority leader was comparing apples to oranges.