A week after outlining the major education reforms he intends to launch, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy nominated the eight people he wants to lead the way on the State Board of Education. “I’m confident they can help set the standards needed to bring our students to the top,” Malloy said in a statement Friday announcing […]

Not that it should come as a surprise to anyone following events in Washington, but National Journal’s new 2010 vote ratings finds Congress more polarized than at any time in the last three decades. For only the second time since 1982–the first was 1999–every Democrat in the Senate compiled a voting record more liberal than […]

Concerned that the state’s public colleges and universities are spending too much on administration, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy wants to require that all non-teaching hiring at the state’s public colleges and universities be approved by his budget office. “It’s an added control mechanism that we make sure we are actually spending as much money as […]

While running for governor, Dannel P. Malloy insisted that Bradley International Airport should become more nimble to compete for air traffic and generate economic activity. Now, the legislature is reviving an old idea to achieve that goal: a bill giving the airport’s governing board more autonomy. Eric J. Brown, associate council of the Connecticut Business […]

A week after winning accolades from municipal officials for proposing a budget that largely maintains state aid to cities and towns, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is under fire for seeking authority to reduce that assistance unilaterally if the state’s financial problems worsen. Allowing the governor to reduce aid mid-year “is non-negotiable for us,” James Finley, […]

WASHINGTON–At first blush, it would seem the stars have finally aligned for a long-stalled bill creating a national “Infrastructure Bank,” a proposal pushed for years by top Connecticut lawmakers. The idea has gained prominence at a time when available federal transportation funds are far short of the nation’s needs, and lawmakers are looking for new […]

After 12 years in the U.S., ProPublica reporter Dafna Linzer became a citizen last month. All it took, she says, was steep filing fees, mounds of paperwork, and a willingness to provide the wrong answers if necessary to questions on the citizenship test. The 100 questions and answers that make up the test–applicants must get […]

Washington has delivered some big wins to Pratt & Whitney this month. The Pentagon announced today that it would award a $35 billion tanker contract to Boeing, with Pratt set to supply parts and two engines for each of the 179 planes. The engines will be assembled in Middletown, to the delight of the Connecticut […]

The announcement by the Obama Justice Department that it would no longer defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act grabbed all the headlines Wednesday, John Gramlich says at Stateline.org, but it wasn’t the day’s only good news for gay rights supporters. In Maryland, the Senate voted in favor of a bill to allow same-sex marriage, […]

There’s good news and not-so good news for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and his budget in a new poll by the Yankee Institute, a conservative think tank. In a one-day survey conducted Sunday night, four days after he proposed a $1.5 billion tax increase and $1.8 billion in spending cuts, about 70 percent of respondents […]

Gov. Dannel Malloy is headed to Washington again. He’s one of a dozen or so Democratic governors who’ve been invited to the White House to talk to President Barack Obama about jobs and the economy. The White House said the discussions will focus on “ways Washington and the states can work together to grow the […]

Sen. Joe Lieberman isn’t exactly a military dove when it comes to support for the current U.S. military campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan. But apparently a military commander in Afghanistan, three-star Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, still thought Lieberman needed to be targeted with a sophisticated “psychological operations” campaign, aimed at manipulating U.S. policymakers into providing […]