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Reports on the controversy surrounding the bidding for nursing home contract in Stamford, Connecticut. Republicans' objection and criticism on the bidding process; Fund-raising event held by one of the bidding companies, Haven Healthcare, for Mayor Dannel P. Malloy.

Reports on the fund raising aimed at helping the victims of a car accident in Stamford, Connecticut involving Guatemalan immigrants. Intended use of the money raised to return the bodies to Guatemala; Results of police investigation on the accident.

Focuses on the forecasts made by political observers in Connecticut about the administration of incoming Governor M. Jodi Rell. Indications that Rell's talk on ethics has already made a favorable impression; Uncertainty on whether Rell will maintain the costly aid to towns and cities by her predecessor John Rowland.

Reports on the Connecticut legislature's inquiry into allegations of political corruption against Governor John G. Rowland. House Select Committee of Inquiry counsel Steven F. Reich and chief investigator James B. Mintz's role in the Rowland inquiry; Lack of evidence connecting Rowland to the Connecticut Juvenile training School in Middletown which was built by Tomasso Brothers.

Discusses the draft report prepared by the House Select Committee of Inquiry concerning Connecticut Governor John G. Rowland's admission hat he lied about renovations to his Litchfield cottage being provided by people working for or doing business with the state. Allegations on Rowland's knowledge of the unfair advantage given to project contractor, William A. Tomasso; Testimonies of Rowland's executive assistants, Kathleen Mengacci and Christine Corey; Former judge Nicholas Cioffi's testimony against Rowland relating to the development of the Connecticut Juvenile Training School.

The article previews the archival museum in to be developed in Ridgefield, Connecticut by the Maurice Sendak Foundation, devoted to archiving the work and life of children's book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak.

The article discusses Judge Gary White of Connecticut Superior Court's decision to allow murder suspect Michael C. Skakel to be freed on bail on November 21, 2013 pending his retrial for the 1975 murder of his former neighbor Martha Moxley. Topics addressed include media coverage of the case, the reactions of Skakel's family and of Moxley's family, and the prosecution's case against Skakel in the first trial for the murder.

The article discusses the role of the family of murder suspect Michael C. Skakel in attempting to overturn Skakel's 2002 conviction for the 1975 murder of his neighbor, Martha Moxley. Topics addressed include the large amount of money spent by Skakel's family in order to aid his defense, the family's hiring of various private investigators and the lawyer Hubert J. Santos, and the efforts of Skakel's father Rushton Skakel and stepmother Anna Mae Skakel.

The article discusses the effects of Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 on tax revenues in New York State. It comments on the impact of the storm on property values and the subsequent impact on state revenue and services in New York. It addresses the potential spending cuts to services including schools, police, and fire services.

The article focuses on a Maine lawsuit regarding the 1992 adoption of Patricia Ann Spado by her lesbian partner Olive F. Watson. Watson, heiress to the International Business Machines (IBM) fortune, adopted Spado to secure Spado's rights as an heir to Watson's estate. Although the couple broke up after the adoption, Spado claims a right to Watson's fortune.

The article reports on a 2006 dispute between brothers over an inheritance that includes a number of valuable paintings created by the American artist Norman Rockwell. The piece offers details of several lawsuits filed by the Kenneth, Jonathan and William Stuart over the ownership of some Norman Rockwell paintings given by the painter to his editor at "The Saturday Evening Post."

This article profiles the Democratic candidate for the Connecticut Senate race, Ned Lamont. Lamont beat out incumbent Joe Lieberman in the democratic primary, prompting Lieberman to run independently. Lamont's success was from a focused effort to highlight Lieberman's decision to support the Iraq war. But since the primary, Lamont has struggled to define himself as a qualified candidate and as a "Washington outsider." INSET: Profile.

The author reports that several deaf-theater groups are struggling to stay afloat after the federal government cut funds for cultural programs for the deaf around the country some 16 months ago. The article includes comments from Lou Danielson, research director for the Office of Special Education Programs. Details related to the finances of the National Theater of the Deaf in West Hartford, Connecticut are discussed.

The article reports on a U.S. government secret that was revealed because the government had left clues throughout court records. U.S. federal investigators did not want the public to know they had requested confidential information about library use in Connecticut from an organization called Library Connection. But as the federal government was arguing in court that it needed to keep Library Connection's name a secret, it left the organization's name throughout court records. Government censors had applied black splotches to the court records to erase the identity of the organization, but the censors missed the organization's name. INSET: Slipshod Censorship.

Focuses on the case of Greenwich, Connecticut land developer Andrew M. Kissel, who has been charged by federal prosecutors with operating a fraud scheme that left banks, title companies, and his colleagues in his real estate business facing tens of millions of dollars in possible losses. Review of how Kissel was granted temporary custody of his sister's three children following her arrest in connection with the murder of her wealthy husband; Comments on the children's case from Michael J. Collesano, a lawyer appointed by the New York Surrogate's Court to represent them.

Reports that Connecticut's public schools would be banned from selling soft drinks and certain snacks during the school day under a proposal facing a final vote in the legislature. Details of the proposed bill, which represents the most far-reaching effort by any state to control the diet of students; Debate over the bill.

Discusses the controversy surrounding the construction of the state-of-the-art institution to house and care for difficult youngster in Connecticut. Total cost of the residence; Criticism on how the Connecticut Juvenile Training School was planned and constructed; Revelation of weaknesses in state contracting safeguards; Possibility of manipulation of the process by the administration of Governor John Rowland.

Offers a look at the debate over whether to name a bridge after activist Ruth Steinkraus-Cohen in Connecticut. Her support for the United Nations; Claim that she promoted anti-American sentiment over the war in Iraq; Discussion of Steinkraus-Cohen's involvement in the community as a patron of the arts; Comments by the state representative who pushed through the legislation, G. Kenneth Bernhard.

Reports on federal and Congressional investigations of alleged sales of pardons by Roger Clinton, brother of former United States President Bill Clinton. Events which caused the investigation; Efforts of Roger Clinton to secure a pardon for convicted heroin trafficker Rosario Gambino; Roger Clinton's relationship with Gambino's family members.

The article reports on the move of the House Ethics Committee to authorized an inquiry into the campaign funds of Staten Island Representative Michael G. Grimm, who is under investigation by federal prosecutors. The committee of five Republicans and Democrats voted to begin an inquiry into Grimm's conduct and said that they would examine whether Grimm accepted illegal campaign contributions. The committee had agreed to a request from the Justice Department to defer consideration of the issue.

The article offers news brief on Hurricane Sandy in the U.S. in 2012. According to Vanessa Baird-Streeter, a government official in Long Island, New York mentions that they do not have a good statistics on the homes that were destroyed by the hurricane. Mitch Gross of the Connecticut Light and Power Co. said that electric power in most houses in Connecticut were restored. Moreover, Long Island Rail Road Co. trains will be on a regular weekend schedule

It is a small apartment in a scrubby section of Jamaica, Queens, where the average household income is $33,800 and many residents receive government assistance. But from this unlikely address, nearly $900,000 has flowed to the campaign accounts of powerful political players across the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortly before leaving the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2006, after a swashbuckling undercover career that would later help catapult him into Congress, a young agent named Michael G. Grimm went into real estate, investing roughly $1 million of borrowed money in a luxury development in Texas. Seeking a builder to cooperate on the project, Mr. Grimm chose a former F.B.I. agent who had served with him in New York -- even though the former agent was under indictment on state racketeering and fraud charges, according to court and property records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soon after he began running for Congress in 2009, Michael G. Grimm, a Staten Island Republican, needed to convince party leaders in Washington that he could raise enough money to become a viable candidate. Seeking help, he turned to an unlikely source: followers of an Orthodox rabbi and mystic from Israel. Mr. Grimm, a former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a Roman Catholic who regularly attends Sunday Mass, traveled around the New York region with one of the rabbi's top aides, Ofer Biton, to raise campaign money from the rabbi's followers. In all, the Grimm campaign collected more than $500,000 from the followers, according to numerous interviews and an analysis of Mr. Grimm's campaign records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tens of thousands of starry-eyed students apply to America's most exclusive colleges each fall and tens of thousands of hearts are broken each spring, much as they will be this week as graduating seniors hear from the Ivy League. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New York State has long had a policy of countersuing patients who demand compensation for being injured in state psychiatric hospitals. The Office of Mental Health immediately bills them for the time they spend in the hospital, often stopping the case cold and making it nearly impossible for the patient to attract or keep a lawyer, a practice we explored in this article in December. The strategy was hugely effective at quashing claims, even ones borne of extreme tragedy. But to avoid any chance of a public outcry, it now appears that billing personnel were told to code certain cases - for instance, those involving the death or rape of psychiatric patients - differently, apparently to signal the need for special handling, according to an examination of state records turned over in response to a long-running lawsuit called Brown v. Stone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A lawsuit brought by the trustee for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff's multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme contends that the owners of the Mets used the profits from their years of investing with Mr. Madoff to enhance their personal fortunes, enrich a number of family trusts and financially fuel their array of businesses -- all in the face of repeated warnings that Mr. Madoff's investment firm might have been a fraud. The lawsuit, unsealed in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan on Friday, says the owners, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, their families and their businesses ''made so much easy money from Madoff for so long'' that despite the many warnings -- from within their own inner circle, and by other investors and financial institutions -- they ''chose to simply look the other way.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fred Wilpon, who said Friday that he was looking to sell a minority stake in the Mets, has been talking to friends and business associates about it for several weeks. He has been unable to find any takers, which prompted him to cast the net wider, according to several sports bankers. Given the concentration of wealthy individuals and companies in New York, and the scarcity of professional teams for sale in the country's largest city, the Mets should find no shortage of potential suitors. A sale, though, depends on what the Mets are willing to sell and under what conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

He advised four presidents, twice served as a United States ambassador and had a tenured chair at Harvard, all before becoming a four-term senator from New York. Yet there was Daniel Patrick Moynihan on July 1, 1991, humbly laying on the charm in an effort to wheedle William Safire, a former colleague in the Nixon White House, into mentioning the word ''floccinaucinihilipilificationism'' in his columns for The New York Times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

They took their places in the wood-paneled courtroom, 58 people from 32 countries. They listened as a federal magistrate banged the gavel and said it was ''a wonderful day for the United States''-- the day they would become Americans. The magistrate talked about Thomas Jefferson and told the group that they could run for office -- only the presidency and the vice presidency were off limits, according to a tape recording of the proceedings in a Bridgeport, Conn., courtroom last year, on April 17. On her instructions, they raised their right hands and repeated the oath of citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed against the City of New Haven by a black city firefighter who claimed that the scoring for a 2003 promotional exam cost him a chance to become a lieutenant. Senior Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. of the United States District Court in New Haven issued a brief ruling in the case of Firefighter Michael Briscoe and noted that he would later submit a memo explaining his reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is the time each decade when America takes stock of itself and counts heads. Residents are asked to complete their census forms as of April 1 if they want to be counted. Getting busy New Yorkers to respond has never been easy. And for those who find the whole exercise depressing because the 2010 forms (pdf), unlike past census inquiries, seek only the drabbest details of our lives as Americans -- how many people live at that location, ages of all occupants and whether households rent or own -- here's a tip. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Richard Blumenthal, the popular Connecticut attorney general, announced on Wednesday that he would seek the United States Senate seat being vacated by Christopher J. Dodd, suddenly altering the dynamic of an already volatile race. Mr. Blumenthal's move came just hours after Mr. Dodd, a fellow Democrat, ended his bid for re-election amid growing signs that his recent political troubles might cost the party a seat it has held for nearly half a century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The city of New Haven, which the United States Supreme Court found this year to have discriminated against a group of mostly white firefighters, was hit with another federal lawsuit on Thursday, this time from a black firefighter who contends that the way the city scored a 2003 promotion test will keep him from getting the position he deserves. Michael Briscoe, a 10-year veteran who is 37, says in his suit that the scoring was unfair because it undervalued the oral portion of the test, on which he did better. His suit, which was filed by David Rosen, the lawyer who brought the case more than 30 years ago that first helped integrate the department, contends the oral part of the test more clearly measures the skills required to do the job. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

He seemed, in many ways, like a man from another time, a Gatsbyesque figure who glided through a world of old money, private clubs and pedigree horses, his family name emblazoned on Ivy League halls. Then, in an instant, he was gone -- his privileged life ended, by his own hand, with a single gunshot to the head. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After he came to America from Korea more than three decades ago, Jang Do wanted what many immigrants have always wanted: to fit in. So he decided to Americanize his name. But at age 11, still fuzzy on the vernacular, he took an interesting tack. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Standard Form 152 is not a famous federal form like the IRS 1040. But for more than four decades, it has been assigned the job of standing sentry over other federal forms. Agencies that want to create, kill or amend federal forms often have to fill out an SF152, also known as a Request for Clearance or Cancellation of a Standard or Optional Form, or file another form just like it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama's choice as chief of protocol for the State Department, a position that carries the status of an ambassadorship, did not file tax returns for 2005 and 2006, errors she corrected last November. The nominee, Capricia Penavic Marshall, has placed blame for the problem on the Postal Service and on miscommunication between her husband and their accountant. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A federal magistrate judge with a taste for sports metaphors has found that Andrew Giuliani's lawsuit against Duke University for letting a coach push him off the university's golf team is ''a swing and a miss.'' Mr. Giuliani had sued the university last summer, claiming that it breached its contract with him by removing him from the team without cause. But Magistrate Judge Wallace W. Dixon in North Carolina said in an opinion Tuesday that he found no evidence that such a contract, written or otherwise, had ever existed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a go-between who shepherded clients and their money to Bernard L. Madoff, Walter M. Noel became so prosperous that he was only too happy to show off his good fortune to the world. In 2002, Vanity Fair dispatched the photographer Bruce Weber to shoot a lavish spread of Mr. Noel's wife and their five grown daughters at his home in Connecticut (''Golden in Greenwich,'' read the headline). That was followed, in 2005, by a Town and Country story on the Noel family's tropical retreat in Mustique. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It was here in the third-floor billiard room where America's greatest humorist used to hole up when the bustle of his house, and the nursery one flight below, became too great, leaving strict orders not to be disturbed. Seated at a desk tucked behind the billiards table, he wrote and rewrote in longhand such masterpieces as ''Huckleberry Finn,'' often beseeching his editors to stop cleaning up his language and restore the earthier vernacular he preferred. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Morris Talansky, the Long Island man at the heart of a corruption investigation in Israel that may topple Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, faces more legal problems when he finishes testifying and returns to New York. Kool-Tech, a privately owned minibar company that he helped finance three years ago, and with whom he has been feuding, sued him in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Thursday, accusing him of breaching his fiduciary duty by seeking to help a competitor steal a multiyear contract with a New York hotel. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For years, City Councilwoman Sandy Annabi of Yonkers was among the most vigorous critics of an enormous $600 million development proposal that called for 1,000 housing units, shops and a movie multiplex in the cliffs here over Sprain Lake. She complained in late 2005 that the developer, Forest City Ratner, was ''probably richer than God,'' did not need tax breaks and was ''robbing the city blind.'' And she was the lead plaintiff in a 2005 lawsuit against the city, objecting to its approval process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents information related to school-grade child Anthony M. Perone, who was charged by the police for his plan to harm some individuals who were linked to his grade-school in the U.S. Perone was arrested by the police in March 2007 and he has pleaded guilty on two accounts of making threats through the mail. The article also informs about federal prosecutors' opinion on imposition of maximum possible penalty on Perone.

The article offers information on court case of Hassan Abu-Jihaad, a former U.S. sailor, accused of aiding terrorism. In a recent hearing, William Crisman, one of the witness in the case have stated that Abu-Jihaad had leaked vital information to a terrorist group in 2001 and had even asked them to destroy it after they avail it. It is mentioned that Abu-Jihaad was known as Paul R. Hall before he converted to Islam.

The article offers news briefs from the U.S. Michael Jude Fay, a Roman Catholic priest, pleaded guilty in Federal District Court to fraud charges in Connecticut. According to a Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report, the vapors of the millions of gallons of petroleum spilled in Newtown Creek could seep into homes and business facilities in the area. New Jersey governor Jon S. Corzine is scheduled to undergo an operation on his leg on September 17, 2007.

The article reports on the reshaping of New Haven, Connecticut for the shooting of an Indiana Jones film. Streets and markets have been reshaped to give a look of 1957, the year the film is set in. Even the campus of Yale University in New Haven has been pushed into a makeover for giving a look of the fictional Marshall College. New Haven is attracting film producers as the state has begun giving tax credits.

This article presents information on the expected victory of M. Jodi Rell, a Republican candidate and serving governor of Connecticut, in the election for the office of governor of the state. Despite adverse political wave in favor of the Democratic Party, Rell appears to be elected as governor to serve a full four-year term.

The article reports that Robert F. Tate, ex-music director of Christ Church in Greenwich, Connecticut, resigned after the church officials found that he was involved in child pornography on his computer. According to Tim Egan, head of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's cybercrimes squad, the agency was investigating the matter. Rector of the church Jeffrey H. Walker is very much concerned about the federal investigation, which has brought disgrace to the church.

The article presents information on the federal investigation of the charges leveled against a music director of a Episcopal church. Music director Robert Tate, who is accused of child pornography, has resigned from the post. Investigators are trying to know whether Tate had any improper contacts with minors through the church.