Over 15 percent of Connecticut’s low income 2- to 5-year old children are obese, ranking us fifth in the nation in early childhood obesity. While it is tempting to think that chubby toddlers will grow out of their baby fat, this is all too often not the case. An overweight child aged 3 to 5 is three times more likely to become an obese adult. And overweight children who become overweight adults have more severe adult weight problems and higher morbidity and mortality than people that first become overweight as adults.
We need to limit the consumption of juice by Connecticut children
Posted inPolitics
Republican Novak making third try for Courtney’s seat
WASHINGTON — It may be flying largely under the political radar, but there’s a race for the 2nd District congressional seat, pitting veteran Rep. Joe Courtney, a Democrat, against Republican Daria Novak. She hopes her third try for the job is a charm.
Posted inJustice, Politics
GOP legislators challenge Malloy’s domestic violence bill
Republican legislators grilled Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s top legal advisers for hours Monday during a public hearing on an administration proposal that sets the safety of domestic violence victims against the rights of gun owners.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
Public water, private profits: A fight over MDC’s tap water
Niagara Bottling’s plan to buy and bottle lightly treated tap water in Bloomfield is high octane fuel for a debate at the Connecticut General Assembly and the Hartford region’s water authority about the ethics and environmental impact of what is projected this year to become the most popular packaged beverage in the United States – the ubiquitous, single-serve, plastic bottle of water.
Posted inMoney
CT lawmakers seek FDA crackdown on false ‘maple-flavored’ labeling
WASHINGTON – It’s a sticky situation, but Rep. Joe Courtney and other Connecticut lawmakers are backing the state’s maple sugar producers who say they – and consumers – are being hurt by those who mislabel their products as containing maple.
Posted inJustice
House lawyer named as claims commissioner
Christy Scott of West Hartford, a lawyer employed by the House Democratic majority, was named Friday by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to the $135,000-a-year post of state claims commissioner, a legal backwater that became controversial in recent months.
Posted inMoney
CT jobless rate rises as 2015 job growth estimates are cut in half
Despite gaining 900 jobs, Connecticut’s unemployment rate rose slightly in January from 5.4 to 5.5 percent, the state Department of Labor reported Friday. The department also significantly reduced its original job growth projections for 2015 by 14,700 jobs. That means Connecticut only has recovered 73 percent, or 86,700 of the jobs lost in the last recession.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy sends early layoff warning to most of state’s workforce
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration sent a letter to seven unions representing close to 70 percent of the workforce this week warning they could be affected by new agency organizational plans that “may include reductions in force.”
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Use of Connecticut student data brings both potential rewards and risks
There is great potential for the appropriate use of student data to bring positive outcomes for our children and students. However, the use of student data also brings with it immense responsibility and great risk to the safety and civil liberties of children and their families.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Law barring access to CT history should be fixed by [name redacted]
Five years ago it wasn’t against the law in Connecticut to get historical records. Now, after the mental health community’s end run around proper legislative practice, it is time to once again enable our historians and researchers and poets and biographers access to the information they need to explain who we are to each other.
Posted inMoney, Politics
GOP says Democrats aren’t taking CT spending cap fix seriously
Republican legislative leaders blasted their Democratic colleagues and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy last week for making late appointments to a panel charged with fixing the state spending cap. The panel still hasn’t met, even though its statutory deadline to begin work was Feb. 27.
Posted inHealth
Senate approves bill to fight opioid abuse that would offer CT help — within limits
WASHINGTON – Senate approval of a bill to fight the nation’s opioid epidemic is still likely to leave states like Connecticut on the front lines of the crisis – and to leave them short of all the help they need to prevent the destroyed lives that result from the abuse of pain killers and heroin.
Posted inPolitics
Office of Government Accountability administrator resigns
Shelby Brown submitted her resignation Thursday as executive administrator of the Office of Government Accountability, ending a contentious run in an office that state watchdog agencies consider an unnecessary affront to their autonomy. The Malloy administration says it does not signal a reappraisal of the office it created.
Posted inNews
UConn, union heading back into negotiations
The university and the union that represents non-teaching professional staff will try to come up with a contract that won’t cause state lawmakers to balk, union officials announced Thursday.
Posted inMoney
Most Wall Street agencies have ‘negative outlook’ on CT finances
Three of Wall Street’s four major credit rating agencies have assigned a “negative outlook” to Connecticut’s bond rating — a warning that the state could face a downgrade, and higher borrowing costs in the next year or two.