Secretary of the State Denise Merrill created a candidate committee Wednesday, becoming an official candidate for re-election in 2014. Merrill said she once again will participate in the voluntary Citizens Election Program, which will limit her to maximum contributions of $100 in return for public financing. It was a low-key launch for the first-term Democrat. […]
Merrill files papers for re-election campaign
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HHS’s Sebelius thanks Blumenthal, 6 other senators
Washington — Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius thanked Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal and six other Senate Democrats for pressing the White House to hire an experienced CEO to take over operations of the troubled HealthCare.gov website. Sebelius Tuesday announced the hire of Kurt DelBene, a retired Microsoft executive. “Kurt, who most recently served […]
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Metro-North promises regular service by April
In a report delivered Tuesday to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Metro-North promised a return to normal weekday service on the New Haven line by April, nearly a year after a derailment near Bridgeport. The report was issued in response to a demand by Malloy in December for the commuter railroad’s response to a number of […]
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Washington’s economic “shocks” weaken CT job growth
Washington’s political gridlock, and the corresponding “economic shocks” it has dealt the nation, effectively has prolonged Connecticut’s recovery from the Great Recession by about a year, the University of Connecticut’s quarterly economic journal reported Tuesday. The winter issue of “The Connecticut Economy” found that more than a half-dozen partisan battles between 2009 and last October’s […]
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CT insurance exchange enrollment up more than 50% in two weeks
Connecticut’s health insurance exchange is enrolling about 1,400 people a day and is on track to have 50,000 to 60,000 people signed up for health care coverage by the end of the year, an official said Tuesday. Jason Madrak, chief marketing officer for Access Health CT, the state’s exchange, said about 20,000 people have signed […]
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How’s your health care? Community centers said: ‘Tell us by texts, postcards’
In theory, everyone in the state has the opportunity to tell lawmakers what they think. But in practice, getting to speak at a public hearing at the state Capitol complex, or even reaching a legislator by email or telephone, can be a challenge. Public hearings often draw dozens of lobbyists and members of the public, […]
Posted inHealth
Obamacare Q&A: Deadlines, penalties and when to expect your insurance card
The new insurance plans available as part of the federal health law take effect in just over two weeks, and one of the first major deadlines of the law is less than a week away.
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A psychiatrist’s diagnosis: Prosecutor’s report taught us nothing about Adam Lanza
Harold Schwartz, a Hartford psychiatrist and member of the governor’s Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, is unimpressed with the Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky’s report on the Newtown school massacre. In a piece published by the Huffington Post, Schwartz pushes back at those who say the answer to Newtown, if there is one, rests with the […]
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Blumenthal skeptical of AT&T deal
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., expressed some misgivings Tuesday about AT&T’s decision to sell its Connecticut operations to Frontier Communications, which is based in Stamford. “While this deal may be good for AT&T and Frontier, I want to make sure it is right for consumers,” said Blumenthal, a former and longtime Connecticut attorney general. “I look […]
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The importance of friend and family support for the mentally ill
“Crazy, nuts, psycho, schizo, insane”– these are the derogatory terms often used to describe the mentally ill. Mental illness has long been the red-headed stepchild in comparison with other types of illnesses known to man. Mental illness has been overshadowed by stigma, misconceptions and fear, which is driven by a lack of knowledge. For this […]
Posted inPolitics
Malloy mixes politics, nutrition, jobs on visit
It’s not every day that a governor promotes a startup company’s line of nutrition supplements. Then again, it’s not every day that a nutrition-supplement company promotes a first-term governor’s re-election.
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Murphy: ‘Magic’ in Kiev
Washington – Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy last weekend jumped into the middle of an escalating conflict in Ukraine over the nation’s rebuff of the European Union in favor of Russia. Murphy’s mission: To persuade Ukrainian officials to change their minds. “It was absolutely magical to be there. We were witnessing history,” Murphy said. Mass protests […]
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CT tax department restores paper check refund option
The state’s tax department will give income tax filers the choice of receiving refunds by paper check next year in response to a computer data breach of its debit card system. The Department of Revenue Services also announced it would issue refunds by paper checks to “several thousand” filers still needing to resolve their 2013 […]
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ECSU President Núñez wins lifetime achievement award
Elsa M. Núñez, the president of Eastern Connecticut State University, has won a lifetime achievement award from the New England Board of Higher Education. During her seven years at the public liberal arts college in Willimantic, Núñez has launched a program that allows the university to predict the academic success of its students and target support programs […]
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Newtown, governors, and acts of kindness
The Newtown effect This week, in a half-dozen stories, a video and one particularly striking graphic, we tried to assess how Connecticut has absorbed and responded to the terrible event of a year ago. We talked with mental health experts to see if we’re changing how we approach mental illness. We spoke with school personnel to determine if […]