A liberal veterans group is suing to block the influence of three outside advisers who have been secretly influencing the Department of Veterans Affairs from Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Veterans group sues to block VA shadow rulers
Posted inNews
One big story — for the next few months
There was one big story last week that will resonate from now until November 6 – the election of the candidates competing to lead state government for the next four years.
Posted inEducation
Its low-scoring schools made their days longer. It helped, new research finds
New research finds that a program lengthening the school day really did boost reading scores for students from low-income families. It’s new evidence that lengthening the school day, an approach being taken at schools across the country, can make a difference for students who stand to benefit the most.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Ranked choice voting would have given the GOP primary an instant runoff
Tuesday’s five-way race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination resulted in a nominee, investment banker and former GE executive, Bob Stefanowski who earned less than 30 percent of the vote. Stefanowski soundly bested Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton and the rest of the GOP field. But he earned just over 42,000 total votes. There are more than 480,000 registered Republicans in the state. Stefanowski moves onto the general election despite being the first choice of fewer than one in 10. Stefanowski’s total number of votes, as well as his overall percentage, are the lowest for any nominee in modern times. It doesn’t have to be this way — and these results ought to encourage a fresh look at electoral reforms that produce winners with true majority support. First among them would be ranked choice voting.
Posted inPolitics
Whistleblower accuses Pratt & Whitney of selling government defective jet engines
WASHINGTON – A whistleblower says Pratt & Whitney and its parent company, United Technologies Corp., sold the Pentagon tens of millions of dollars in defective fighter jet engines, unnecessarily exposing military pilots to the risk of catastrophic engine failures.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Preventing medication errors for our elderly in Connecticut with technology
Planning is what we are taught in our society. We plan for our retirement, we plan for our children’s education, we plan for our next vacations. What we do not plan for is the illness of a loved one. My family was faced with the sudden illness of my dad last spring. After a very critical time spent in the hospital, he was sent home with a new, very complex medication list to manage. This was something our family never thought to plan for.
Posted inPolitics
Turnout increased for both parties, Dem enthusiasm closes gap
Connecticut followed a national trend with a boost in the number of voters who cast ballots in their party’s primary election on Tuesday, and those numbers show that enthusiasm among Democratic voters has increased.
Posted inPolitics
Democrats, Republicans debate relevance of social issues
Standing outside the Hartford Gay & Lesbian Health Collective, the Democratic nominees for governor and lieutenant governor, Ned Lamont and Susan Bysiewicz, tried Thursday to draw Republicans into a debate over abortion, gay marriage, Donald J. Trump and the Family Institute of Connecticut. The invitation was declined.
Posted inHealth
CT overdose death increase exceeds most other New England states
As New Haven grappled Thursday for the second straight day with a drug overdose crisis, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that Connecticut’s rise in overdose deaths in 2017 was much higher than all but one other New England state.
Posted inNews
We will not shut up
Dear Friends, Today, the Institute for Nonprofit News [to which the Connecticut Mirror belongs] joins journalists across the country in asking you, the public, to stand up for your rights to free speech and an open government. This started as a campaign by the Boston Globe to ask the President of the United States to […]
Posted inMoney
CT loses 1,200 jobs in July; unemployment remains at 4.4 percent
Connecticut lost 1,200 jobs in July but its unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.4 percent, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
CSCU successfully graduates students prepared to become productive workforce members
A recent CTViewpoints opinion — Connecticut’s four year public state university graduation rates fall short — correctly observed that Connecticut’s state universities “have a responsibility to help students graduate.” Their success would “provide the state with more educated individuals equipped to enter the workforce and ultimately, enable them to become more productive citizens.” The good news is that the CSCU universities are in fact successful in achieving that objective. But that was not the conclusion of the author of the op-ed, who argued that six-year graduation rates of the CSCU universities were unacceptably low.
Posted inPolitics
Once again, CT GOP bets on a business outsider
Bob Stefanowski is the latest in a series of outsiders from the world of business to win a Republican primary for top-of-ticket statewide offices in Connecticut, none of whom were able to beat their conventional Democratic opponents in the fall. But those races for governor and U.S. Senate came before the ultimate outsider, Donald J. Trump, captured the White House. And none of them followed the path taken by Stefanowski.
Posted inPolitics
Feds give Connecticut $10.6 million for districts with displaced students
The United States Department of Education has announced it will allocate Connecticut $10.6 million for school districts that took in displaced students from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria wreaked widespread devastation last fall.
Posted inPolitics
Hayes would be a minority within a minority in Congress
If Jahana Hayes succeeds in winning a seat in Congress, she will be in a select group of minority lawmakers who represent overwhelmingly white majority districts. Hayes garnered substantial support among white Democrats, winning towns in the district with few minority residents, like Goshen, Litchfield and Southbury, by more than 66 percent of the vote.