The plan to illuminate Manhattan's One World Trade Center in Belgian colors to show support for the nation reeling from terrorist attacks caused unexpected controversy Tuesday when the 408-foot spire atop the tallest building in the U.S. appeared to display the incorrect hues.

“Tonight, One World Trade Center will be displayed in black, yellow and red as we stand in solemn solidarity with the people of Belgium, just as they have done for us in the past,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement before the lighting Tuesday.

But the spire appeared to be lit in red, white and blue when it was first illuminated. A Port Authority spokesman said the spire was initially lit at 10 percent white, which was supposed to darken the spire enough to appear black.

After dusk, the lighting was further darkened so the Belgian colors of black, yellow and red were clearly visible, the spokesman said.

Still, some people took to social media to lambaste the apparently incorrect colors. Others, apparently unaware of Belgium's national colors, tweeted photos of the tribute but didn't mention the odd hues of the spire.

After the spire was darkened, Cuomo tweeted a photo of the spire showing the Belgian colors.

But some weren't convinced.

An aide to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has feuded publicly with Cuomo a number of times since taking office, accused the governor of doctoring the photo to show the correct colors.

"Ah, guys, this photo is pretty clearly doctored. #ethics," Rob Bennett, who works in de Blasio's administration tweeted.

A spokesperson for Gov. Cuomo refused to comment when asked about Bennett's tweet. The mayor's office did not immediately respond when asked for comment about the lighting controversy.

The Durst Organization, which manages the spire, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.    

Other city landmarks also paid tribute to Belgium. The Empire State Building went dark Tuesday night, while City Hall illuminated two-thirds of its facade in yellow and red. 

The Eiffel Tower, Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai were among other landmarks around the world that also displayed Belgium's colors.

A pedestrian was hit by vehicle on Route 190 in Somers and sustained serious injuries, according to state police.  

The person was hit near 451 Main St, which is also Route 190, and the road is closed between Maple Ridge Drive and Sokol Road, according to state police.

Traffic is being rerouted. 

LifeStar was called to being the patient from Johnson Memorial Hospiital to Hartford Hospital, according to officials from LifeStar.

A man exposed himself to a female employee at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Milford on Sunday morning, then committed a lewd act and police are trying to identify him, according to police.

Police said the man originally went into the restroom of the Dunkin’ Donuts, at 367 Bridgeport Ave., but then walked up to the counter and masturbated in front of a female employee.

He is 5-feet-2-inches tall, between 25 and 35 years old, weighs around 200 pounds and has dark eyes and brown hair.

The employee said the same man was in the store two weeks earlier.

Anyone with information should call the Milford Police Department at (203) 878-6551, or Detective William Haas at 203-783-4771 or 203-877-1465, email whaas@ci.milford.ct.us or visit submit a crime tip online. 

The bomb blasts during the terror attack on the Brussels airport Tuesday morning left American Sheerine Naraghi shaken. But she knows she will have to muster the courage to return to the airport and fly home.

Naraghi and her boyfriend Jeff Hoffman, a consultant for NATO, were both in the terminal when the initial blast occurred. Naraghi had just received her ticket after checking her bags when she turned to her boyfriend. She saw things flying behind him and heard a loud noise, describing the scene as "almost like a tornado going off."

"I'm lucky enough to be able to go home and see my family, and a lot of people aren't that lucky, so I'm just trying to keep telling myself that," Naraghi told NBC's "Today" show Wednesday as Hoffman stood at her side. "Don't think of it as you're going back to a terrible place, think about it's your catalyst to get home."

A government document obtained by NBC News shows that just four months before Tuesday's Brussels attacks, Belgian officials believed they were making progress in defusing the threat posed by ISIS terrorists in Belgium. 

A confidential U.S. cable describes how the Belgian officials outlined the nuts and bolts of their aggressive new counter-terrorism program in meetings with U.S. counterparts.

During the meetings last Nov. 3 and 4, former U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia Jake Walles -- now the State Department's senior advisor on foreign fighters -- warned Belgium that "returning fighters pose a significant destabilizing threat and noted the relatively high number of Belgian fighters," the cable said.

Frank Arnauts, the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' director for Security Policy, agreed, saying that his country "likely has provided the largest number of fighters in Syria per capita." But Arnaut also said that Belgium was slowing the flow.

Police are trying to identify the two men who broke into a Meriden restaurant early on the morning of St. Patrick’s Day and stole an ATM and a floor-mounted safe that contained nearly $30,000.

Police said the two men pried open the side door of the Caribbean Restaurant at 311 Center St. just before 3:30 a.m., stole the ATM and a floor-mounted safe reported to contain $29,000 and wheeled them out on a hand-truck, police said.

The owner of the restaurant said his family was saving the cash for a house they are building in Puerto Rico. German Rosario, of Meriden, said the money was at the restaurant rather than a bank because he’d been away and has not had the chance to deposit it. 

“My wife was saving the money so that when I came back, I’d deposit it,” he said.

Anyone with information should call Detective Robison at 203-630-6267 or email jrobison@meridenct.gov.
 

Loved ones of a woman killed Saturday by the husband she feared would eventually take her life say they hope to prevent another family from going through the same heartache by sharing her story.

Kristi Bice's brother and sister say her husband Stephen isolated her and her sons, monitoring most of her interactions with others before he eventually took her life at her home in Hudson, Ohio.

"He kept her away from us for years. He was very controlling,” Kristi's brother Ronald Kennedy told NBC Chicago. "He listened to her phone calls. When she talked to anyone, he would tell her what to say."

“She wasn’t allowed to come to birthday parties or Christmas. She would give excuses but I’m sure it was him,” Kristi's sister Michelle Bender said. “He isolated that little family from everybody.”

Kristi's 13, 16, and 18-year-old sons had started Spring Break a day before they drove up at noon on Sunday to find the door of their home in the 7000 block of Ravenna Road open. Inside, the eldest son found the bodies of Kristi and Stephen. He told his younger siblings to stay back and call 911.

Before the tragedy, Stephen texted the three teens to meet at a Fun-N-Stuff amusement park in Macedonia to discuss problems within the family, police reports show. The boys debated not leaving their mother Kristi alone because their father had previously threatened to kill her.

Their 13-year-old son slept on the couch with a baseball bat since February to protect his mother, Kennedy said.

Kristi texted her adult daughter that she was suspicious of her husband’s plan.

"Boys get there and he isn't there," Kristi texted, according to the reports. "I hope he isn't planning on getting them out of the house so he can blow me up."

Stephen broke into the home with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun, according to police reports. He shot Kristi four times: once in the left thigh, once in the right leg and once in the stomach. Finally, he shot her once in the head close range.

As he stood over her, he used his final bullet to shoot himself, according to police. 

In police documents provided to NBC Chicago, Stephen is frequently referred to as an alcoholic. Documents also show he was arrested on Jan. 14, after he threatened to kill Kristi and himself. The next day, a Summit County judge temporarily approved a protection order meant to keep him from contacting her or being close to her.

The protection order was extended the following month to last until Jan. 15, 2021.

"She was a wonderful mother to her boys and would do anything for them. I truly believe the only reason she stayed in the abusive relationship for so long is she truly believed his threats that he was going to kill her and her boys," Kennedy said.

The family is now making funeral arrangements.

Ronald Kennedy told NBC Chicago Kristi's sons are "devastated." One of the boys has autism and has special needs. Money from a GoFundMe account will go to a trust fund for the teens.

Although the family is going through such sadness, they want Kristi's story heard.

“We hated that our sister was going through that and I would never want to see another family go through it,” said Ronald Kennedy, who happens to be a detective at the Akron Police Department. "The victims feel like they are trapped half the time and things need to change."

A convicted felon who was wanted in Norwich and on the run for almost a year was found hiding out in a Plainfield home, according to police.

Police said they received information that Benjamin Cook, 26, of Norwich, was hiding out at 289 Gendron Road in Plainfield and apprehended him around 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

During the arrest, police found Cook with more than 1 ounce of cocaine prepackaged for sale and marijuana, police said.

The warrants are for several charges out of Norwich, including robbery, burglary, sale of narcotics, assault and strangulation.

Cook was brought to the Plainfield Police Department and held on $127,000 bond.

He was charged with three counts of failure to appear in the first degree, possession of cocaine, possession of cocaine with intent to sell and possession of marijuana.

Cook is schedule to appear at the Danielson Superior Court on Thursday.

A bill moving through the General Assembly would allow some sex offenders to be removed from the lifetime registry if they meet certain requirements and the Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing on it this morning. 

The bill, Senate Bill 473, would allow certain sex offenders to apply to be removed from the list after being on it for 10 years or more.

The stipulations include that the offender must only have one conviction, be within eight years of the victim’s age and cannot be found guilty of mental disease or defect.

Once the person on the sex offender registry files the petition, the victim must be notified and would able to testify.

You can read the full bill here. 

The hearing will be in room 2C of the Legislative Office Building.

It starts at 10:30 a.m. and this is one of 15 pieces of proposed legislation on the agenda.

The investigation into the death of a 26-year Norwich, Connecticut, woman who disappeared in 2006 and was found buried in Montville four years ago has led police to an apartment in Norwich.

It’s not clear what police are investigating at 450 East Main St. in Norwich, but state police said new information led them there.

Police are investigating the homicide of Erika Cirioni, a mother of two, who disappeared on New Year’s Eve in 2006 and was reported missing.

Six years later, children playing in the woods off Oxoboxo Dam Road in Montville found her remains, partially buried.

State police said they learned of the discovery around 4 p.m. on March 18, 2012 and Cirioni’s death was eventually classified a homicide. 

When the case was still a missing person case, the Division of Criminal Justice included Cirioni in the first deck of “cold case” playing cards distributed through the state criminal justice system. Later, a $50,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction on the case.

As the investigation continues, state police are asking anyone with information to call EDMC at 860-848-6500 or text TIP711 with the information to 236748.

President Barack Obama was faced with questions Wednesday over whether the deadly attacks in Brussels have made him rethink his strategy to crush ISIS and if he has a "Plan B," NBC News reported.

Brushing aside critics who say he is too cautious, the president emphasized recent successes in the fight to dismantle the terror group, vowing that it would ultimately be destroyed, which he said is his most pressing issue.

Obama has defended himself against Republicans such as Donald Trump, who calls for an all-out ban on Muslims from entering the United States. He also took a swipe at Sen. Ted Cruz, who said he wants more aggressive monitoring of Muslim neighborhoods in America.

"As far as the notion of having surveillance of neighborhoods where Muslims are present, I just left a country that engages in that kind of neighborhood surveillance, which, by the way, the father of Sen. Cruz escaped for America, the land of the free," Obama said, referring to Cuba. 

The support for a measure to allow for a new kind of oversight to the city of Hartford's finances, appears to be losing support before it gained much of any inside the State Capitol.

Rep. Minnie Gonzalez described the bill as, "muerto, muerto," to the Hartford Courant Wednesday. In Spanish, that means, "dead, dead."

The proposal which was drafted last week would create a board to oversee the sustainability of Hartford's finances. The city faces a $10 million shortfall to end the current fiscal year, and a projected shortfall of more than $30 million next year which is expected to grow.

Union leaders have also stood up to Bronin, saying they don't think he's been forthcoming with them.

"I don’t believe the mayor is truthful when it comes to negotiating with the unions," said Vincent Fusco, the President of the Hartford Firefighters Association said during an interview with NBC Connecticut.

Fusco said the part of the proposal that allows Bronin to appoint members to a board that could reopen collective bargaining is wrong.

“That is not collective bargaining. That is not negotiations. That is dictatorship. Us organizations, we’re all banding together because it negatively impacts all of us the same way," Fusco said.

Bronin said he's trying to get the city on a solid fiscal path and that includes the unions, not going against them.

“I have an enormous amount of respect for them. I have an enormous amount of respect for them as a union and I have an enormous amount of respect for organized labor. We are in a extraordinary crisis," he said.

The mayor said new ideas are needed to fix the city's problems and that includes the proposal before lawmakers.

“We have to face the fact that we can’t keep doing things the way we’ve always done them. We need to make some extraordinary changes because we are facing an extraordinary crisis.”

Debris recently discovered in Mozambique most likely came from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished mysteriously two years ago, Australian officials said Wednesday.

In a statement, Australia's Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Darren Chester, said that an analysis of two items found that they were "consistent with drift modeling" that "further affirms our search efforts in the southern Indian Ocean," NBC News reports.

"The analysis has concluded the debris is almost certainly from MH370," Chester said.

The only other confirmed piece of debris from the Boeing 777, which disappeared while en route to Bejing from Kuala Lampur with 239 people on board, was found last July in the southern Indian Ocean.

Ted Cruz will need to read up on his "New York values" now that he's in Manhattan.

Cruz, who trails behind Donald Trump in polls and delegate numbers, said he intends to challenge Trump in his home state's primary.

"God bless the great state of New York!" Cruz said upon taking the microphone in front of a tightly-packed crowd of 150 Republicans at the Women's National Republican Club in midtown Manhattan.

At his first official campaign event in the state since announcing his candidacy one year ago, Cruz accused Trump of years of financially backing "liberal Democratic policies" in the state.

Driving conditions across Colorado remained treacherous early Thursday after several hundred motorists were left stranded on highways during a wintry storm late Wednesday, authorities said.

Motorists abandoned their cars on highway shoulders and in ditches amid snowy conditions and winds of up to 50 mph that walloped I-70 east of Denver late Wednesday. Others had spent more than eight hours in their vehicles. 

The Colorado National Guard sent Humvees and troops to help drivers that became stranded on I-25 between Denver and Colorado Springs.

Over a foot of snow fell at Denver International Airport on Wednesday and 24 inches was recorded in nearby Boulder, the National Weather Service said.

The Independent Police Review Authority, the Chicago agency responsible for investigating allegations of police misconduct, has announced that it plans to conduct a historic review of all closed officer-involved shootings in the city just months after the Laquan McDonald shooting video was released.

Chief Administrator Sharon Fairley made the announcement at a press conference Wednesday, as her first 100 days in the role come to a close. 

Fairley, a former federal prosecutor, was appointed to the role of chief administrator by Mayor Rahm Emanuel following the November release of footage showing the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old McDonald. 

She has since called on City Hall’s Inspector General Joseph Ferguson to investigate questions surrounding Officer Jason Van Dyke’s fatal shooting of McDonald. At the time, she said public confidence would be “enhanced” if the investigation were conducted by an agency “that has had no involvement with the matter and can bring a fresh look at the facts.”

Fairley also has said her office planned to reopen IPRA’s investigation into how officers treated Philip Coleman, a 38-year-old man who suffered a mental breakdown in 2012. A recently released video shows officers dragging Coleman from a police lockup after he was repeatedly shocked with a stun gun at a South Side police station. Police said he was combative when they tried to take him to court to face charges in connection with an arrest the day before.

Coleman was transported to a hospital, where officers said he was combative again. They zapped him repeatedly with a Taser and struck him with a baton, according to police records. He died hours later from a reaction to a sedative the hospital gave him, according to the medical examiner’s office.

Chicago Blackhawks prospect Garret Ross was "suspended indefinitely" after records revealed Ross faces felony charges on accusations of violating Illinois’ ban on so-called “revenge porn," the Blackhawks announced Wednesday. 

“On Saturday afternoon, March 19, 2016, the Chicago Blackhawks and Rockford IceHogs learned of a legal proceeding against IceHogs player Garret Ross," the Blackhawks said in a statement. "At that time, we excused Garret from Blackhawks Prospect Garret Ross Suspended After 'Revenge Porn' Charges team activities pending our preliminary review of the matter. After further review, we have determined to suspend Garret indefinitely pending the outcome of the legal process. Because this is a pending legal proceeding, we will have no further comment at this time.”

Ross, a 23-year-old Rockford IceHogs player who was drafted by the Blackhawks in 2012, has been charged with one count of non-consensual dissemination of a sexual image, a Class 4 felony, according to DeKalb County case records.

Court records show the charges stemmed from an offense that occurred on Aug. 31, 2015. The new law passed by the Illinois legislature in 2015 makes it a criminal act to share private sexual images without the consent of all parties involved.

If convicted, Ross faces one to three years in prison.

A preliminary hearing in the case is set for Apr. 22, with a status hearing scheduled for Mar. 28, according to documents from the DeKalb County Circuit Clerk’s Office.

Ross was scratched from the Rockford IceHogs’ lineup over the weekend after news of the allegations were reported.

It is unclear if Ross has an attorney.

For a generation of D.C. parents, the Flint crisis has dredged up painful memories of when they learned that glasses of tap water they handed to their children -- and drank while pregnant -- were poisoned.

D.C. tap water is safer now than ever, the water utility says, but from 2001 to 2004, tap water samples contained as much as five times the concentration of lead the Environmental Protection Agency says is safe.

A Virginia Tech professor recently testified before a congressional committee the problem of lead in D.C.'s water in the early 2000s was "20 to 30 times worse" than the current crisis in Flint, Michigan. He said the EPA could have prevented Flint’s crisis if it had learned from lessons in D.C.

At 15 parts per billion, water utilities must inform the public about how to protect their health. Samples of D.C. water spiked at 80 parts of lead per billion from mid-2001 to mid-2002, data from D.C. Water shows.

Capitol Hill resident Satu Haase-Webb, who had a 2-year-old daughter and was pregnant with her second child, was stunned to learn in 2004 that the water her family drank contained 308 parts of lead per billion.

"You're completely floored as a parent," she said. "You find out that you may have inadvertently exposed your child to a neurotoxin."

In children, exposure to lead can cause brain damage, learning and behavioral problems, and lowered IQs. In pregnant women, exposure can cause miscarriages and premature births. There's no reversing the damage.

Satu Haase-Webb's children -- now 14, 12 and 7 -- are healthy, but she said she worries about whether they were affected by the lead exposure.

"I don't know to this day if my children would be different if we hadn't had this," she said.

Gretchen Mikeska, another Capitol Hill resident, also said she wonders if her daughter, born in 2002, was affected by tap water she drank while pregnant and gave to her child. Her daughter, now 14, attends a school for children with language-based learning differences.

"There's no real way you can draw a line from A to B," she said.

Haase-Webb said she was devastated to learn that in Flint, like in D.C., lead from pipes leached into tap water.

"How horrific in this day and age that this can still happen," the historian said. "Haven't we learned anything from D.C.?"

Mikeska, an environmental engineer, said federal and local officials should have known that lead pipes in older cities could pose a threat.

"It seems like anyone thinking about this a little could have know that this was a problem," she said.

Lead levels in D.C. water climbed in the early 2000s after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers changed its water treatment chemical from chlorine to chloramine. The change was made because of EPA guidelines meant to limit byproducts used to treat water. What officials did not know is that chloramine would react differently with pipes, leading to corrosion and leaching lead from pipes into the water.

Lawsuits, some of which are still open after more than a decade, allege a deliberate cover-up by D.C. Water, then called the Water and Sewer Authority (WASA). Parents argued in court that "not only did the authority fail to eliminate this danger, it actually took affirmative steps to hide the lead contamination from its customers and federal authorities."

Marc Edwards, an environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on March 15 that EPA officials should have used what they learned in the District in the early 2000s to prevent what happened in Flint.

“The EPA and other agencies caused a similar lead-in-the-water crisis in Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2004 that actually was 20 to 30 times worse in terms of the health harm to children in Washington, D.C.," he said.

Edwards told The Washington Post his comparison between D.C. and Flint was based on “the number of people, the duration of exposure and the population harmed.”

Is DC's Tap Water Safe Now?

D.C. tap water now is safer to drink than ever, the water utility says.

"Yes, we did have a lead crisis in the early 2000s," D.C. Water spokesman John Lisle said. "Today, lead levels are controlled by the addition of an anti-corrosive chemical at the [Washington] Aqueduct and our lead levels are at historically low levels."

D.C. water contained lead levels of fewer than 4 parts per billion as of June 2015, well below the action level of 15 parts per billion, according to the agency's own data.

While water is lead-free when it leaves the Aqueduct treatment plant, lead can be released from pipes as the water makes its way out of your faucet. Pipes, fixtures and solder on private property can contain lead that can seep into water.

"The water that we treat is safe and lead-free," Lisle said. "Where issues can arrive is in homes that have lead sources."

Some feeder lines, also called service lines, that connect water mains to individual properties are made of lead. D.C. Water is spending about $40 million per year to replace water mains, the spokesman said. When crews replace the water mains, they also replace lead service lines on public space. When that work occurs, D.C. Water encourages property owners to replace service lines on their private land, too. The water utility also will replace lead feeder lines on public land upon request.

WASA's board of directors approved a $300 million program to replace all lead feeder lines on public space but scaled back the program after research and testing showed partial line replacements could disturb lead in pipes on private land, boosting levels of lead in water in the short term.

How to Check the Safety of the Tap Water in Your Home

Any D.C. resident can request a free lead test kit from D.C. Water.

In 2014 and 2015, 766 lead-testing kits were requested, Lisle said. Of those tests delivered to buildings, 446 were returned to the agency with water samples. Ten of those samples showed elevated lead levels, above the EPA action level. D.C. Water then worked with the residents to identify and correct the source of the problem, Lisle said.

Satu Hasse-Webb encouraged D.C. residents to get their lead feeder lines checked and replaced if necessary. She said she tries not to think about D.C.'s decade-old lead crisis anymore -- "it's something I just couldn't control" -- but the potential risks of lead feeder lines still cross her mind.

"I drive through the neighborhood now and know these people have a ticking time bomb on their hands," she said.

To request information about D.C. Water pipes leading to your home, call 202-354-3600. To request a free lead test kit, call 202-612-3440.

Alex Kist contributed reporting.

The mother of an American accountant missing since the Brussels bombings was flying to Belgium on Thursday after the family said it had been wrongly informed that he had been found, NBC News reported. 

Justin Shults and his wife Stephanie have not been seen since two blasts rocked the check-in hall at the city's airport, killing at least 11 people Tuesday morning. Justin's mom was expected to arrive in Belgium on Thursday. 

The explosions were met just over an hour later with another blast at a metro station in the city. At least 31 people died and more than 270 were wounded between the two sites across the Belgian capital.

Justin, 30, is originally from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, while 29-year-old Stephanie is from Lexington, Kentucky. They both work as accountants and moved to Brussels in 2014.

Officials believe Najim Laachraoui, suspected of making the bombs used to attack Paris in November, was one of the two suicide bombers in the deadly terror attacks in the Brussels airport, bolstering evidence linking an ISIS terror cell to both attacks, according to NBC News.

U.S. and Belgian intelligence sources said Wednesday they are certain Laachraoui died in blasts at Brussels' airport.

And there are other ties between Paris and Belgium, NBC News has learned.

Brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, who each took part and separately died in the airport and subway attacks, prosecutors said Wednesday, provided a safe house in Belgium to the terrorists who carried out the carnage in Paris. Some of the bombers met up there before moving on to the French capital. One brother, meanwhile, helped secure weapons and ammunition for the attackers.

Had he not been caught Friday, alleged Paris attacks plotter Salah Abdeslam would have joined in on the Brussels attacks that left at least 31 dead, sources said.