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2026-09-02 · Section: state · active · Updated 2026-09-13 ×24

Puerto Rico is running dry: how drought met decades of decay — and Connecticut is answering the call

Puerto Rico is in one of its worst water crises since 2015: a record drought (San Juan's driest July in 120+ years), reservoirs at critical lows, and more than 180,000 customers in the capital metro on rotating 48-hour-plus shutoffs since Aug. 7. The dry spell collided with a water system that loses roughly half its treated water to leaks — and Connecticut, home to the largest Puerto Rican community per capita of any state, is mobilizing: water-utility engineers, a nonprofit aid fund, and a Sept. 2 press conference with Gov. Lamont, who said Connecticut is 'standing by' while state legislators plan an October trip to the island. Rationing has stayed paused for Carraízo customers since Sept. 2, and the metro reservoir has reversed its slide — up on four straight readings to 39.20 meters by Sept. 11, with 12 of the island's 19 reservoirs rising, though La Plata keeps sliding in 'operational adjustments' — after the weekly Drought Committee voted Sept. 8 to extend the pause and review it weekly, citing a favorable rain outlook. AAA — whose executive president said in August that cloud seeding was not an option — confirmed Sept. 8 that it signed a contract worth up to $400,000 with Texas-based SOAR and flew its first seeding mission Sept. 5 over the Carraízo, La Plata and Cidra watersheds, only to draw sharp scientific pushback: a former drought-committee scientist says the 2015 effort 'didn't work,' a 2024 GAO report calls seeding's benefits unproven, and the 2015 project's final report found just one of 27 seeding events had significant effects. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has cleared a first Carraízo sediment-removal permit in more than 30 years to claw back lost capacity. Community coalitions, saying service failures persist despite the pause, took a protest to San Juan’s Baldorioty de Castro expressway on Sept. 7 and turned their demand on AAA’s leadership, calling for the ouster of the utility’s executive president. On Sept. 10 the U.S. Drought Monitor logged the crisis's first retreat — drought coverage down from 75.2% to 69.1% of the island — and Carraízo edged back up to 39.07 meters, 57 centimeters above its threshold, though extreme drought still grips San Juan, Carolina and a broad southern strip, and more than two-thirds of Puerto Rico remains in drought. The drought and the system's decay are far from over. On Sept. 11 the federally appointed oversight board pushed back on the governor's plan to spend up to $9.69 million in emergency funds reactivating five AAA wells, demanding production, viability and long-term cost data before it decides, while an unusually idle Atlantic set a satellite-era record — the latest first hurricane of any season, with no tropical development forecast for at least seven days; on Sept. 12 Carraízo slipped a centimeter to 39.19 meters while La Plata rose for the first time in weeks — up 11 centimeters to 44.25 meters — as 12 of the island's 19 reservoirs fell. This brief tracks the crisis day by day, ties it to the hurricanes and droughts that broke the system before it, and follows the Hartford-area support forming for the island.

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Turn on a faucet in San Juan and, for two full days at a time, nothing comes out. That has been the reality since Aug. 7, 2026 for more than 180,000 customers in the capital and six neighboring municipalities, where the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA, known locally as AAA) runs rotating 48-hour-plus service shutoffs. Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón declared a state of emergency July 31; more than 500,000 people sit inside the rationing zones. 'This situation is out of our hands,' she said as the shutoffs began in early August (CNN; The Conversation; Yale Climate Connections, Aug. 2026).

The trigger is drought. San Juan recorded its driest month in more than 120 years in July, according to National Weather Service hydrologist Emanuel Rodriguez, who warned rainfall could stay below normal at least into January. The U.S. Drought Monitor has tracked a fast-widening drought — 72% of the island's land area sat in drought in mid-August, and its Sept. 1 update, released Sept. 3, pushed that to 75.2%, with 41% of the territory at extreme levels (D3) along the southern coast and across the east — and the USDA approved a drought-disaster declaration Aug. 26, opening emergency loans to farmers in 26 municipalities (CNN, Aug. 28; YCC, Aug. 13; San Juan Daily Star, Sept. 4; NASA Earth Observatory via Science Daily, Sept. 2–4). The reservoir that feeds the metro, Carraízo, fell toward its 'control' level before rain from Tropical Storm Dolly's remnants lifted it back to 'observation' status Sept. 1; that evening Gov. González-Colón announced a temporary 48-to-72-hour pause in the rationing plan for Carraízo customers, in effect from Sept. 2 as the reservoir kept climbing — up a fourth consecutive day, to 39.11 meters, by Sept. 3 (El Nuevo Día; Primera Hora, Sept. 1–3; San Juan Daily Star, Sept. 2–3). The recovery has since stalled: Carraízo fell a second consecutive day by Sept. 5 — down 0.08 meters to 39.01 — and a third by Sept. 6, to 38.94 meters, just 44 centimeters above the 38.50-meter ‘operational adjustments’ threshold at which AAA’s adjustment measures would return; 13 of the island’s 19 reservoirs dropped Sept. 5 and ten more fell Sept. 6, yet the governor kept the rationing pause in place even as the Coalición Exigimos Agua and Colectiva Feminista en Construcción called a protest in San Juan for Sept. 7 over scheduled-service failures they say the pause has not fixed (NotiCel; Telemundo PR; El Nuevo Día, Sept. 5–6; El Vocero, Sept. 7). The same week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued its first Carraízo sediment-removal permit in more than 30 years — roughly 285,000 cubic yards of accumulated sediment over a 7.12-acre exposed stretch in Gurabo, worth an estimated 50 million gallons of recovered capacity once crews can get onto the site (NotiCel; Telemundo PR, Sept. 4–5). The recovery, however, kept eroding: Carraízo slid a fourth straight day to 38.87 meters on AAA’s Sept. 7 monitoring — 37 centimeters above the level at which adjustment measures return — and the protest the coalitions had called went ahead that day on the Baldorioty de Castro expressway, with residents of Juncos, Loíza and San Juan demanding the ouster of AAA executive president Luis González Delgado (NotiCel; El Vocero; El Nuevo Día, Sept. 7). Into that standoff came a fifth straight daily decline — AAA's Sept. 8 reading put Carraízo at 38.83 meters, 33 centimeters above the threshold at which adjustment measures return — yet the weekly Drought Committee, meeting at La Fortaleza with a fresh National Weather Service outlook of rain in the coming days, voted to extend the rationing pause 'for more time,' review it weekly, and make no changes before the committee next meets Monday, Sept. 14, even as levels improved in other reservoirs such as Río Blanco after heavy Monday downpours (El Vocero, Sept. 9; El Nuevo Día; Primera Hora, Sept. 8). The same meeting produced the government's confirmation that AAA had hired Seeding Operations & Atmospheric Research (SOAR) — the cloud-seeding firm that worked the island's 2015 drought — under a contract worth up to $400,000 signed in August and running to November; the first seeding flight over the Carraízo, La Plata and Cidra watersheds went up Saturday, Sept. 5, and word came out only after residents spotted the aircraft, prompting questions about why AAA's executive president — who had dismissed seeding in August — had not disclosed the program (NotiCel; WIPR; Telemundo PR; El Vocero, Sept. 8).

But experts are emphatic that drought is only the match. 'When you have a drought colliding with an aging infrastructure, that's more than a drought. That's a humanitarian crisis,' said Eugene Smotkin, a Northeastern University chemistry professor living in Old San Juan. The Superaqueduct — the 72-inch, 50-mile pipe that carries water along the north coast to the metro — ruptured in June, and the June break is only the latest: roughly 15,000 miles of distribution lines leak continuously, and PRASA lost 267 million of the 513 million gallons it produced each day — close to half — before it reached anyone in fiscal year 2024, per the federally appointed oversight board that certifies the utility's budget. Water-system repair needs top $2.2 billion by EPA's estimate, and FEMA-reimbursable projects (treatment plants, meters, hurricane reconstruction) crowd out the small pipes where most water is lost (The Conversation, Aug. 20).

Puerto Rico has been here before. In the 2015 drought, 400,000 customers received water only every third day; rationing returned in 2020. Hurricane María in 2017 — intensified by climate change — triggered tens of thousands of landslides that pushed sediment into reservoirs and left parts of the island nearly five months without dependable service. The interruptions, residents say, never really stopped: one San Juan neighborhood counted 123 waterless days in the 13 months before this summer, and neighbors carried unwashed laundry to a protest in the capital in August 2026 (The Conversation; YCC). Trust in the tap collapsed long ago — 64% of households in a 2022 Iowa State-led survey of three regions said they mistrusted their water, and researchers found 17 of the island's 78 municipalities had systems the EPA classed as serious violators (The Conversation).

Now the story comes home to Hartford. Connecticut has the largest Puerto Rican population per capita of any state — 8% of residents, more than 300,000 people, with communities like Hartford's own running 44% Puerto Rican — and the state's Boricua lawmakers have made the island's water their cause. The Connecticut-Puerto Rico Trade Commission, created by a law Gov. Ned Lamont signed June 5, 2025, wrote to Lamont in June asking for help, floated deploying Connecticut National Guard engineers, and by late August was assembling a concrete aid package: engineers from the water systems that will merge under the Regional Water Authority after its $2.4 billion acquisition of Aquarion, a financial contribution routed through a Connecticut nonprofit, and interest from the Metropolitan District Commission — the utility that supplies Hartford (CT Public, June 24, Aug. 3 and Aug. 25, 2026; El Nuevo Día).

Lamont, whose mother was born on the island, led the Sept. 2 press conference at the Capitol with Bronin — the former Hartford mayor who beat U.S. Rep. John Larson in the Aug. 11 primary — and utility executives, saying Connecticut's water companies and National Guard are 'standing by' and will step in 'when asked,' while acknowledging the island has not yet made a formal request. Rep. Geraldo Reyes Jr. (D-Waterbury) announced from the same stage that legislators will travel to Puerto Rico in October, meeting people 'on the ground' in San Juan, Salinas and Comerío; Lamont will not make that trip, his office said. Aquarion pledged a $1,500 donation once the commission names a recipient nonprofit, and Connecticut Water Co. also offered help (CT Public; CTPost, Sept. 2; WSHU, Sept. 3). 'This is the time to lead, and whatever we can do as a diaspora to help, we will do,' said state Rep. Christopher Rosario (D-Bridgeport), the commission's co-chair, who told the crowd 'Connecticut, estamos presente' (CT Public, Aug. 25; CTPost, Sept. 2). State Rep. Guillerma 'Minnie' González's Puerto Rican and Latino Caucus had already asked the state to evaluate sending National Guard engineers; Rosario's office has fielded calls from families considering a temporary move north, the same pattern as after María (CT Public, June 24).

Two developments reshaped the picture on Sept. 9–10. First, relief: two tropical waves crossing the region lifted Carraízo 19 centimeters in 24 hours to 39.02 meters and raised 13 of the island’s 19 reservoirs, easing the metro reservoir further above the 38.50-meter threshold and validating — at least for now — the Drought Committee’s decision to hold the rationing pause and re-review it Sept. 14 (El Nuevo Día, Sept. 9). Second, doubt: the cloud-seeding program AAA launched Sept. 5 came under sharp scientific attack. Dr. Pablo Menéndez Lázaro, who advised the government during the 2015 drought, said the same approach ‘didn’t work’ then; CEACC member Carl Soderberg said the World Meteorological Organization and NOAA warn that seeding ‘doesn’t work on islands’; and the 2015 project’s final report found only one of 27 seeding events had significant effects, while a 2024 GAO report called the benefits unproven and dependent on the right clouds (San Juan Daily Star, Sept. 10; El Nuevo Día, Sept. 8–9).

What remains open: the size and timing of Connecticut's contribution (the only concrete corporate pledge so far is Aquarion's $1,500, and the commission has not yet named the nonprofit that would receive it), whether MDC formally joins, whether the Guard deployment clears the mutual-aid process — Lamont reiterated Sept. 2 that Puerto Rico has not yet filed a formal request — and whether the island's governor, who has said she is 'not ruling out' asking Washington for a full federal emergency declaration once local resources are exhausted, escalates her ask (CT Public; CTPost; CNN). The Sept. 10 U.S. Drought Monitor update finally delivered the easing the committee had bet on — drought coverage falling from 75.2% to 69.1% (data valid Sept. 8), the first retreat of the crisis, though extreme drought still fully covers San Juan, Carolina, Canóvanas and a broad southern strip — and Carraízo stood at 39.07 meters on AAA's Sept. 10 reading, 57 centimeters above the threshold, then climbed another 13 centimeters to 39.20 meters on Sept. 11 — a fourth straight day of gains as El Nuevo Día counted it — while La Plata kept sliding to 44.14 meters in 'operational adjustments' ahead of the committee's next Monday, Sept. 14 review. New questions crowd in as well: whether the $400,000 cloud-seeding program yields measurable rain and transparent reporting before its contract ends in November; whether the National Guard, already past halfway through its $3.8 million, three-month allocation, gets more money if the mission runs long; whether Puerto Rico adds a desalination source after AAA told a Sept. 10 hearing that large-scale desalination is not viable under current conditions while a House panel pressed for 5-to-50-MGD studies; and how the leadership vacuum resolves: the AAA board's presidency is vacant after Héctor del Río Jiménez resigned in protest, the Senate has just rejected the governor's board-overhaul bill and approved a probe of AAA's water losses, and protesters still demand executive president González Delgado's ouster (El Vocero, Sept. 8–9; NotiCel, Sept. 8; Primera Hora, Sept. 8). This brief updates daily as the reservoirs, the rationing schedule and Connecticut's response move.

Two Sept. 11 developments frame what happens next. The federally appointed oversight board balked at the government's plan to spend up to $9,688,345 in emergency funds on five wells: executive director Robert Mujica told the governor the board needs the wells' production capacity, reactivation timelines, water-quality answers and — critically — who pays their operating and monitoring costs after the drought, before it will authorize the draw, and asked for a sit-down with AAA, the natural-resources department, the budget office and the infrastructure bank. Investors and utilities watch that decision because the same wells are the administration's main stopgap while the reservoirs recover. And the sky offered little help: the Atlantic has not produced a single hurricane this season, the latest first-hurricane on record in the satellite era, the Hurricane Center sees no tropical development for at least a week, and Colorado State projects a season at roughly 40% of average activity with just a 17% chance a major hurricane reaches the Caribbean — the flip side of the strong El Niño that is also shaping the island's rainfall outlook. The Drought Committee meets again Monday, Sept. 14, to decide whether Carraízo's rationing pause survives. AAA's Sept. 12 monitoring showed how fragile that call remains: Carraízo slipped a centimeter to 39.19 meters — still 'observation', about 69 centimeters above the 38.50-meter threshold — while La Plata rose 11 centimeters to 44.25 meters, its first increase after several consecutive declines, and 12 of the island's 19 reservoirs fell, led by Patillas (−22 cm to 65.79 m) and Dos Bocas (−19 cm to 89.61 m). The weekend that opened with a dry, Saharan-dust-laden air mass that suppressed rain, per NWS meteorologist Glorianne Rivera, offers little help before the committee sits Monday (El Nuevo Día, Sept. 12, 2026).

2026-08-30 · Section: state · open ×8

The 'diarrhea lettuce' outbreak: 11,458 sick, 2 dead — and what it means for Connecticut's food supply

The Cyclospora outbreak traced to Taylor Farms de Mexico iceberg lettuce now stands at 11,458 illnesses, 495 hospitalizations and two deaths across 20 states — while CDC's national surveillance count since May 1 is 17,180 lab-confirmed cases, roughly 15 times the same stretch of 2025. Connecticut sits at an unusual intersection: recalled lettuce was distributed here (foodservice, June 29-July 16), yet none of the state's 94 reported cases are attributed to the federal outbreak, and DPH says it has not identified a Connecticut source. Farm stands from Rocky Hill to Berlin are seeing a boom as shoppers go local, and Sen. Blumenthal is pressing FDA and Taylor Farms over inspection gaps and alleged influence.

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The outbreak began quietly in June. Illnesses linked to the parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis started June 14, but the parasite hides from standard testing: a routine stool test does not look for Cyclospora, and neither, reliably, does a standard ova-and-parasite exam — a doctor has to order the specific test, and most do not think to. That diagnostic gap is why the outbreak got as large as it did before anyone named it. By early July, CDC and state health officials were interviewing sick people about what they ate; shredded iceberg lettuce at Taco Bell in five states emerged as a common thread, and on July 17 Taylor Farms de Mexico — a processor in Guanajuato, Mexico — voluntarily pulled all of its central-Mexico iceberg lettuce from the U.S. market. The recall covered Marketside-brand bags sold at Walmart and dozens of foodservice products under brand codes including CV, JB and Mark.

The numbers grew through August. CDC's outbreak page, stamped August 27, reads 11,458 illnesses, 495 hospitalizations and two deaths — both in Michigan — across 20 states, with Georgia, Tennessee and Texas added in that final Thursday update. Last illness onset was August 15. The outbreak count is only part of the picture: CDC's separate surveillance update puts laboratory-confirmed, domestically acquired cyclosporiasis at 17,180 cases since May 1, with 922 hospitalizations and at least 11,844 more awaiting confirmation, across 48 states plus the District of Columbia. CDC's own comparison for the same stretch of 2025: 1,180 cases. Tally what the fifty state health departments publish about themselves and the floor is 32,506 — a number that keeps moving as states correct and add. Michigan alone has reported more than 13,900 cases during the investigation; Ohio (5,452), Indiana (2,048), Missouri (1,950) and Illinois (1,437) each top 1,000.

Connecticut's position is the story's local puzzle. Recalled Taylor Fresh Foods lettuce was distributed in Connecticut — FDA's advisory confirms CT on its 30-state foodservice distribution list for June 29-July 16, and NBC Connecticut reported the original recall list of 25 products under eight brand codes shipped to 27 states including Connecticut. Yet the 20-state federal outbreak case list does not include Connecticut. DPH-reported CT cases have climbed all summer — 56 by mid-July (more than double 2025's full-year total), 77 confirmed by early August, 94 as of the August 14 data release, with four hospitalizations. Of those 94, DPH said 43 were acquired domestically, 12 internationally, and the origin of the other 39 is unknown. Connecticut officials have not identified a Connecticut-specific food, farm, grower, supplier, restaurant or retailer as the source. In other words: recalled product reached the state, cases are up ~3x over normal, and no one can yet say what sickened whom.

The regulatory questions are compounding. The Taylor Farms de Mexico facility linked to the outbreak had not been inspected by FDA since 2019 — and before that, not since 2013, when it was under investigation for another cyclosporiasis outbreak. FDA carried out just under 1,000 foreign food-safety inspections in 2025; the FSMA-era law governing the agency calls for nearly 20 times that, and FDA has met under 10% of its goals in the decade since, with 2025 the lowest year since 2011 outside the pandemic years. FDA has also had to walk back evidence: a lettuce sample that initially tested positive for Cyclospora on July 18 was re-reviewed and declared a false positive, leaving no confirmed positive product sample even as traceback and genetic fingerprinting (CDC says the parasites from sick people are genetically related) point to the same processor. FDA's onsite inspections have moved upstream, from the processing plant to the iceberg lettuce growers themselves, in coordination with Mexican officials. Meanwhile the agency's advisory page has quietly lost lines over two weeks — the sentence naming the 31 states the lettuce went to, then the line saying Taylor Farms initiated the recall — edits food-safety attorney Bill Marler flagged as the outbreak's paper trail 'arriving late, arriving incomplete, or not arriving at all.'

Connecticut's response has been local. Farm stands report a boom: Gilbert Farm in Rocky Hill and Cold Brook Spring Farm in Berlin told WFSB this was a good season for lettuce sales and credit part of that to the outbreak. A South Windsor farm spent July reassuring customers; Coventry Public Market leans on Connecticut growers; New Haven's City Seed partners with local farmers to keep fresh produce accessible. UConn Extension put out practical guidance — wash produce, know the symptoms (watery diarrhea that can last weeks, relapsing), ask for Cyclospora testing by name — and noted eating local 'is probably better to eat local, at least in Connecticut, if the source of the outbreak is not from a local source.' Sen. Richard Blumenthal has pressed FDA Acting Commissioner Kyle Diamantas and Taylor Farms CEO Bruce Taylor for records of the company's interactions with the agency, alleging influence over food-safety staffing and program cuts; thirteen congressional letters on the outbreak went out between July 14 and August 13. Nationally, fresh produce sales dropped after the outbreak and are only now rebounding as schools reopen. The CDC-defined cyclospora season closes August 31, but with a six-week reporting lag, illnesses from early August will keep arriving into October — and CT DPH's next data release will show whether the state's unexplained cases are still rising.

The outbreak is one of six that defined August 2026: 431 sick with Salmonella Javiana in 32 states from jalapeños distributed by Coast Citrus; 55 sick in 15 states from Minnesota alfalfa sprouts carrying four pathogens; 15 sick and one dead from requesón cheese in an outbreak that ran three years and four months; and four infants hospitalized with botulism from Nara Organics powdered formula. The lettuce outbreak remains open — no confirmed contamination point, inspections ongoing in Mexico, and the 39 Connecticut cases of unknown origin unresolved.

2026-08-28 · Section: state · open · Updated 2026-09-13 ×29

Connecticut v. Kalshi: the case against unlicensed sports prediction markets

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong sued KalshiEX LLC on Aug. 26, alleging the New York prediction-market firm has run unlicensed sports betting in the state since January 2025 — including wagers from 18-year-olds (the state age is 21), bets on UConn and other in-state college teams, and TikTok marketing paid to minors. Kalshi removed the case to federal court the same day, but on Sept. 8 the state moved to send it back to Hartford Superior Court (responses due Sept. 29), and the case has been reassigned to Judge Vernon D. Oliver — who in early August refused to block state enforcement (finding the contracts are "at bottom … sports wagers"). On Sept. 10 the state widened its crackdown: the Department of Consumer Protection issued nine cease-and-desist orders and nearly 30 subpoenas to prediction markets and their service providers, naming Polymarket, Coinbase, Crypto.com and Robinhood among the targets. Kalshi's emergency stay motion at the 2nd Circuit is pending, alongside a CFTC suit against Connecticut. We're tracking the case daily until there's a ruling.

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Connecticut is suing KalshiEX LLC, the New York company behind the Kalshi prediction-market app, accusing it of running unlicensed sports betting in the state for more than a year and a half. Attorney General William Tong filed the complaint Aug. 26 in Hartford Superior Court at the request of Consumer Protection Commissioner Bryan Cafferelli, with Gov. Ned Lamont standing alongside. Kalshi pulled the case into federal court the same day, where it is now docketed as State of Connecticut v. KalshiEX LLC (No. 3:26-cv-01382).

The state's core allegation is straightforward: Kalshi has offered sports event contracts to Connecticut residents since January 2025 without ever applying for a sports-wagering license — the license every casino-backed sportsbook in the state must hold. The state points to Kalshi's own February 2026 federal filing, which said 80–90% of the company's offerings at the time were sports event contracts.

The complaint goes beyond licensing. Connecticut's minimum betting age is 21; Kalshi's platform admits users at 18. The state alleges Kalshi paid minors to make promotional TikTok content, used a 15-year-old video-game streamer as an affiliate, and ran a "Kalshi Ambassador Program" aimed at Yale and other college campuses in 2025. It also alleges Kalshi offered contracts on games involving UConn, Yale, Sacred Heart, the University of New Haven, Fairfield and Quinnipiac — wagers Connecticut law bars for those schools.

The suit brings four claims under Connecticut gaming law plus three counts under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (illegal wagering, underage gambling, and deception). The state wants a judge to block the contracts, force Kalshi to hand over the revenue from what it calls unlicensed wagering (or, alternatively, the taxes and fees a licensed operator would have owed), and pay restitution, civil penalties and attorneys' fees.

This is the third case in an escalating fight. In December 2025, the Department of Consumer Protection ordered Kalshi, Robinhood and Crypto.com to stop taking unlicensed sports wagers; Kalshi responded by suing Connecticut regulators in federal court (KalshiEX LLC v. Cafferelli, No. 3:25-cv-02016), and Coinbase filed a parallel suit. In the new case, Superior Court Judge Lisa Kelly Morgan denied the state's request for an immediate, without-notice order blocking Kalshi, set a status conference for Sept. 17, and ordered service by Sept. 3 — then Kalshi removed the case to federal court before the conference could happen. On Aug. 31, 2026, the removed case was transferred to Judge Vernon D. Oliver — the judge already handling KalshiEX v. Cafferelli and the CFTC's suit against Connecticut — putting all three Connecticut Kalshi matters before one judge. Then, on Sept. 8, the state moved to remand the case back to Hartford Superior Court (responses due Sept. 29). If the remand is granted, the suit returns to the state forum where it was filed — and where the Sept. 17 status conference was set; if it is denied, the case proceeds before Judge Oliver.

In early August, Judge Vernon Oliver handed the state a major win, refusing Kalshi's request to block enforcement. In a 38-page ruling he found Kalshi's sports contracts are not "swaps" under federal law — their value depends on the outcome of a game — and wrote that they are, "at bottom … sports wagers." He also noted Kalshi advertised itself as the "first app for legal sports betting in all 50 states" while on notice of state enforcement, and that more than 24,000 Connecticut users held open positions. (The ruling's date discrepancy is now resolved: the 38-page Memorandum & Order is signed "Hartford, Connecticut August 7, 2026" and was entered on the federal docket Aug. 10, 2026.)

Kalshi appealed to the 2nd Circuit (No. 26-2239) and filed an emergency motion in mid-August to halt Connecticut enforcement while the appeal runs. Its argument is federal preemption: as a CFTC-licensed designated contract market, Kalshi says the Commodity Exchange Act gives the CFTC "exclusive jurisdiction" over its contracts — "If Connecticut could use its gambling laws to regulate instruments traded on federally designated exchanges, so could 49 other states," it wrote, warning of "total chaos." The state opposed, with Assistant AG Joseph Gasser noting Kalshi raised $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation in May — "not the claims of a company whose prediction contract offerings are meaningfully threatened." The court gave the state until Aug. 24 for its full response; no ruling yet.

The federal government is also in the fight — on Kalshi's side. The CFTC sued Connecticut and seven other states in April over their efforts to regulate Kalshi's contracts (USA v. State of Connecticut, No. 3:26-cv-00498, still before Judge Oliver) and proposed a rule in June treating certain sports event contracts as consistent with the Commodity Exchange Act.

On Aug. 28 — the day this brief was published — the 9th Circuit handed Kalshi another setback. In KalshiEX, LLC v. Assad (No. 25-7516), a three-judge panel (Judges Nelson, Bade and Lee; Lee concurring in the judgment) refused to reinstate the injunction that had blocked Nevada's Gaming Control Board from enforcing state gaming law against Kalshi's sports event contracts. The panel held the contracts are "likely not swaps" under the Commodity Exchange Act — they are sports bets — and that CFTC regulation 17 C.F.R. § 40.11 categorically bars designated contract markets from listing gaming-related contracts, so Kalshi's self-certification was unlawful; it rejected the CFTC's contrary reading as not entitled to deference. The court affirmed in part and remanded in part, sending Nevada's challenges to Kalshi's election contracts back to the district court. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong joined an amicus brief of 39 states plus the District of Columbia supporting Nevada. The ruling widens a circuit split: the 3rd Circuit ruled for Kalshi earlier this year, while the 9th Circuit and district judges in Maryland, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New York and Michigan have sided with states — pushing the question of whether sports prediction contracts are federally preempted "swaps" or state-regulated wagers toward the Supreme Court. Kalshi board member Brian Quintenz, a former CFTC commissioner, said the ruling "provided more confusion than clarity."

On Sept. 2, the fight reached the Supreme Court's doorstep. New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport filed a petition asking the justices to decide whether Kalshi can keep offering sports contracts without complying with state gambling laws — the same preemption question at the center of Connecticut's case. The petition targets the Third Circuit's April ruling for Kalshi in the company's suit against New Jersey (a district court had granted Kalshi a preliminary injunction; the circuit affirmed 2-1, finding federal law preempts New Jersey's sports-gambling regulations). New Jersey argues the circuit split with the Aug. 28 Ninth Circuit ruling is too consequential to leave unresolved — the petition warns it “will determine whether a multi-billion-dollar gaming industry can suddenly operate free from state sportsgaming laws” — and says litigation over prediction-market sports betting is pending in at least 20 states. Kalshi called the filing unpersuasive, noting both the Third Circuit and the District of New Jersey sided with it. The Supreme Court has not decided whether to hear the case; a grant could reshape Connecticut's fight, giving the Second Circuit and Judge Oliver reason to hold the parallel proceedings while the justices settle the preemption question nationally.

The lineup matters locally: Kalshi's contracts compete directly with Connecticut's licensed sportsbooks — DraftKings (partnered with Foxwoods), FanDuel (Mohegan Sun) and Fanatics (Connecticut Lottery Corp.). The Mohegan Tribe, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling issued a joint statement backing the state's case, saying new technology should not mean fewer protections. Kalshi is represented by Vanessa Roberts Avery of McCarter & English, the former U.S. Attorney for Connecticut; its head of litigation, Jovy Dedaj, calls the suit "arbitrary and inconsistent enforcement."

On Sept. 8, a federal judge in Iowa became the latest to reject Kalshi's preemption theory. U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher denied Kalshi's request for a preliminary injunction barring Iowa from regulating its operations under state gambling law, in a pre-enforcement suit Kalshi filed in March (KalshiEX LLC v. Bird, No. 4:26-cv-00109). Locher found the company unlikely to succeed on its claim that the Commodity Exchange Act expressly preempts state gambling law: the CFTC's "exclusive jurisdiction" covers only swaps and futures, the statutory definition of a swap says nothing about sports betting, and "in general parlance, one would not describe, say, the Minnesota Vikings winning a football game as an 'occurrence' or 'event.'" The clause Kalshi leans on was "arguably not designed to be preemptive at all," he wrote, but simply marks the CFTC as the lead federal regulator. He echoed Judge Oliver's point about Kalshi's own advertising — "the first app for legal sports betting in all 50 states" — adding that any cost of compliance now is "a problem of the company's own making" (Courthouse News, Sept. 9).

The appellate courts are trending the same way. On Sept. 8, 2026, a Tenth Circuit panel (Judges Hartz and Kelly) denied Kalshi's emergency motion for an injunction pending appeal in its Utah case, KalshiEx v. Cox (No. 26-4100), letting Utah enforce its anti-gambling law while the appeal proceeds. "Kalshi has not shown these factors weigh in its favor," the panel wrote in a one-page per curiam order — the same relief Kalshi is asking the Second Circuit to grant in Connecticut, and the second appellate setback in two weeks after the Ninth Circuit's Aug. 28 Nevada ruling.

Then, on Sept. 10, Connecticut widened the fight from the courtroom to the market itself. Gov. Ned Lamont and Consumer Protection Commissioner Bryan Cafferelli announced that the Department of Consumer Protection had issued nine cease-and-desist orders against prediction markets it says are operating illegally in the state, plus nearly 30 subpoenas. The nine platforms named are Polymarket, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Robinhood, ProphetX, Novig, Webull, Gemini and Underdog Predict — Kalshi is not among them, because it is the subject of the state's separate lawsuit. All nine were ordered to immediately stop advertising, offering, promoting or otherwise making available “sports event contracts” or any other form of unlicensed online gambling to Connecticut residents, and to let residents withdraw any funds held on the platforms; DCP warned that non-compliance could bring civil penalties under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act or criminal penalties under the state's gaming statutes. The subpoenas went to nine gaming-service-provider licensees (among them PayPal, Plaid, LexisNexis, SportRadar and Genius Sports), fifteen media organizations (including Hearst Connecticut Media, The Hartford Courant, The Day, ESPN, Fox61, NBC Connecticut, WFSB and WTNH), and app stores and payment processors (Apple, Google and Stripe). DCP said the subpoena recipients are not under investigation but may hold information about how the platforms operate and advertise.

Back in Connecticut, the earlier federal case has gone dormant. On Aug. 20, Kalshi and the state jointly moved to stay KalshiEX v. Cafferelli (No. 3:25-cv-02016) until 21 days after the Second Circuit decides Kalshi's appeal of the preliminary-injunction denial, and the court ruled on that motion the next day (ECF 102, Aug. 21) — pausing discovery and merits briefing while the appeal runs. The state's new enforcement suit (3:26-cv-01382) now sits before the same judge, Vernon D. Oliver, who also has the CFTC's suit against Connecticut.

What to watch: Judge Oliver's ruling on the state's motion to remand (responses due Sept. 29) — if he sends the case back to state court, the Sept. 17 Hartford Superior Court status conference could revive; the Second Circuit's ruling on Kalshi's stay motion; whether the nine platforms named in the Sept. 10 cease-and-desist orders comply or challenge DCP; whether the Supreme Court takes up New Jersey's cert petition (filed Sept. 2) or Robinhood's petition (filed Sept. 10) in the Nevada case, which could decide the preemption question for Connecticut and every other state at once; and whether the full Ninth Circuit agrees to rehear Kalshi's Nevada loss en banc. CourtListener's docket database lists 169 Kalshi-related federal cases nationwide — Connecticut is one front in a national legal war over whether prediction markets are the future of betting or just betting with a new label.

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