With the departure of five senators, Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, took the opportunity Tuesday to change the leadership of more than a dozen committees, effective next month on the opening day of the 2015 session.
Looney makes wholesale changes in Senate committee co-chairs
Posted inEducation, Politics
CT youth attend White House effort to improve foster care
WASHINGTON – Five Connecticut teenagers were among dozens of children in foster care invited to Washington this week to attend a White House event entitled “Improving Outcomes for Our Nation’s Foster Youth.”
Posted inPolitics
Malloy counsel Bronin leaving to explore Hartford mayoral run
Luke Bronin is resigning next month after a two-year stint as the top legal adviser to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a move that allows him to explore a run for mayor of Hartford.
Posted inEducation, Politics
On anniversary, advocates mark 95 shootings since Newtown
WASHINGTON – Gun-control advocates have marked the two-year anniversary of the massacre of first graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School with a report that says there have been 95 school shootings since the Newtown tragedy.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
The Sandy Hook failure
Federal law requires public schools to seek out, evaluate, identify and provide services to children with disabilities, including children with serious emotional disturbances. In Adam Lanza’s case, apparently, Newtown’s schools did not.
Posted inNews
Op-Ed: The Sandy Hook failure
Federal law requires public schools to seek out, evaluate, identify and provide services to children with disabilities, including children with serious emotional disturbances. In Adam Lanza’s case, apparently, Newtown’s schools did not.
Posted inPolitics
Senate to begin debate on bill that would turn Coltsville into national park
WASHINGTON – A massive defense bill that would authorize billions of dollars in spending on Connecticut defense projects — and turn the Hartford’s Coltsville neighborhood into a national park — may face its first test in the Senate today.
Posted inMoney
New Haven—Hartford—Springfield rail upgrade on track
A $365 million project is underway to upgrade Connecticut’s 62-mile rail corridor and enable Amtrak to run 16 of trains along the New Haven-to-Hartford-to-Springfield track each day, up from the current six. That project—which includes adding tracks and fixing bridges and culverts — is on track to be completed some time in late 2016.
Posted inHealth
New report: Operating profits drop at state hospitals
Connecticut’s acute-care hospitals saw gains from their operations tumble 35 percent in the last fiscal year, with seven of 29 hospitals reporting operating losses, according to a new state report.
Posted inMoney
Mary Finnegan: Three decades as CT fiscal linchpin coming to an end
She might be the most important person in state government that you’ve never heard of. The caretaker of thousands of bills for the legislature’s finance committee, arguably the assembly’s most powerful. The possessor of a deep passion for her Irish heritage and the Boston Red Sox. Mary Finnegan announced last week it was all coming to an end – except for her love of all things Irish and the Sox.
Posted inHealth
DSS said to have continued thousands on Medicaid without ensuring they were still eligible
The state Department of Social Services continued providing Medicaid coverage to thousands of people for more than a year without checking whether they remained eligible, as is federally required, according to a contractor who recently left the department.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Defense bill has billions for new sub class, other CT-made weapons
WASHINGTON – The defense authorization bill making its way through Congress containins billions for submarines, helicopters and other weaponry made by companies in the state. It includes a special $3.5 billion fund for a new class of submarines that could be built by Electric Boat in Groton.
Posted inPolitics
Feds: Rowland was making $420,000 when he cut secret consulting deal
Federal prosecutors say that former Gov. John G. Rowland was making $420,000 a year when he conspired to be secretly hired for $5,000 a month as a consultant to the 2012 congressional campaign of Lisa Wilson-Foley.
Posted inPolitics
Sharkey names Berger to Finance, Tong to Judiciary
House Speaker J. Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden, changed the leadership of a half-dozen committees Friday as he named Rep. Jeff Berger of Waterbury as the new co-chair of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee and Rep. William Tong of Stamford to lead the Judiciary Committee.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Doctors and computers — not the best examining room combo
Several of studies in peer-reviewed journals have concluded that a doctor’s use of a personal digital assistant or laptop computers in the examining room is good. We challenge this premise.