The plan to transfer all female prisoners out of the Danbury federal facility is back in effect today, although it remains to be seen whether the government shutdown will slow transfers. While we wait to see what happens next, The Wheelhouse Digest is making a pit stop in New London, where a German website has taken an interest in development news. Also a must-see: the "Saturday Night Live" send-up of a square white Connecticut mom who checks out Grand Theft Auto 5, and ended up playing it all week.
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THE WOMEN ARE LEAVING, AGAIN
A suspension is lifted on a federal prison transfer.
Women currently imprisoned at the federal facility in Danbury will resume transfer today, continuing a plan to convert to a men's prison. Senator Chris Murphy led an effort to stop the transfer to Alabama and several other states. Now officials say the federal shutdown could delay the transfers even with the suspension lifted. Former inmate Beatrice Codianni said, "Not only are their sentences so obscenely long, now they’re going to rip them away from their families."
Read more at The Connecticut Mirror.
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FOG HORNS AND HOPE BUBBLES
New London's revitalization gets a close look...in German.
Johnna Kaplan, who writes about lesser-known aspects of towns in the state at The Size of Connecticut, published an article about New London's "long anticipated, occasionally disappointing, and sometimes thrilling" revitalization at a German-language site. The title for the piece, mysteriously, translates as "Fog Horns and Hope Bubbles." Kaplan writes, "New London could be a model of the declining American urban center, a tiny Detroit. It could also be an example of a city reborn from ashes."
Read more at The Size of Connecticut.
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A CONNECTICUT MOTHER TRANSFORMED
"Saturday Night Live" spoofed a straight-laced white mom who takes a shine to Grand Theft Auto 5.
Clad in an argyle sweater, and ostensibly present to chide game-makers for misogyny and extreme violence, character Pat Lynhart (played by Kate McKinnon) visited Weekend Update to gush about the glory of her virtual experience. "My motto used to be, 'Hug someone, and make an angel smile,'" the Connecticut mother said. Not anymore, since she took up violent gaming. "It's set me free," she told host Cecily Strong. She joked about how her thumbs are bleeding and there's no more food in the house, among other choice comments.