#Norwalk The Norwalk Department of Police Service proudly presents our new Community Engagement Van. This vehicle was purchased through a Choice Neighborhood Grant in cooperation with Norwalk Housing and Norwalk Redevelopment.
The Choice Neighborhoods program leverages public and private dollars to support locally-driven strategies and solutions that revitalize neighborhoods with input from community leaders, residents, and other stakeholders. The Community Engagement Van is the result of these combined resources and this cooperation. The primary function of the van will be to encourage neighborhood-police interaction by allowing police officers to bring their office to the community.
The van embodies the core components of our mission statement: providing quality service to our diverse Norwalk community, fostering a cooperative spirit with our citizens and community partners, and working to promote an environment that is safe.
2020-09-17@2:00pm#Bridgeport CT– Today’s vehicle fire was hosted by Bridgeport under Route 8 near North Washington Avenue. Fortunately, no one was in the car.
#Bridgeport CT–Anyone left who remembers the Three Door Inn in Bridgeport? This was a 1951 newspaper advertisement. What were your memories? Who was the owner? When did they go out of business? Enquiring minds want to know!
2020-09-17#Bridgeport CT–This morning a 30′ sail boat was on its side against the rocks near the foot of Howard Avenue. Bridgeport Fireboat and Zodiac 7 (rubber inflatable boat) deployed. The crew of Zodiac 7 removed one occupant and three dogs. Shuttled them back to land with no injuries reported.
Congressman Jim Himes (CT-04) announced that Sacred Heart University received a $249,032 Training-based Workforce Development for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant will address the shortages in cybersecurity staff by creating a vocational training in cyberinfrastructure security for community college students.
“While our economy adapts to growing technology trends, it is critical that we provide students with the training and resources to be successful in the 21st century,” said Congressman Jim Himes. “As a member of the Intelligence Committee and a former member of the Homeland Security Committee, I know that building a well-trained cyberinfrastructure security workforce is essential to the country’s competitiveness and security. Sacred Heart University’s program will be an incredible asset to Connecticut’s economy and community college students.”
“This project uses problem-based learning, an innovative approach to teaching cybersecurity, to bring community college students into the high rewarding cybersecurity field, thereby addressing the shortage of technical staff in cybersecurity,” Dr. SajalBhatia, Assistant Professor and Director of MS Cybersecurity program within the School of Computer Science and Engineering at Sacred Heart University. “Community colleges have a significant student population of low-income, diverse, first-generation college students that have the potential for enabling a new stream of cybersecurity professionals. This grant will foster research in the field of cybersecurity education at Sacred Heart University and will place the institution at the forefront of nationwide efforts in bridging the enormous skill and personnel gap in cybersecurity.”
According to Dr. Bhatia, most community colleges face significant challenges in teaching advanced cybersecurity skills for cyberinfrastructure. To address these challenges, Sacred Heart’s project will develop hands-on training modules on several offensive/defensive topics on cyberinfrastructure and a CRICE (Cyber Range Infrastructure for Cybersecurity Education) infrastructure using NSFCloud to support problem-based learning. Dr. Bhatia is looking to have these modules ready for community colleges in the next 12-18 months.
This press release was made possible by:
Visit BMW of Bridgeport at: https://www.bmwofbridgeport.com/
WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) led a group of 22 senators, including U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), in demanding that pharmaceutical manufacturers stop withholding medications discounted under the 340B Drug Pricing Program from qualified providers that use contract pharmacies – locking out low-income patients from accessing lifesaving drugs and care.
In a letter to the drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the senators pointed to multiple retaliatory, burdensome, and likely unlawful efforts by its member drug companies to prevent 340B-covered providers from receiving discounted drugs, including denials to providers using contract pharmacies and excessive claims data requests.
“By improperly limiting access to 340B drugs, manufacturers will sever a lifeline to treatment for those who are overwhelmingly underserved, low-income, and vulnerable,” the senators wrote in the letter to PhRMA President and CEO Stephen Ubl. “It is troubling that during a time of deep uncertainty involving access to health care, many of your member companies are taking retaliatory actions against FQHCs and other nonprofit health care providers that utilize legally permissible channels, such as contract pharmacies, to dispense 340B drugs. This coercive behavior is ultimately most harmful to patients and should be reversed.”
The 340B Drug Pricing Program requires drug manufacturers who receive reimbursements through Medicaid to provide discounted drugs to eligible public and nonprofit health care organizations, including Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), hospitals, Ryan White HIV/AIDS clinics, and other safety net providers. Those providers in turn use 340B savings to provide discounted drugs to patients, especially those who are low-income or uninsured, and expand access to essential patient care. Covered 340B providers are allowed to contract with pharmacies (known as “contract pharmacies”) to dispense 340B drugs.
The senators also called on drug manufacturers to stop the practice of requiring 340B providers to submit claims data – and threatening to deny 340B pricing for drugs dispensed through contract pharmacies if providers did not provide the requested data – pointing out that this excessive and burdensome data request is not tied to federal 340B compliance obligations: “[t]hese onerous requirements from the pharmaceutical industry’s 340B Program manufacturers are egregious oversteps that will limit the ability of 340B covered entities to provide affordable care, and ultimately, harm patients.”
The senators highlighted that the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which oversees the 340B Program, has agreed that the steps taken by drug manufacturers put patient access to discounted drugs at risk. HRSA has recently stated: “Manufacturers that refuse to honor contract pharmacy orders may be significantly limiting access to 340B discounted drugs for many underserved and vulnerable populations. Many of these populations may reside in geographically isolated areas and rely on contract pharmacies as a critical point of access for obtaining their prescriptions.”
2020-09-16@6:38pm–#Bridgeport CT–Firefighters on the way to the Madison Avenue Library at 3455 Madison Avenue for a woman locked in a bathroom. The library closed a half-hour ago.
