Two Children Separated From Their Parents At U.S.-Mexico Border Are Reunited

Connecticut’s governor quickly weighed in with a strongly worded statement on July 16 when two children who were separated from their families at the U.S- Mexico border because they were all undocumented were reunited with their parents. “It should not take a lawsuit to convince President Trump to reunite the families his administration heartlessly ripped apart—nor should it take public intervention from governors, United States senators, and members of Congress,” Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said in a statement. The children were a 9-year-old boy from Honduras who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in June to escape gun violence and a 14-year-old girl from El Salvador who crossed the border in May with her mother after the girl’s stepfather was murdered, according to the Hartford Courant. According to the emergency lawsuit filed by the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at the Yale Law School, “some mental health experts have concluded that the separation is profoundly damaging to the short-term and long-term mental, emotional, and physical health of vulnerable children, who lose their primary caregivers at a time of almost unimaginable stress and fear.”

Malloy said that Trump’s zero-tolerance policy is nothing short of child abuse and has “caused unimaginable trauma.”

“While it is good news that these children will be reunited with their parents today, they never should have been separated in the first place,” Malloy said. In an interview, Kathleen McWilliams, a Courant reporter who has been covering this case, said she would like more people to understand about immigration.

Public High Schools Are At The Forefront For Military Recruiters

Connecticut public high schools have become a familiar territory for military recruiters. At Conard High School in West Hartford, Nolan Asadow, a junior, said that he sees recruiters from all service branches giving away branded merchandise and speaking to any student interested in learning more about military service. “I see the recruiters in the cafeteria and in the halls at my school about once a month,” he said. One reason that they’re in Connecticut high schools so often is because there are so few people eligible to serve. According to the U.S Army Recruiting Command, there are 33.4 million Americans age 17 to 24 and only a little less than 140,000 of them are eligible for service when whittled down by standards, quality and interest.

Dancing Since She Was 6

Shataia Alicia Morris, 16, of West Hartford has been dancing since she was 6 years old, has won an abundance of awards and wants to continue dancing for years to come. As a young child, she would watch the TV show “Dance Moms.” She said those hour-long episodes sparked a fire in her that will never be put out. Morris has won over 20 dance awards, mostly for her solos in jazz, tap and lyrical dance. She recently won an award for a solo performance in lyrical dance.

How Did Connecticut Hospitals Respond To Sepsis And Infections? Check Out New Data

Connecticut hospitals ranked fourth from the bottom nationally for timely treatment of sepsis, new data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) show. Sepsis is the body’s extreme response to an infection and occurs when an infection you already have triggers a chain reaction throughout your body, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  Without timely treatment, sepsis can lead to tissue damage, organ failure and even death, the CDC reports. In 2015, CMS decided to start assessing hospitals’ treatment for sepsis.  The first treatment statistics were released recently.  A high percentage score means that a hospital has been following sepsis treatment protocols; a low score indicates poor sepsis care. Connecticut’s average score was 43 percent, compared with a national score of 49 percent, the data show. C-HIT has updated its Hospital Infections easy-to-use searchable database to include the sepsis ratings for each hospital.