Annette Roman is Puerto Rican, but she’s still thinking about ICE’s presence in Connecticut: “They're going to pick up anybody that they feel looks like somebody they should be picking up, right?” She brought an “abuelas para libertad” sign to Hartford’s No Kings rally.

Connecticut State Capitol Police tell my colleague @racheliacovone.bsky.social they estimate today's Hartford No Kings rally size at 12,000 people. They estimated the No Kings rally in June at 7,000.

Connecticut is the first state in the U.S. to formally recognize the contributions of native Caribbeans, according to the Higuayagua Taíno of the Caribbean tribe. Now, the lawmakers who backed the resolution say it won’t be the last.

EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of leaked messages show leaders of Young Republican groups joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape in a private Telegram chat. Inside rising GOP leaders’ racist chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than 7 months👇

ON AIR: Mi gente Latina, it’s time to give to @ctpublic.bsky.social during our Fall Pledge Drive! When you do, you support reporting like mine on the Puerto Rican communities here in Connecticut, plus our many other beats, daily shows, digital folks, and more. ctpublic.org/give

“This is an aspect of Latino life and culture that too often gets overlooked or caricatured,” photographer David González said of his exhibit “Urban Devotions.” It’s on view at Trinity College in Hartford through Oct. 24.

Such an honor! My podcast for @wpln.bsky.social, “The Country in Our Hearts,” has been awarded “Best Audio Storytelling.” Thank you to @nashvillescene.com and, as always, to all the people who shared their time and stories with me ❤️ www.nashvillescene.com/bon/2025/med...

Since Trump’s firing of the majority of Puerto Rico’s financial oversight board, it’s been a waiting game to see who gets a say in the board’s next, and biggest, project yet: restructuring the billions of dollars in debt owed to the island’s electric power authority.

Connecticut Public's @racheliacovone.bsky.social and El Nuevo Dia’s Itzel Rivera introduce themselves, and share more about their collaborative effort to cover Puerto Rican communities in Connecticut. www.ctpublic.org/news/2025-10...

The 20th annual Newport Mansions Wine and Food Festival brought out several icons of the food world to close out the last weekend of summer. www.ctpublic.org/news/2025-09...

A popular New England food festival took over the Newport Mansions this weekend, and the featured chef agrees: Our region has a pretty great, and underrated, food scene.

Personality pic courtesy of the 61st annual Greater Hartford Puerto Rican Day Parade and Festival 🇵🇷

If you’ve been feeling the No Me Quiero Ir De Aqui FOMO all summer, fret not: Benito is streaming his (new) last show tomorrow night, and here’s where the Bad Bunny watch parties are happening in Connecticut.

In case you needed more validation for your patience in the Sift Bake Shop line, the beloved Connecticut bakery is the featured dessert option at the 20th annual Newport Mansions’ Wine & Food Festival, which begins today in Rhode Island.

Puerto Ricans are famously proud of our red, white and blue flag. You see it hanging from our rearview mirrors, flying on our lawns, embellishing our caps and tees — or unfurling outside the Connecticut State Capitol ahead of Hartford’s 61st annual parade.

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month! Whether you’re a Puerto Rican born and raised in Hartford’s Frog Hollow neighborhood or a non-Hispanic transplant who just wants to enjoy some great food and music this month, here’s how and where to celebrate in Connecticut.

New Haven officially holds the world record for the largest pizza party! Here’s Guinness World Book of Records adjudicator Thomas Bradford making the announcement alongside organizer Colin Caplan, the founder of Taste of New Haven, moments ago.

New Haven says, “Mangia!” The city could break the world record for the largest pizza party tomorrow. 3,358+ diners just need to eat two slices… while watched. Creepy? Sure. But a “trust me, bro” isn’t going to cut it for Guinness World Book of Records.

Connecticut is lowering flags to half-staff for Charlie Kirk.

As students return to classrooms, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainments continue across Connecticut. Despite fears, one of the most diverse districts is telling parents to send their kids to school — because it might be the safest place. www.ctpublic.org/news/2025-09...

Despite student and parent fears about ICE, one of Connecticut’s most diverse districts is telling parents to send their kids to school — because it might be the safest place.

The Connecticut high school student in ICE custody since July returned to his New Haven home tonight in a big win for deportation cases like his — and for his teachers and classmates who have spent the last several weeks rallying for his return.

A New Haven high schooler is heading home after several weeks in ICE detention. As his lawyer addressed supporters today, she choked up: “To be a lawyer in this era … the swiftness with which people are moved, the aggression of it all, it takes a toll.”

While walking into her former middle school, Hartford’s now-former superintendent was stopped by the assistant principal who tearily thanked her for creating a pathway to leadership for a “little Black girl, born and raised in the hood.” It said more than I could ever write.

Maria Reina de la Paz Parish in Hartford has been elevated to Archdiocesan shrine. Archbishop Christopher Coyne hopes it’ll become a site for Catholics to pray for peace, including for “Latino communities that are facing round-ups and arrests and worries.”

While famous Puerto Ricans, like Bad Bunny, have recently spoken out against ICE on the national level, everyday Puerto Ricans in Connecticut are also increasingly standing with their fellow Latinos against the immigration crackdown.

A small town in rural Tennessee will soon be the site of a privately-run ICE detention center. Local officials in Mason, Tennessee narrowly approved the contract at a contentious townhall. wpln.org/post/a-regio...

As ICE detainments ramp up, Connecticut Puerto Ricans — though U.S. citizens — fear racial profiling. ICE tells @ctpublic.bsky.social that the idea it’s targeting Puerto Rican neighborhoods is “not only ludicrous and dangerous, but completely false.” It’s already detained Puerto Ricans elsewhere.

Breaking news: The White House will launch an aggressive review of Smithsonian exhibitions, collections and operations ahead of America’s 250th birthday celebrations next year.

I know I keep saying my job is all my abuelos dreamed of for me, but I think that peaked tonight being on stage for El Gran Combo’s Charlie Aponte performing at the Puerto Rican Festival of New Haven 🇵🇷

This Saturday is Puerto Ricans United’s ninth annual festival in New Haven, but there’s no parade, and the vendors are not just selling flags and T-shirts; it's a job fair. www.ctpublic.org/news/2025-08...

Ever attend a job fair with El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico’s Charlie Aponte as your motivational music? Well, now you can — at the Festival Puertorriqueño de New Haven 2025. www.ctpublic.org/news/2025-08...

When I was a kid, I’d come back to Florida from summer trips to the Northeast buzzing to share all I got up to in New York and Jersey — pizza, hot dogs and bagels mostly — with my best friend, Laurie. Getting to go with her, now a NYC resident, to Coney Island for her first time as adults: priceless

“Sesame Street” and its sequel, “The Electric Company,” were, “with lapses, the most intelligent and important programs in television,” Renata Adler wrote, in 1972.

“He was the kind of person that just cared for everyone and wanted to fight for everyone. He just wanted the world to be fair and right. He wanted justice.” — CT Students for a Dream member Melany Yunga on New Haven high schooler Esdras, who was detained by ICE last week

Met a couple in Hartford today who gave condolences about the federal cuts when they heard I was with public radio and said, “Have you heard the new Hayley Williams song she put out with her local station? Telling them I just came from the org including @wnxpnashville.bsky.social: priceless

“These issues just aren't, like, national news headlines … but in a lot of cases, they're actually happening in your own schools. They're happening in your own neighborhoods, your own workplaces, in your own communities,” Kriti Jaladurgam, 16, tells me.

What a legacy. I want to love something so much that people are still not only supporting but growing it years and years after my death (indifferent on if my name needs to be in the title)

SCOOP: Did you know Connecticut is home to the best ice cream in the country? That’s according to @beliapp.bsky.social users, who ranked Ferris Acres Creamery the No. 1 in the nation. I see that, and I raise you a couple more along the coast: Vía Láctea and Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream.

Now that I have a big kitchen again (yay!), I’ve been cooking at home at least every weeknight. So, I’m restarting my pandemic-era thread of home cooks 👩‍🍳

Yale’s Bad Bunny course begins this fall, but I imagine the curriculum has been shifting all summer — as Benito’s Puerto Rico residency “No me quiero ir de aqui” begins this week and his politics, as seen in the “NUEVAYoL” music video that dropped on the Fourth of July, only get louder and prouder.

Puerto Rican eateries are finally getting their due in the national food scene. If you asked Reinaldo Sánchez a decade ago where he’d be now, his answer was not co-owning ice cream shops with his longtime friend, Lorivie Alicea. (via @ctpublic.bsky.social)

It was at Vía Láctea’s Santurce location where I first tried the guava panetela ice cream that transported me from the sticky humidity of a San Juan summer to my abuela’s air-conditioned kitchen, eating our guava cakes with cafecitos. Now, the James Beard semifinalist is here in New Haven.

In a 6-3 decision by Kavanaugh, the court upholds the preventive care mandate under the ACA that required coverage of HIV medication. The courts liberals joined. Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

The ruling could leave some immigrant families in legal limbo. It also weakens the power of lower courts to block Trump’s policies from taking effect.

Homeland security is outside the federal courthouse in Nashville where Kilmar Abrego Garcia is expected to be released from jail. The Maryland man was wrongly deported to El Salvador in March. ICE is expected to arrest Abrego Garcia upon his release.

Yes, there’s a Bad Bunny course at @yale.edu this fall, but it’s not the first; it’s just the one that made national headlines. Listen to this panel, including the @wellesley.edu professor who’s been teaching a BB course since 2022, on @ctpublic.bsky.social’s The Wheelhouse.

I’m preparing for this right now by listening to DtMF for the millionth time or so with my morning cafecito and pan sobao. ¡Escucha a las 9!

Congratulations to Chef Jake Howell of Peninsula in Nashville on his James Beard Best Chef: Southeast win! I forever think of him when trying (and failing) to make a silky smooth Spanish tortilla at home. I wrote about his nomination in my last @wpln.bsky.social report: wpln.org/post/heres-t...

With around 30 No Kings Day rallies happening simultaneously in Connecticut today, thousands gathered across the state. I reported from the largest demonstration for @ctpublic.bsky.social in Hartford, where immigration issues were top of mind for protesters.