Author Archives: Michelle Hackman

On the evening of March 8, 1987, Bernice Martin was raped and murdered in her apartment in Manchester, Conn. More than five years later, her granddaughter’s husband, Richard Lapointe, was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of release. Now, the courts are questioning the confessions that have kept Lapointe behind »

In a sign of a housing market recovering from the 2008 financial crisis, the state of Connecticut issued 359 new building permits in Aug., up 55 percent from the same period last year. The data, compiled by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, indicates greater interest in building new homes than has been »

Four years after State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, a New Haven Democrat, won his first term in the state legislature, his campaign treasurer was arrested for allegedly stealing thousands of dollars in campaign funds. Sandra McKinnie, a resident of New Haven, was first suspected of embezzlement when an audit conducted by the State Election Enforcement Commission »

Students forgoing lunch in dining halls in favor of food at Durfee’s have found that their swipes are buying them less than they did last year. The prices of many items at Durfee’s, Yale Dining’s convenience store on Old Campus, increased for the first time in three years due to rising wholesale prices and contractually »

This summer, Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed banning the sale of large sodas in New York City. This new policy, intended to limit access to products that are widely thought to contribute to obesity, sparked a national conversation about the ban’s effectiveness. The News sat down with Dr. David Katz, a professor of preventive medicine at »

The Journal Register Company, the parent company of the New Haven Register, announced Wednesday that it is filing for bankruptcy. The company announced in a morning email to its employees that it had filed voluntary petitions for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a New York federal court. The newspaper chain said it intends to initiate a »

A teenager who smokes and drinks is more likely to abuse prescription painkillers as a young adult, according to a new Yale study. Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine analyzed nationally-representative survey data to explore a possible link between alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use as an adolescent and subsequent abuse of prescription pain medication »

The Sustainability Education Peers (STEP) program was overhauled this summer in an effort to improve its efficiency and oversight. The Office of Sustainability announced in late August that it was reorganizing STEP — a student-led organization designed to educate Yalies about sustainability — in response to student criticism that the program was disorganized and vague »

Candidates for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Joseph Lieberman ’64 LAW ’67 are gearing up for this May’s nominating conventions. Senate hopefuls have campaigned and participated in debates in advance of Democratic and Republican primary conventions held on May 12 and May 18, respectively, where delegates at each convention will endorse one »

A new Yale study finds that more Americans are acknowledging the dangers of climate change than did two years ago. Researchers at the Yale Project on Climate Change, a Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies initiative, have been studying American attitudes toward the phenomenon since 2002. In 2010, their poll found that 63 percent »

At Thursday night’s finance committee meeting at a New Haven high school, residents came down hard against the city’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. At the meeting, held at Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy on Columbus Avenue, aldermen heard testimony from more than 20 city residents about Mayor John DeStefano Jr.’s proposed $486.8 million »

HARTFORD — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney visited Connecticut today in anticipation of the state’s April 24 primary. After fellow Republican Rick Santorum’s exit from the race on Monday, Romney traveled to the state capital having virtually captured the GOP nomination. At a small printing business in Hartford Wednesday afternoon, the former Massachusetts governor delivered »