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Anxiety Mixes With Adobo On Grand Ave

by | Feb 5, 2025 9:16 am | Comments (5)

Allan Appel Photos

J&J staple, arroz con gandules and maduro.

Jiminian: "I've just got to keep going" as ICE-raid fears keep customers home.

First sauté the peppers, garlic, and onions. Add your basic Caribbean spice mix, Adobo, then bring the pot of water to a boil. Pop in the gandules, or pigeon peas, add the arroz, the rice, cover, and cook on low heat for about an hour. And voila!, as they say in Spanish: arroz con gandules.

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Student To State: Let Teens Ride Free

by | Feb 4, 2025 3:17 pm | Comments (13)

Thomas Breen photos

Huq, looking out for the 234 on Church.

Dottie Green (right): "You should be able to go to any town anywhere on the bus."

Adrian Huq took a quick break between classes Tuesday to join a Transit Equity Day event on the Green — where they called for free bus rides for people 18 and under, before rushing to catch the 234 on Church Street to head back to school.

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The State Of The City Is ... Onward!

by | Feb 3, 2025 10:23 pm | Comments (23)

Laura Glesby Photo

Mayor Justin Elicker: "In these difficult times, I’m so grateful and proud to live in this city we all call home."

Two weeks into an onslaught of federal policy upheavals and funding threats, New Haven is still tackling problems that long precede Donald J. Trump. 

That dual focus emerged from Mayor Justin Elicker’s annual State of the City address in the Board of Alders Chamber on Monday night.

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Videos Show Fatal Cop-Shooting Scene

by | Feb 3, 2025 5:08 pm | Comments (10)

West Haven Officer Robert Rappa's body-worn camera footage. Note: Videos show graphic violence.

5:30 a.m. at the Mill River Crossing housing complex. Police enter an apartment with a key. My baby!” a woman cries out. Gunshots ring out. A 35-year-old man is killed, two cops injured. 

That scene is depicted in videos and a preliminary report” released Monday by the state Office of Inspector General.

Inspector General Robert J. Delvin released the documents regarding a Jan. 29 early-morning shoot-out that left 35-year-old Aaron Freeman dead and two West Haven police officers injured. An officer — it’s unclear yet which one — killed Freeman, after Freeman allegedly shot first.

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Where The Wastewater Goes

by | Feb 3, 2025 1:29 pm | Comments (16)

Brian Slattery Photos

Zrelak: "What you flush down the toilet, dump down the drain, this is where it ends up."

Yuck: "Raggy material," like wipes and tampons, that ends up in the dumpster.

Gary Zrelak, director of operations for the Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority, wielded a several-foot-long plastic pipe with a valve at the end, which he nicknamed the sludge judge.”

He was on a catwalk over the water draining out of the last of three enormous tanks at the East Shore Water Pollution Abatement Facility, taking a core sample of the 14-foot-deep pool. 

As he expected, below the surface, the water was still brown, tinted with matter that was settling slowly to the bottom of the pool. But the top three feet of water were clear — almost ready to be released into the New Haven Harbor on a cold winter day.

The tank — and the two preceding it, and the entire facility that runs them — is connected to everyone, every household and commercial building” in a substantial part of the greater New Haven area, Zrelak said. They have a toilet, they’re coming here.”

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Hundreds Seek "School Choice" Answers

by | Feb 3, 2025 9:33 am | Comments (4)

Abbey Kim photos

August has a snack while learning about Davis Academy, at the NHPS School Choice Expo.

Isabela Oliva and fam: "I didn’t go to school here, so I don’t know how to work it."

When parent Isabela Oliva arrived at Wilbur Cross High School, she brought her mother, husband, two kids, and dozens of questions about how New Haven public schools work — at an expo that took place as another magnet school application process is set to begin.

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IRIS Layoffs Mount Amid Refugee Halt

by | Jan 31, 2025 7:42 pm | Comments (17)

Laura Glesby photo

IRIS Director Maggie Mitchell Salem: Help halted for "the world's most vulnerable people."

IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services) has laid off 20 percent of its staff — approximately 20 people — in the wake of President Donald Trump’s decisions to stop all new refugees from entering the country and halt federal funding to assist those who have recently arrived. 

As the organization adjusts to a new era of federal hostility toward its mission, New Haven’s state and federal representatives are working to fight back.

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Fire Wrecks Another Xu Rental Property

by | Jan 31, 2025 3:14 pm | Comments (13)

Friday's blaze, as documented by @NewHavenFire on X.

Thomas Breen photos

Property manager David Kone: No comment.

Displaced tenant Anthony Bruton: "The smell was so strong."

Another apartment building owned by Bethany-based landlord Jianchao Xu burst into flames Friday morning — displacing a half-dozen tenants, including Anthony Bruton, who rushed to safety after an overwhelming smell of smoke wafted up into his second-floor apartment.

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Confab Seeks "Holistic" Rx To Gun Violence

by | Jan 31, 2025 11:44 am | Comments (8)

Thomas Breen file photo

Community resilience director Kemp: "I want us to reframe how we think about the victims."

In response to impending Trump administration cuts to Medicaid, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro brought together local healthcare providers, city officials, gun violence survivors, and researchers to hear about how an about-face in federal policy might affect New Haven’s anti-violence public health interventions.

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What Do You Do After School? Math!

by | Jan 31, 2025 9:54 am | Comments (4)

Maya McFadden pHoto

Seventh grader Laila Washington: "You get to learn a lot" at Math Counts.

Sohan Bendre (right) refreshes students on what a variable is.

If you write out the numbers from 1 to 1,000, how many times will you write the number seven? 

That question was posed to a group of 6 – 8th graders at Edgewood School — who had shown up to a voluntary after-school program for students interested in further developing their math skills.

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Cop Raid, Shoot-Out Leave Renters Shaken

by | Jan 30, 2025 4:17 pm | Comments (8)

Nathaniel Rosenberg photo

Mill River Crossing, where an early-morning police shoot-out left a suspect dead.

Free counseling from area therapists. A new police officer in residence. And (hopefully) fixing the broken intercom system. 

Those were some of the solutions that leaders of New Haven’s housing authority offered to residents of Mill River Crossing at a resident-only meeting held on the property Wednesday evening — after a man died and two cops were injured during a shoot-out with police in the building early that morning. 

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Town Green: Make That Doughnut A Danish

by | Jan 30, 2025 10:56 am | Comments (8)

downtownnewhaven.com

Ambassadors at work, street cleaning in the Town Green Special Services District.

Town Green's domain, minus the Green.

Win Davis likens the L‑shaped 27-block area of businesses and residents the Town Green District serves to a doughnut, with the New Haven Green — which is technically and legally not in the District — as the hole in the middle of the doughnut. 

He’s excited about changes being contemplated for the city’s iconic public greenspace and thinks the doughnut has a good chance in the years ahead to become a Danish, with the best part of the pastry being right there in the middle.

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Supt. Details Schools-ICE Policy

by | Jan 29, 2025 4:54 pm | Comments (22)

Thomas Breen file photo

Supt. Negrón: "This is a stressful time for many in our community."

If U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers attempt to enter New Haven schools, the school district will require them to present a warrant — which will then be reviewed by a legal team and the superintendent’s office. 

Then, the district will notify guardians if a warrant specifically mentions their child. 

Supt. Madeline Negrón notified New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) parents of that immigration-related update in an email Tuesday afternoon.

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