Ali Oshinskie

Possession of cannabis for recreational use will be legal in the state on July 1. But under the new law signed by Gov. Ned Lamont Tuesday, towns and cities can prohibit retail sales. Officials in Prospect have decided to do just that.

Chailyn Berrios, 17, is wearing an aqua blue prom dress and matching eye shadow. Several teary-eyed family members take her photo outside her home in Bridgeport. In a few minutes she’ll get out of her heels, put on her driving shoes, and drive herself to Quassy Amusement Park for prom.

A Department of Correction officer was terminated Tuesday for violating employee conduct and social media policies. DOC officials said Officer Anthony Marlak’s speech threatens the safety of staff and inmates who are Muslim. In the termination letter, DOC Warden Amonda Hannah wrote, “Your personal use of social media has undermined the public’s confidence in your ability to function in your position.” 

A court hearing was held this week in the case against a white woman charged with a hate crime for spitting on a Black woman during a Jan. 6 protest at the state Capitol. Now Hartford State’s Attorney Sharmese Walcott is taking on the case. 

Sean Walters wants to be a doctor someday. His great grandfather, Freddie Lee Tyson, was subjected to the infamous United States Public Health Service Syphilis Study in Tuskegee. For Walters, the legacy alone doesn’t create a pressure on him. 

“Pressure?” he said, sitting on a park bench in Stamford’s Harbor Point. “I feel like there would still be pressure to at least address some of the issues that are going on in medicine.”

The Connecticut chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has alerted state officials to an act of anti-Islamic hate speech at the Cheshire Correctional Institution. CAIR-CT sent a letter to Department of Correction Commissioner Angel Quiros Sunday and copied it to the Office of the Attorney General. 

This post has been updated.

State police are investigating a shooting involving a Derby police officer that took place early Monday morning. 

The officer was on patrol and stopped at a red light on the Derby-Ansonia border. Two young males -- one a minor -- approached his car looking for help.

According to state police, they began pounding on the car windows. At the same time, another vehicle passed by, which got their attention. 

Kevin Skeggs was smiling under his mask. The 24-year-old sat with his mom in the activity room of the Arc of Litchfield County in Torrington on Friday.

Christine Skeggs briefly pulled back her son’s mask to show his big smile. He had a good reason -- Kevin just received his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine at a clinic set up by the state for residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities, or IDD.

Pastor Antwaun Richardson says he regularly preaches to his church members that God is not visible, but evidence that He exists is. Richardson sees evidence of God in the coronavirus vaccine.

Sitting in the red velvet pew of Zion Baptist Church in Waterbury, Richardson said, “This vaccination is a step of faith, much like the step of faith we have to take in God.” As he spoke, workers at a vaccine clinic distributed 50 doses of the Johnson & Johnson shot to members of the Waterbury community in the church basement below. 

Affordable housing is the subject of a number of bills before Connecticut lawmakers. But what do we really mean when we talk about “affordable housing”? 

Nineteen inmates have died from the coronavirus in Connecticut Department of Correction prisons. One year after the pandemic began to spread across the state, Connecticut Public is revisiting the early days of the crisis. 

Carlos DeLeon died on April 13, 2020, from the coronavirus.

Nicole Russo needs more employees. She’s the CEO and owner of Microboard Processing Inc. in Seymour. She said she lost close to 20% of her workforce amid the pandemic last summer.

Contestants sat at opposite ends of six-foot tables around the Ansonia Armory. In front of each person were two boxes of pączki -- Polish jelly doughnuts. A city staffer sprinkled confetti and made sure each contestant had a few bottles of water.

Bono Sidharta voted in his first presidential election last November, as a registered Republican. But he’d been considering switching to Democrat for some time. 

“It was definitely something that I thought of for a while,” he said. Then on Jan. 6, a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, and for Sidharta, that was it. “[The riot] made me really think about it that day.”

Developer AA Denorfia Building & Development wants to bring more affordable housing to Woodbridge. Its application has the backing of Open Communities Alliance, a nonprofit that works on housing equity, and the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School. But the proposal also has drawn opposition, dominating the town’s planning and zoning meetings for the last two months.