Connecticut formally sent off three culinarians on Tuesday afternoon in preparation for the nationally recognized James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards Ceremony.

The sendoff took place at Mystic River Park at 11 a.m., and formally recognized Jade Ayala from the Port of Call in Mystic, chef David DiStasi from Materia Ristorante in Bantam, and chef David Standridge from the Shipwright’s Daughter in Mystic.

The awards ceremony is on Monday, June 15, in Chicago.

“It’s just incredibly gratifying to see the recognition that’s been so long deserved finally come here to the state,” Chef Standridge said, reflecting on the honor.

Chef Standridge and Chef DiStasi are both finalists for Outstanding Chef, while Ayala and the Port of Call are competing in the Outstanding Wine and Other Beverage award.

“Mystic has a really great way of preserving history here, and I’m really just happy and proud to be a part of their story and Mystic’s story here. Thank you for having us,” Ayala said.

The ceremony will be livestreamed through the Connecticut Restaurant Hospitality Association on June 15.

by Frane Marusic and Howard P. Forman MD, CT Mirror
June 9, 2026

There is a generation of American parents who knew exactly what measles meant. They had watched many children disappear, either for short periods of hospitalization or longer periods of more serious illness; too often, they never returned. They lined their children up for the vaccine in 1963 without hesitation. Measles was documented as “eliminated” from the United States in 2000.

We have spent the decades since forgetting what they knew.

On April 27, Gov. Ned Lamont signed Public Act 26-3 into law. Among its provisions, the legislation explicitly bars Connecticut’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act from being used to claim exemptions from school immunization requirements. That decision was the right one, and the contrast with what two other states are doing at this very moment makes clear exactly why.

Measles is not a childhood inconvenience. It is a highly contagious, potentially fatal infection, with children under five at greatest risk. Before the vaccine became available, the United States recorded 3 to 4 million infections every year: tens of thousands of hospitalizations, 1,000 cases of encephalitis, and roughly 500 deaths annually, most of them children.

Measles still kills more than 100,000 people around the world each year, almost exclusively where vaccination rates are low. One infected person can pass the virus to as many as 18 others, and the virus can linger in the air for up to two hours after an infected person has left the room. Reaching the immunity threshold that stops transmission requires at least 95% of a community to be vaccinated – protecting not just those who got the shot, but newborns, immunocompromised individuals, those who might not attain immunity through vaccination, and children too young for the vaccine.

The national picture should alarm anyone paying attention. A Washington Post county-level analysis of 1,616 counties shows that before the pandemic, 48% of U.S. counties met that 95% threshold. After the pandemic, only 27% do. The United States has already recorded 1,893 measles cases this year, more than 80% of last year’s total, despite being well short of halfway through the year. Once a community loses protection, outbreaks are no longer hypothetical. They are inevitable.

For decades, Mississippi and West Virginia demonstrated that this was preventable. Both states maintained medical-exemption-only vaccine policies and consistently posted some of the highest childhood vaccination rates in the nation. Mississippi’s MMR coverage reached 99.1%. West Virginia’s sat at 98.3% as recently as 2023–24, with an exemption rate of just 0.1%.

Both states have changed course. In April 2023, a federal court order required Mississippi to begin allowing religious exemptions; coverage dropped to 97.5% and is trending downward. In January 2025, West Virginia’s governor signed an executive order opening the same door. The question is not whether rates will fall. It is how fast.

Connecticut has moved in the right direction. After the state eliminated religious exemptions from school vaccine requirements in 2021, its non-medical exemption rate collapsed from 4.1% to 0.3% within a single school year. Public Act 26-3 reinforces that achievement by closing the legal door that the ongoing Spillane v. Lamont litigation has kept ajar. The argument for strong immunization policy is not ideological. It is mathematical. Measles requires 95% community vaccination to stay contained. When outbreaks begin, it is too late to vaccinate your way out quickly enough to protect children already exposed.

The urgency is not abstract. This summer, the FIFA World Cup will bring hundreds of thousands of international visitors to venues across the region, including MetLife Stadium in New Jersey and Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts. Travelers from countries with lower vaccination rates will move through our airports, our transit systems, and our communities. In states where vaccination rates are falling, a single infected traveler in an under-vaccinated community is all it takes to start an outbreak. Public Act 26-3 ensures Connecticut will not be among them. Unless the Spillane v. Lamont litigation undoes what the legislature built.

Policymakers in Mississippi and West Virginia still have time to follow Connecticut’s lead. The disease they are risking is not theoretical. The only question is whether legislators will act before the outbreak or explain to parents afterward why they did not.

Frane Marusic is a junior at Yale College and a Global Health Scholar. Howard P. Forman, M.D., M.B.A. is a professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Economics, Management, and Public Health at Yale University and a practicing physician.

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by Laura Tillman, CT Mirror
June 8, 2026

Connecticut moved up in a national ranking that uses data to rate how well children are doing state-to-state, moving from eighth to seventh place.

The 2026 Kids Count is compiled by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and state partners like Connecticut Voices for Children and uses 16 indicators in four different categories to assess how well kids are doing — economically and scholastically, as members of families and communities, as well as their physical health.

The dataset, which analyzes 2024 data, rated Connecticut highly in education and health, ranking third and fourth respectively. But Connecticut continues to place closer to the middle of the pack in the categories of economic well-being and family and community, at 20th and 18th in the nation.

Overall, New Hampshire ranked first in the nation while Mississippi came in last.

“Behind every number in this report is a child who is either hungry or fed, housed or homeless, progressing academically or falling behind. No state is consistently getting this right,” said Lisa M. Lawson, president and CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. “The Data Book challenges us to follow the evidence and do what delivers results.”

Connecticut’s 2024 data was measured against numbers from 2019. While most measures didn’t see a significant change, there were some small shifts. That included a slight increase in the number of low birth weight babies, from 7.8% to 8.1%, and more teens not in school and not working — from 4 to 5%. Despite Connecticut’s strong educational ranking, the numbers in that area also slid back — 40% of pre-K aged kids were not in school, compared to a previous measurement of 35%; more fourth-graders were not proficient in reading, up to 64% from 60%; and more eighth-graders were not proficient in math, 68% compared to 61%.

“Connecticut’s overall high ranking is something to be proud of but evidence we are not doing enough — we must engage in big, bold policy changes that advance economic security for all families, not just the privileged and lucky few,” said Emily Byrne, executive director of Connecticut Voices for Children. “The data show both the impact of investments that support children and families and the consequences of longstanding status quo budgets that don’t address equity and opportunity.”

Byrne said that Connecticut has a “moral responsibility” to support families by strengthening the social safety net and investing in policies that benefit all children.

This year, the Kids Count report includes an overall numerical score between 0 and 1000. Connecticut scored 708 — well above the national average of 547. But Connecticut’s score also dropped compared to how the Annie E. Casey Foundation rated it during 2019, when it was rated 727. The Foundation said that 2019 was chosen as a basis of comparison because it represents how kids were faring pre-COVID. The numerical ranking is intended to help make more visible how states are improving or declining on metrics independent of how they rank against other states.

By those scores, kids fared worse in 2024 than they did in 2019, with much of this decline driven by education. Connecticut’s educational data improved in only one metric between 2019 and 2024: slightly more high school students are graduating on time. And, despite its mediocre ranking on economic outcomes, Connecticut’s metrics improved in three of four economic categories, with fewer children living in poverty, fewer children whose parents lack secure employment and fewer children living in households with a high housing cost burden compared to 2019 figures.

Data on the decreasing share of young children not in school is notable as Connecticut embarks on an ambitious plan to fund early childhood education for low-income families with an endowment. Under that plan, which Gov. Ned Lamont has said is central to his legacy, families making less than $100,000 per year would pay nothing for pre-K, while families making more than that would contribute up to 7% of their household income.

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