Politics

The legislature's Labor and Public Employees Committee voted along party lines today to endorse increasing the $8.25 minimum wage. That's the easy part of raising the wage for the first time in three years.

Getting a vote in the Senate and House seems unlikely.

The Senate refused to bring a minimum wage bill to a vote last year, concluding that it was bad for business in a weak economy, and the new House speaker has no interest in taking up the issue this year.

As one of the states that has legalized same-sex marriage, Connecticut has joined a dozen other states in filing amicus briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to support lower court decisions striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, which limits marriage under federal law to the union of a man and a woman.

"Discrimination based on sexual orientation has no place in our society or under our laws," Attorney General Jepsen said in a statement today. "I urge the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm these decisions and recognize the same equal protection rights for all married couples."

America's leading wine retailer, Total Wine & More, opened its first outlet in Connecticut Dec. 6, hiring 50 employees to staff a 35,000-square-foot superstore in Norwalk.

With 88 other stores in 15 states, Total Wine tends to be a game-changer wherever it goes, offering everything from a $1.49 California sparkler to a Bordeaux that fetches $14,999. But its variety of 8,000 wines, 3,000 liquors and 2,500 beers is not enough to reshape the Connecticut market.