Hartford

Cliff O’Connell’s future was once pretty murky. By 2019, he’d had kidney disease for 14 years.

As she was raising children with mental health needs, Milagros Vega learned how to access multiple services in Hartford. She moved to the city from Puerto Rico 25 years ago. Now she’s caring for a grandson with similar needs. 

The Hartford Courant is America’s oldest continuously published newspaper. But the proposed acquisition of the paper’s parent company Tribune Publishing by hedge fund Alden Global Capital has reporters worried about the newspaper’s future.

This hour, we look at the future of the Courant.  In a changing world, how will newspapers and other media companies survive?

Insurance giant Chubb has broken its silence over The Hartford’s rejection of its takeover offer, but the company did not make clear whether it intends to return with a sweetened bid.

Hartford’s school superintendent is recalling teachers and students to the classroom beginning Monday. But two local teachers unions, who say they found out about the return date the same day as parents and students, think it’s too early.

With The Hartford’s rejection of a takeover offer from Chubb comes speculation about the next move in a potential insurance industry consolidation that could get personal for Connecticut. 

Most analysts believe the Swiss giant -- with its U.S. headquarters in New Jersey -- will come back with an improved bid for the Connecticut insurer.

With the state recently opening up its COVID-19 vaccine program to Connecticut residents who are 45 to 54 years old, more people are now in the queue to get shots.

But some people are finding they don’t have to get in line.

Storied Connecticut insurance company The Hartford says it is considering a takeover bid from fellow insurer Chubb. The Swiss company has offered $65 a share for the Hartford, valuing the company at approximately $23 billion.

Every year around this time, there's a big-old college basketball tournament. So every* year around this time, for every* year that this show has been on the air, we've put together a big-old hour of radio about said big-old college basketball tournament.

Until last year, of course.

We reair Colin's 2016 interview with Patti Smith at the Immanuel Congregational Church in Hartford when she was in town for a Mark Twain House event. The church was filled to the rafters with a capacity crowd of 700 people who remained enraptured by her presence throughout the entire evening. If you don't know her, you may come to love her after hearing this very funny and endearing interview. 

Ghostwriting evokes an image of the writer who toils away in obscurity, secretly penning books credited to another. In reality, ghostwriters are just good at turning someone's undeveloped vision into a story that others want to read. Their services are in demand from people wanting help writing everything from celebrity memoirs to Instagram captions and online dating profiles.

Self-publishing is on the rise as our fixation on the solitary author and the stigma of ghostwriting recedes. Even rap and hip hop artists are getting on board.

This hour, we pull back the curtain on ghostwriting.

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin discusses coronavirus’ impact on students in Hartford, and vaccination efforts.  What does the governor's plan to focus more on age in vaccine distribution mean for people of color and low-income people in Hartford?

The mayor also has new responsibilities on his plate: Pushing for high speed rail in the region and leading the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, an organization of cities and towns.

The city of Hartford and St. Francis Hospital have teamed up to get people vaccinated at multiple neighborhood spots.

Plumbers and electricians are essential workers with well-paying jobs.  And yet skilled trades face worker shortages and struggle to recruit young people.

This hour, we take a look at vocational education. We talk with a teacher and a student from one of Connecticut’s technical high schools.

And we ask a national expert: what can the Biden administration do to build up a new generation of tradespeople?

Who's afraid of the Bix bad Beiderbecke?

Hartford has an amazing jazz history, and Colin has a lot of jazz musician friends. This hour, a little onstage jazz party recorded in front of a live audience long before the pandemic put a pause on live audiences as a thing.

Colin and the panel look to make jazz accessible to mere mortals. They talk about what makes jazz jazz, invite the audience to sing, and teach the audience to scat.

Some are looking at the 2021 legislative session in Connecticut as an opportunity to turn back major police reform adopted last year in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer.

The percentage of Hartford students in racially integrated schools dropped significantly this academic year amid the challenge of the COVID pandemic and a major change in the operation of the regional school choice lottery, according to figures provided by the state Department of Education.

State and local law enforcement agencies blocked off and locked down the Connecticut State Capitol complex Sunday in anticipation of pro-Trump protests that never came to pass.

A Hartford Superior Court judge granted a sentence modification on Friday to Clyde Meikle, a man serving a 50-year prison sentence for killing his cousin in 1994.

Police plan to have a massive presence at a demonstration possibly taking place Sunday at the state Capitol in Hartford, anticipating it could be much larger than a typical protest there.