State Board of Education members angrily criticized lawmakers’ attempts to scale back a major education reform bill, saying Wednesday that the watered-down bill could stall the effort to fix the state’s worst schools. “I’ve watched this process … with real dismay,” board Chairman Allan Taylor said of changes made last week by the legislature’s Education […]

Minority Republicans couldn’t prevent the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives from advancing a proposal making it far easier to dramatically revise longstanding state voting rules. But the GOP, which voted overwhelmingly against the proposed amendment to the state Constitution, ensured Wednesday that the earliest it could take effect would be the 2016 election season. That’s because […]

Connecticut’s truckers and other consumers of diesel fuel won’t benefit from the new circuit-breaker on gasoline taxes, even though rising prices likely will push the diesel levy upward starting this summer. Leaders of the legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee confirmed last week they received a request from the state’s largest trucking association to adopt […]

Democratic leaders say the Connecticut Senate is poised today to repeal the death penalty for future crimes with at least one vote to spare, but Dr. William Petit and other opponents of repeal made a late and likely fruitless effort to turn votes. Debate began at 3:38 p.m., with Sen. Eric Coleman, D-Bloomfield, the co-chairman […]

One year after legislators and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy imposed $1.6 billion in new state and municipal taxes, the General Assembly’s Finance panel held the line Tuesday, wrapping up its work for the session without adopting any tax changes. But while the Senate chairwoman of the Democratic-controlled panel hailed the inaction as a promise honored, […]

With Gov. Dannel P. Malloy pledging to sign the bill into law, the state Senate is preparing for a vote Wednesday on a measure to repeal the death penalty for future crimes. Leaders of the Senate Democratic majority intended Tuesday to canvass their 22 members for a final time, with the expectation of getting a […]

Washington — Unless Congress acts soon, the financially strapped U.S. Postal Service will cut deliveries of mail, raise stamp prices and shutter two processing centers and more than a dozen postal facilities in Connecticut. Drastic steps must be taken, the postal service says, because it lost more than $9 billion last year and has struggled […]

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy acknowledged today that he was less than enthused about the legislature’s cap on a tax on the wholesale price of gasoline, which he signed Tuesday without public ceremony. Malloy said the bill will not provide major relief at the pump, which led to a reporter asking if the attention politicians are […]

The game of ever-shifting state budget forecasts took another new twist Monday as Comptroller Kevin P. Lembo announced a worsening deficit that largely matches the shortfall reported by nonpartisan legislative analysts. Both offices now say Gov. Dannel P. Malloy — who continues to project a small surplus — will need to find roughly $115 million […]

Is Gov. Dannel P. Malloy entitled to crow just a bit about Connecticut’s unemployment rate dropping from 9.3 percent to 7.8 percent on his 14-month watch as governor? “That’s a drop of nearly 20 percent, which is why I, for one, am optimistic that the worst may be behind us,” an upbeat Malloy said Friday, […]

As students change classes at Ella T. Grasso Southeastern Technical High School in Groton, they sometimes have to avoid knocking over the buckets in the hallways collecting water from the leaking roof. The leak has caused the electricity to short out, which started a small fire at the school in January. It wasn’t always this […]

Madison — It’s just past 8:30 on a recent morning as employees of the home energy services company EcoSmart stretch a red tarp inset with a giant fan inside the kitchen doorframe of Lars Helgeson’s home. It’s for a “blower door test,” used to determine how airtight a house is. For a $75 co-pay, Helgeson’s […]

The legislature’s Judiciary Committee gutted a bill Monday that was intended to stop the Hartford Advocate and other alternative papers from running its thinly disguised ads for the sex trade. Lobbied by former House Speaker James Amann, the bill would have made publishers criminally liable for accepting ads that led to an encounter with an […]

Legislators still are debating the appropriate qualifications for attorney general, nearly two years after the Connecticut Supreme Court insisted that only lawyers with litigation experience were eligible. For the second time in as many years, the legislature’s Judiciary Committee approved a bill Monday that would only require that candidates for attorney general have 10 years […]