Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, a Democratic candidate for state attorney general, denies that her office's computer database of more than 36,000 citizens' names has been misused as a tool for her political advancement.

Disparities in jobless rates are not limited to geographic boundaries in Connecticut. The gaps fall across age, race and skill sets, leaving an unsettling picture of hardship unevenly spread throughout the region.

A small group of Democratic state legislators have called on their party's leaders to immediately negotiate spending cuts with Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell to close the state's $500 million current-year budget deficit.

FARMINGTON, Conn. -- The price tag is $352 million, but as Gov. M. Jodi Rell told it Tuesday, the latest plan for the University of Connecticut Health Center has something for everyone.

A bill that would require businesses with more than 50 employees to give workers paid sick days made it through the legislature's labor and public employees committee Tuesday, 6-4.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday granted Pratt & Whitney an expedited review for its challenge of a lower-court decision barring company plans to close its Cheshire factory.

NRG Energy plans to lay off nearly 70 employees at its four operating Connecticut power plants in June, about 35 percent of its state workforce, a company spokesman confirmed Tuesday.

Ten months after Mark Krawiec lost his road construction job, he eagerly took a six-week assignment on Route 2 that paid just over $1,000 a week. Big mistake.

Town residents and local police officers might team up to enforce state and local laws on parking for people with disabilities.

L. Mark Hurley, a former state prosecutor, agreed to pay a $2,000 fine for using his position of power to steal about $85,000 meant for crime victim charities and the state prosecutors' union.

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- Staring at warped ceiling tiles between Warren Harding High School's gym and locker rooms, state Rep. Patricia Billie Miller said she felt like she had stepped back into the 1960s.

A legislative committee voted in favor of permitting simulcasting of horse racing at a proposed off-track betting facility in New London Tuesday, over the objections of Sen. Andrea Stillman, who said she opposed the measure as an "expansion of gambling" in the state.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Peru has voluntarily agreed to withdraw fraud and conspiracy allegations it made against Yale University in a lawsuit seeking the return of Inca artifacts removed from Machu Picchu nearly a century ago.

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. -- Julie Figueroa's right to raise her two young children was on trial in open court at Middlesex Superior Court on Wednesday under a new pilot program that opens the door to previously confidential cases involving children.

ROCKY HILL, Conn. -- The state plans to rehabilitate five houses on West Street across from the State Veterans' Home for use by returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who need a temporary residence.

Former Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy officially announced his candidacy for governor Wednesday, 13 months after starting to explore the race.

The state motor vehicles commissioner Wednesday suggested that legislators expand the laws guiding school bus inspections to allow the department to levy civil penalties against companies that chronically fail to fix buses.

Pamela Joiner's son was shot and killed in Hartford in 2008. William Petit Jr.'s wife and two daughters died in the 2007 Cheshire home invasion. Both lost loved ones , and they want justice. Justice, however, means something different to each.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz's politically oriented entries in her office's 36,000-name constituent database drew criticism Wednesday from Democratic rivals, one of whom said she should make a public apology, and from Republican State Chairman Chris Healy, who called the entries "a political intelligence file for her own use ... paid for by the taxpayers."

For 10 days last summer, 3,000 Connecticut Light & Power used a combination of price incentives and conservation technologies to encourage customers to cut back on air conditioning and other electricity use.

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. -- Some tradespeople were working up to 90 hours a week at the Kleen Energy construction site in Middletown in the weeks leading up to the Feb. 7 natural-gas explosion, a state labor official told a panel that is looking into the causes of the blast.

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. -- The owners of the Kleen Energy power plant, extensively damaged in a Feb. 7 natural gas explosion that killed six people, face a substantial rebuilding project.

The crown jewel of Connecticut's home mortgage rescue efforts — the state's foreclosure mediation program — is a model for other states and has helped keep 3,400 borrowers in their homes since 2008.

"Hallelujah," Kim Green remembers thinking. Her life was about to get easier. For close to a decade, she had been making regular trips to the hospital, spending full days hooked up to machines that delivered chemotherapy to fight her breast cancer.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal sued two of the nation's most prominent credit rating agencies Wednesday, alleging they misled investors about the soundness of certain types of investments and unfairly reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues.

WASHINGTON — Small defense companies, energy firms, and other technology start-ups throughout New England could lose tens of millions of dollars a year because of a decision by House Democrats yesterday to abruptly halt budget earmarks for companies.

In Michigan, where many enterprises are struggling to survive, the renowned University of Michigan is in the midst of a construction boom and hiring spree. Michigan State University, on the other hand, plans to lay off faculty and cut programs, blaming state funding that is lower than it was a decade ago. Flagship universities in other states are also prospering, while their lesser-known counterparts suffer from vanishing state appropriations. 

So, why not change the arrangement and require big-name universities to take responsibility for their own financing, leaving more state money to support the other state schools? As legislatures face their toughest budget year since the recession began, the idea of giving a few universities autonomy to control their own finances has some appeal.