Location: New Haven, Conn.

Focus: “It’s your town, read all about it”; 5-day week online news site covering people, cities, neighborhoods in New Haven; original reporting, links to other sites with New Haven news

Started: 2005

Staff:  13; Editor Paul Bass, a veteran New Haven reporter, Managing Editor Melissa Bailey; 4 staff writers; 5 contributing reporters; bureau chiefs in capital, outlying communities; print partnership with La Voz Hispana, state’s largest circulation Spanish paper

Funding: non-profit — donations, grants, sponsors; site is ;”produced in conjunction with the Online Journalism Project, a not-for-profit effort to promote professional-quality ’stand-alone’ and ‘hyperlocal’ news sites on the Internet.”

Site: newhavenindependent.org

From About Us

New Haven Independent.org is rooted in and devoted to the city. We believe that democracy starts at home, with smart, thorough, in-depth local news reporting and broad citizen debate about local issues. Thanks to the Internet, journalists and news-deprived citizens need no longer be hostages to out-of-state media conglomerates. We can reclaim our communities. Power of the press now belongs not to those who own one, but to those who own a modem.

Sample stories: “After crash, cop rescued from car”; “Anti-blight bill becomes law”; “Cops arrest lab tech in Annie Le murder”

Media mentions: in New York Times story about local weekly New Haven Advocate outsourcing stories to India, “Made in India, but published in New Haven”

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I’m still in New Haven and they found the body of the disappeared med student. But she didn’t seem to have disappeared at all. Her face was plastered all over the shops and lampposts in the city, the front pages of local newspapers, and at least an hour on Nancy Grace. It’s kind of the opposite of disappearing. It’s my last day here and they’ve found her body in the walls of the research building where she worked. She was 4’11 and was a bride-to-be, the news reiterates constantly. This city favors the billionaire’s kids and they seem distant from the whole thing because the victim was not an undergrad. Usually I wouldn’t bother mentioning sensationalistic deaths but it is difficult to ignore the whole thing when everywhere you go, there are bricks, elm trees, and her xeroxed face.

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Results of an autopsy of Yale University graduate student Annie Le are expected to be released amid reports that police are preparing to make an arrest in her killing.

From the Associated Press:

A spokeswoman for the chief state medical examiner’s office told The Associated Press that the cause of Annie Le’s death would be released after 3 p.m. Tuesday. The office had been withholding its report to assist the police investigation.

New Haven police did not return calls Tuedsay morning. They have said that Le’s killing was not a random act and that no students are believed to be involved in the death.

Authorities Monday officially identified the remains as those of Annie Le, 24, the Yale doctoral student in pharmacology who had been missing since last Tuesday and whose body was discovered Sunday hidden inside a wall in a basement lab building where she worked in the medical school complex.

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Photo by Jeaneen Lund

On Friday, October 16th, Firehouse 12’s fifth annual Fall Jazz Series will present a two-set performance by the Gretchen Parlato Band.

Led by New York-based vocalist/composer Gretchen Parlato, the most recent winner of the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition, this quartet, featuring pianist Fabian Almazan, bassist Alan Hampton and drummer Kendrick Scott, is touring the country in support of her new release, In A Dream (ObliqSound). The record documents a mix of her own original material as well as singular interpretations of music by Duke Ellington, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Stevie Wonder.

Critics have called In A Dream “simply stunning” (Ted Gioia, Jazz.com), “gently thrilling” (John Byngey, The Times, London), “leagues ahead of the year’s other vocal jazz recordings” (Michael J. West, Washington City Paper) and “the most alluring jazz vocal album of 2009″ (Billboard).

“Parlato has been blessed with extraordinary talents,” explains The International Review of Music’s Don Heckman, “an unerring sense of pitch, utterly relaxed rhythmic clarity, an open ear for harmony. Other singers have similar abilities. But what makes her so unique is the imaginative way in which she uses those skills to rove deeply within the instrumental sounds, while still retaining her presence as the vocal center of the music.”

“Gretchen Parlato became a presence in New York jazz five years ago,” wrote the New York Times‘ Ben Ratliff in a June 2009 live review. “There was always some warm egolessness in her performances: for sure, she was singing for and with each band, making clear the notion of the voice as an instrument. But really leading a band is a whole other refinement, and more recently she’s achieved it.”

Although she has only recorded twice as a leader, the Los Angeles native has performed with a wide range of prominent musical figures and already built a discography of more than 40 recordings, including recent titles by Kenny Barron, Terence Blanchard, Lionel Loueke and Esperanza Spalding.

AllMusic.com’s Michael G. Nastos adds, “Her singing is pure sterling silver…alluring, distinct, and mature…Gretchen Parlato is going to be a major player on the contemporary vocal music scene, jazz or not.” Learn more at http://gretchenparlato.com

2009 Fall Jazz Series Schedule:

09/18 :: Brandon Ross & Blazing Beauty
09/25 :: Matt Wilson Quartet
10/02 :: Mauger: Rudresh Mahanthappa/Mark Dresser/Gerry Hemingway
10/09 :: Steve Lehman Trio
10/16 :: Gretchen Parlato Band
10/23 :: Whirrr! The Music of Jimmy Giuffre
10/30 :: Taylor Eigsti Trio
11/06 :: ODE: Larry Ochs/Trevor Dunn/Lisle Ellis/Michael Sarin
11/13 :: The Peter Evans Quartet
11/20 :: Darius Jones Trio
12/04 :: Mary Halvorson Quintet
12/11 :: Amy Cervini Quartet
12/18 :: Daniel Levin Trio

Tickets and more information available at:
http://firehouse12.com/performance_space_calendar.asp

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After a fun weekend in Ridgfield with the Ifert-Miller family, Karl James decided to re-join the band. Now that we have our rhythm guitarist back, practice has been awesome—the missing piece is definitely back in place!

In other news, Terrella is looking to book shows ASAP. We have a potential audition night at The Space in New Haven on Sept. 30th. We need support! We’ll keep you updated on the logistics.

If you’d like to book us, please shoot us an e-mail at terrellaband@gmail.com.

Thanks for the support!

P.S. Albeit with much reluctance, we’ve set up a MySpace Music page to reach out to venues around CT.

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For disabled homeowners the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund ROOF project may be able to assist homeowners with reducing mortgages for homeowners current on their mortgages.  If they are unable to help they may be able to refer you to other agencies or programs available. 203 789-8690

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A muscular Yale lab technician was arrested and charged with murder Thursday morning in the slaying of grad student Annie Le, authorities said.

Raymond Clark 3rd, his head bowed, was led out of a Super 8 Motel in handcuffs and placed in an unmarked police car about 8:30 a.m. Traffic was halted on two major boulevards outside the Cromwell, Conn., motel as Clark was transported to the New Haven police stationhouse.

His bond was set at $3 million.

“Based on numerous interviews, forensic evidence, and information learned from viewing video surveillance, detectives have secured the arrest warrant for Clark,” New Haven Police Chief James Lewis said.

Lewis said Le, 24, was not sexually assaulted. He called her strangulation death a case of “workplace violence,” but would not elaborate on what might have triggered the attack.

There are no other suspects, Lewis added.

The New Haven Register reported that authorities have linked DNA from Clark, 24, who worked in the same Yale building as Le, to the murder.

Undercover investigators were massed in the parking lot overnight – and one motorist passing by shouted, “Get him, get him!” at police.

Clark apparently decamped to the motel after cops hauled him from his home in handcuffs Tuesday, obtained DNA samples and let him go.

While police were waiting for DNA results, they had gathered circumstantial evidence.

Clark reportedly failed a lie detector test and had scratch marks on his chest. And computer records from Yale suggested he was the last person to see Le.

Swipe cards Le and Clark used to move through different areas of college buildings showed they were in the same room shortly after 10 a.m. on Sept. 8, The Hartford Courant reported.

Le, 24, wasn’t seen alive after that, and her card wasn’t used again. But Clark swiped into the area where she was found strangled five days later in a crawlspace, a law enforcement source told the paper.

New Haven Police Chief James Lewis refused to give details of Clark and Le’s relationship, saying only that they worked in the same building and passed each other in the halls.

Cops interviewed Clark several times in the days after Le disappeared, but then he stopped talking with detectives and asked for a lawyer.

Clark’s lawyer, David Dworski, said yesterday the muscular technician was cooperating with the investigation. “We are committed to proceeding appropriately with authorities with whom we are in regular communication,” Dworski said.

State police officers impounded Clark’s red Mustang yesterday. They also took about 150 pieces of forensic evidence from the Yale lab, where he mostly did janitorial work.

Le’s body was discovered stuffed behind a basement wall inside the lab on Sunday – the same day she had planned to get married on Long Island.

The official cause of her death was ruled as “traumatic asphyxiation due to neck compression.”

As cops and Clark played a waiting game last night, new details about his background emerged – including an allegation of forcible sex.

A high school sweetheart told Connecticut cops six years ago that he forced her to have sex, the New Haven Independent reported.

“I feel like I’m 16 all over again,” the unidentified woman wrote in recent postings on her Facebook page, the Independent reported. “It’s just bringing back everything.”

Clark and the young woman attended Branford High School, where he played on the baseball team and was a member of the Asian Awareness Club.

Cops were summoned to the Connecticut school in 2003 after Clark and the girlfriend got into a confrontation.
She told cops “that at one time did force her to have sex with him,” a detective wrote in the police report.

The young woman declined to press charges.

Clark’s neighbors in Middletown, Conn., were in disbelief that he was at the center of a murder probe.

“He always seemed too quiet,” neighbor Rick Tarallo, 23, said. “Other than that, he seemed like a very good guy. He didn’t strike me as he was gonna kill somebody. I’m still in shock.”

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The New York Times reports that a co-worker has been charged with 24-year-old med student’s murder.

Meanwhile, the Yale Daily News runs a “he was a typical nice guy” story on the alleged killer’s years as a high school athlete. Creepy photos included.

Annie Le was strangled to death, according to the medical examiner’s report. No word on whether she was sexually assaulted. But Le’s body was found on what was to be her wedding day. More details on the killer’s motive will undoubtedly emerge.

Isn’t it chilling how love, lust and violence are so often linked together?

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