While changing the way the state distributes school aid among towns may draw substantial support from legislators and the governor, they have shown little interest in, or have outright rejected, changing other polices a Superior Court judge found unconstitutional. Last of seven stories.
Troubled schools on trial: Will a scathing court decision lead to action?
Posted inPolitics
Capitol Hill vigil for Sandy Hook victims unites activists
The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting has been a catalyst for mobilizing family members of gun violence victims, and its anniversary has become the day to gather to support each other.
Posted inHealth, Politics
As states vie for new opioid-fighting grants, Blumenthal puts CT in the mix
WASHINGTON — No sooner was the ink dry on President Obama’s signature on the 21st Century Cures Act than states, including Connecticut, started competing for new law’s $1 billion in grants to fight opioid addiction.
Posted inPolitics
Quoting Monty Python, Malloy says, ‘I’m not dead yet’
And now for something completely different. A smiling Gov. Dannel P. Malloy opened his annual holiday speech to the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday by comparing himself to a man prematurely given up for dead during the Black Plague, albeit the one who refused to go gently in an absurdist Monty Python comedy about the Middle Ages.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
Q&A: EPA’s McCarthy hopes Trump won’t unravel her work
WASHINGTON — On Gina McCarthy’s watch, the Environmental Protection Agency toughened the clean water and clean air regulations and finalized regulations for the Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce emissions from power plants to combat climate change. She recently gave The Connecticut Mirror a wide ranging interview and spoke, in her distinct Boston accent, of her hopes that her legacy will survive,
Posted inCT Viewpoints
In opioid crisis, a call to action for advanced practice nurses
Rates of opioid abuse and heroin use have reached epidemic proportions in Connecticut. According to government statistics, accidental deaths rose from 357 in 2012 to 723 in 2015 — 53 percent of those involving heroin. That is a 102 percent increase in lives lost in a three-year period. Not only do individuals and families suffer but the financial implications are also substantial.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Needy families suffering; CT’s high electric rates must be addressed
If faced with the choice to feed your family or keep them warm, which would you choose? If you had to choose between buying medicine and paying your light bill, what would you do? For thousands of families across Connecticut, these are the cold realities they face each and every day during the winter months.
Posted inEducation, Justice
Troubled schools on trial: Special education driving costs and controversies
The rate at which students are identified for special education varies drastically across school districts, and school officials differ on whether that’s because districts are over- or under-indentifying students. But they agree the rising cost to educate these students has outpaced inflation and crowds out other supports for students. The state judge presiding over a recent school funding trial blamed the state for not enforcing clear mandates on who is entitled to special education. Sixth of seven stories.
Posted inMoney
Connecticut housing report card: Progress, yet needs
“Housing in Connecticut in 2016 is a tale of two realities: enormous progress that has produced an effective end to veteran homelessness and substantial strides toward ending chronic homelessness, along with thousands of new affordable homes. Yet high prices for housing and cost burdens for hundreds of thousands of households continue.” That’s the top of HousingInCT2016, an annual assessment of the availability of affordable housing in the state.
Posted inHealth, Justice
Cigna distances itself from Anthem at key point in merger trial
WASHINGTON — Hostilities between proposed merger partners Anthem and Cigna were on full display Tuesday at a key point of a U.S. antitrust trial over the deal. Cigna attorney Rick Rule said the company did not sign a key closing document because it did not agree with Anthem’s characterizations of the testimony of certain Cigna witnesses.
Posted inMoney, Politics
GOP: CT lawmakers must go on record on new pension deal
The fate of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s plan to restructure the state employee pension system — which would shift billions of dollars of costs onto future taxpayers — mustn’t be resolved without votes by the House and Senate, according to the top Republicans in both chambers.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Humanities need state funds to combat ‘fake history’
How do students learn about Connecticut? Let’s hope it’s not from a textbook that sugar coats Connecticut’s history of slavery. In 2015 the Department of Education recommended incorporating Connecticut content into the public school social studies curriculum and created frameworks for doing so. But that doesn’t actually get content into the classroom.
Posted inEducation, Justice
Troubled schools on trial: What does a high school diploma prove?
A seeming paradox – rising graduation rates coupled with low standardized test scores and high demand for remedial courses in college – was among the reasons that a Hartford Superior Court judge ruled that the state fails to provide students with the education the state constitution says they are entitled to. Fifth of seven stories.
Posted inHealth
522,000 CT adults have a pre-existing condition, analysis says
Nearly one in four Connecticut adults have a health condition that probably would make them unable to buy insurance through the individual market without protections for people with pre-existing conditions, such as those created by Obamacare, according to an analysis released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Posted inPolitics
Looney to undergo kidney transplant next week
Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, is to undergo a kidney transplant from a live donor next week, ending a four-month search for a kidney, but adding another element of uncertainty as to how an evenly divided Connecticut Senate will function in 2017.