More than 10,000 customers were without power Saturday evening as thunderstorms rolled through wide swathes of Connecticut.

Eversource, which serves 1,312,610 customers in Connecticut, had 11,584 customers without power as of just before 8 p.m. Saturday. Of the total, 1,850 outages were in Monroe as of that hour.

United Illuminating, which serves 344,849 customers in 17 Connecticut town, had 1,009 customers without power at 8 p.m. Most of the outages were in New Haven, Milford, Orange and Woodbridge.

CT’s extreme heat is landing people in hospital. Don’t just drink water on hot days, doctor says

Amid abysmal heat in Connecticut this week weather forecasters had predicted days of intermittent rain.

Here’s why so much of the US is broiling this week.

The National Weather Service, which now says the current heat advisory is through 8 p.m. Sunday, also forecasts periodic thunder storms for this weekend. The heat wave, accompanied by high humidity, has made it feel like 95 to 105 degrees or even hotter most of this week. This prolonged period of intense heat began on Monday and will persist until Sunday, with the most intense heat hitting the last few days.

Weather delay halts third round of Travelers Championship with Kim, Bhatia tied for lead

The Connecticut Department of Transportation, or DOT, has provided an update on the Fairfield Avenue Bridge replacement over Interstate 95 in Norwalk, according to a statement.

The bridge had previously been demolished following a fiery crash on May 2.

With the design finished on June 1, workers have recently begun removing the damaged center of the bridge pier on June 18, according to the DOT. Workers have also begun repairing the concrete abutments that will support the future bridge.

“This project is moving forward at incredible speed thanks to the hard work and dedication of the CTDOT and Yonkers crews who have remained in constant communication over the last several weeks. Thanks to continued strong collaboration, we remain optimistic of meeting our goals to have this bridge fully reopened next spring,” said Connecticut Department of Transportation Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto.

Woman in critical condition after being found in CT parking lot with life-threatening injuries

The total cost for the bridge replacement is estimated at $15 million, per a statement. The total project is expected to be approximately $20 million, with the federal government expected to cover up to 80% of the costs for the entire project.

I-95 overpass in Connecticut scorched during a fuel truck inferno demolished

Cameras will be installed to allow for viewing of the I-95 area construction process as well, according to the DOT.

Watch your mouth. That was the message from the Connecticut Bar Association’s three top leaders to the organization’s thousands of members, of which I’m one. The June 13 statement was prompted by perpetually aggrieved Donald Trump supporters hurling abuse at prosecutors, jurors and Judge Juan Merchan after the former president’s conviction this month on 34 counts of violating New York law through a 2016 hush money scheme.

The CBA officers, Maggie Castinado, James T. Shearin and Emily A. Gianquinto, condemned but did not name public officials who issued statements calling the trial a sham, hoax, and rigged; abused Judge Merchan as corrupt and unethical; and claimed the jury was partisan and in the bag for guilty verdicts from the start.

The statement excoriated social media posts seeking to breach the confidentiality of the jurors’ identity. What it did not allege is that any Connecticut lawyers were participating in these assaults on the rule of law. Near its conclusion, the trio’s homily got to the point. “It is up to us, as lawyers,” they wrote, “to defend the courts and our judges. As individuals, and as an Association, we cannot let the charged political climate in which we live dismantle the third branch of government. To remain silent renders us complicit in that effort.”

And then U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a lawyer, had to go and spoil it all three days later by unleashing the same type of hyperbole. He called the Supreme Court “brazenly corrupt and brazenly political” on CNN. Murphy added that Justice Clarence Thomas is “just a grift,” while Justice Samuel Alito is an open political partisan.

As of Friday, the civility umpires at the CBA had issued no statement chiding Murphy.

The CBA is familiar with silence at crucial moments. Six years ago, a mob of antisemites targeted the renomination of Judge Jane Emons to the Superior Court. Judge Emons was the target of appalling rhetoric. The CBA released no thunderbolts as the House of Representatives refused to vote on her renomination, forcing her off the bench.

A few years ago, I wrote about Alice Bruno, a Connecticut judge who failed to show up for work for two years while continuing to receive her salary and benefits. Emails showed plenty of people knew that Judge Bruno had been missing in action, but they remained silent. Bruno’s fate was decided in a secret proceeding when she was granted a disability pension that currently pays her more than $5,000 every two weeks. She worked, often erratically, as a Superior Court judge for only four years before she stopped showing up in 2019.

Before becoming a judge, Bruno did an 18-month stint as executive director of the Connecticut Bar Association. It remained silent throughout the Bruno saga, which undermined the public’s confidence in the judiciary.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a sensational investigation into the appalling saga of a federal bankruptcy judge and his personal relationship with lawyer Elizabeth Freeman, who had been his law partner and clerk in Houston. One of the nation’s biggest law firms, Kirkland & Ellis, brought in Freeman to work with it on cases before her boyfriend, Judge David R. Jones.

An anonymous letter lit the fuse on exposing the shocking conflicts at work in the nation’s busiest bankruptcy court. Michael Van Deelan, a small investor in a firm that filed for bankruptcy in the Houston court, believed he had not been treated fairly in the shakeout of the company. Van Deelan received a copy of the letter and filed it with the court in an attempt to have Jones disqualified from his case. Van Deelan’s motion was denied and the letter was sealed from public view, the Journal reported.

Van Deelan discovered through an internet search that Jones and Freeman owned a house together since 2017. Plenty of lawyers appear to have known that the two were engaged in a romantic relationship. To expose it would have ended a sweet arrangement that was a bonanza for the firms and their bankruptcy clients who brought Freeman in on their cases.

No one said a word. Only Van Deelan, a 74-year-old retired math teacher, brought justice where corruption ruled. It took an Appellate Court judge only a week to find probable cause by Jones for failing to disclose his relationship with Freeman. He resigned.

It requires no courage for bar association leaders to condemn those discreditable officials who donned red ties and made pilgrimages to New York to stand outside the courthouse to mewl and whine that the justice system was targeting the loathsome demagogue, Donald Trump.

To shine a searing light when something goes wrong in the judicial branch of government when no one is paying attention— that’s what protects the integrity of the system.

Kevin Rennie can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com