The 21st World AIDS Day celebration in Hartford was part celebration, part memorial and part call-to-action.

"For many of us World AIDS Day is every day," Shawn Lang, executive director of the Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition, said Tuesday morning. And while there were victories to celebrate, Lang said there are still obstacles to overcome.

Using a tiny specialized microscope that can see living cells inside patients in real time, physicians at Yale-New Haven Hospital are developing new methods to diagnose pancreatic cancer at an early, more survivable stage.

The new tool is a very small confocal laser microscope that fits at the end of a long, thin, flexible tube.

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The second time was the charm for a group of religious leaders. After being unable to deliver hundreds of handwritten prayers to U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman's Stamford home, they showed up at his Hartford office Tuesday and attempted to deliver the prayers again.

With little more than 24 hours left before the U.S. Senate goes forward with a test vote on its health care bill, U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd made a stop at a small manufacturing business in New Britain.

After touring Metalform Company Inc., which manufactures everything from snaps on football helmets to gun magazines, Dodd spoke briefly with reporters about Saturday's vote.

"Oh, we're gonna have the vote," Dodd said. "I can't believe Harry Reid would have set this whole thing up without having the votes."

There are no cameras, but this small wireless device helps the staff at Mulberry Gardens in Southington provide a higher level of care to its residents.

Perry Phillips, executive director of the senior assisted living facility, said 90 percent of the residents don't even know it's in their rooms because they don't have to activate it.

But this high-tech system of motion detectors can alert staff to changes in a resident's routine or even a fall without invading their privacy.

After the briefing on the long-awaited Senate health care bill, U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd talked Wednesday about how he wished U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy were there to be part of this historic moment.

"This bill meets the test of history, reflecting the ideals that drove Ted Kennedy to lead the fight for health care reform for a generation and inspired me to take up his torch this summer," Dodd said. "I regret he's not here tonight to be a part of this."

Dodd's statements came shortly after the Congressional Budget Office released its cost estimates of the Senate bill.

Aetna announced late Wednesday after the market closed that it is laying off 625 employees. One hundred and sixty of those employees work in Connecticut. Aetna says the layoffs are the result of a decline in membership and the economic downturn.

"The economic downturn has had a significant impact on our customers," Aetna Chairman and CEO Ronald A. Williams, said in a statement. "In addition, we must prepare for the impact that health care reform and regulatory changes may have on our business."

An Aetna spokesman said it had 19 million members at the beginning of the year and now it's down to 18.7 million members. The decline is expected to continue in 2010 and more layoffs are anticipated.

(Updated 9:24 p.m.) Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Monday that he will seek legislation that requires greater disclosure of medical mistakes at hospitals.

From wrong-sided surgeries to sponges left in patients after surgery, Blumenthal said the hospitals failure to disclose these adverse medical mistakes have lead to serious injury and sometimes even death.

Lead by an interfaith coalition more than 500 residents poured out of Stamford High School Sunday and walked across the street to U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman's Strawberry Hill Avenue home.

Outside clergy from all denominations informed the junior senator that he no longer holds the moral high ground when it comes to the national health care debate.

"Health care is a fundamental human right," Rev. Josh Pawelek of the Unitarian Universalist Society said. "This is bigger than Joe Lieberman."

Even though U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd and U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman talk every day Dodd said Monday that he hasn't tried to change Lieberman's mind regarding a public option.

Dodd favors a public option and Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-Independent, opposes it.

As attention in the national health care debate now turns toward the Senate, it's a question Dodd will be asked more often on his visits to Connecticut.