NATION IN BRIEF : CONNECTICUT : Court Denies City’s Bankruptcy Petition

A federal court denied the Bridgeport, Conn., petition for bankruptcy protection, saying that the city is not insolvent. Bridgeport is the largest city to file for bankruptcy protection since the Great Depression. It became a test case for other struggling cities in the search for solutions to fiscal problems. A city must be insolvent to be declared bankrupt under Chapter 9, a section of the bankruptcy code that lets municipalities reorganize their debts and abrogate costly union contracts. The state, which has overseen Bridgeport’s finances since 1988, argued that the city had more than $46 million in the bank on June 6 and has about $25 million now. A federal judge agreed.