Page 9 - Mark Mirko News Today

In 2022, lingering pandemic challenges festered and boiled over in school districts across the country. Looking back on a year of adversity, educators in Connecticut are looking to build on 2022′s successes to shape a better future for the state’s schools this new year.

This year has been the deadliest for pedestrians in Connecticut since the late 1980′s, according to most recent Department of Transportation data.

More than 170 projects were approved for Connecticut and tucked into the federal funding bill that passed Congress. The total amount for the state is upwards of $236 million — a number that greatly exceeds the previous year.

If you’re looking for something to pair with the wintry weather, Hop Culture’s Astral Weeks is a great choice in trappist-style beer. There’s also WeHa’s Munich Dunkel: a dark lager with lots of bready, chocolate, and caramel notes.

Hartford and seven other towns and cities awarded $36.5 million in grants to spur revitalization and job growth.

Hartford’s Polish National Home — built in the 1930 as a center for a growing Polish community -- is being sold to a nondenominational church.

Federal funds that have kept free meals in Connecticut schools afloat since August are drying up, and, for the first time in more than two years, students will have to start paying for food. As school nutrition workers and Connecticut families grapple with the new reality, anti-hunger advocates are pushing for policy that would reintroduce universal free school breakfast and lunch to the state.

As the initial shock and horror of the deaths of 20 young children and six female educators at a Newtown elementary school was still fresh in everyone’s mind, Connecticut’s top legislators decided they needed to do something. It took months, but in 2013, they not only did something major — they passed the toughest package of state laws in the country.

Time is running out to avert the demolition of a historic funeral chapel in Hartford.

According to Connecticut’s 2020 Forest Action Plan, more than 60% of the state is forested, and the state’s cities have the most urban tree cover in the nation. In Hartford, 99% of residents live within a 10-minute walk to a quality park, according to the Trust for Public Land.