After All Things

Census error

The U.S. census says Connectcut’s population was massively overcounted in 2022. The state faces a teacher shortage headed into this school year. Connecticut homeowners aren’t too happy with their latest electric bills. And WSHU’s Off the Path brings us the complicated legacy of one of our region's most notorious pirates.

Duration:: 11m
Broadcast on:: 01 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

You're listening to After All Things, WSHU's Daily News and Culture Update from the Long Island Sound region. The U.S. Census says Connecticut's population was massively over-counted in 2022. The state faces a teacher shortage once again headed into this school year. Connecticut homeowners aren't too happy with their latest electric bills, and WSHU's Off the Path brings us the complicated legacy of one of our region's most notorious pirates. Those stories and more are ahead. I'm Sabrina Garon. The U.S. Census says they miscalculated how many people moved into Connecticut during the 2022 American Community Survey. WSHU's Molly Ingram reports, the mistake led many to believe that Connecticut had a population boom. The 2022 Census report initially showed that more than 50,000 people had moved to Connecticut from other parts of the country. Now, researchers say it's more likely that the state lost 13,000 residents to other states. Governor Ned Lamont says he doesn't know what caused the miscalculation. The Census Bureau had had a bigger number coming in from New York. They revised that downward. You know, a lot of the naysayers don't want to include international migration and folks coming in from overseas, moving into our state as well, immigration. So I think we are still gaining population like both of our peers around here. The mistake was discovered by the nonprofit Connecticut Data Collaborative, New Census Data will not be available until next year. Molly Ingram, WSHU News, Connecticut faces teacher shortages heading into the new school year. WSHU's Ada Uzemlar has more. The Connecticut Department of Education identified 11 different certification areas short on teachers. The report shows there's a shortage of special education teachers for all grades. There's an all-grade shortage in bilingual technology and English language learner education as well. On top of general shortages, high needs districts in the state also lack school librarians and media specialists as well as speech and language pathologists. The Department of Education says the priority areas to fill first are math, science, bilingual education and special education. Ada Uzemlar, WSHU News. Higher electric rates that went into effect on July 1st have many Connecticut customers stewing over their latest bills, WSHU's Shelly Haspen-Cadish reports. Customers of ever-source energy saw their monthly bill increase by $8 while bills for United Illuminating customers dropped by $1.55. Her Skyneticate Media reports both utilities say a particular element of the bill, public benefits charges, has had a major impact on customer costs. The State Office of Consumer Counsel describes public benefits charges as costs associated with providing electricity to hardship customers. Her says some customers have reported public benefits charges have gone up more than four times on their latest bill. Republican state legislative leaders say Connecticut has the second highest electricity rates in the country. They say their proposals to remove some of the mandates and other costs from public benefits charges have been voted down by the legislature's Democratic majority. Shelly Haspen-Cadish, WSHU News. Coming up, the latest from WSHU's Off the Path explores the legacy of Captain William Kidd. That's ahead after a message from our supporter. Local support comes from Hartford HealthCare, the only health system in the Northeast, with all its hospitals receiving A grades for safety from the LeapFrog group, the nation's leading independent safety watchdog group, HartfordHealthCare.org. Long Islanders are encouraged to report wild turkey sightings to the State Department of Environmental Conservation through its website. The department says it's one of a few factors that help them decide how many birds hunters can take, shooting hours, and more. Long Island alone has more than 3,000 birds, and that number is quickly growing according to the DEC, a reintroduction program in the 1990s brought the population back. Suffolk's fall hunting season runs for about two weeks in November. A Bridgeport Port Jefferson ferryboat was damaged when it collided with a barge in Bridgeport Harbor last week, and it's been taken out of service for repairs. The park city should be out of commission for about a week, and the company is now running on a modified schedule. The LIDAR will also adjust its schedule again next month. The railroad will schedule fewer trains to Grand Central Madison to allow more service in Depend Station and Brooklyn. LIDAR officials say this will cut waiting times and offer more direct routes in Depend. The Mesantucket Pequot tribal nation is getting federal funds to improve conservation and climate practices at its farm in North Stonington. WSHU's Janice Roman has more. The $2 million grant comes from the USDA. It'll go toward the tribes project Miko Nook Farm, which was established in 2016. The farm grows fruits in vegetables and greenhouses for tribe members year round. The leaders say the farm allows the tribe to be self-sufficient, while being environmentally sustainable. They say the grant continues an existing partnership with the USDA. Tribe Chairman Rodney Butler says the funding strengthens the farm's commitment to sustainable agriculture and environmental stewardship. He says it will ensure a healthier, more resilient environment for the community. Janice Roman, WSHU News. Captain William Kidd is one of history's most notorious pirates, and his legend is deeply tied to rumors of buried treasure up and down the Atlantic coast. But Captain Kidd insisted he was not a pirate. WSHU's Davis Donovan tries to unravel Kidd's complicated legacy for the podcast Off the Path, or as we're calling it this season, Off the Plank. There's one picture that comes to mind when I think of Captain Kidd. Maybe you've seen it too. It's by the illustrator Howard Pyle. It shows Captain Kidd looming over some treasure chests on a desert island. He's dark and sinister, holding a pistol and staring out suspiciously while his crew digs a hole to bury the treasure. To be honest, I didn't know anything else about the guy. I just thought he went around burying treasure everywhere. He definitely did have this legendary status. It's pirate historian Rebecca Simon. But what's really interesting about Captain Kidd is that he doesn't really fit the archetypal pirate we think of, like the swashbuckling, cutless, carrying pirate captain. He was a socialite. He had married very wealthy, so he dressed very finely. Captain Kidd was from Scotland. He settled in New York City in the late 1600s and hobnobbed with the area's elites, including an important colonial governor. The governor even got him a job, a royal commission signed by King William III to do some work in the Indian Ocean. Kidd shipped out with high hopes. He was a privateer. He worked for the British government and he had a very excellent reputation. Privateers are kind of like state-sanctioned pirates. They rob ships for the government. A privateer works by a contract called a letter of Mark. And the letter of Mark says, "You are working for us, the British Crown. You are going to go to the Indian Ocean and you are going to be robbing rival ships who might be taking wealth such as the Dutch." So he was really a pirate hunter. You get to keep about 80% of all the loot you steal if you attack the ship. So it's a very specific contract detailing very heavily what ships that they are allowed to capture. Captain Kidd got to the Indian Ocean with his letter of Mark. Now the thing is he's not having a good time in the Indian Ocean. They aren't capturing very many ships. His crew got restless. They weren't getting paid and they felt like Kidd wasn't keeping up his end of the bargain. One day, Kidd got in a fight with a crew member named William Moore. Who is saying, you know, there's a ship in the distance, go capture the ship, or else we're going to commit a mutiny. And Captain Kidd calls him a lousy dog and Moore shouts back, "If I'm a lousy dog, it's because you've made me so." and then Kidd picks up a metal bucket and cracks Moore over the head with it. Moore died of his injuries. Kidd insisted it was an accident, but his crew was ready to revolt. And in order to appease his crew, what he does is he decides to just start attacking any ship that comes across them. Later, when he faced trial, Captain Kidd tried to make the case that he was sanctioned to attack the other ships. And privateering carried a fair amount of ambiguity. But one of those ships belonged to the Mughal Empire, which ruled India at the time. That upset England. It didn't want to lose a valuable trading partner. So the English government turned against Kidd and set off a worldwide manhunt for the man they'd suddenly labeled a pirate. This manhunt is a huge deal. The late 1600s was the advent of newspapers. And people often read them aloud at pubs, and it spreads pretty far and wide. So pirates are often capturing people's imagination. You know, these criminals sailing in far off places, getting money, were always attracted to that sort of thing. So Captain Kidd became an unlikely and unintentional 17th century celebrity. And this is when he knows he's in trouble. He sails to the West Indies. He offloads his ship. He sells the goods. He gets rid of his ship because he knows that's going to make him too recognizable. And he wants to try to get rid of any evidence of piracy as he can. So by the time he's arrested, pretty much everybody knows who Captain Kidd is. On the next off the path, what Captain Kidd did with his treasure, and how he tried to buck the pirate label to save his life, I'm Davis Donovan. Thank you for listening too after all things supported by Hartford HealthCare. For more stories from the Long Island Sound region, listen on the radio, stream online at WSHU.org or download the WSHU app. That's also where you can get more great podcasts from WSHU like off the path, which we just heard a bit from before, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And as always, reach out with any thoughts or story ideas you might have. Our email is news@wshu.org. I'm Sabrina Garone. Enjoy the rest of your day. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Bye. Bye. Bye. the next one. (gentle music) You