A second person has died after a hit-and-run crash in Hartford last week.

Police said 23-year-old Catalina Melendez of Hartford died Tuesday of injuries she suffered in a crash on Vine Street on Jan. 16.

Another woman, 25-year-old, Tina Fontanez, of Hartford, was also killed.

Police are still searching for the driver who hit the two women, but charges have been filed against the owner of the vehicle.

The vehicle involved in the crash was recovered near the intersection of Bethel and Guilford streets. The registered owner of the car, 25-year-old Lorenzo Ivery, of Hartford, contacted police to report the vehicle stolen.

Investigators determined that Ivery was in the car, based on evidence, including auto glass in his hair and clothing, and he was charged with false statement, second-degree hindering prosecution and owner liability. At his arraignment he was also charged with evading a motor vehicle accident with a death. He is currently being held on a $150,000 bond and more charges are likely, according to police.

Police said they have made progress in finding the driver and believe an arrest is imminent.

The major crimes unit is investigating.

Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday the White House encourages the Senate to bring an immigration bill to the floor that includes specifics on border security and limiting "chained migration." She added that President Donald Trump intends to lead on the issue.

Sky gazers will be treated to a rare trifecta of celestial events during the early hours of Jan. 31, 2018.

For the first time in more than 150 years, a blue moon and supermoon will coincide with a total lunar eclipse.

"For the continental U.S., the viewing will be best in the West,” said Gordon Johnston, program executive and lunar blogger at NASA. "Set your alarm early and go out and take a look."

The Jan. 31 full moon will occur during perigee — the moon’s closets approach to Earth during orbit — and will appear larger and brighter than usual, making it a "supermoon." Because it is the second full moon of the month, it's called a "blue moon."

But don’t expect to see a blue colored moon in the sky. When this super blue moon passes through the Earth’s shadow, resulting in a total lunar eclipse, it takes on a reddish tint, hence the name "blood moon."

The super blue blood moon will be viewable from western North America and across the Pacific to eastern Asia. For Californians, totality will begin at 4:51 a.m. PT with the best viewing between 5 a.m. PT and 6 a.m. PT.

"Weather permitting, the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii will have a spectacular view of totality from start to finish," said Johnston. "Unfortunately, eclipse viewing will be more challenging in the Eastern time zone. The eclipse begins at 5:51 a.m. ET, as the Moon is about to set in the western sky, and the sky is getting lighter in the east."

Johnston said the best opportunity for viewers on the East Coast to see the super blue blood moon will be around 6:45 a.m. ET. So get outside to a high place and make sure you have a clear line of sight to the horizon in the west-northwest, opposite from where the Sun will rise.

For those in the Central time zone, the lunar eclipse will begin around 4:51 a.m. local time. The moon will appear to be a red color around 6:15 a.m. CT, and the view will remain until 7 a.m. CT when the sun rises, according to NASA.

The lunar eclipse will be visible in the Rocky Mountain region beginning around 4:48 a.m. MT. The eclipse will peak around 6:30 a.m. MT until 7 a.m. MT when the moon will set, according to the statement.

This rare alignment of events last occurred in 1866 and won’t be seen again until 2028, according to Joe Rao of New York's Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History.

The UConn College Republicans are hosting another conservative speaker Wednesday night, the first such speech since Lucian Wintrich’s "It’s OK to Be White" talk led to two arrests back in November, and the university has some new rules in place for the speech.

The group invited Ben Shapiro, editor-in-chief of conservative news site The Daily Wire.

"We've done a lot more planning to make sure that the speech will be heard and intellectual debate can be facilitated after," explained Tim Sullivan, president of the UConn College Republicans.

The university has also prepared.

"We absolutely want to make sure that that kind of thing never happens again," said UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz.

Wednesday’s event will only be open to members of the UConn community and will require a previously picked-up bracelet and a valid UConn ID.

"It gives us an opportunity to hold people accountable if they do behave poorly," Reitz explained.

All of this is the result of a newly established event review procedure where the school sits down with groups and lays out all the logistics.

The rules are not only for College Republican events. At the same time Ben Shapiro will be speaking, the UConn College Democrats will host a ticket-only event with Nathan Robinson, editor-in-chief of Current Affairs magazine. Both events underwent the same process and same reviews.

"We want to give people different options for tonight, we didn’t want people to feel the need to go to Ben Shapiro’s event and protest," explained UConn College Democrat Colin Mortimer.

The two organizations have different takes on the timing of the events.

"They chose to host it at the same time to draw liberals and people who disagree with Shapiro away from the event," Sullivan said.

"For the College Republicans to come out and cry this event as us being antagonistic or taking away from the free speech Ben Shapiro has, we are really disappointed by that," Mortimer said.

The university said they have the same expectations for both events.

"Our primary goal is to have a safe event where everyone’s speech and rights are protected and respected," Reitz said.

A New Britain woman faces charges after her dog attacked her children and two adults in October, according to New Britain police.

Police said 37-year-old Jessica DePaolis faces animal cruelty charges after a dog in her care attacked others in her home.

On October 23 officers responded to 62 Fairview Street, DePaolis’ home, for a report of bulldog attacking people and other dogs in the home, police said.

Four people were injured, including DePaolis’ two children, ages 7 and 13. Police said the 7-year-old required surgery.

A Chihuahua was also killed in the attack.

According to police, officers found 19 dogs in the home, including a male bulldog that had attacked while DePaolis was not at home. The city was given custody of the animals.

DePaolis was served with an arrest warrant Monday charging her multiple counts of cruelty to animals, risk of injury to a minor, violating kennel license/inspection requirements, and first-degree reckless endangerment.

A driver vehicle crashed into the Glenville Volunteer Fire Company’s station around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday and it happened seconds after firefighters left the room where it happened to start their day.

Police said the driver suffered a seizure, swerved, jumped a ramp and struck the firehouse, damaging an office. He is expected to be OK.

Firefighters said they are grateful that it was not worse and the injuries were not worse.

“The wall can be repaired and the car can be repaired,” Deputy Fire Chief Tom Nixon said.

Toys R Us plans to close around 180 stores across the country, including four  stores in Connecticut.

CNBC reports that the company needs court approval for the plan, which includes closing around a fifth of its stores across the country. 

The list of stores that will close is included in court documents that were filed in bankruptcy court in Virginia Tuesday. 

The company plans for store closings to begin in early February, with the majority closing in mid-April.

Following are the stores slated for closure.

Connecticut:

• 376 North Universal Drive, North Haven
• 275 Union St., Waterbury
• 3491 Berlin Turnpike, Newington
• 169 Hale Road, Manchester (Babies R Us)

See the full list.

The company plans to revamp several remaining stores by converting them into co-branded Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores. 

Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital is opening an expanded neonatal intensive care unit designed with feedback from families.

For decades, the hospital has been at the forefront of providing critical care for babies born prematurely or with medical complications.

When families arrive at the new NICU, photos and stories of children on the Wall of Hope are meant to give them inspiration through what can be a very difficult time.

“When you have a very premature baby with lots of medical problems, people get very concerned and dejected and think about what’s going to happen,” Chairman of Pediatrics Dr. Clifford Bogue said, “and we want them to see how great the outcomes can be.”

The top two floors of the children’s hospital have been transformed into a state of the art NICU with 68 patient rooms.

“A fundamental aspect of this new unit is it makes its far easier for parents to be with their child during the day, overnight, it’s a much nicer space for them,” said Dr. Mark Mercurio, the hospital’s Director of Newborn Services.

Eight of the rooms are designed for couplet care, allowing the mom to stay in the same room as her newborn child.

“We are going to be one of the first hospitals in the country and the first academic medical center to deliver this kind of care and we think it is really important for that early bonding experience,” Bogue said.

Another innovation is a specialized space for procedures.

“So that if a baby is really fragile and our surgeons don’t want move the baby bound into the operating room, they’ll have the option of performing even major procedures here on the unit,” Mercurio said.

Next year, the unit plans to introduce groundbreaking technology for neonatal brain MRIs. All of these medical advances are taking place at the hospital that opened the nation’s first NICU almost sixty years ago.

“It’s really a continuation of being really at the cutting edge,” Bogue said.

Newborn babies will begin receiving care at the new NICU next Tuesday.

The Coast Guard continued to chip away at the ice jam on the Connecticut River, but it was blue waters and a smooth current out in Essex Wednesday.

Marinas and business downstream are no longer that worried about what that floating ice will mean for them.

“It’s a great feeling,” said Alex Yuknat of RiverQuest.

Last week staff was worried that ice from the ice jam would come spilling down the Connecticut River and take out their boat docked at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex.

But the warmer weather, the current and the U.S. Coast Guard breaking up the ice has helped ease those concerns.

“There are going to be big sheets coming down and big chunks of ice but they should, for the most part, stay toward the eastern side of the river,” Yuknat said.

He did move the boat forward to better protect it behind the dock, just in case.

The ice melted over in Old Saybrook, too, by Oak Leaf Marina.

Owner Scott Masse said every winter he’s concerned about the quarter-mile long sheets of ice floating down the river and damaging the docks. But as far as the ice jam is concerned, he said everything is back to work as usual.

“I don’t know if the wind held it off, or the ice in the marina, but we really didn’t get any damage which was really nice,” said Stephanie McLaughlin, marina manager at Brewer Essex Island Marina.

McLaughlin said it’s been a pretty good winter so far; she just lost some pilings. She will keep an eye on the river in case the ice has other plans.

“If the wind changes and pushes all the chunks into the docks, we might have some problems. But so far it’s been pretty good,” she said. “So I’m hoping for no change there.”

Students evacuated last week from Kent School due to the ice jams on the Housatonic River moved back to campus Wednesday.

Exclusive aerials from NBC Connecticut’s Drone Ranger showed crews pumping out water from the Kent School campus Wednesday afternoon. Meanwhile, students returned to the private school, where most of the 580 students live, in anticipation of classes resuming Thursday.

The students had to leave campus on Jan. 15 because of the ice jams on the Housatonic River, which caused flooding throughout much of the area surrounding the river and inside some of the campus buildings.

School officials told NBC Connecticut that the buildings along the river have flooded, but it has been limited to basements. There has been no impact to classrooms and administrative offices.

Gabriella Crawford, who plays hockey for Kent, describes what it was like at the school’s ice rink.

“Our team had to make sure that we got everything out of the locker room because the rink was pretty… I don’t think it actually got flooded, but they didn’t really know because the water was coming so high to the rink so we got all of our stuff out of there,” said Gabriella, who we met after her father, Bob, drove her back to school from Bedford, New York.

“Her roommate is from Nova Scotia so she stayed a few days with us then went back home, then came back and stayed with us today brought her up,” said Bob.

A spokesperson with Kent School told NBC Connecticut in a statement: “We are very closely monitoring both weather and the river. We are working closely with our state representative, local fire department and others who are monitoring this issue. We’re trying to understand the river flow and the anticipated rise of the river level.”

Bob praised the school for its communication efforts with parents.

“Every day, we’ve been constantly getting e-mails from the school, getting updates on what’s going on at the campus, what’s going on with their courses, as well as what’s going on with their sports so it’s been smooth in that way.”

Meanwhile, two miles away from Kent School, part of Route 7 was shut down in between Route 341 and Bulls Bridge. At around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, water from the river made its way onto Route 7, causing drivers to reroute.

Representative Brian Ohler, one of the emergency officials closely monitoring the situation on the Housatonic said they are hoping the water can be cleared out the water by Wednesday night.

“DOT has been working down there to try and find an access point where the water can flow back into the river and then they have to put a lot of salt down because tonight it’s supposed to be in the teens and we want to make sure the road is safe for passage.”

Salt was put down in areas where the water receded.

Trader Joe’s has plans to open a new location at the Plaza at Buckland Hills in Manchester.

Town officials confirmed that the company has submitted plans for a store at the former Eastern Mountain Sports location in the plaza.

This would be the second Trader Joe’s location in the Greater Hartford area, the first being in West Hartford.

Trader Joe’s is a grocery market chain originally founded under the name Pronto Markets in 1958. The company is focused on packaging “innovative, hard-to-find, great-tasting foods” under their brand name.

Gary Anderson, director of planning and economic development for the town of Manchester, said the new owners of the Plaza at Buckland Hills have been focused on new investment in the area, including new tenants like Trader Joe’s and other improvements like a makeover of the center façade and a Tesla supercharging station.

“This news speaks to Manchester’s continued status as a premier business location. We have seen a good deal of reinvestment in Buckland Hills recently and both national retailers and local businesses continue to see Manchester as a desirable place to locate,” Anderson wrote.

It was not immediately clear how long it would take for the store to move in.

Authorities have located an "armed and dangerous" suspect that prompted an alert for residents to remain inside in part of Hamden Wednesday night.

The Town of Hamden posted an alert for residents who live in the State Street and Welton Street area. According to the alert, the suspect was involved in an armed robbery where shots were fired at the Krauzer’s located on State and Ridge Streets.

Residents were warned to lock doors and stay inside. Officials asked that residents turn on outdoor lights to help authorities in the search.

The mayor confirmed that the suspect was in custody around 10:40 p.m.

No other information was immediately available.

Authorities have taken a suspect into custody and are looking for two others after a sheriff's deputy was shot to death during a confrontation north of Denver.

A spokeswoman for The Adams County Sheriff's Office says deputies were called to an "assault in progress" Wednesday night and saw one of the suspects run behind a house. She says that suspect pulled a handgun and shot the deputy in the chest before fleeing. He was taken into custody a short time later.

Investigators set a large perimeter in their search for two other suspects, who remain on the loose.

The deputy's name and age have not been released, and the spokeswoman did not release any other information about what led to the shooting in a residential area about 8 miles (13 kilometers) north of downtown Denver.

The shooting happened less than a month after 29-year-old Douglas County sheriff's deputy Zackari Parrish was fatally shot and four other officers were injured in an ambush in suburban Denver.

A commuter train derailed Thursday in northern Italy, killing at least two people, seriously injuring 10 and trapping others heading into the city of Milan at the start of the work day, carabinieri police said.

The Trenord train derailed near the Pioltello Limito station on the outskirts of the city, halting train traffic into and out of Italy's financial capital for hours. At least two main cars peeled off the rails but were still standing, albeit at an angle. Rescue crews gingerly climbed through the crushed sides of the cars trying to get to trapped passengers.

Carabinieri police confirmed at least two people were killed, 10 were seriously injured and dozens more slightly injured. The train was heading from Cremona, in eastern Lombardy, into Milan's Garibaldi station.

Trenord is the regional train company serving the Lombardy region. It is notorious among passengers for dirty, packed cars and frequent delays. On social media Thursday, it was ridiculed for tweets blaming delays into Milan on a "technical inconvenience" involving a train.

It was the latest incident involving Italy's aging rail system. In 2016, 23 people were killed when two trains collided on a single track in an olive grove in Puglia, southeastern Italy. In 2009, 32 people were killed when a freight train carrying liquefied petroleum gas derailed and exploded in Viareggio, in central Italy's Tuscany region.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's comment Wednesday suggesting that the U.S. could benefit from a weak greenback sent the dollar plummeting to its lowest level since December 2014.

Thursday morning he told reporters in Davos that he spends little time thinking about the weakness of the dollar over the short term and that the administration is not concerned. 

The dollar index, which tracks the strength of the dollar against a basket of currencies, went down in value by more than 10 percent and gave rise to fears of a trade war. 

The 12-year-old girl who died Tuesday of an apparent suicide at her boarding school in Washington, D.C. had been bullied, her devastated mother says. 

Her name was Stormiyah Denson-Jackson, her mother, Pat Denson, told News4. The seventh-grader won awards in modeling competitions and was looking forward to going to college. 

But Denson-Jackson's classmates bullied her, her mother said. 

"She did tell me that a lot of kids would be bullying her, picking on her. And when she tried to tell the staff, they wouldn't do nothing about it," Denson said. "But when she reacted, they put her as the bully."  

Denson-Jackson's body was found at The SEED Public Charter School of Washington (SEED DC), police said. Her death is being investigated as an apparent suicide, police sources told News4.

D.C. police responded to the school on the 4300 block of C Street SE, near East Capitol Street, for a report of an unconscious person. Denson-Jackson was found dead in her dorm room. 

Denson wept as she spoke about her daughter. 

"I sent my baby there to learn, not to die," she said. "I just can't understand it."

The child's mother questioned the school's actions. 

"They supposed to look in the room and look on the bed to make sure that that child is in her space, every hour on the hour. That's what's supposed to be done. But it wasn't done. My child would be still here," Denson said. "I trusted them people with my child." 

A school spokeswoman said the security and safety of students are the school's top priorities. She declined to speak about individual students. 

Three women who have family members at the school told News4 bullying is a problem there. 

Kimberly Brent said her grandson was bullied and beaten up there last month.

"He had a knot in his forehead, a knot in the back of his head. He had a concussion," she said. "Three young men in his eighth-grade dorm jumped him."

Another woman, who asked News4 to withhold her name, said her daughter was victimized.

"She has been bullied on more than one occasion," she said. "When told about the situation, nobody did nothing about it."

After Denson-Jackson's body was found on Tuesday, the parents of her classmates were called and told to pick up their children. 

"It's really sad that at 12 years old you feel like the only solution is to take your life. It's heartbreaking," said Keana Bedney-Wallace, the parent of another student at the school. "I'm a mom of five, and I couldn't imagine. I pray for the family, that they get through this."

Earlier Tuesday, the school issued a brief statement.

"We are deeply saddened to report that a SEED DC student unexpectedly passed away this morning. This is of course a terrible tragedy for the family first and foremost, as well as for the entire SEED Community," the statement said. "We ask that you respect the privacy of the family and of our community of scholars and teachers in their mourning."

Opened in 1998, SEED DC is a public, college-preparatory boarding school that serves 370 students in grades six through 12. Ninety-one percent of its graduates have enrolled in college, and 80 percent are first-generation college students, the school's website says.

On Wednesday, a stuffed animal and a bouquet of yellow roses were placed at the school's gate. 

If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting 'Home' to 741741. For a long list of mental health resources, see News4's ongoing Changing Minds coverage. 

Crock-Pot’s parent company defended the safety record of its slow-cookers after the product was featured in a plot twist on NBC's "This Is Us."

The episode — no spoilers here — led some on Twitter to say they were tossing their Crock-Pots.

"For nearly 50 years with over 100 million Crock-Pots sold, we have never received any consumer complaints similar to the fictional events portrayed in last night’s episode," Newell Brands said. "In fact, the safety and design of our product renders this type of event nearly impossible.”

Regardless, the company isn't the first to take a hit from an unflattering on-screen depiction, NBC News reported. Merlot sales dipped and pinot noir spiked because of Paul Giamatti's character's preferences in the 2004 movie "Sideways."

In 2007, KFC sales slid after comedian Patton Oswalt mocked "Famous Bowls" as "failure pile in a sadness bowl."

Smoking just one single cigarette a day can significantly raise your risk of heart disease and stroke, researchers said in a new report that contradicts the notion that cutting way down from heavy smoking drastically reduces risks, NBC News reported.

A team led by Allan Hackshaw at the UCL Cancer Institute at University College London went back through credible health studies dating back to 1946.

For men, smoking one cigarette a day on average raised the risk of heart disease by 48 percent over a non-smoker, while smoking 20 cigarettes a day doubled the risk.

For a woman, smoking one cigarette a day raised the heart disease risk by 57 percent and 20 cigarettes a day raised the risk 2.8 times.

"No safe level of smoking exists for cardiovascular disease,” Hackshaw’s team concluded.

The findings come as the U.S. is considering how to regulate "heat not burn" cigarettes.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration’s plans to end temporary protected status for Haitians, the group said Wednesday.

"The decision by the Department of Homeland Security to rescind TPS status for Haitian immigrants was infected by racial discrimination," Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., said in a statement.

Acting Homeland Security Director Elaine Duke announced in November that the protections will end on July 22, 2019, saying that "extraordinary but temporary conditions" caused by a 2010 earthquake that killed at least 220,000 people "no longer exist."

The NAACP lawsuit says rescinding TPS could expose 58,000 Haitians to deportation.

President Donald Trump has denied that he insulted Haitians during a recent meeting where he reportedly also referred to African nations as "sh--hole countries."