Bristol-based ESPN has confirmed that it is laying off employees, but it won’t say how many. The sports cable channel says the job cuts will come across its global workforce of 7,000. The company employs 4,000 people in Connecticut. ESPN is one of the state of Connecticut’s “First Five” companies. It received a more than […]
ESPN to lay off some workers
Posted inNews
Sequester soon to shrink unemployment checks
People who have been out of work for more than six months are about to see their unemployment benefits slashed by sequestration cuts. The Connecticut Department of Labor says it is sending out letters this week to 30,000 thousand people in the state who will take a cut of almost 20 percent in their benefit […]
Posted inUncategorized
Immigration provision pleases Conn. high-tech companies
Washington -– A compromise over visas for highly skilled workers has pleased many Connecticut companies –- and has angered labor unions. The Senate Judiciary Committee agreed to allow the number of highly skilled foreign workers admitted to the country each year to rise from 65,000 to 110,000, with the possibility of a further increase to 180,000, […]
Posted inUncategorized
Immigration unites, then divides House
The push and pull of immigration politics played out over a marathon House session that began Wednesday with bipartisan consensus on one bill and ended Thursday in partisan rancor on another. In a vote likely to reverberate in the 2014 races for governor and General Assembly, the House voted 74-55 after sunrise Thursday for a […]
Posted inUncategorized
A lobbying battle: Speaker vs. Speaker
It wasn’t exactly the campy skullduggery of Mad magazine’s Spy vs. Spy. In the final frame, nobody went Kaboom! But another chapter was written Wednesday in a quietly epic lobbying battle. Call it Speaker vs. Speaker. Richard J. Balducci and James A. Amann are Democrats who served in the Connecticut General Assembly, reaching the top […]
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Madelyn Colon: The ACA could lead to more savvy consumers
Moving 37,500 adults who are currently insured out of the state Medicaid HUSKY A Program and requiring them to buy their own health insurance on Access Health CT, the new Connecticut health insurance exchange marketplace, isn’t such a bad idea.
Posted inNews
Madelyn Colon: The ACA could lead to more savvy consumers
Moving 37,500 adults who are currently insured out of the state Medicaid HUSKY A Program and requiring them to buy their own health insurance on Access Health CT, the new Connecticut health insurance exchange marketplace, isn’t such a bad idea.
Posted inNews
Conflict? UConn expansion needs OK from other college system
When the governor proposed a dramatic enrollment expansion at the University of Connecticut, concerns immediately arose as to whether that would siphon students away from the state’s other public college system already coping with steady enrollment declines. But the governing board for the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities will need to sign off on many […]
Posted inNews
Americans driving less, but state not getting the message, advocates say
Bad traffic on your way to work? Regardless, Abe Scarr of the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group (ConnPIRG) has some news for you: “The driving boom is over.” In other words, the decades-long increase in driving in the United States that began after World War I is finally starting to reverse. Americans today don’t drive […]
Posted inNews
Democrats may sidestep spending cap
Struggling to secure the super-majority necessary to exceed the current spending cap by half-a-billion dollars, legislative leaders are weighing a plan to green-light the extra spending with a simple majority. According to sources close to budget negotiations, the Democratic majority has discussed effectively shifting more than $400 million in Medicaid spending off the books over […]
Posted inNews
Yale study finds bias toward elderly on Facebook
Ageism exists and has been unmasked on Facebook. A startling — and some say disturbing — percentage of young people berate old people on Facebook, a Yale study has found. Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health analyzed 84 Facebook groups and found that all but one had negative stereotypes of older people. Many […]
Posted inNews
Speaking up about mental illness to combat stigma
When he’s with friends in college, Dan Olguin said, he sometimes feels like he’s leading a double life. He’s wary of how people will react if he tells them he has bipolar disorder, so he avoids talking about his past or letting them know he survived a life-altering crisis. Statistics suggest Olguin is far from […]
Posted inNews
In treating the homeless, lessons for the health care system
Dr. Jim O’Connell was fresh off his residency when he took what he expected would be a six-month job at a Boston homeless shelter. He figured the staff would be thrilled to have someone with his training. He certainly wasn’t expecting what the nurses there gave him as his first assignment: Soaking clients’ feet. It […]
Posted inNews
Juvenile offenders serving long sentences may get chance at parole
Inmates serving lengthy prison sentences for crimes committed as children may be released much sooner than expected, as the House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday that would make dozens of inmates eligible for parole as soon as this fall. One of those inmates is William Freeman Jr., who has been incarcerated for the last 33 years […]
Posted inNews
Courtney pushing student-loan interest rate freeze
Washington –- Rep. Joe Courtney is in the middle of a partisan fight over how to spare college students from a dramatic hike in the interest rate of a popular student loan. Interest rates on Stafford loans will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent for thousands of Connecticut college students unless Congress acts before […]