After the recent mass shooting in a Parkland, Florida, high school, videos spreading outlandish conspiracy theories began appearing on YouTube.

Videos posited that the student victims of the shooting were hired “crisis actors” who’d fabricated their experiences for money, attention or political reasons, as NBC News reported. The content-hosting platform even promoted the smear videos via its Up Next feature, which suggests related videos, and one video was  featured in YouTube’s "trending" section and gained more than 200,000 views.

How the suggested content algorithm works is a YouTube secret, much like the algorithms that drive Google’s search (Google also owns YouTube) and Facebook’s news feed.

Misinformation researcher Jonathan Albright wrote in a Medium post that he was surprised that the network of monetized conspiracy videos appears to grow in the wake of major tragic events like school shootings.

The platform did not respond to request for comment from NBC News.

Police and SWAT teams swarmed a New Jersey high school Monday as they investigated an alleged shooting threat made by a student who had a long gun inside his home, sources said. 

Dumont High School was placed on lockdown as police responded. Students were ordered to stay inside the school and in some cases, on the bleachers near the track. 

Chopper 4 footage from over the scene shows officers in tactical gear approaching the school. 

A short time later, a student was seen being escorted from the school in handcuffs and taken into a police car. 

Dumont Police Chief Michael Connor later said a 15-year-old sophomore had been taken into custody after threatening on social media to shoot up the school, and a long gun was found at his home. It was not clear if the gun belonged to him. 

The student was not identified. 

Hours later, hundreds of parents waited for their children to be released from school. Many texted with their kids, who wrote that they were scared when the situation first started developing and it was unclear what was happening.

All 800 students were debriefed and sent home around 3:30 p.m.

It comes after a tense week at schools in New Jersey following the high school massacre in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead. 

Among the scares in the Garden State was a rumor a shooting threat that spread "like wildfire" through the Bayonne community on Friday. That threat actually originated in New Mexico, where a student was arrested for allegedly making a threat at a school south of Albequerque. 

Other districts in New Jersey, meanwhile, have stepped up security; at least one district voted to place armed security at school entrances for the remainder of the year following the shooting in Florida.

Brian Thompson contributed to this report. 

A Broward County company is donating $60,000 to the victim’s fund after the mass shooting inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – a company with three girls under the age of 16 at the helm, including one who attends the school.

Hanna Guttentag, a junior who left school early that day after feeling sick, says her company’s swag-driven merchandise like high school-themed bracelets and spirit bands have never sold in such big quantities, so quickly.

“Bracelets-wise, we’ve probably sold 6,000,” said Guttentag – who along with 16-year-old Stacy Gringauz and 14-year-old Sofia Rothenberg, started the company called Three Heart Strings about three years ago.

Sales have always gone to charity.

“We pick different charities to donate to each month,” said Rothenberg. But, that’s until the need came to them following the February 14th shooting that took 17 young lives.

“This is so close to all three of us and so close to our town because our town is so small,” said Rothenberg, an 8th grader at Westglades Middle School located just a short walk from Douglas’ campus.

The Parkland teenagers are now dedicating all of their sales to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Victim’s Fund. The work they’ve put in to making Eagle-themed bracelets with square beads that read MSD has been met with a big response. After posting the bracelets on social media, they say their posts went viral – earning them more than $60,000 in sales and about 200 orders per day.

“We’ll help people as long as we can and as long as they are buying bracelets,” said Rothenberg.

It’s an emotional effort that has those closest to the teens thankful while remembering those who weren’t as lucky.

“I don’t know, maybe if she didn’t go home she wouldn’t be able to be doing this,” Guttentag’s mother, Mindy, said with tears in her eyes.

If you’d like to purchase a bracelet, click on this link. The school has also begun selling official products to help raise funds, which can be found by clicking this link.

Connecticut lawmakers voted to repeal the death penalty in 2012 which eliminated it for all future sentences. At the time, the General Assembly was under the assumption that previous death penalty sentences would stand.

But in 2015, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional and that capital punishment, “has become incompatible with contemporary standards of decency in Connecticut and, therefore, now violates the state constitutional prohibition against excessive and disproportionate punishments,” according to the majority opinion.

Associate Justice Andrew McDonald agreed with that opinion and even wrote a lengthy consent himself.

That ruling has become one of the key issues that opponents are jumping on during his nomination hearing for chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court.

Gov. Dannel Malloy nominated McDonald, a former state senator from Stamford who also played key legal advisory roles for the governor during his time as both mayor of Stamford and governor, to replace Chase Rogers as the top justice on the state’s highest court.

Rep. Arthur O’Neill provided a detailed questioning of McDonald in relation to his views and subsequent decision on the death penalty. He even read Senate transcripts of McDonald discussing how he wanted to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut as a member of the State Senate.

“Part of this, ultimately, is the public’s confidence in the judiciary and the neutrality and the objectivity and the fact and what’s basis and what’s presented in a courtroom basis for making decisions and not the basis that someone is carrying with them a position that they held before they ever got on the bench,” O’Neill said during the hearing at the Legislative Office Building.

McDonald countered by saying the case regarding the death penalty was not a question about its constitutionality as a punishment, but on whether the law applied to existing sentences. He added that just because he had an opinion on a topic, that did not preclude him from being an impartial jurist.

“You do not, as a judge, have the opportunity to get out of a case because it would be convenient or expedient to do so,” McDonald said. “Would it have been easier to disqualify myself for the purposes of this discussion that I am having with you? Of course it would be, but that’s not my responsibility as a judge.”

McDonald has served on the Connecticut Supreme Court since 2013 and his term does not come up for reconfirmation until 2021, meaning regardless of the outcome of this nomination, he will remain on the state’s highest court.

His nomination must be confirmed by the General Assembly, but it is unclear whether the Connecticut House or Senate will consider his nomination first.

NBC Connecticut Meteorologists continue to track a storm for late in the week.

Computer models over the past 24 hours have trended further south which would result in less impacts here in Connecticut. 

However there is still a lot of uncertainty with regard to the track of the storm.

Track 1 which you see below would result in heavy rain and heavy snow. In addition to heavy precipitation there would also be a higher threat for damaging winds which could lead to power outages. Finally there would be a significant coastal flooding threat.

Track 2 would result in much less of an impact here in Connecticut. In fact it would bring light rain to the state, breezy winds, and only minor coastal flooding.

As mentioned above in the past 24 hours our computer models have trended closer to track 2.

We will keep a close eye on the system and continue to fine tune the forecast throughout the week.

Police have arrested a 15-year-old girl after an investigation into a threatening message on a whiteboard in a classroom at Sheehan High School in Wallingford and said she has been suspended from school.

A parent contacted police on Wednesday, which led to police and school administrators investigating.

They learned that the message was written on the board Tuesday and several students saw it, but no one reported it and the message was erased on Wednesday morning before school started.

A 15-year-old girl confessed to writing the message out of frustration. She said she was writing her personal feelings out and the message was not directed at anyone specific, according to police.

She was arrested Friday and issued a juvenile summons to appear in New Haven Superior Court.

Police are also investigating after a student who was walking by a classroom Friday yelled an alarming statement, which disrupted the class and caused students to secure the classroom door, police said.

On Monday afternoon, police said a 16-year-old linked the second incident was also arrested and faces breach of peace charges. 

Authorities expect to resolve that case within the coming days.

Hundreds of Connecticut bridges along busy interstates and local roads are structurally deficient, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

To be classified as structurally deficient, bridge inspectors must find critical elements of a bridge are in poor condition during the course of their scheduled inspections.

Each of the top five most heavily-traveled bridges are on I-95 and I-91 in New Haven and Fairfield counties and average more than 130,000 crossings per day. More than 50 of the structurally deficient bridges are along busy interstate highways, including more than 20 on I-84 between Hartford and the Waterbury Mix-Master.

The NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters learned much-needed repairs for many of those bridges were nixed as part of $4.3 billion in transportation projects canceled by Gov. Dannel Malloy due to a lack funds in the state’s Special Transportation Fund.

DOT Commissioner Jim Redeker told the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters it is safe to drive over these bridges, but warned that the state will have to pay more in the future for repair work that’s needed now.

Using data obtained from the state Department of Transportation, the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters mapped the locations of 32 structurally deficient bridges where major rehabilitation projects were canceled.

Hover over the points on the map below for details on each of those bridges, including the estimated cost of repairs and the average number of daily crossings.

See a list of all 332 structurally deficient bridges in Connecticut below.

Middlesex Hospital gave NBC Connecticut a first look at its emergency department after authorities said Steven Ellam rammed his car into the emergency entrance of the hospital on Crescent Street last Thursday.

The car then burst into flames before Ellam set himself on fire.

About 90 percent of walls in the emergency room need to be replaced because of water and smoke damage. 

Despite the damage, hospital officials said on Monday that the actual structure of the department remains physically sound. Hospital staff has been doing a lot of extra work, including removing equipment from the emergency department to be cleaned to construction crews fixing the damage left behind.

On Monday, boards partially covered the temporarily closed emergency entrance. Only walk-in patients were being served by going into the main entrance of the hospital and then taken to surgery rooms to be seen by hospital staff.

"On the issue of safety, that's something we're talking about,” Carl Schiessel, the director of regulatory advocacy at the Connecticut Hospital Association, which represents about 30 hospitals across the state, said. 

Since the incident at Middlesex Hospital, the association has been in constant conversation with officials there. They need to figure out how hospitals can prepare for a similar event.

"The need is to balance ready access to safety and security. So some of the conversations that are happening now are how do you protect your facility from this type of, I'll say for lack of a better word, attack?” Schiessel said. “While at the same time it is easy for the ambulances and families to get to patients in the emergency room to get the care they need."

Any patients who visit the Hospital's temporary emergency department space should drive to the main entrance of the hospital. A security officer will be there to greet them and they will be escorted to that temporary space.

As for the driver, Ellam, he is still in critical condition at Bridgeport Hospital.

Families in Connecticut are giving the most vulnerable victims involved in the state’s opioid crisis a fresh start to a new life.

Across the country, one infant every 25 minutes is born with exposure to opioids. Adoptions from the Heart, an adoption agency in Glastonbury, said more than a third of the babies in their program are also affected. They’re helping potential parents in Connecticut give homes to these newborns.

Killingly couple Michaela and Gary Hubbard knew they wanted to start their family by adopting and when they met Lily they thought she would be the perfect addition. The little girl had been exposed to opioids during the pregnancy of her biological mother in addition to being at risk for HIV and Hepatitis C.

“We knew her medical issues up front and we were ok with that,” Michaela Hubbard said.

Robyn Sullivan, a school principal from Wethersfield, isn’t shying away from the health issues that her adopted daughter Haydon has.

“I want her to know her story,” Sullivan said.

Both the Hubbards and Sullivan chose an open adoption and both families were eager to open their lives to babies born exposed to opioids in spite of the challenges.

“Lily was in the NICU for two and a half weeks,” Michaela Hubbard said.

Lily’s birth mom’s drug use led to the girl being born 9 weeks premature at 3 pounds and 1 ounce.

“This is who Lily is. We’re very grateful and thankful,” Michaela Sullivan said.

Sullivan said people may think having a baby exposed to opioids is the “worst possible thing.”

“It’s really not that scary,” Sullivan said.

Both babies’ biological mothers suffered from addiction and each woman hand-picked the Hubbards and Sullivan.

“She did more than 13 bags of heroin a day through the six-month of pregnancy and that is when she confirmed her pregnancy,” Sullivan said.

Lily also faced a difficult road. Hubbard said her daughter has shown signs of withdrawal.

The withdrawal process for opioid-exposed babies is called neonatal abstinence syndrome. It typically begins right after birth and the symptoms include low birth weight, respiratory seizures and feeding troubles.

The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data finds the occurrence of neonatal abstinence syndrome has increased 383 percent.

Haydon was delivered in Virginia and hospitalized four and a half days.

“We just did round the clock skin-to-skin contact. I think based on her level of exposure they just expected her to be in the NICU, but it never happened,” Sullivan said.

Adoptive parents being open to taking in an infant exposed to opioids increases their chances of finding a child, Susan Myers with Adoptions from the Heart said.

“The process isn’t really that different from adopting any type of infant. Babies may have a range of different kinds of issues [and] opiate exposure is just one of them. We really want adoptive parents to feel comfortable, to feel prepared to meet the needs of any type of child,” Myers said.

Doing so can translate into long hours at the hospital when the babies are transitioning to life without the drugs.

“I would hold her for hours at a time, and we would do skin to skin while she was in the hospital. She is daddy’s little girl,” Gary Hubbard said.

But there could be health consequences for these children, and the thousands like them, later in life.

“We don’t have data on long-term outcomes because this is a new epidemic for us,” Dr. Courtney Townsel, a maternal-fetal medicine fellow at UCONN Health, said.

“Things like developmental-delay and things like learning issues later on-- we really don’t have enough information to give parents about that.”

Right now, the Hubbards and Sullivan say that risk doesn’t bother them.

“There’s learning differences. There’s attention deficit, there’s developmental differences that I was taking a gamble with. There were definitely withdrawal things, but the minute I heard about her case, I knew in my heart she was my daughter,” Sullivan said.

Doctors said keeping in constant contact with your pediatrician and day care providers and teachers will help flag potential issues in the future.

Hillary Clinton will speak at the Yale University Class Day in the spring. 

"When Secretary Clinton spoke at her Wellesley graduation in 1969, she told her class that their challenge was ‘to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible.' The ‘impossible’ world Secretary Clinton imagined in 1969 is not yet won — yet it will be if our generation dares to emulate her life of resilient and courageous service," Class Day Co-Chair Josh Hochman ’18 said in a statement.

Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president in 2016, graduated from Yale's College of Law in 1973.

Class Day is a Yale College tradition that includes awarding of academic, artistic and athletic prizes on the Old Campus. The event includes an address by a notable speaker each year. 

Clinton will speak at Class Day on May 20.

School health centers found right outside of the classroom could face significant cuts. 

“A child that sees a school nurse with a stomach ache or headache, if it doesn’t go away on its own, probably ends up going home from school,” Jane Hylan, director of school-based health services for Community Health Center Inc, said. “If they come to the nurse practitioner, the nurse practitioner can treat, diagnose and prescribe.”

There are more than 90 of these centers all across Connecticut. For students like New Britain High School senior Yasmel Sanchez, the medical, behavioral and dental services they provide have proven invaluable.

"I think it’s a really good program in the schools and they should expand it," Sanchez said.

Under Governor Dannel Malloy’s proposed budget, a ten percent cut in funding could hit school-based health centers.

“There was a slight reduction, the state has fiscal problems and one thing you need to also understand, they are getting higher reimbursement rates,” Malloy said.

Like Hylan, Holly Fortier helps to run several school based health centers.

“This would be detrimental to the majority of students,” Fortier said.

“It could mean some locations may have to close or they may have shortened days,” Hylan said.

The governor said standing by the savings does not mean he is standing against the centers.

“We’re a very small part of the overall funding to those centers,” Malloy said. “Those centers are doing great work and we support it.”

There is an outpouring of support for a high school hockey player who took a hard hit during a game that left him seriously hurt.

On Monday, his team returned to the ice in his honor.

With eyes focused on the game ahead, the combined team of Southington and West Hartford’s Hall High faced their opponents from Wallingford’s Sheehan High School.

But Hall-South, as it’s known, was missing a key player on the ice at Veterans Memorial Rink in West Hartford.

In the back of many minds was the last game Captain and #9 Drew Booth played on Saturday.

“It’s really tragic how he ended his season but we’re really taking these emotions. We’re using them to fuel our play,” Richard Mitchell, Hall-South alternate captain, said.

During Hall-South’s game against Conard, Booth took a hard hit, seriously hurting his face.

“Our prayers are with Drew and his family right now. The team is rallying behind him,” Mike Bilas, Hall-South assistant coach, said.

Bilas said Booth’s first surgery went well on Monday, but there are more to go.

While some fear Saturday might have been his last high school hockey game, they know he’s a fighter.

“Drew is the type of hockey player that never gives up. His work ethic is second to none,” Bilas said.

That leader on the ice is now receiving backing from the community.

A hashtag, #Prayfor9, is spreading on social media, with other teams joining in.

And at Monday’s game, there was handwritten support for the warrior, as well as an honor from his teammates.

“We’re dedicating the rest of the season to him. We know it’s going to be tough without him and we know that all he’ll want us to do is get some wins on the board,” Mitchell said.

On Monday, Hall-South fell to Sheehan, 3-6, and now heads to the post-season.

NBC Connecticut reached to the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and the West Hartford School District for comment but have not yet heard back.

Busy bridges throughout Connecticut might need to be closed because the federal government considers them structurally deficient, and the state says they don’t have enough money to maintain and repair them.

The United States Federal Highway Administration has classified hundreds of Connecticut bridges, including the Interstate 84 overpass in Hartford and the Yankee Doodle bridge in Fairfield, as structurally deficient. None of these bridges are currently considered unsafe for cars according to the state’s Department of Transportation (DOT), but the department could be forced to close them if costly repairs aren’t made soon and their conditions worsen.

One such bridge along Interstate 95 that crosses railroad tracks in West Haven sees an average of 138,000 crossings per day.

Christine Abboud, whose business neighbors the bridge, said her employees, who often pass beneath it, told her they’ve seen things falling off.

She said she has seen the bridge shake and worries that worries heavy traffic on the bridge may be taking a toll.

Farther down Route 1, the deck of the historic Washington drawbridge that connects Milford to Stratford has badly pitted concrete and exposed steel. Bridge inspectors noted areas of "up to 100% deterioration," according to its most recent inspection report the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters obtained from the DOT.

More than 50 miles away in East Haddam, the Troubleshooters spotted corrosion along the floorboards of the aging metal swing bridge, including holes along the lengths of several support beams where the steel rusted through.

The Sigourney Street Bridge in Hartford which crosses over Capitol Avenue and goes under I-84 is a popular route for commuters, and cars pass over it more than 10,000 times a day. With the aid of DroneRanger, the Troubleshooters were able to follow the same route, but from underneath the deck, and found exposed rebar, long cracks, holes in the concrete, and more rust.

Travis Woodward, a project engineer with the Department of Transportation and president of the union representing other DOT public employees, told the Troubleshooters that bridges in this condition need to be repaired.

"As soon as the rot and the deterioration get down to rebar, it becomes a problem because now the skeleton of the structure is falling apart," Woodward said.

However, the Troubleshooters learned that repairs for many of the state's structurally deficient bridges have been canceled or postponed. Earlier this year, Gov. Dannel Malloy eliminated $4.3 billion worth of transportation projects, citing serious funding issues for the state's Special Transportation Fund. Nearly $200 million-worth of already scheduled repairs on 32 structurally deficient bridges were caught up in the mix.

Woodward believes there would be more money for bridge repairs if the state ended its decades-long practice of contracting with outside consultants instead of using state employees for construction and inspection services. A union analysis found nearly $150 million could have been saved in 2015 and 2016 if that work was done in-house at the DOT.

"That's money we could be spending on fixing our bridges," Woodward said.

Transportation Commissioner Jim Redeker said he does not believe the savings would be quite so substantial, but agreed the amount is significant. However, he said he cannot capitalize on those savings without additional funds to first make new hires.

"Right now we don't have the funding to do the bridges, or to hire the inspectors," explained Redeker.

DOT relies completely on the state's Special Transportation Fund for its budget and right now there are massive deficits. Redeker said Connecticut's roads and bridges, "will continue to see deterioration happen very quickly," without additional funding.

If a bridge becomes too fragile, Redeker said the DOT will have no choice but to close it off to traffic.

"Closing a bridge that happens to be a critical connection someplace in Connecticut that should not happen, it's too important," Redeker said.

He added an immediate influx of cash would be needed to help stop the overall number of structurally deficient bridges from rising. In the meantime, Redeker said driving over the bridges is safe.

Professor Michael Chajes, an expert on evaluating bridges at the University of Delaware's Bridge Research Lab, agrees that these bridges are unlikely to pose an immediate risk to the public. According to Chajes, structurally deficient bridges are in poor condition and need to be closely monitored, but, "they're not necessarily bridges that are unsafe or ready to fall down."

However, he said putting off repairs comes at a cost.

"The longer you wait, the more money you will spend to eventually repair or replace the bridge," Chajes said.

Abboud is worried that a bridge closure could prove costly for her business and the community. She noted there would be, "so many people that aren't going to be able to get through from New Haven to West Haven."

Finding new sources of revenue for the Special Transportation Fund has revived debate at the state Capitol over higher gas taxes and highway tolls. Redeker said tolls may be a good idea for the future benefit of the fund, but would not be a fast enough solution for the funds' immediate needs.

For a list of all the state's structurally deficient bridges and a map of the 32 bridges with canceled repairs, click here.

The San Francisco Fire Department has more women than any other department in the United States, with about 16 percent of its firefighters being female. 

They are being diagnosed with breast cancer at an alarming rate. Fifteen percent of their female firefighters between the ages of 40 and 50 years old have been diagnosed with the disease. That is six times the national average. 

"Cancer is a concern for the San Francisco Fire Department as well as the fire service nationwide. But in San Francisco, we have seen and we do have numbers of elevated cancer rates for male and female firefighters," said Jeanine Nicholson, deputy chief of administration for the San Francisco Fire Department.

Over the last decade, more than 250 of the department's active and retired firefighters — both men and women — have died from various forms of cancer.

Researchers believe the cause for the increase in cancers in firefighters has to do with the increase in synthetic materials in homes and the dangerous fumes that they're exposed to as a result. 

Bridgeport police are investigating a fatal shooting at the Sunnyside Inn on Lake Street overnight.

It was not immediately clear what led up to the shooting.

The investigation is ongoing.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

A 56-year-old Norwich man was killed in a crash on Interstate 395 North in Norwich early Tuesday morning, according to state police.

State police said Johann Liebig, 56, of Norwich, was trying to pass another vehicle when he collided with it at 12:13 a.m. Both vehicles went off the road.

Liebig died from injuries he sustained, according to state police. The police report says he was not wearing a seatbelt.

The other driver was not hurt.

Police are investigating and ask anyone with information to call 860-848-6500.

Citigroup recently announced that it would issue refunds to some 1.75 million credit cardholders who had been charged interest rates that were too high. The refunds will total $335 million, or an average of $190 per account.

Fixing the error was mandated by the CARD Act, legislation introduced almost a decade ago aimed at protecting bank customers, NBC News reported. Prior to the CARD Act’s implementation, a customer unlucky enough to miss a payment could be saddled with a much higher penalty APR for an indefinite — and often long — duration.

Financial watchdogs say this story has a happy ending, but they worry that the White House's open hostility to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could diminish enforcement and erode compliance in future cases.

The Bureau’s current director, Mick Mulvaney, appointed by President Donald Trump, has made no secret of his desire to make the agency he leads less powerful. “We do worry that if the cop is no longer on the beat, then companies would have less incentive to be careful about what they’re doing and take aggressive steps to fix problems,” said Lauren Saunders, associate director at the National Consumer Law Center.

Ryan Seacrest's former stylist for six years at cable channel E! accused him of sexual misconduct, detailing her allegations in interviews with Variety.

The publication reported Monday that it had obtained a November letter sent by accuser Suzie Hardy's attorney to E!, its corporate parent NBCUniversal, and Seacrest.

“The job became an ordeal as Seacrest subjected Hardy to years of unwanted sexual aggression — grinding his erect penis against her while clad only in his underwear, groping her vagina, and at one point slapping her buttock so hard that it left a large welt still visible hours later," Variety reported. NBC News could not independently verify the report. 

Hardy, a single mother, told Variety she stayed in her position out of concern for being able to provide for her daughter. She said her employment with E! ended weeks after she took her allegations to human resources in 2013.

In November Seacrest called Hardy's claims "reckless." Three months later he wrote in a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter that it was "gut-wrenching" to have his workplace behavior called into question. Seacrest is co-host of ABC television's daytime talk show "Live with Kelly & Ryan" and is set to host "American Idol's" reboot on that network next month.

E! said in a statement to Variety that an independent investigation into the allegations found “insufficient evidence to support the claims against Seacrest.” 

NBCUniversal is the parent company of E! and this station.

Sixteen inmates are facing charges of mob action after a fight broke out earlier this month in a maximum security housing tier at Cook County Jail in Chicago. Two inmates were taken to local hospitals for injuries including puncture wounds following the Feb. 16 fight, which started around 9:30 p.m. Others were treated at the jail for non-life threatening injuries. 

Opinions are mixed about the possibility of a medical marijuana dispensary opening up on the Silas Deane Highway in Wethersfield after the owner of a realty company and manager of a bakery applied to allow one. 

“Personally I say no,” said Linda Businski, of Wethersfield. 

“I’ve seen some people taking medical marijuana and it’s like a medication,” said East Hartford resident, Anna Maria O’Dea. “You’re not going to see people walking around stoned you know. I believe it’s a good idea for chronic illness, especially for cancer.” 

Rino Mozzicato, the owner of RM Realty and manager at Mozzicato’s Bakery in Plainville, is asking the planning and zoning commission to allow it. 

Marijuana dispensaries are not permitted in Wethersfield and the application is to change those regulations. 

The proposed amendment says the dispensary would have to be at least 1,000 feet away from churches and schools. 

Town officials said the Mozzicatos own property in Wethersfield, although the application doesn’t specify an address for the dispensary. 

We reached out multiple times to Rino Mozzicato for comment but have not heard back. There will be a public hearing next Tuesday.