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These Connecticut laws are taking effect in 2025

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These Connecticut laws are taking effect in 2025


Several new laws in Connecticut are taking effect in 2025, from expanded paid sick days to minimum wage increases.

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Here’s a look at some of them that could impact your life:

Connecticut’s minimum wage is increasing from $15.69 per hour to $16.35 per hour.

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CT Gov. Ned Lamont signed Public Act 19-4 back in 2019, which implemented five incremental increases in the minimum wage between 2019 and 2023, followed by future adjustments tied to the percentage change in the federal employment cost index.

Back in May, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont signed legislation “strengthening the state’s laws regarding paid sick days protections by expanding them to ensure that more workers are covered and have access to them.”

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The state’s existing laws require employers with over 50 employees that are mostly in specific retail and service occupations to provide their employees with up to 40 hours of paid sick leave annually. Effective Jan. 1, the laws will apply to workers of nearly every occupation.

“Our existing paid sick days laws include important protections for certain workers, however there are broad categories left unprotected, and this update will expand this coverage to help ensure that people do not have to choose between going to work sick and sacrificing a day’s wage,” Lamont said.

On Election Day, Connecticut voters approved an amendment to the state’s constitution that could make it easier to cast ballots by mail or through drop boxes in future elections.

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The amendment lifts long-standing restrictions that only allowed people in the state to vote by absentee ballot if they were going to be out of town, are sick or disabled, or couldn’t get to a polling location because of religious restrictions.

Effective Jan. 1, the act prohibits anyone from knowingly making another individual liable for “coerced debt” (i.e., generally, certain credit card debt incurred by a domestic violence victim who was coerced into incurring it).

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“Specifically, if a victim gives a claimant certain information and documentation that a debt is coerced debt, the claimant must pause all collection activities on the debt for at least 60 days, review the victim’s submission and other available information it has, and then continue or end its collection based on the review,” the bill said.

PA 24-52—sSB 13 “expands the student loan payment tax credit for qualified employers that make eligible student loan payments on a qualified employee’s behalf.” 

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Person reported missing found dead in Brookfield

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Person reported missing found dead in Brookfield


A person who was reported missing late Friday night in Brookfield has been found dead.

Police received a report of a missing person around 11 p.m. As officers were searching the area, they said they found an ATV off of the roadway and in the woods on Candlewood Shores Road.

According to investigators, the sole occupant of the ATV was found dead at the scene. The person’s identity has not yet been released.

The investigation is active and ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact Officer Brian Flanagan at (203) 740-4169.

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Newly released video shows Connecticut prison officers striking inmate before he died

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Newly released video shows Connecticut prison officers striking inmate before he died


HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut prison inmate J’Allen Jones was suffering a mental health crisis in 2018 when correctional officers struck him multiple times, stripped him naked, put a spit bag over his head and sprayed pepper spray at his face shortly before he died.

Video of the series of events was released Friday by a state judge in Hartford overseeing Jones’ family’s lawsuit against eight officers and a prison nurse, following a yearslong legal battle and after both sides agreed to certain redactions.

The Department of Correction had sought to keep it sealed since 2019, saying in part that its release could present security problems because it shows the physical layout of the prison and staffing patterns. But Jones’ family, the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut and local NAACP officials called for publicly releasing the video, saying transparency was needed in Jones’ death.

“The events in the video are as disturbing as the events in the video of George Floyd’s death,” Ron Murphy, a lawyer for Jones’ family, wrote in a court document, referring to the man killed by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. “But in some ways, the video of J’Allen’s death is worse.”

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Jones, 31, from Atlanta, was serving a 10-year sentence for robbery at Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of New Haven when he died on March 25, 2018. Correction officers had been trying to take him to a medical unit in the prison at the time to get treatment for his mental illness.

Handcuffed inmate appeared in crisis as officers struck him

Portions of the 52-minute video show Jones handcuffed behind his back — and later with his legs shackled — as officers hit his legs and torso with their knees and fists, after he refused a strip search. At one point, an officer pins him down on a bed with a knee on his back while others hold him down.

Jones — who was having a schizophrenic episode, according to court documents — is heard yelling at this point, much of it unintelligible. He repeatedly shouts, “In the blood of Jesus Christ!” At one point, he tells officers, “I command you … to uncuff me now!”

Officers, meanwhile, tell Jones numerous times to stop resisting and to calm down. One officer tells Jones they’re just trying to help him.

About 17 minutes into the video, Jones appears to start having trouble breathing after the spit bag was placed over his head and he was pepper sprayed. Nearly five minutes later, Jones appears to be unconscious as officers struggle to hold him up and put him in a wheelchair. At around the 24-minute mark, an officer requests a nurse to evaluate Jones.

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“Right now he’s just being dead weight, and I just want to make sure he’s OK,” the officer says, talking to the video camera held by another officer.

Minutes go by before life-saving measures are started

About 28 minutes into the video, a nurse starts performing CPR and an officer orders someone over the radio to call 911. An ambulance crew doesn’t arrive until more than 43 minutes into the video. Jones was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Hours after Jones’ death, the Department of Correction put out a brief statement saying that Jones had become “non-compliant and combative with staff and then became non-responsive.” It did not say anything about officers striking Jones but noted that there were no immediate indications that excessive force was used. It said life-saving measures were performed and he was brought to a hospital.

The medical examiner’s office determined that the cause of Jones’ death was “sudden death during struggle and restraint with chest compression and pepper spray exposure in person with hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.” It ruled his death a homicide, although that designation does not necessarily mean a crime was committed.

In January 2019, a state prosecutor investigating Jones’ death determined that no crimes were committed.

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An internal Correction Department investigation found that excessive force was not used. But the eight officers and nurse violated policy by not recognizing for more than seven minutes that Jones was in medical distress — although not intentionally, the investigation report said.

Punishment of one-day suspensions without pay were handed down to the nine staff members, Correction Department records show.

The correctional officers’ union did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

Family lawyer hopes video release spurs calls for reforms

Allen was Black, and his lawyer says eight of the nine defendants are white. One is Black. In court papers seeking release of the video, Murphy said it’s important that the public sees the footage and can consider “whether his race or schizophrenia played any role in how his cries for help and gasps for air were perceived and handled.”

“I hope everyone who chooses to watch the video does so with an open heart, remembering that J’Allen Jones was a father and a son and that his family grieves every day,” Murphy said in a statement Friday afternoon, adding that he hoped the video leads to prison system improvements.

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He added, “I found the video very difficult to watch as it depicts the painful death of another human being. So please take care of yourself while watching and if you experience overwhelming feelings, consider taking a break or reaching out to someone for support. Thank you.”

Responding to a series of questions from The Associated Press about the video and how officers dealt with Jones, the Correction Department’s interim commissioner Sharonda Carlos, said in a statement that the agency is continually focused on improving the services it offers to inmates experiencing mental health problems.

“Any loss of life in our facilities is a tragedy that we feel deeply, and our sympathy remains with Mr. Jones’ family and loved ones,” she said.

Carlos said she appointed a psychiatrist to lead the department’s inmate medical services in May, and the agency is rolling out major improvements to its mental health training for staff.

“Behind every individual in our care is a family hoping for their well-being, and we do not take that responsibility lightly,” she said.

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40 Years, Zero Accountability: The Union Deal That’s Been Emptying Connecticut’s Wallet

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40 Years, Zero Accountability: The Union Deal That’s Been Emptying Connecticut’s Wallet


Last week, Yankee Institute proposed the Expenditure Records and Information Notification Act, or ERIN’s Act, a reform requiring executive branch agencies to publish purchasing-card transactions in a centralized, searchable online […]



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