With the General Assembly back in session, interest groups like the Connecticut Business and Industry Association and the Connecticut Education Association are on television again with commercials whose objectives are always obscure.

It’s been a while since we’ve had to deal with winter’s wrath, but Saturday’s snowfall is promising a dusting during the day followed by freezing overnight temperatures and possible black ice conditions for early Sunday.

A jury determined Friday that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford should pay $1 million in damages to a former altar boy who was sexually abused by a priest decades ago, ruling that the church was reckless and negligent in allowing a known pedophile to have access to children.

Attorney General George C. Jepsen, a member of the team of federal and state officials that negotiated the $25 billion settlement with the nation’s five biggest mortgage servicers unveiled Thursday, today vigorously defended the deal critics have portrayed as fundamentally flawed.

A former Granby police captain investigated child pornography while he secretly amassed one of the largest child porn collections in Connecticut, federal prosecutors say.

Addressing the General Assembly at the start of its 2012 session Wednesday, Governor Malloy credited himself with far more than he has accomplished -- getting state spending under control and making government "smaller, leaner, and more effective."

Proposing a few weeks ago to make liquor stores compete on the same terms as ordinary business, without price supports and the ban on Sunday sales, Governor Malloy confronted a powerful but indefensible special interest that always could have been pushed out of the way of the public interest by any governor so inclined. Connecticut never had such a governor until now.

SUFFIELD — Family and friends of a local man are hosting a benefit at Suffield Academy Saturday to help raise money as he fights a nerve disease.

For leading the squad of Marines that killed 24 unarmed civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha in 2005, a staff sergeant from Meriden, Frank Wuterich, will be getting a jail term of no more than three months and maybe no confinement at all. Many Iraqis are angry about this. While most Americans couldn't care less about it, some are confused or embarrassed over how so many unarmed people, including women and children, could be killed by rifle fire from American soldiers without more serious consequences.

CHICOPEE, Mass. — Officials at Westover Air Reserve Base announced Friday a proposal to cut their fleet of C-5 transport aircraft in half by 2016 as a cost-cutting measure.

Joan Lorito, a 56-year-old U.S. Navy veteran from Manchester, has inoperable gynecologic cancer that she says was discovered and treated too late because the Veterans Administration was more concerned about its budget than with properly treating women.

Over the years, Eric Fischer had grown suspicious of whether he was really the father of his youngest daughter. So he secretly got a sample of the girl’s hair, grabbed one from his own head, and sent them to a lab for DNA testing.

Over a dozen women have accused Dr. Edwin A. Njoku of sexual misconduct since police announced his arrest on sexual assault charges in connection with an incident in his East Hartford office, police say.

MANCHESTER — Who knew groundhogs were also sports fans?

The lawyer for a Sacred Heart soccer player from Ellington who was charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old female student is disputing any wrongdoing by his client. The lawyer, Wayne R. Keeney, represents Brian Francolini, 20, of Ellington. Police charged Francolini with second-degree sexual assault and fellow soccer player Justin Brewer, 22, of Somers with being an accessory to second-degree sexual assault after the student said Francolini had sexually assaulted her in the men’s off-campus apartment. The woman told police she’d been drinking at a party beforehand when she and a friend agreed to go back to the men’s apartment. There, she said, Francolini sexually assaulted her despite her protests. “The set of facts in this case are innocently repeated weekend after weekend, year after year in colleges all over the country,” Keeney said in a statement. “People with no firsthand knowledge of the incident have put a nefarious spin on the situation. When we peel away the exaggerated indignation of these people who have their own agenda, we will find that no crime occurred here, not even an impropriety has occurred. What we will find is two young people experimenting with life, and nothing more.” The two appear Feb. 16 in Bridgeport Superior Court.

What's to be said for Governor Malloy's first year in office? The governor credits himself most for restoring solvency to state government.

While that prediction pleased most of the crowd at Manchester's Lutz Children's Museum, Connecticut's official groundhog adds a controversial addendum: "Go, Patriots!"

EAST HAVEN — One of the four officers charged with violating the civil rights of Hispanics has applied to retire on disability.

EAST HAVEN — The police chief of this embattled town is expected to retire this week with a severance package estimated at more than $100,000 — even though the Police Commission unanimously recommended Tuesday that he be fired and prevented from collecting anything more than his pension.

Several Connecticut colleges and universities have recouped the millions they lost in their endowment funds when the economy crashed in 2009 and others continue a steady climb toward those benchmarks, according to a new nationwide review.