Free Republic

After years of debate, Yale University announced Saturday it will change the name of a residential college that honors a 19th century alumnus and former U.S. vice president who was an ardent supporter of slavery. Yale trustees said the Ivy League university is renaming Calhoun College after trailblazing computer scientist Grace Murray Hopper, a mathematician who earned Yale degrees in the 1930s, invented a pioneering computer programming language and became a Navy rear admiral. Yale said it was the final decision in a controversy over former Vice President John C. Calhoun’s legacy that had simmered for years and boiled over...

<p>HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — College students without legal immigration status are asking Connecticut lawmakers to give them access to some financial aid.</p> <p>Connecticut already allows those students to pay in-state tuition as long as they have spent at least two years at a state high school.</p>

NEW HAVEN — A man was arrested after police said protesters blocked an ambulance that was carrying a critically ill patient. The man was arrested on Saturday at around 4:25 p.m. by state police, after state police said they went to I-95 north near the exit 47 ramp in New Haven. They said that around 100-200 protesters blocked the highway and, following a request for assistance from the New Haven Police Department, state police said they went to the area with riot gear and pepper spray. State police said the protesters were in the process of being cleared from the...

A diversity committee in Westport, Conn., a wealthy coastal town that was 93 percent white as of 2010, asked high school students earlier this year to reflect on the role of “white privilege” in their lives. The students were largely fine with the question, which was posed in an annual essay contest. As it turns out, adults had much more to say. Some residents in the town of 26,000, which has a median household income north of $150,000 and voted by a margin of 2 to 1 for Hillary Clinton over Donald J. Trump, chafed at the idea that race...

When the town sponsored a student essay contest on the topic of white privilege, it was intended to provoke discussion in this wealthy, overwhelmingly white community on Connecticut's Gold Coast. It did, along with no small amount of outrage. Contest organizers have been surprised by the reaction from some who say the question wrongly suggests race plays into the good life enjoyed in Westport. Residents like Bari Reiner, 72, say the question is offensive because the town welcomes anybody who can afford to live here. "It's an open town," Reiner said. "There are no barricades here. Nobody says if you're...

Veterans are furious over a proposed state budget cut that will eliminate the firing detail at veteran funerals. The Connecticut state military said funding for the gun salutes will run out around April. Meanwhile Connecticut state university and colleges, along with Hartford and New Haven, have declared themselves sanctuary cities. And state employees were given fat raises at the end of December. ... they have money to give to illegals but not to give to soldiers to have a proper and decent burial and celebration of their service. ... At a press conference earlier this month, Malloy said of the...

With a Navy commitment in hand to build 18 new Columbia-class nuclear submarines, Electric Boat in Groton is planning a hiring and spending spree that will be felt across the state. The company is gearing up to hire 2,000 new employees this year at its Connecticut and Rhode Island plants, with 1,350 jobs slated for Groton. Electric Boat employs about 14,500 people in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and that employment is projected to grow to 18,000 by 2030. Company President Jeffrey Geiger on Monday told business and legislative leaders during an annual update that the company will meet the Navy's...

US President-elect Donald Trump today appointed young Indian-American Raj Shah, who played a leading role in the Republican party’s anti-Clinton campaign during polls, to a key White House position. Shah, whose parents immigrated to the US from Gujarat, has been appointed as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Communication Director and Research Director, as per an announcement made by the Presidential Transition Team. Shah, who is in his early 30s, is currently head of Opposition Research in the Republican National Committee. In this position, he led a team of experts to carry out research against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic...

A Democratic lawmaker is desperately lobbying the Electoral College to shun Donald Trump, and vote for Hillary Clinton — even though he conceded Monday that the Republican won the election “fair and square.” The plea from Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) comes a week before the Dec. 19 vote, which is expected to affirm the results of the Nov. 8 election, in which Trump beat Clinton with 306 Electoral College votes. “We’re 5 wks from Inauguration & the President Elect is completely unhinged. The electoral college must do what it was designed for,” Himes wrote Sunday night on Twitter in response...

A Christian congregation in Connecticut that dates back to the 1600s has sold its church building to a Muslim group that plans to turn the building into a mosque. (Photo: Facebook/United Congregational Church)United Congregational Church in Bridgeport, ConnecticutAccording to The Wall Street Journal, the historic United Congregational Church will sell its 1920s Georgian-Revival style church building to the Bridgeport Islamic Community Center for a price of $1 million.The church dates back to the Colonial Era, when it was founded in 1695 as the Ecclesiastical Society of Stratfield. In 1916, the congregation merged with another congregation and officially became the United...

The University of Connecticut says campus police will continue to steer clear of enforcing immigration laws. UConn President Susan Herbst announced Tuesday that campus police formally adopted a longstanding policy of not inquiring individuals about their immigration status, not detaining people based solely on their citizenship status and not making arrests based on warrants from federal immigration authorities. She also said the university will continue admitting qualified students regardless of their immigration status and offering qualified undocumented students the in-state tuition rate, as state law requires. Herbst stopped short of declaring UConn a "sanctuary campus" as colleges including Wesleyan University...

State official demands AFA discard its Christians beliefs Created On: Monday, December 5, 2016 10:56 AM Last Update: Monday, December 5, 2016 4:39 PM Regardless of election results this past November 8, secular progressives in America remain intent on driving Christians out of the public square. Actions by the state of Connecticut last week proved it. On Wednesday, November 30, 2016 the American Family Association received a letter from the State of Connecticut Comptroller’s Office. The letter alleged, "AFA may be in violation of the regulations governing the Connecticut State Employee Campaign for Charitable Giving that broadly prohibit discrimination."

In 2012, voters across the region liked what they saw in Barack Obama. The president won the popular vote in 24 of the 25 towns in New London County in his bid for re-election, mirroring the support he got in Connecticut and across the country. Four years later, four of those towns had had enough. In Ledyard, Montville, North Stonington and Salem, turnout went up, support for Democrats went down and Donald Trump won hundreds more votes in each town than both Mitt Romney in 2012 and Trump's rival in 2016, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. They're not alone — 40...

Not everyone is thrilled with U.S. Rep. John Larson’s proposal to build massive highway tunnels under Hartford, but Daniel Burnham might be, were he still with us. It was Burnham, the great Chicago architect and planner, who said, “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized.”Larson’s is anything but a little plan; it is breathtaking in scope. It has stirred the blood of some public officials and business leaders. But the concept is so vast, complex and potentially expensive – it would be longer than Boston’s “Big Dig” tunnels...

Following student outcry for protection of undocumented students, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth declared this week that Wesleyan is a sanctuary campus that will not voluntarily assist the federal government in any efforts to deport students or faculty because of their immigration status. Wesleyan appears to be the only school to publicly call itself a sanctuary campus, though other college administrators have expressed strong support for undocumented and immigrant students and are moving toward creating safe havens for those students, Roth made the announcement after meeting last week with students, faculty and staff and conferring with the school's trustees. Roth...

**SNIP** "I can tell you that they are taking it seriously," said Steve Ginsburg of the regional ADL. "We're focused, like the school is, on ensuring that this is a learning experience and that those who were hurt and offended receive the appropriate apologies." Tomlinson explains: "On the campaign trail, Trump stirred up support from white nationalists, prompting others to fear his tenure." Boughton, rumored to be a GOP candidate for Connecticut governor in 2018, later felt forced to explain his outrage on Twitter. The Danbury mayor said the reason the chant was wrong was because his team and city...

Cops grilled the son of Oprah Winfrey’s celebrity jeweler Wednesday after digging up the body of a slain Connecticut man last seen alive at the suspect’s Manhattan home. The bloody corpse of Joseph Comunale, 26, was driven from the East Side to a desolate stretch of the Jersey Shore — and buried in a shallow grave behind a flower shop, the sources told the Daily News. While no arrests have been made, sources said cops were looking at James Rackover — the son of jeweler to the stars Jeffrey Rackover, whose A-list clients include Winfrey, Jennifer Lopez and Denzel Washington.

At noon on Saturday, a Meriden Lieutenant was parked on Hanover Street where he saw a man standing on the traffic island at Hanover and Colony Streets waving a Donald Trump sign and an American flag. Police say a silver car stopped at the island, two men got out and began punching and kicking the man, knocking him into the street. The Lieutenant intervened and arrested the two men. The victim told police that the two men gave him the finger, he responded “same to you” and then the assault started. The two men were identified as 32-year-old Wilson Echevarria...

DOJ officials said that they will send more than 500 Civil Rights Division staffers to 67 jurisdictions in 28 states on Tuesday. The Associated Press said the number of personnel is less than the roughly 780 monitors and observers who were dispatched in 2012.

Darien, Connecticut is a quaint little town that you could easily drive past on I-95 without noticing. And while it seems like a quiet place where nothing notable happens … every siren that goes off in the middle of the night disturbing the peaceful, tree-lined streets tells a different story. Every first responder in the town’s three fire departments and emergency medical services is a volunteer. All medical emergencies, from a fiery motor vehicle rollover on I-95 to a woman going into labor at home, brings the Post 53 ambulances wailing down the streets. And the EMTs who will treat...