Rock to Rock is hosting its 16th annual Earth Day Ride, with the help of food trucks, live music, and community partners.  The bicycle ride, which will start and end in East Rock, will raise money for local environmental projects. Participants can choose from varying routes for different distance-capabilities as well as a Family Ride.  A Green Fair in East Rock park will top off the event, welcoming finishers and community members with music and food.  Read Rock To Rock’s full press release below.  On Saturday, April 27 from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m ..read more

Wilbur Cross's pool: No swimming here this summer. Three of the city’s five pools should be open for swim programming this summer, while two will remain shuttered for maintenance. The three public school-housed pools expected to be open this summer for Youth and Recreation Department programming are at Conte West Hills Magnet School at 511 Chapel St., Hillhouse High School at 480 Sherman Pkwy., and John S. Martinez School at 100 James St.  The two school pools expected to be closed this summer are at Wilbur Cross High School at 181 Mitchell Dr. and Career High School at 140 Legi ..read more

Schiavone at 80 performs in the living room of a Chapel Street frat house apartment while fighting off an eviction. Joel Schiavone, the sockless banjo-strumming real estate developer who launched New Haven’s downtown renaissance, has died at the age of 87, leaving behind a legacy that will long outlive him. In remaking the blocks in and around Chapel, College, and Crown streets, Schiavone invented ​“new urbanism” in New Haven before people began using the word nationwide — and copying the playbook. He died on Monday. He spent his last years ​“penniless” and struggled with health ..read more

Michael Ortiz in foreground before diorama evoking Connecticut's Long Island shoreline. “Absolutely magnificent,” eighth grader Michael Ortiz marveled at a representation of the Connecticut shoreline with its marshes, night herons snagging fish, and dozens of other labeled flora and fauna — all as part of one of the newly reopened state history dioramas at the freshly renovated Yale Peabody Museum. Michael was with his class from Waterbury’s Children’s Community School on Tuesday morning visiting the 170 Whitney Ave. museum.  He was one of an impressive 23,000 people who ha ..read more

Sketch Tha Cataclysm at Three Sheets. “Hello several people, rap professionals, and various cool people,” said Sketch Tha Cataclysm from the Three Sheets stage, as he and fellow New Haven hip hop stalwart Mo Niklz hosted a group of touring artists from Chicago for a night of high-energy indie hip hop. A small but enthusiastic audience stayed close for that Wednesday night show, which included performances by Chicago-based artists Aplacecalledhell, Tomcantsleep, and Killvongard. Aplacecalledhell started off the night with moody, introspective beats that sampled from everythi ..read more

The Teklehaimanot family (center) hears their name called at Tuesday's housing lottery. Seven-year-old Meklit and five-year-old Bethlehem ran around the empty rooms of 455 Howard Ave., dodging the legs of parents and realtors and city workers. This two-family home would soon be theirs. “We always wanted a big house,” Meklit said, minutes after her father won the Livable City Initiative’s (LCI’s) latest affordable housing lottery. ​“I always wanted this to happen.”  Meklit and Bethlehem are the daughters of 57-year-old Konstantinos Teklehaimanot, who is now set to buy his fi ..read more

Qinxuan Pan. A state judge sentenced Qinxuan Pan to 35 years in prison after the former MIT artificial intelligence researcher pleaded guilty to the 2021 murder of Yale graduate student Kevin Jiang. State Superior Court Judge Gerald Harmon handed down that sentence on Tuesday, according to the state criminal convictions database and a press release sent out by the state’s attorney’s office. The sentence comes roughly two months after Pan, 33, pleaded guilty in late February to the murder of Jiang, 26, who was shot to death at Lawrence and Nicoll streets near Jiang’s fiancee’s ap ..read more

New Haven Counts ED Ronald Coleman (center) and New Haven Reads ED Kirsten Levinsohn on Tuesday. A citywide math and literacy tutoring effort has reached 1,700 New Haven elementary school students since launching nearly a year ago — and is now on the lookout for 100 more volunteer tutors this summer, on top of the 240 who are currently signed up, to keep the program growing.  Mayor Justin Elicker and representatives from various partnering nonprofit organizations delivered those updates Tuesday afternoon during a press conference at Wexler Grant School at 55 Foote St ..read more

Parent Raquel Sanchez checks out the headlines during PLTI media literacy lesson. Raquel Sanchez paged through recent issues of the New Haven Register and La Voz Hispana, on the lookout for opinion essays and articles about families — as part of a class teaching parents about the importance of media literacy for themselves, their kids, and others. Sanchez and her classmates of fellow parents met last Wednesday afternoon and evening during the latest session of the Parent Leadership Training Institute (PLTI), run by United Way of Greater New Haven.  PLTI is a 20-week tr ..read more

Trekking towards Morris Creek. About 30 people took a walk through Morris Cove, from Lighthouse Point Park to East Shore Park and back again, to see for themselves the route the city has proposed for the Shoreline Greenway Trail — and to see what other routes, or detours off the main route, might be possible.  The Saturday morning walk, organized by the New Haven Bioregional Group, was led by Aaron Goode of the group and Chris Ozyck, associate director of Urban Resources Initiative, along with representatives from Shoreline Greenway Trail as well as Doug Hausladen, executive dir ..read more