Connecticut Public Radio

The number of deaths from heroin and synthetic opioids continues to rise in New England, according to data just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Vin Baker was an Olympic basketball player and four-time NBA All Star. The journey from University of Hartford to professional basketball got him rich quick, but it was a lifestyle he couldn't keep up with. Baker's struggle with alcoholism is well-documented, as is the fact he blew through $100 million. He lost his home and restaurant.

Wednesday is the start of Connecticut’s legislative session. Lawmakers reconvene, starting squarely at a massive state budget deficit, and a crisis in pension costs that Comptroller Kevin Lembo said will “crush us” unless something is done.

In Bridgeport, the typical story goes something like this: A superintendent comes in eager to make his or her mark on a failing district. They stay two or three years, then they're gone.

State officials announced plans to cut an additional $20 million from public schools to help balance the budget.

Molly McKew says the liberal world order of democratic values is unraveling. In its place, Vladimir Putin is building a new world order with the primary goal of weakening America and NATO. He's waging a quiet war of subversion rather than domination and we've been slow to catch on. Yet, we see it all around us in Americans loss of faith in its democratic institutions. Is a new Cold War what America needs? We're already in the war - whether we want it or not.

African Americans are a diverse group of people who live in our cities and our suburbs. This hour, what does it mean to be black in Connecticut?

Boxing is known as the "sweet science" and the sport once drew large crowds in our cities -- spurring on neighborhood rivalries and banding together immigrant communities. This hour, we explore Connecticut’s boxing history and we learn of a new effort to rekindle the sport in Bridgeport.

While basketball didn't take up residence in the White House in January 2009, the game nonetheless played an outsized role in forming the man who did, according to Sports Illustrated 's Alexander Wolff, author of The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama .

Earlier this fall, WNPR reported on charcoal mounds, hidden relics of the state's industrial past from back when iron was king and trees burned into charcoal to fuel furnaces. Now, scientists are using modern mapping technology to learn more about charcoal's legacy in Connecticut.