Newtown Health District Director Donna Culbert is joining counterparts across the state and country strongly advising against holding or attending Super Bowl parties on game day, February 7.
Every agency providing emergency services locally weighed in on whether COVID-19 could compromise their response - find out what Newtown's local lifesavers had to say.
Hear from Newtown First Selectman Dan Rosenthal and Health official Donna Culbert in The Newtown Bee’s ongoing series of “COVID-19 Clips,” and get the latest local and state COVID transmission stats for this week.
After three cases of the aggressive and potentially more deadly B.1.1.7. variant of the COVID-19 virus were discovered in neighboring Oxford, Governor Ned Lamont announced he will be extending his emergency powers to help control the impact of the pandemic statewide.
Like so many of those who contracted COVID-19, transplanted Newtown native Carl “Chad” Werden was in good health and had never suffered any serious health threat — never mind spending months in hospital and surviving through a virus-related double lung transplant.
Ross Salvo was a kind-hearted, strong-willed 12-year-old who loved karate, complimented people whenever possible, and did what he could to help others have good days.
The number of positive Newtown cases accumulated in town since COVID-19 hit Fairfield County now stands at 1,250, a count that nearly tripled since the week before Thanksgiving — and there is no sign of that rate slowing.
Despite countless prevention reminders and the initiation of COVID-19 vaccines locally - cases accelerated in the past week, blowing through the 1,000 benchmark and taking at least three more residents’ lives.
I look forward to hearing about RTD's to be scheduled protests over the following public hearing controversies during the most recent legislative session. Or does it only matter if the person has an (R) next to their name?
(1) Emergency Certifications: The Democratic supermajority for used "emergency certification" for bills—such as those on election security or worker protections—which allows them to bring legislation directly to the floor without a public hearing.
(2) Midnight Cutoffs: During a March 2026 Public Health Committee hearing on vaccine mandates, Democratic leaders voted to end the hearing at approximately 12:15 a.m., which resulted in hundreds of residents who waited all day to speak losing their opportunity to testify in person.
(3) Limiting Testimony: Democrat-led committees, such as the Education and Public Health committees, imposed time limits or capped public testimony on highly contentious bills related to vaccines, parental rights, and homeschooling.
I thank you for the tone of your reply. I appreciate it. I too stand by my statement that, not the candidates, but the process and those pushing it, has become divisive. I also continue to take offense to some of the labels, such as "surrogate" and "camp". I do not find them to be proper references for groups of people. I confidently add that the lack of primary in the Kamala Harris defeat was not due to the lack of a primary. I campaigned for Kamala and we can have a private discussion, if you like, at another time the defeat. I also completely disagree with the statement that primaries improve voter turnout. In Connecticut, primaries are met with low voter turnout and they are expensive to administer. This will not be any different but I respect your opinion and am open to discussion.
Hi Yolanda, you clearly are a supporter of Michelle Ku. I see that our letters about the recent decision by the Democratic Town Committee regarding how they/we will choose a nominee have been published on the same day.
Last week the DTC voted to have a Caucus (where all Newtown registered Dems in the 106 get to vote instead of a DTC meeting where only 55 dems get to vote) to help determine which Dem will run for the 106 seat against Mitch Bolinsky. Your letter indicates you prefer the DTC meeting (55 votes) while I prefer the Caucus where it is open to thousands of democrats in town. I prefer a Caucus vote for either Ku or Moore (by the way you’re limited to 300 words in a LTE so first names take up words so I don’t use them) for the reasons I stated in my letter above - more people get to vote, more people are engaged, more turnout in November.
About the divisiveness, there are many comments on social media before and since this decision by DTC that claim there should be no such contest these have been made by Ku supporters on her pages and they have in fact written what I mentioned above.
In politics “Surrogates” and “Camp”are commonly used shorthand for supporters of a particular candidate - I’ve never heard it used offensively so I never thought anyone would interpret using such terms as an attack.
I have seen nothing from the other campaign neither posts from the Candidate or his supporters, “surrogates”, or camp that make such negative comments and that’s the truth.
People can have their beliefs about the process - I believe primaries are good , you may not - but to try to say one candidate is “divisive” because they choose to run and provide us a choice and a chance to promote the party at the same time is not good for any of us - citizens should not just be allowed but should be encouraged to step up and run. I stand by what I said- for one candidate’s team to say that they are or their people are so mad that they’ll vote for the opposing party is divisive.
All is going well! Thank you for advancing critical initiatives and making such quick progress where it matters for our community. We are honored to have you as our First Selectman!
