Connecticut taxpayers will be covering some health care costs for thousands of paraeducators as the state seeks to fill workforce shortages in public schools.
A new program rolled out Wednesday by state Comptroller Sean Scanlon includes a one-time $5 million subsidy that will help pay paraeducators’ health insurance bills not covered by local school districts.
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Yale University is seeking a “Global Black and African Diaspora Studies“ tenured associate professor well-versed in topics such as ”African/diasporic queer and feminist activism” and “transnational feminist and queer studies” to begin July 1, 2024.
“The Program seeks candidates whose research and teaching focus on the formations and lived experiences of Blackness, with emphasis on global, comparative, indigenous, or transnational perspectives drawn from African, Indigenous, Asian, Middle Eastern, European, or Latin American and Caribbean contexts,” the job posting by the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Department states.
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Connecticut’s top law enforcement office is being faulted for poor accounting practices that have cost the state millions of dollars in unretrievable debt and allowing unauthorized overtime that tripled during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report by the state Auditors of Public Accounts, released Wednesday, found that an estimated $10 million owed to the AG’s office and other state agencies from court settlements and other receivables is “unrecoverable” and cited decades of lax accounting practices for the loss of revenue to state coffers.
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Former President Donald Trump had a mugshot taken of himself at the Fulton County jail where he surrendered on 13 felony charges related to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state.
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The union representing Connecticut state troopers has taken a vote of “no confidence” in the police agency’s leadership, citing their response to the controversy over a phony ticket scandal.
The union spells out its grievances in a scathing letter to State Police Commissioner James Rovella and Deputy Commissioner Colonel Stavros Mellekas, accusing them of fostering “an environment of mistrust” in the agency and that has “failed to protect their Troopers” and of making decisions “based on self-preservation.”
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Connecticut has banned the harvesting of horseshoe crabs along its coastline amid concerns about the ecological health of the species, which is prized for its life-saving blue blood.
The ban, approved by the state Legislature, outlaws horseshoe crab hand harvesting beginning on October 1. Anyone caught violating the law faces a $25 fine for each crab harvested. There are exemptions for scientific and medical purposes if it is determined that doing so will not harm the overall horseshoe crab population.
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A Georgia grand jury later Monday night approved 10 indictments in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ election probe, including former President Donald Trump and 18 others.
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A website for Georgia’s Fulton County on Monday briefly listed what appeared to be criminal charges against Donald Trump, with the county’s district attorney expected to indict the former president as soon as Tuesday.
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Connecticut is tapping into federal funding to provide hundreds of thousands of public school students with free breakfast and lunch.
The state Department of Education announced that $16 million of funding the state received from the American Rescue Plan Act will be diverted to Connecticut’s free school meals program for the 2023-2024 school year, allowing students to get free meals regardless of their family’s income.
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A federal appeals court has upheld a 2021 Connecticut law banning religious exemptions for immunization requirements for schools, colleges and early education, but critics of the restrictions are vowing to take their case to the Supreme Court.
In the 2-1 ruling issued on Friday, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a lower court ruling that rejected a lawsuit challenging the repeal of the state’s long-held religious exemptions to childhood vaccines.
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Fourteen state attorneys general asked the Biden Administration to do more to “combat the plastic pollution crisis.”
An Aug. 3 media release, the group stated, “Plastic does not fully degrade, instead breaking down into smaller pieces called microplastics, which have been found in drinking water, food, air, and even human blood and living lung tissue.”
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Washington state’s attorney general is among 20 attorneys general to have filed legal arguments in a federal lawsuit challenging Idaho’s law that makes it illegal to either obtain abortion pills for a minor or to help them leave the state for an abortion without their parents’ knowledge and consent.
In a Tuesday news release, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the collective states’ amicus brief is in support of a lawsuit filed last month in U.S. District Court against Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador. The plaintiffs allege that Labrador’s interpretation of the law threatens to punish medical providers and residents outside Idaho’s borders for giving information and assistance to minors about legal abortion access in their states.
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Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday was indicted as part of a special counsel Jack Smith’s federal grand jury probe into his efforts to challenge the 2020 election results and the former president’s role in the subsequent Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
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Connecticut will join a handful of states in banning the sale of new fossil fuel-powered vehicles by 2035, but critics say the dramatic shift to electric vehicles will be costly for consumers and could impact energy supplies.
On Wednesday, second-term Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont rolled out new regulations that will require car manufacturers to ramp up sales of electric vehicles in Connecticut leading to a ban on the sale of new fossil fuel-powered vehicles by 2035.
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Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has tapped a former federal prosecutor to conduct an independent investigation of allegations that state police may have issued hundreds of “fake” tickets.
Lamont said he has hired former U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly to investigate allegations outlined in a recent audit by a taxpayer-funded group that reviews police records to look for racial bias in law enforcement activities. Lamont said the inquiry seeks to determine “how and why the misconduct occurred” and why it went undetected for years.
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Connecticut utility regulators have rejected a proposed rate increase by one of the state’s largest utilities, which was seeking another $130 million from energy consumers.
The state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority turned down a request from United Illuminating to increase electric rates by nearly $131 million over the next three years. Instead, the agency approved a rate increase of just over $2 million for next year, which is still subject to final approval by the PURA board.
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Yale law library staff denied a reporter access to view the portraits hanging in its building in May and would not confirm whether a Clarence Thomas portrait donated to the library is among them, and this week deferred on numerous media requests asking about the whereabouts of the painting.
College Fix associate editor Maggie Kelly identified herself as a reporter and asked the interior gate attendant several times at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale whether she could access the building to view its portraits. The attendant told her that only Yale law students and their guests are permitted to access the library. He also declined escorting the reporter around the building for a tour.
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Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont (D) signed into law a series of bills Wednesday that seeks to protect abortion rights and access to both contraception and college students’ transgender drugs and surgeries.
In an official statement, Lamont also noted the new Connecticut laws counter those in Republican-led states that have sought to protect unborn life from abortion, and teens from life-altering transgender drugs and surgeries.
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A federal judge has tossed a challenge to a Connecticut law banning firearms in state parks, saying the lawsuit lacks standing because the regulation isn’t enforced.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Janet Bond Arterton, issued on Wednesday, upholds a more than a century-old Connecticut law prohibiting lawfully licensed firearm owners from packing in state parks and wildlife preserves.
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A former Yale University student who beat back rape accusations can sue his accuser for defamation, the State of Connecticut Supreme Court ruled recently.
Saifullah Khan’s lawsuit can proceed after the court ruled on June 27 that the former Yalie, who was expelled, can sue his accuser because the university’s sexual assault proceedings did not resemble actual judicial procedures.
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Connecticut’s craft beer makers are getting a break on their excise tax bill as part of a broader measure aimed at fostering the brewing industry.
The state’s excise tax on beer dropped by 16.7% beginning on July 1, which lowered the tax on a 31-gallon barrel of beer to $6, from $7.20 previously, and the excise tax on wine from $0.24 to $0.20 per gallon.
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Connecticut is coming up short on revenue from a controversial highway tax on truckers, with the state bringing in less money than expected during the first few months of the new levy.
Figures from the state Department of Revenue Services show the Highway Use Tax generated only $18.6 million from January through April, roughly half of what state budget writers had anticipated.
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