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Good morning, Friend!

Just outside our front door is a 13- or 14-foot-tall red cedar (I think) tree. It’s basically a two-story Christmas tree, and I spent most of last Saturday afternoon decorating it as such. It took three strategically placed ladders, 800 multicolored lights, and about three hours. It looks amazing. But this is the first Christmas in three years that I’ve decorated the mammoth thing because for two Christmases in a row before that, the [redacted expletive] squirrels ATE MY CHRISTMAS LIGHTS. It would seem, though, based on the existence of outdoor Christmas lights elsewhere, that not all squirrels are like this. My hope is that we’ve got a whole new community of squirrels in the area by now, a more civilized, more neighborly community of squirrels. But we shall see. We shall see.

– Jonathan McNicol, producer

NEED TO KNOW

• Frankie & Johnny recap the week in news in Connecticut Fridays at 4:44 p.m. on Connecticut Public Radio. Mark Barden spoke to John Henry Smith this week about his son Daniel, 11 years after Daniel was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. The Jewish community honors Israeli and Palestinian victims during Hanukkah. And.... UConn men's basketball plays Gonzaga.

• The U.S. economy could be $14 trillion larger if adult health conditions caused by Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are prevented, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

• More than one in three adults in the U.S. — or 98 million people — are prediabetic, but more than 80% don't know they have it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Hartford Healthcare Group (HHC) is responding by expanding access to foods that prevent or delay the onset of diabetes.

• The proposed Eviction Prevention Act, introduced to Congress this week by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat, would essentially extend Connecticut’s Right to Counsel program nationwide.

• After months of resistance from students and faculty, the Board of Regents voted Thursday to raise tuition by 5% at the state’s regional universities and community colleges. The tuition hikes come after the state budget left the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system facing a steep $140 million shortfall.

THE LEAD

Barbara Fair, Executive Director of Stop Solitary CT breaks down into tears. (Ayannah Brown/Connecticut Public)

Advocates call on Connecticut to fill prison ombudsman job

Criminal justice reform advocates are criticizing delays filling a key position overseeing the Department of Correction.

Several lawmakers and members of the group Stop Solitary CT held a press conference Wednesday to urge state officials to install a new ombudsman to provide independent oversight of state prisons.

Lawmakers created the position last year. The person picked for the job will investigate complaints and evaluate conditions inside prison facilities.

State Sen. Gary Winfield, a Democrat who represents New Haven and West Haven, said with the position still vacant, public accountability is lacking in the state Department of Correction.

“We have a system that is opaque not only to the public, (but) that's largely opaque even to people like myself,” said Winfield, Senate chairperson of the Judiciary Committee.

“And if it's opaque to me, we've got a problem," Winfield said.

FROM OUR MEDIA PARTNERS

• The head of Manchester Memorial and Rockville General hospitals told Gov. Ned Lamont in October that Yale New Haven Health’s bid to buy those two facilities and Waterbury Hospital is “paramount” to their survival, and that “time is of the essence” in the state’s approval of the acquisition, according to a letter obtained by The Connecticut Mirror.

• Three London-based insurance technology companies will establish a presence in Hartford, a move precipitated by a 2022 partnership struck between Connecticut and UK officials to create an InsurTech Corridor between the two regions, Hartford Business Journal reports.

• Negotiations over a new contract for assistant teachers and parent liaisons in New Haven schools has hit an impasse — as paraprofessionals cite too little pay, too much resistance from the public school district, and a contested union deal now heading to arbitration, reports the New Haven Independent.

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