WPKN Local Daily News Podcast · John Iannuzzi, WPKN

January 12, 2026

January 12, 2026·21 min

The hour begins with John Iannuzzi setting the scene for a busy weekend of protests. He says the demonstrations respond to Rene Good's shooting death and ICE activity. The show says it will return to those events later in the broadcast. Before that, it goes back to a story WPKN has been following closely. Melinda Tuhus reports on the reaction to Avello Airlines dropping deportation flights for ICE. The report reaches back to late April of the previous year. That is when immigrant rights activists in New Haven learned about the airline's deportation-flight contract in Arizona. Organizers then launched a national campaign to stop it. The effort included a boycott and a petition signed by more than 40,000 people. Supporters gathered in downtown New Haven to mark the company's withdrawal. The segment credits coordinated organizing from New Haven to Baltimore, Mesa, Salem, Massachusetts, Maine, North Carolina, and beyond. The mood is relief after a long campaign. After that, the program turns to manufacturing support in Connecticut. The conversation focuses on the Manufacturing Innovation Fund and Forge. The guest explains that many small companies show up with a prototype but no money for production. The grants in question run from $30,000 to $100,000. They are described as non-dilutive funding that helps companies move from design files to a first production run. The interview notes that early production can make a startup more attractive to venture capital and angel investors. The host also shares the event details for the Make It Here Connecticut Product Development Grant Awards on January 22 in Stratford and points listeners to forgeimpact.org for registration. The broadcast closes with station sign-off material and community notices.

As heard by us

Community action, civic reporting, and practical news keep the hour grounded.

WPKN's January 12 news hour stays close to the ground. It opens with protests over Rene Good's shooting death and ICE activity, then moves into the Avello Airlines boycott campaign and its reported result.

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Why you'd press play

Catch a local news hour that moves from protests over Rene Good's shooting death and ICE activity to an airline's exit from deportation flights and a Connecticut manufacturing grant story.

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