By: Georgia Lobb I was scrolling through twitter the other day when I saw that @CNNMoney tweeted this article by Emily Jane Fox, entitled “32 Days Of Rising Gas Prices Comes At Tough Time.” Photo courtesy of CNNMoney Apparently the average gas price current is $3.73. I drove home from Long Island yesterday, where gas […]
CNN Reports that Gas Prices Have Risen For 32 Days Straight
Posted inHealth, Money
Rocky Hill residents to rally against inmate facility
Upset about the state’s plans to open a privately run nursing home for prisoners and mentally ill patients, Rocky Hill residents plan to stage a protest rally at the State Capitol Wednesday morning. Residents living near the nursing home on West Street say they are worried about their safety and who might be visiting the […]
Posted inNews
Tuition increases on tap at state colleges
Connecticut university officials plan to vote on a proposal Tuesday that will raise the cost of college for in-state residents by 5.1 percent next fall and decrease the price for college-bound students from other states by 2.6 percent. The plan that members of the Board of Regents’ Finance Committee will consider Tuesday also creates eight […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment
State’s farmers feel left out of big clean energy programs
Woodstock — Paul Miller has two words for the watery cow manure being pumped from catch basins under his barns into a large tanker truck — and those words, surprisingly, are not “that stinks!” The words are: “liquid gold.” For the record, the manure does stink, and by all accounts would be even worse if […]
Posted inNews
What is “infrastructure”?
I’ve written a lot in the past few months about aging infrastructure in Connecticut — from sewer treatment plants to bridges to train tracks. This is a thoughtful take from Reuters’ Jack Shafer on calls from our politicians to overhaul our “aging infrastructure.” Check it out here: http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2013/02/15/infrastructure-rhetoric-is-a-bridge-to-nowhere/
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
New name, new leader for fuel oil group
It might seem less than coincidence that as the Malloy administration put forward its comprehensive energy strategy — with its key component a large-scale conversion from heating oil to natural gas — that the oil guys are undergoing a makeover. Actually it IS pretty much coincidence. The Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association early this year announced […]
Posted inEducation
Group organizing campus walkout if tuition increases approved
Sick of the routine tuition hikes at the state’s colleges, a former student is organizing students to walk out of class and head to the state Capitol the day the Board of Regents for Higher Education approves increasing tuition. “It has become abundantly clear that students are being used as an ATM,” said Danny Ravizza, […]
Posted inNews
Murphy takes another jab at the NRA
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy issued the third in a series of reports today questioning the political clout of the National Rifle Association, a message ostensibly directed at bucking up fellow members of Congress on gun control. “The intent here is simple,” Murphy said in a conference call with reporters. His report was drawn from previous […]
Posted inNews
Architects warn Sandy Hook panel of security limits
School architects gave the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission a blunt lesson Friday in the limits of physical security measures, warning that the best architecture can do against an attacker like Adam Lanza would be to slow him until law enforcement can arrive. “We can mitigate risk, we can delay risk, we can control risk, but […]
Posted inNews
Obama honors slain Newtown teachers, staff
Washington — All in all, Bill Sherlach would rather have not been in the ornate East Room of the White House to receive the nation’s highest civilian award from President Obama. “A total life in obscurity would have been preferable,” he said. Sherlach, the husband of Sandy Hook Elementary School psychiatrist Mary Sherlach, and the […]
Posted inNews
Mayors accuse Malloy of obscuring cuts to cities
Connecticut’s mayors launched a pointed attack Friday on Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s proposed budget, saying the former mayor of Stamford is obscuring cuts to municipalities and usurping their authority by shifting state aid from discretionary to education grants. It was a startling personal critique of Malloy’s second proposed biennial budget and a rebuke by a […]
Posted inNews
Waiting for the next crisis: Parents struggle with children’s mental health needs
West Hartford — Nancy remembers the party at her friends’ house, a gathering of a couple of dozen parents. They knew each other because they had children with mental health problems, but that night, they were there to enjoy themselves. Then a cellphone rang. “The entire room of 25 people went silent, like that,” Nancy […]
Posted inNews
Malloy tries Rell approach of pushing costs into next term
Why would state government run up nearly $200 million in future interest charges — to cover a debt that it owes to itself? Why, with three payments left on a loan from the last recession, would Connecticut extend the payments to 2018 and pay an extra $30 million later? The questions about Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s […]
Posted inEducation, Money
What hurricane and blizzard? Malloy nixes efforts to shorten 180-day school year
The hurricane and blizzard conditions that hit the state in recent weeks are not enough to persuade Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to give districts the ability to shorten their school year. State law requires schools to be open for 180 days each year, and many school districts have already exceeded the snow days built into […]
Posted inNews
Finding a leader for state’s college system could be a challenge
As the deadline approaches to apply to become the next president of the state’s largest public college system, officials are concerned they may have a hard time attracting top-tier candidates. Because state law restricts the Board of Regents for Higher Education from entering into a contract that guarantees the future president will keep his or her […]