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Laura Glesby | Mar 3, 2025 1:53 pm
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Reginald Dwayne Betts' new poetry collection, Doggerel.
When Reginald Dwayne Betts walks his dog at dawn, he knows that she’s “doing the guiding,” even though he’s the one holding the leash.
Some believe that humans are “masters” of their animals, he writes, “But I know I barely control/My wonder these days.”
That confession appears in one of my favorite poems, “What We Know,” from Betts’ new collection Doggerel, a book full of wonder that’s hard to resist. Published by W.W. Norton, Doggerel is Betts’ fifth published poetry collection. Like many of his other works, the book reflects in part on the eight years in prison he served from the age of 16 on a carjacking conviction. Norton is releasing the collection Tuesday on the 20th anniversary of Betts’ release from prison.
Teachers union prez Blatteau (right): "The proposed 2.4% increase is not enough to maintain current staffing levels, in an already understaffed system."
Mayor Justin Elicker has proposed a $5 million increase in municipal education funding for the coming fiscal year — covering less than a quarter of the $23.2 million boost requested by schools Supt. Madeline Negrón.
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Maya McFadden | Mar 3, 2025 10:28 am
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"Barack and Michelle Obama" mark Black History Month at BOMUS.
Scenes from the BOMUS "wax museum."
Black History Month ended with a bang at Barack H. Obama Magnet University School (BOMUS) Friday as students, families, and staff welcomed special guests “Barack and Michelle Obama” — in the form of first-graders Jacob Bell and Imani Winfield.
Antonio Portillo presents demand letter alongside ULA members.
(Updated) A pay dispute at a downtown restaurant ended with a manager threatening to call immigration authorities — and pro-immigration activists showing up to demand respect.
With “tremendous uncertainty,” funding-freeze threats, and anticipated “draconian” cuts coming out of Washington, D.C., Mayor Justin Elicker proposed on Friday a “primarily status quo” city budget — which would see the general fund grow by 3.63 percent and the local tax rate rise by 2.3 percent.
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Nathaniel Rosenberg | Feb 28, 2025 10:48 am
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Another 11 cities and counties — mostly from the West Coast — have joined New Haven’s lawsuit against the Trump administration to protect their sanctuary status for undocumented immigrants.
Rolling up a mattress before bulldozers come in to demolish a Lamberton Street homeless encampment.
File photos
Garrett, Elicker: Neighbors, but not friends (at least in regards to H.B. 7033).
HARTFORD — New Haven and Hamden might be neighbors on a map, but at a Thursday hearing at the state Capitol, the two municipalities were far apart as their Democratic mayors presented dueling testimonies about a state bill on homelessness.
Hamden’s Lauren Garrett threw her support behind the proposal, which would bolster a homeless person’s ability to sleep on public land without fear of penalty.
New Haven’s Justin Elicker, meanwhile, came down hard on the bill, which he warned would allow for permanent encampments.
Connecticut’s primary food bank is preparing to lose at least $800,000 in federal funding, as food pantries and soup kitchens across the city brace for a dual storm of federal budget slashes and an expected rise in hunger.
Reading reading reading, in a Barnard kindergarten class.
Two years after the school district switched over to a phonics-focused literacy curriculum, reading levels among New Haven’s youngest students are slowly but surely on the rise.
Committee Chair Lemar: "The appropriate time to regulate an industry is at its onset."
HARTFORD — “When is it too late?”
So asked state AFL-CIO President Ed Hawthorne Wednesday during a public hearing on the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) systems out in the wild and the path to reigning them in in Connecticut.
There’s a lot of good that AI can do, he said, but not without a steady hand to guide it. Letting the technology proliferate unchecked poses risks –– mass firings, discriminatory hiring, and data harvesting, to name a few –– that the state’s “most vulnerable” just can’t afford.
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Thomas Breen | Feb 26, 2025 2:14 pm
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I-91 diner, under new ownership.
A gas station development crew from Trumbull and the Bronx has purchased the I‑91 diner site for $1.225 million — as a neighbor seeks to stop the burgers-to-fuel conversion through a state court appeal.
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Nathaniel Rosenberg | Feb 26, 2025 9:12 am
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“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
That’s the text of the 10th Amendment, which according to local immigration law experts is the basis for New Haven’s lawsuit against the Trump administration to protect its “welcoming city” status for undocumented immigrants.
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Maya McFadden | Feb 25, 2025 11:39 am
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At Monday's online school board meeting.
(Updated) Nathan Hale School is missing a certified second-grade teacher — bringing eight parents to ring the alarm bell at the Board of Education about their students falling further and further behind thanks to the staffing shortage.
A vacant, contaminated waterfront industrial property in Fair Haven took a big step towards becoming a new 12,000 square-foot commercial/industrial building — thanks to a suite of City Plan Commission approvals for the redevelopment of the site of the now-demolished former Bigelow factory complex.
Anna Salemme and Lyudmyla Kobylyanska at Sunday's mass.
Three years after Russia invaded Ukraine — and began a war that President Trump now falsely claims Ukraine started — 75 people gathered on George Street for a somber Sunday mass to try to figure out how best to support the country they love in such tumultuous times.
