New England states are getting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to “supercharge” efforts to get homeowners to ditch natural gas or oil heating systems and install electric heat pumps.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $450 million to Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island to accelerate a transition to heat pump technology in residential single-family homes and multifamily buildings across the region.
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The trial against a former Colorado elections clerk over her efforts combating election fraud is set to begin on Monday.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case challenging Connecticut’s 2021 ban on religious exemption for school vaccination requirements.
A lawsuit filed by parents and conservative groups argued that the state violated their First Amendment rights by approving a bill that eliminated the option for Connecticut families to request a religious exemption to mandated immunizations when a student enrolls in public school. Several previous court rulings rejected the legal challenge.
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Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) revealed on Friday that U.S. Secret Service whistleblowers approached his office to inform him the agency assigned Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel who were not part of the Secret Service to protect former President Donald Trump during the Pennsylvania rally where he suffered an assassination attempt.
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Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper during his failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump last Saturday, was reportedly diagnosed with major depressive disorder prior to his death.
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A sniper from one of the local law enforcement agencies providing assistance at former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 14 saw Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old shooter who was killed at the scene, and photographed the would-be assassin immediately prior to his attack, a Wednesday report claims.
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The U.S. Secret Service last Saturday “created the conditions” for 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to climb onto the roof of a building and take aim at former President Donald Trump at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally “deliberately and with malice aforethought,” argued The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis, who led a series of criticisms against the agency on Tuesday.
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Conversations by The Pennsylvania Daily Star with around two dozen neighbors near the house where Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old who tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump, lived painted a picture of a family that mostly keeps to itself and a young man who had little interaction with the neighborhood.
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An attendee at former President Donald Trump’s Saturday rally in Butler, Pennsylvania told The Pennsylvania Daily Star that attendees feared the shooter stood among the crowd, and they felt relief only when Trump rose to his feet and raised his fist.
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Tony Bendele, a social media creator and trained firefighter in Pennsylvania, claimed he resigned his position as a captain in the Sunbury Fire Department on Monday after he expressed disappointment when an attempted assassin failed to kill former President Donald Trump at the Saturday rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
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A panel of five New York appeals court judges this week unanimously disbarred former President Donald Trump’s former attorney, Rudy Giuliani, over statements he made about election illegalities in the 2020 presidential election.
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Connecticut’s Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont wants the state to look into scrapping the state’s winner-take-all electoral system for ranked choice voting.
Lamont has created a new bipartisan commission to study a legislative proposal that would allow local governments and political parties in Connecticut the option to use ranked choice voting in caucuses, conventions, primaries and municipal elections.
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Council members in Wethersfield, Connecticut voted against flying a “Thin Blue Line” police flag in honor of Trooper First Class Aaron Pelletier, who was killed last week in a hit and run, opting instead to hoist a gay pride flag at half staff.
Pelletier was conducting a routine traffic stop in Southington, Connecticut last Thursday, when he was hit outside of his cruiser by Alex Oyola-Sanchez, a Puerto Rican native who had already been convicted of third-degree murder, attempted homicide and other felonies.
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Connecticut employers will be required to provide workers with up to a week of paid leave under a proposal signed into law by Gov. Ned Lamont, despite a number of concerns from the state’s business community that it will drive up costs and hurt bottom lines.
The new law pushed through the state Legislature despite Republican opposition, will require Connecticut employers in most retail and service occupations to provide up to 40 hours of annual leave. It would allow eligible workers to accrue one hour of paid time off for every 30 hours worked up to a maximum mandated benefit of 40 hours a year.
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The global news organization Reuters claimed on Friday that women voters in Pennsylvania may now have second thoughts about voting for former President Donald Trump after he was convicted in the controversial New York hush money trial on Thursday.
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Connecticut veterans with disabilities will get a break on their property and vehicle taxes under a bill signed by Gov. Ned Lamont.
The measure, which passed the Legislature with bipartisan support, covers veterans with a permanent and total disability rating resulting from their active-duty service. The exemption, expected to impact about 1,200 veterans in the state, will apply to the primary resident owned by an eligible disabled service member or, if they don’t own a home, to one motor vehicle owned by the service member.
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The union representing University of Connecticut police is pushing back on claims officers injured pro-Palestinian protesters when they broke up an encampment last month and arrested more than two dozen people.
The Connecticut Police & Fire Union, which represents UConn police, said the claims about the April 30 encounter made by another union in a letter to school leaders was an “unconscionable attack” on the officers who were just “doing their jobs” by shutting down the “unauthorized” encampment on school grounds.
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A Georgia grand jury has formally indicted the man accused of killing 22-year-old student Laken Riley on ten charges, including murder, kidnapping and being a peeping Tom.
Jose Ibarra is charged with malice murder, three counts of felony murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, tampering with evidence and interfering with a 911 call for help, Superior Court of Clarke County records show. The 26-year-old Venezuelan national was also handed down a “peeping Tom” charge related to his activities the day of Riley’s murder.
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Connecticut will end the fiscal year with a record surplus, according to a new report, which is fueling calls by progressive Democrats to roll back the state’s spending controls.
The consensus revenue forecast, released by the Office of Policy and Management and Office of Fiscal Analysis on Monday, shows the state is likely to close out the fiscal year more than $645 million above initial budget projections. That’s a roughly $1 billion surplus through 2026, according to the report.
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Arizona’s Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed the repeal of the state’s Civil War-era near-total ban on abortion Thursday, a day after the legislation passed the state Senate.
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An Arizona grand jury on Wednesday indicted former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, and five other former aides to former President Donald Trump on felony charges related to alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
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California disciplinary court Judge Yvette Roland (pictured above), who disbarred Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman last month, contributed to a Democratic PAC last year which funneled all of the contributions to a Super PAC that seeks to stop “undermining the most basic tenet of our democracy, the right to vote.” Despite the fact that the charges against Eastman were all related to his efforts investigating and stopping election corruption in the 2020 election, Roland did not recuse herself.
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Connecticut House Bill 2570, which proposes increasing the threshold for felony unemployment insurance fraud from $500 to $2000, advanced from the Joint Judiciary Committee on Apr. 5 by a vote of 24-13. The Joint Labor and Public Employees Committee approved the bill with a vote of 8-4 on Mar. 7. The bill is now pending consideration before the full Connecticut House.
Under current law, a fraudulent payment, benefit, or contribution is a class A misdemeanor if it amounts to $500 or less or a class D felony if it amounts to more than $500. The bill increases these thresholds to $2,000 or less for a class A misdemeanor and more than $2,000 for a class D felony.
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Tens of thousands of Connecticut state workers could be getting a bump in their paychecks with lawmakers advancing a proposal to give them a 2.5% across-the-board pay raise.
A proposal approved by the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee on Friday would authorize a 2.5% wage increase for an estimated 46,000 state employees that was hammered out in negotiations earlier this year by Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration and the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition, which represents unionized workers.
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Connecticut has never had a “faithless” elector who refused to certify the results of a presidential election, but some state lawmakers argue there needs to be a law preventing it.
A legislative proposal, which recently cleared a key committee, would nullify the electoral vote of a so-called “faithless” presidential elector in Connecticut who fails to cast their ballot for the candidates that the elector ran on the official ballot.
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O.J. Simpson died following a cancer battle, his family announced Thursday. He was 76.
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California Bar Disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland disbarred Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman.
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The disciplinary trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark wrapped up on Thursday with the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary panel making a nonbinding preliminary determination that Clark was culpable on at least one of the two counts against him.
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The second and final week of the disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official, Jeffrey Clark, began to wind down on Wednesday with more testimony from operations security expert Harry Haury.
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The second week of the disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official, Jeffrey Clark, resumed its second week on Monday. Clark, who is also a defendant in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO prosecution, is being disciplined for drafting a letter that was never sent to Georgia officials after the 2020 election advising them of their options for dealing with the election illegalities.
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An Illinois lawsuit has led Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and attorneys general from 11 other states and the District of Columbia to notify gunmaker Glock to preserve 37 years of documentation regarding its handguns.
Earlier this month, the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit against Glock alleging the company failed to change the design of a pistol. Chicago claims Glock knew a do-it-yourself “switch” could make the handguns a “machine gun” and resulted in a “proliferation of illegal machine guns.”
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Connecticut’s top election official is calling for reforms in the wake of a ballot stuffing scandal in Bridgeport’s mayoral race, where some people were allegedly paid cash to fill out mail ballots.
Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas said her office had referred allegations about election “malfeasance” in the February redo of the mayoral race to the State Elections Enforcement Commission to investigate, including reports from voters who received absentee ballots despite not requesting them.
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Political contributions to municipal elected officials in Connecticut would be more accessible to the public under a proposal being considered by state lawmakers.
The legislation, which is pending before the Legislature’s Committee on Government Administration and Elections, would require candidates running for local elected office to file their required campaign disclosures with the state’s Electronic Campaign Reporting Information System, known as eCRIS, which supporters say will increase transparency in local elections.
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U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) slammed the White House’s announcement that President Joe Biden will order the U.S. military to conduct an “emergency mission” to establish a port on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters.
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In a Sunday interview, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas denied a link between the murder of nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia (UGA) campus and illegal immigration despite police charging a man who immigrated illegally from Venezuela with the killing.
Asked if there was a breakdown in the federal immigration system that allowed Venezuelan illegal immigrant Jose Ibarra to allegedly murder Riley, Mayorkas on Face the Nation cited his experience as a prosecutor and declared, “one individual is responsible for the murder and that is the murderer.”
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Connecticut Republicans have unveiled a slate of proposals aimed at addressing rising electricity costs in the state, which they say are putting the squeeze on energy consumers.
The package of proposed policy changes, calls for setting limits on Power Purchase Agreements by utilities so that no contract can be for more than 100% over the wholesale electric market price while providing relief to ratepayers by tapping into $190 million in unspent pandemic-related federal funds to pay down rate increases.
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The National Association of Scholars’ Civics Alliance coalition released a comprehensive report critiquing Connecticut’s social studies standards, which is the state’s guide for teachers detailing what students should be learning from Pre-K through 12th grade.
The 34-page report, titled “Disowned Yankees: How Connecticut’s Social Studies Standards Shortchange Students,” details how the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) produced the curriculum, the result of implementing the curriculum, as well as “recommendations for how to fix the adoption process and the substance of Connecticut’s social studies instruction, by substantive revision of the Standards.”
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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade both testified Thursday in the first day of proceedings to determine if she should be removed from the prosecution due to their previously undisclosed romantic relationship.
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Connecticut’s congressional delegation is calling on the Army to provide more details about its decision to reject a local company’s bid for a multimillion-dollar defense contract to build long-range helicopters.
Sikorsky Aircraft, maker of the iconic Blackhawk helicopters, submitted a proposal to the Army in 2018 to develop a new armed scout helicopter. But last week, the Army announced that it was scrapping its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program, delivering a major blow to the company.
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Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee warned on Monday that District Attorney Fani Willis could face “disqualification” from prosecuting her case against former President Donald Trump as a result of her admitted relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who she appointed to oversee the case.
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Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) joined Monday’s edition of Steve Bannon’s War Room to discuss the supplemental funding package currently being debated in the Senate and how it could be used as a tool to impeach former President Donald Trump if he were to be elected in November.
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Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont plans to cancel up to $1 billion in medical debt for hundreds of thousands of residents, making it the first state to take the step.
Lamont made the announcement Friday during an appearance on ABC News, saying the plans call for leveraging $6.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds the state has received to wipe out the medical debt held by about 250,000 residents who meet the basic income qualifications.
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CT lawmakers ditch plans for special session on EV mandate.
Consideration of a proposed ban on sales of new gas-powered vehicles in Connecticut could happen in regular legislative session, but will not happen in a special called one.
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Robert Malley, a Biden administration official who was embroiled in controversy while working as Special Envoy to Iran, is set to teach a course on the Middle East at Yale University.
The syllabus for the class, which is titled “Contending with Israel-Palestine,” says the course will take “an in-depth look at important questions surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” according to Yale Daily News.
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Kari Lake held a press conference on Rumble Wednesday evening to discuss revelations from a newly released recording of a conversation last March between herself and former Arizona Republican Party Chair Jeff DeWit, who was forced to resign after it came out. In the recording, DeWit is heard attempting to convince Lake to drop out of politics for a couple of years in exchange for a well-paying job, prompting an outcry that forced his resignation on Tuesday. Lake fielded questions from both reporters and other viewers during her talk, which lasted around half an hour.
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With efforts to close New Hampshire’s presidential primary likely failing, the state’s primary could be determined by the state’s independent voters, who make up nearly 40 percent of the state’s electorate.
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The election process known as ranked choice voting isn’t compatible with one of the oldest state constitutions in America, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, says.
Tong released an 11-page legal opinion Tuesday stating that the system of voting, which allows voters to rank their choices of candidates, violates at least two standing provisions of the Connecticut Constitution. The state’s attorney general said it was a “close call,” however.
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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is prosecuting former President Donald Trump and others connected to him, is facing accusations she violated ethics rules by appointing her married lover as chief prosecutor on the case.
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The family of Jan. 6 protester Ashli Babbitt has filed a $30 million wrongful death lawsuit against the government, saying she posed no threat to anyone when she was killed.
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A majority of Connecticut voters oppose a Democrat-led push to phase out the sale of gas-powered vehicles in the state, according to a new poll.
The poll commissioned by the Specialty Equipment Market Association — a trade association representing aftermarket auto manufacturers and retailers — found that nearly 60% of the voters surveyed opposed proposed legislation to phase out the sale of gas- and diesel-powered cars and trucks over the next decade.
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