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Hartford has 2nd highest Hispanic unemployment rate in the country

A Washington, D.C.-based economic think tank released a report Monday saying the Hartford metropolitan area has the second highest rate of Hispanic unemployment in the country, behind Providence, R.I. The non-partisan Economic Policy Institute reported Hartford’s Hispanic unemployment rate at 23.5 percent in 2010, topped only by Providence at 25.2 percent. The rest of the […]

Posted inHealth

Emergency department directors: VIPs get care faster

Many emergency department directors at Connecticut hospitals say their departments expedite care for very important persons and see doing so as “vaguely unethical but necessary,” according to a letter written by Hartford Hospital emergency medicine director Dr. A.J. Smally and published this month in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine. Smally and four colleagues wrote […]

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Union pushes for power to set teacher standards

The state’s largest teachers union is urging state legislators to remove the authority to set certification and ethical standards for teachers from the State Department of Education and have an autonomous panel led by educators determine those requirements for themselves. “You’ll find teachers are harder on other teachers than anyone else will ever be because […]

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Unions chastise Malloy for allowing October longevity pay for managers

Bargaining units representing more than 6,400 unionized state employees chastised Gov. Dannel P. Malloy this afternoon for allowing non-union managers and executives to receive longevity bonuses in October under a new capping system while unionized staff will forfeit some or all of theirs. CSEA-SEIU Local 2001, called for Malloy to apply the same standard to […]

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A big investment and a little luck bring a $1.1 billion genetics lab

A leading genetics laboratory based in Maine committed today to establishing a $1.1 billion research institute at the UConn Health Center, a deal that provides an unexpectedly rapid return on Connecticut’s new bioscience initiative — and on a state official’s subscription to a Downeast weekly paper. The lure for Jackson Laboratory of Bar Harbor, Maine […]

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Markley calls for investigation into DSS post-Irene benefits

Sen. Joe Markley, the ranking Republican on the Human Services Committee, has asked state auditors to investigate claims of fraud involving benefits distributed by the state Department of Social Services this month to make up for losses incurred in Tropical Storm Irene. In a letter to the auditors, Markley questioned how eligibility for the benefits […]

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House GOP boosts federal heating fund

WASHINGTON–House Republicans released a spending proposal Thursday that would provide about $3.4 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program–a significant cut from the current funding level, but probably enough to cover the Connecticut heat aid program approved by three legislative committees this week. The House GOP plan, which has yet to win committee […]

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Thousands of non-union workers to receive longevity bonuses

While most veteran unionized employees are forfeiting their longevity pay as part of the labor concession deal, thousands of non-union workers, including several top officials in Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration, will share millions of dollars in seniority bonuses next month. The Department of Administrative Services declined Thursday to release a preliminary list of staff […]

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Congress averts another crisis, and lurches toward the next

WASHINGTON–Lawmakers will limp back to Washington next week, bruised by another barely-averted government shutdown crisis and battered by sinking public approval ratings. But while many lawmakers agree that the latest fiscal fight was “embarrassing,” as one senator put it, it’s not clear this Congress can find any other way of doing business. The most recent […]

Posted inHealth, Money

Malloy to announce major collaboration with genetics firm Friday

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and officials from the genetics research firm Jackson Laboratory will announce a “major collaboration” in bioscience Friday morning, according to Malloy’s office. On Wednesday, former UConn President Philip E. Austin, who serves as the university’s interim vice president for health affairs, said that a “major scientific group” will be relocating to […]

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