The Progressive Action Roundtable mission is to inform the greater New Haven community about the activities of many progressive groups, so that people may learn about them and become involved in discussions and actions on issues for the common good, such as peace, health, racial equity, justice, clean energy and the environment.
Here you will find information about food pantries and soup kitchens in the Greater New Haven area: https://bit.ly/4u6SQwn.
We’re asking our readers to print copies of this two-sided page to leave at various public places and put on bulletin boards. The information is also online at https://bit.ly/4u6SQwn.
Please, when you give a few dollars to people on the street asking for money, also hand them a food resource page.
by Sena Wazer, Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator, Sierra Club CT
Eversource, the electric and gas utility for much of Connecticut, has proposed to build a new interconnection pipeline under the Connecticut River. This expansion would impact Middletown, East Hampton, and Higganum, in particular the Connecticut Valley Railroad State Park Trail, Hurd State Park, and Higganum Meadows Wildlife Management Area.
Eversource wants to complete this expansion using a practice called horizontal directional drilling. When this practice was used in 2024 for a pipeline in Rhode Island, the company spilled 50 gallons of drilling fluid into the Sakonnet River. Connecticut doesn’t need more methane gas, we don’t need more pipelines, and we certainly don’t need them drilled under the Connecticut River.
In addition to the potential harm that projects like this do to our ecosystems, they are also bad for our climate, health, and costs. Two recent publications have shown that methane gas reliance and pipeline expansions raise our bills.
A study in Maine, which is on the same regional electricity grid as Connecticut, found that methane gas is the primary driver of rising electricity prices in Maine, while clean energy would lower bills. A recently published primer from The Future of Heat Initiative found that Connecticut customers are paying more for gas pipes and their expansion, than for the actual gas we use.
Are you interested in learning more and taking action? Join Sierra Club Connecticut, the No Pipeline Expansion Northeast Coalition, and Sunrise Movement Wesleyan for an educational forum in Middletown titled “Pipelines Under Our River: Safety, Costs, and What Residents Should Know.” The forum will be hosted on Wednesday, March 25, at 6 p.m. at the Russell Library. Find more information and RSVP here: tinyurl.com/middletownforum. Email sena.wazer@sierraclub.org with questions.
by Susan Moynihan, Feb. 15, 2026, Hartford Courant
The fossil fuel company, TC Energy, is proposing to double the size of a compressor station in Brookfield, Connecticut. The compressor station is located only 1,900 feet from Brookfield’s only middle school. Compressor stations release methane and other toxic air pollutants into the community, and pose a risk of explosion. In the environmental assessment submitted by TC Energy, the company stated that the added gas capacity is designed for ConEdison and National Grid in New York. That means that while the project would pollute Connecticut’s air, the added energy capacity is for New York, despite the state’s greenhouse gas reduction and building electrification laws…I call on Connecticut to put our safety and climate first, and stand up against fossil fuel expansion. We are being gaslit by the methane industry.
[Reprinted from CT Green Energy News, Feb. 20, 2026. To get a free subscription to this weekly online newsletter, visit www.pacecleanenergy.org.]
by Stanley Heller, Middle East Crisis Committee
For a decade, activists have been asking the CT Treasury to tell us what investments it has in Israeli apartheid and to dump those investments. The Treasury holds the pension money of teachers and state and city employees. We’ve made moral arguments, legal arguments and appealed to their business sense. So far, we’ve failed. As of last June, Connecticut had $106 million invested in Israel. This month, we’ve learned that there are now $141 million in those tainted investments! They include $6 million in State of Israel Bonds. Israel can use that money for any purpose, for military, tractors to knock down Palestinian houses, prisons (that the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem calls “torture camps”), anything at all. There’s also $250,000 in Cellebrite, which makes hardware and software for surveillance, that is, for spying. Another investment is in ZIM, a company that ships parts and supplies to Israel and exports Israeli weapons to other countries. $600,000 is invested in ZIM.
The worst investment, though, is in Israel’s biggest weapons maker, Elbit. The investment went up from $2.4 million last year to $4 million now. Lest you think that Elbit’s value nearly doubled in 6 months, realize that the Treasury’s fund managers bought 500,000 more shares in Elbit over that short time period.
On April 1, 2024, a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy of three cars drove on a route pre-approved and coordinated with the Israeli military in central Gaza. One car after another was targeted with missiles from a Hermes 450 drone and all seven WCK workers and volunteers were killed. Hermes is made by Elbit. This wasn’t the first time that an Elbit drone was connected to a human rights abuse. In 2014, a Hermes drone attack killed four children playing on a Gaza beach in front of dozens of journalists. Those are the massacres we know about. Palestinians are killed daily by drones. 85% of them are made by Elbit.
Officials at the Treasury have two excuses. They say they have a “fiduciary” responsibility to make money for the pension funds. They also say that they don’t pick stocks directly. They employ companies whose managers make the actual investments. Someone should tell them to read about Pontius Pilate and the washing of hands. Erick Russell is our Treasurer. Maybe you could tell them via state.treasurer@ct.gov.
by Susan Bramhall, NHIC
On Saturday, Feb. 7, one of the coldest days of our current snowy winter, the New Haven Immigrants Coalition (NHIC), with support from 8 other organizations – C4D, CT Tenants Union, PSL CT, New Haven Federation of Teachers, Artists Against Apartheid, Yalies for Palestine, and Greater New Haven Indivisible – invited groups and community members who want to engage more actively in support for immigrant justice to a gathering at the First Presbyterian Church. The crowd of 210 that responded to Break the ICE! filled the sanctuary! The incredible turnout showed our shared enthusiasm to expand and strengthen our community in response to authoritarian and racist threats. A primary goal of the organizers was for everyone to meet and get to know each other and the organizations they work with and to learn about the many aspects of the NHIC work. I can testify that the initial “ice breaker” challenge to talk to three people you haven’t met before during a 5-minute period was inspiring and gave me a sense of how diverse the gathering was.
NHIC organizers gave brief overviews of the current NHIC working groups including the rapid response and hotline team, the family solidarity group providing direct aid for families with members who have been detained, the group doing outreach to communities and businesses to prepare for anticipated ICE activity, court accompaniment, food solidarity supporting families who can’t risk shopping or are food insecure. After the gathering in the sanctuary, people were treated to a delicious dinner from Mazorca and hangout sessions to connect with working groups and organizations. It was an exciting warm event, truly Breaking the ICE on a freezing night.
FUNDRAISER in April – stay tuned for the date. To learn more, apply to volunteer, get trained or donate, visit the NHIC linktree at https://linktr.ee/NHVimmigrants.
Get your taxes done for free at the New Haven Free Public Library. Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) volunteers are available at all five library locations this year. Make an appointment for help at one of our four neighborhood branches or drop in for help at Ives Library, 133 Elm Street, during their walk-in hours. For more information, visit https://nhfpl.org/vita-2026.
by Julianna Larue, Organizer, Sierra Club CT
Connecticut families are feeling the costly effects of climate disasters. Extreme weather like floods, storms and droughts in Connecticut require clean up and rebuilding that costs millions each year. Those costs are passed on to everyday people. That’s not fair. Connecticut must start by holding big polluters accountable through a Climate Superfund that makes those who caused the damage pay their fair share.
At the core of this issue is a simple lesson we all learned in primary school — if you make a mess, you clean it up. For decades, the biggest polluters have created pollution that is making extreme weather worse. When clean-up bills for extreme weather events come due, the polluters are nowhere to be found. Who is stuck with the bill? Families, taxpayers, and local communities.
Connecticut families deserve solutions that lower costs, protect our communities, and hold polluters accountable for the mess they created. Connecticut needs a Climate Superfund.
A Climate Superfund bill would require major fossil fuel companies to assist in paying for some climate-related damages and adaptation measures. It would ensure that companies responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions contribute to mitigating the climate damage they helped create. Importantly, funds would be prioritized for projects that benefit communities hit hardest by fossil fuel pollution and climate change.
In Connecticut alone, extreme weather fueled by climate change caused $53 million in losses to Connecticut farms in 2023 and 2024. Extreme rainfall brought catastrophic flooding and is estimated to have caused $300 million dollars in damages in August of 2024. In September of 2024, during a historic fall drought, brush fires rampaged across the state. A fire in Berlin, which involved out-of-state crews and helicopter water drops, cost upwards of $5 million. According to the Center for Climate Integrity, $5.3 billion is the minimum amount needed for defense against rising sea levels in the state by 2040. All of this amounts to a grand total of at least $5.6 billion that is being put on Connecticut families.
A Climate Superfund, like New York’s $75 billion Climate Change Superfund Act, aims to save taxpayers by shifting costs for climate adaptation from public funds to fossil fuel companies, potentially saving hundreds of billions in avoided future expenses. Projections show New Yorkers could save thousands per person over decades by avoiding costs like massive infrastructure upgrades, and preventing billions in immediate, unsubsidized adaptation spending.
Connecticut families are facing a cost of at least $5.6 billion to clean up climate damages and adapt to rising sea levels. Fossil fuel companies, who long knew the consequences of burning their products, are the primary drivers of this crisis. Why should everyday people in Connecticut have to pay to dig ourselves out of a problem they created?
The Connecticut Legislature is taking up the Climate Superfund happening right now during the 2026 legislative session and your legislators NEED to hear from YOU! Send a message to your legislators here and tell them to support passing the Climate Superfund.
Yale Undergraduates for UNICEF invite you to Protecting Children From ICE, a fundraising conference focused on how ongoing ICE raids are impacting children and what we can do to support and protect them. Join students, advocates, and community partners for an evening of learning, dialogue, and action.Friends,
I’ve just returned from two days of street actions in Minneapolis, including a solemn procession from George Floyd Square to the site of Renee Good’s murder, the general strike and massive ICE OUT march on Friday, which shut down the city. This email is a brief report-back, and comes with special thanks to everyone who kicked in donations to make the voyage possible. It changed me. I’m deeply grateful.
Arriving in the wee hours on Wednesday, I was able to make it to the federal building by noon Thursday, where an ongoing protest vigil established at the beginning of the ICE occupation has continued every day. (To put the occupation in perspective, at present there are, on average, maybe 12-14 ICE agents assigned to most cities in the country; in Minneapolis, there are now over two thousand.) Resisters at the federal building spend the time yelling at ICE personnel as they hastily pass through the gate in their cars, most hiding their faces under masks even while driving.The anger among the people here is widespread, focused and relentless. Words like “coward”, “traitor”, “fascist”, and “FUCK ICE” are hurled perpetually. Pictured on the lower left is my new friend, Bill Breeden, a retired UU minister from Indiana with whom I was connected by Barb Cass and Mike Miles from the nearby Anatoth CW farm. (They’ve graciously offered hospitality to any of us who wish to return in the coming weeks/months.) Bill and I ended up accompanying one another for the next two days of robust resistance.
On Friday morning, upwards of fifty faith-based resisters gathered at St. Paul’s Lutheran church, located in the neighborhood where George Floyd was murdered.
A solemn pilgrimage began at that very spot, now known as George Floyd Square and occupied by a variety of neighborhood people’s organizations. Each corner of G.F. Square is marked by a large statue of a raised fist, with a platform for public speaking-out. A gas station across the street has been converted to a community gathering place. The coalition of people’s organizations here has come up with a list of 24 specific demands, and they’re committed to action and occupation of this public space until each one is met.
The 32nd Rebellious Lawyering Conference will be held Feb. 27–28, 2026 at Yale Law School.
Registration for RebLaw 2026 is now open! To register, please complete both the YaleConnect registration linked here(Link is external) and the ticket purchase linked here(Link is external). (The first site should automatically direct you to the second after you register.)
Registration for RebLaw is pay-what-you-can for all attendees. To offset the cost of the conference and ensure that all our speakers are fairly compensated, we suggest a $15 contribution from all attendees. However, we hope that everyone interested in RebLaw can participate without cost as a barrier.
Please submit copy to PAR at parnewhaven@hotmail.com. 350 word limit. Questions? Call Paula at 203-562-2798.
The next issue is our March issue.
Let us know what your group has planned!
Subscription: $13 for 10 issues, check payable to PAR, 608 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511
by PAR Planning Committee
2026 has begun with many intense challenges for the peace and justice community, locally and nationally. The federal government is out of control. Checks and balances within the government no longer exist as Trump refuses to be reined in even when Congress, the judicial system and states try to do so.
All over the country people have demonstrated against the many horrors and threats to democracy. The US invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president, the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti by ICE in Minneapolis, the threat to implement the Insurrection Act and unleash the military against US citizens who protest, and the approaching dissolution of US-European alliances if Trump follows through with taking over Greenland have made it clear our government does not represent the people or the interests of democracy in the United States.
Greater New Haven-area peace groups have pulled out the stops, sometimes with four demonstrations within four days. We hope in the coming weeks that activists can send PAR reports of their excellent work of resisting fascism. Also welcome are flyers, “talking points,” and transcripts of rally speeches for us to print in future newsletters. Email reports, articles, photos, etc. to parnewhaven@hotmail.com.
by Thomas Breen, Jan. 7, 2026, New Haven Independent
Avelo Airlines plans to stop running deportation flights for the Trump administration later this month after deciding that its participation in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program is too complex and costly to continue.
Photo: Chris Volpe
Avelo spokesperson Courtney Goff confirmed that coming move for the budget airline in an email comment sent to the Independent on Wednesday.
“Avelo will close the base at AZA [in Mesa, Arizona] on January 27 and will conclude participation in the DHS charter program,” Goff wrote. “The program provided short-term benefits
At an April 30 anti-Avelo protest at Tweed.
but ultimately did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue to overcome its operational complexity and costs.”
AZ Family, a local news outlet in Phoenix, first reported on Avelo’s decision to end its deportation flights, which began out of Arizona last May — prompting a New Haven-based boycott movement, condemnation from politicians and activists across the country, and frequent protests outside of Tweed New Haven Airport, where Avelo has been flying direct commercial flights (but not deportation flights) since November 2021.
“The big lesson here is that human suffering is not profitable,” said Pastor Jack Perkins Davidson of Hamden’s Spring Glen Church in a phone interview with the Independent Wednesday. “I hope Avelo and all corporations in the U.S. have learned that valuable lesson, that collaborating with injustice and collaborating with racism, though it may for them provide the allure of short-term gain, are empty promises. There is no benefit.”
[To read the article in its entirety, see https://bit.ly/3NsEIN2]
by Lucy Gellman, Jan. 12, 2026, Arts Paper
Artists, activists, immigrant rights advocates and organizers came together Sunday afternoon [Jan. 11] for “ICE Out For Good,” a rally and gathering that was part of a national day of action grieving the death of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis, Minn. last week. Organized by the national group 50501, the gathering became a call to action amidst escalating violence from ICE agents, directed at both immigrants and U.S. citizens.
“None of this is normal,” said longtime organizer and human rights champion Kica Matos, now president of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and the Immigrant Justice Fund (IJF). She took a moment to acknowledge the 32 known people who have died in ICE custody in the last year alone, victims of a machine that has deported over 500,000 immigrants since January 2025. “Let me say it again. This is not normal.”
“What we are witnessing is authoritarianism and it is being built on the backs of immigrants,” she continued. “Renee’s brutal murder is a sign that this administration’s violence and lawlessness has now extended beyond immigrants. You know why that is? That is because authoritarianism never stops at its first target.”
[To read the article in its entirety, see https://bit.ly/49zbowQ]
by Victoria McEvoy, PAR reader, delegation member to West Bank
Dear PAR reader,
Imagine being the parent of a young child. Imagine having to teach them, “If our car is stopped at a checkpoint and soldiers want to talk to me, and if I leave the car for a very long time, you must go to the road and get into any car with a green-and-white (Palestinian) license plate. They’ll take you to our village police, where you’ll tell them the three ancestral names I’ve taught you, so our family can be contacted to come get you.” Then imagine telling that little one, with false bravado, “I’ll come home as soon as I can.” This is the daily reality under occupation, as I recently heard from a Palestinian mother.
Though I fancy myself a wordsmith, I’ve been trying but failing to adequately describe for you, in a short PAR newsletter article, my recent life-altering trip to the West Bank. Instead, I offer you that true story, and the below links to compelling, articulate summaries by my co-delegates.
I can talk with you (and/or your group) about my experiences in the West Bank, how the situation in Palestine is connected to everything of concern in our world today, and the many doable options for positive change. Feel free to call me at 203-589-5429, or send me an email at vmcevoy@gmail.com.
Here are the links to other delegates’ stories.
Come & See in Palestine by Jessica Sun:
Interview with Anthony Donovan, Brian Terrell, and Mark Colville, the co-founder and co-director of New Haven’s Amistad Catholic Worker:
Meanwhile, here are ways to support Palestinian workers:
https://shop.equalexchange.coop
