CONNECTICUT

Some restaurants and retail stores in Connecticut will open Wednesday for the first time in months.

Steve Bayusik, operations manager for three restaurants in Fairfield and New Haven, says they’re shifting to single-use menus, and all tables are reservation-only.

Gov. Ned Lamont announced the dissolution Tuesday of Connecticut’s education partnership with hedge fund giant Ray Dalio’s philanthropic group — a deal marred by transparency issues and oversight scandals — less than one year after its creation.

As the state’s businesses start to reopen this week, barbershops and hair salons will not be among them.

Both were initially slated for a May 20 reopening, but on Monday, Gov. Ned Lamont pushed that date back to June 1. 

Governor Ned Lamont says Connecticut’s COVID-19 infection metrics are moving in the right direction for nonessential businesses to begin reopening this week, despite the concern of some lawmakers. He says there’s a need to get people back to work and reduce the high levels of unemployment. 

Some nonessential businesses in Connecticut will reopen in about a week after being closed down for two months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Gov. Ned Lamont issued an executive order that shuttered them on March 16 to encourage social distancing during the COVID-19 outbreak. But a recent announcement that businesses like hair salons and barbershops would be included in the first reopening wave has workers worried about the spread of coronavirus in their workplace.

Drive-through coronavirus testing centers in Hartford have been active for nearly two months, but many North End residents don’t have cars or rely on public transportation to get around. And other barriers, like a lack of health insurance or a doctor’s referral prevented others from getting tested for the disease.

After weeks of long lines at COVID-19 testing clinics, state and local officials said Connecticut is now facing a different problem: too many coronavirus tests and not enough people taking them. 

Two Connecticut voters have sued the state in federal court demanding that the state allow remote gathering of election petitions and no-excuse absentee voting during the pandemic.

Eighteen immigrants at an ICE detention center in Alabama sued for emergency release last week. The plaintiffs claim their pre-existing health conditions put them at high risk for COVID-19. 

The Connecticut legislative session comes to an end at midnight on Wednesday. But for the first time no lawmakers will actually be at the Capitol because that would violate the state’s social distancing requirement. 

A state report released last month sets out a pathway for getting at least 10 times as many electric vehicles on Connecticut roadways by 2025.

Ramping up electric vehicle use from roughly 12,000 to at least 125,000 in five years is ambitious by any measure. But with the country now sliding into recession, gas prices in free fall, and unemployment at record highs, the goals outlined in the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s 109-page Electric Vehicle Roadmap appear especially daunting.

Gov. Ned Lamont said Tuesday he is canceling in-person classes at all Connecticut K-12 public schools for the rest of this school year amid the coronavirus pandemic, requiring districts to continue distance learning.

Gov. Ned Lamont will order K-12 schools throughout Connecticut to stay closed for the remainder of the academic year because of the health threat posed by COVID-19.

Connecticut will join six other states in forming a consortium to purchase protective gear, medical equipment and testing supplies – an effort aimed at saving money and preparing for a possible second wave of the novel coronavirus.

Hartford HealthCare has launched a mobile coronavirus testing program in partnership with the city of Hartford that will make it easier to bring testing to people who need it.

The state has changed the way it reports testing for COVID-19, the result of which meant a one-day jump of about 11,000 tests reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The federal and state response to COVID-19 in nursing homes is riddled with economic — and racial — inequities that are taking a greater toll in deaths and illnesses than government officials have disclosed, Connecticut’s largest health care workers’s union charged Friday.

Praying together in a mosque could put Muslims at risk of catching COVID-19, so mosques are closed to the public.

That makes for a very different celebration of the holy month of Ramadan in 2020. It means that special evening prayers must be done at home.

Gov. Ned Lamont painted a picture Monday of a state with an eventually reopened economy undergirded by rapid testing and data collection. 

But how officials will use that data to inform public health actions in the coming months is an open question. 

The state reported an additional 41 coronavirus-related deaths Sunday, but it also reported that hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have decreased for the second day in a row.

The new figures bring the state’s total coronavirus-associated death count to 1,127. Still, Gov. Ned. Lamont said Sunday that the slight downward tick of hospitalized patients -- 37 fewer patients from the day before -- is a positive sign.

The road to reopening Connecticut’s economy will likely require a phased-in approach that will consider hospitalization numbers, widespread COVID-19 testing and detailed tracking of infections in different regions, Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday. 

Gov. Ned Lamont said Wednesday that he is considering an executive order spelling out when and where Connecticut residents should wear face masks in response to the ongoing pandemic.

Despite a few flickers of hope that Connecticut was rounding the bend on COVID-19 cases, Lamont said virus infections continue to grow, with nearly 200 newly reported deaths. 

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont signed an executive order on Saturday establishing COVID-19 recovery centers in some nursing homes, a move that creates places for patients who’ve been discharged from the hospital to continue to recover. 

The coronavirus pandemic colored everything about Easter on Sunday. Many Connecticut Christians took their worship services online, as COVID-19 continued its deadly course through the state. There were 60 new deaths recorded by state officials, bringing Connecticut’s cumulative loss of life to 554.

A local health official believes the peak of coronavirus infections in Connecticut will happen later this month into early May -- later than the doctor’s network initially predicted.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the running for the Democratic presidential nomination, but his decision Wednesday to remain on the ballot could force Connecticut to nevertheless hold a primary under the threat of COVID-19.