The CT Mirror

As open enrollment approaches, community outreach shifts online

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 09:00:59 GMT

Officials with the state's health insurance exchange are moving enrollment fairs, community discussions online.

Vote to protect LGBTQ+ rights

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 08:58:45 GMT

LGBTQ+ rights are being threatened. Two weeks ago, Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas lashed out at the same-sex marriage ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, the case which legalized gay marriage, on July 15, 2015.

Risk and reward: Flying the Trump flag in Connecticut

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 18:12:42 GMT

Trump voters are passionate. So are Never Trumpers. Both groups are troublesome for GOP candidates.

PURA orders utilities to maintain payment plans to delinquent consumers

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 15:53:34 GMT

State regulators ordered utilities Friday to continue offering payment plans to all consumers, regardless of hardship, through early February.

Not just Trump. Connecticut Republicans make suburban zoning an election issue.

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 09:00:39 GMT

The message: urban cities would take over housing development in suburban towns if Democrats are elected.

‘Everything related to the environment is at stake’

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 09:00:14 GMT

As America heads into Election Day, environmentalists are warning that time for turning back climate change impacts is running short.

New Haven coliseum site needs a neighborhood

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 08:58:56 GMT

Strategically, the Coliseum site in New Haven may be the most important land in the city. With concurrent efforts to erase the gash of Route 34, cutting the city in half, the Coliseum site carries the potential to ignite whole new neighborhoods infilling to downtown, to the train station, to the Hill and hospital/research campus, and to Wooster Square. It’s the hub of a potentially dynamic wheel. The future core of a new New Haven, coincidentally in the same location as the original core.

The reprivatization of Fannie and Freddie will blunt improvement of racial wealth gap

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 08:58:47 GMT

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac perform a significant role in the housing market, controlling nearly half of the $10 trillion U.S. home loan market. The Trump administration has vowed to end the Fannie and Freddie conservatorship relationship, directly causing mortgages to become more expensive and harder to receive. This will destabilize the economy and pause any improvement in the racial wealth gap.

Preventing the spread of COVID-19 is everybody’s responsibility

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 08:58:29 GMT

Winter is on the horizon and already the specter of another viral resurgence looms before us. Dr. Anthony Fauci is already warning of a “difficult situation,” as the number of infected people in the United States has started trending upward again.

Echos of fascism today in the United States

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 08:58:17 GMT

It is ironic that I who escaped fascism in the form of Nazism in 1939 would now live in a country where the far right is rapidly gaining support and could become an American Fascism force to reckon with in these days leading up to a Presidential election. In the words of Nobel Prize recipient and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, “Democracy, once lost, may never come back. And we’re much closer to losing our democracy than many people realize.”

CT’s daily COVID positive test rate surges past 6%; Lamont threatens to re-impose business ...

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 20:42:00 GMT

Connecticut’s daily coronavirus test rate soared beyond 6% on Thursday.

PURA will meet Friday to consider renewing ban on utility shut-offs

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 18:10:13 GMT

State utility regulators will hold an emergency meeting Friday to consider renewing key moratoriums on electricity and other service shut-offs.

Advocates press state regulators to extend moratoriums on power utility shut-offs

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 09:00:24 GMT

With temperatures dropping, advocates for Connecticut’s vulnerable are urging state regulators to extend moratoriums on electricity and other utility shut-offs.

Bolstered by the power of incumbency, CT Dems in Congress favored for re-election

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 09:00:15 GMT

All five Connecticut U.S. House lawmakers are favored to win re-election, although a couple are facing tougher competition than expected.

‘Ballads for Ballots’ intended to help women find their voices

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 08:58:55 GMT

A choral community of women in Eastern Connecticut, Choir Matrix and Women of Concinnity, have been turning out a get-out-the-vote series of video recorded pieces called "Ballads for Ballots." The pieces, composed by women and using text from women writers and activists, are all about women finding their voice in a nod to the centennial of the 19th Amendment.

Watching the returns is no longer entertainment

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 08:58:55 GMT

For me, election night used to mean getting together with friends to watch the returns, having a few beers, and exchanging high fives when our favorites triumphed. Actually, in 2016, there were no high fives and more beers than usual. This year, of course, COVID-19 makes it unsafe to huddle around a television with a crowd. But it’s never been more important to watch the election results with friends.

It’s time to modernize the way Connecticut votes

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 08:58:50 GMT

When Connecticut voters go to the polls this year they will use a voting system that is secure, accurate -- and old. It’s a problem that should be high on the agenda of state officials and the newly elected legislature which convenes in January.

Outsourcing elections materials has its risks

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 08:58:37 GMT

If you received an absentee ballot application in September for the upcoming election, it may have come from New York. Mine was mailed by a private mail house, Fort Orange Press in Albany, NY. For the August primary, the Connecticut Secretary of the State’s office contracted with a private mailing house to send out absentee […]

ACLU alleges ‘systemic patterns of non-compliance’ in COVID-19 prison lawsuit

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 19:37:49 GMT

The ACLU claims prison staff aren't wearing masks, sick inmates are subjected to "punitive isolation" and aren't given adequate soap.

Panel will propose new legislation for nursing homes as COVID-19 cases, deaths in facilities ...

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 19:27:52 GMT

Officials and legislators will consider whether there should be new requirements for staffing levels, testing and more in nursing homes.