News

As forecast, Connecticut is contending with its first major storm of 2021. The weather system had already deposited significant snowfall on most parts of the state by midday Monday.

More than half of all people in Connecticut who died from COVID-19 in the first wave of the disease lived in nursing homes or assisted living facilities. Advocates for the elderly want to know whether someone should be held accountable for those deaths -- so they’re asking Gov. Ned Lamont to stop shielding the homes from legal action.

As the original guitarist for the British Invasion group The Animals, Hilton Valentine will probably be best remembered for the now-iconic arpeggiated opening riff from their 1964 hit “The House of the Rising Sun.” But Valentine was a lot more than that one moment. As a guitar player and composer, he was comfortable playing folk, skiffle, rhythm and blues and, of course, rock ’n’ roll music over his long career.

Nate Walpole steadied his hand, readied his needle and issued a friendly warning. 

“Sir, big poke!” Walpole said, holding the syringe in place for a few seconds before quickly pulling it out and tapping it on a nearby table, protective plastic flipped up over the needle.

On this particular day, the syringe contains only saline, injected into a pillow held in place on a classmate’s shoulder. But soon, it will be the real deal: the COVID-19 vaccine. 

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill is calling for a number of voting reforms after her office conducted a poll in January that found a majority of Connecticut voters favor early and no-excuse absentee voting.

At a virtual news conference Thursday, Merrill shared that 79% of Connecticut voters support early voting and 73% support the option to vote by absentee ballot without needing an excuse.

When her son Michael told her in June that he was being transferred to the Osborn Correctional Institution from a prison in Newtown, Dorothea Ferrigon thought his two-year ordeal was almost over.

Thirteen-year-old Estrella Roman and her mother have made the 30-minute walk to Rogers Park Middle School in Danbury several times during the pandemic, even when the school has been closed for in-person learning. That’s because the school’s on-site health center is where Estrella, who emigrated with her family from Ecuador in 2019, receives routine vaccinations, wellness care, and treatment for headaches, among other health services.

Students from Naugatuck High School, along with some of their parents and supporters, staged a demonstration in town Wednesday after racist social media posts from a fellow student were revealed.

Nearly 1 million people in Connecticut chose health insurance plans for 2021 through Access Health CT, the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace, new data show.

That includes a year-over-year uptick in the number of people eligible for low-income insurance programs under HUSKY Health. Experts say some of that was likely driven by the pandemic. 

Merrill Gay helped his elderly mother, sequestered alone at home, make an appointment last week to get a coronavirus vaccination.

Meanwhile, the thousands of child care workers who are members of the coalition he leads, the Early Childhood Alliance, have been told they will have to wait more than a month for their turn to make an appointment.

Connecticut’s tax fairness debate took another leap forward recently when the Senate’s highest-ranking Democrat proposed new taxes on high-value homes and on the capital gains of the state’s highest earners.

In its first week, the sprawling vaccine operation now underway at the former Pratt & Whitney airport in East Hartford had inoculated more than 2,800 Connecticut residents against the deadly coronavirus. Its organizers have lofty plans to accelerate the program as the state directs more people to that site for appointments.

Just days into his term, President Joe Biden has moved swiftly on a couple of fronts in addressing immigration issues. Immigrants in Connecticut call Biden’s efforts to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program a great first step. They’ve also welcomed the announcement from the Department of Homeland Security of a 100-day moratorium on deportations.

When COVID-19 first cut through Connecticut in the spring, municipalities faced a litany of unanticipated expenses. Buildings needed to be sanitized, masks and gloves bought and town halls rearranged to accommodate remote workers.

To help, the state reimbursed local towns and cities more than $14.5 million in federal funds for coronavirus expenses in the first half of 2020. But state leaders also denied or deemed ineligible about 10% of all requests. 

A Bridgeport city employee, Daniel Pizarro, could face criminal prosecution after hosting a 48th birthday bash on Jan. 16. 

For weeks, the state’s top elected officials have touted how well Connecticut is doing in its coronavirus vaccine rollout.

“We’ve done pretty well here in the state of Connecticut in terms of getting a higher percentage of our people vaccinated,” Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday. “Forty-seven thousand people over the age of 75 are vaccinated, and close to 260,000 vaccines overall distributed so far.”

Connecticut lawmakers will again consider a controversial bill that would get rid of religious exemptions from vaccinations for schoolchildren.

While the rosy revenue projections have drawn a lot of attention recently, another factor — savings — is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into Connecticut’s coffers.

Celebrations of President Joe Biden’s inauguration took place throughout Connecticut Wednesday night, including one by Unidad Latina en Accion, or ULA. The organization celebrated in the form of a demonstration, hosting a two-part event: a march and car caravan in New Haven and a virtual roundtable of speakers from advocacy groups across the state.

From living rooms and Zoom rooms, Connecticut watched as Joe Biden was sworn in Wednesday as America’s 46th president.

As dignitaries filed into their seats for President Joe Biden’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., roughly a dozen people affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement in Connecticut marched to the front of the state Capitol in Hartford.