Tim Klein, one of the two climbers that lost their lives in a climbing accident in Yosemite Falls on Saturday, was a beloved and highly respected teacher from Palmdale, California. In fact, Klein was a named "Teacher of the Year" for the Antelope Valley Union High School District only a week prior to his fatal fall.

"We are all heartbroken and mourn the loss of Tim Klein, our colleague and friend," Betsy Sanchez, director of communications for the Antelope Valley Union High School District, said in a statement on Sunday. "He was an extraordinary human being, and all those who knew him have been touched in many ways."

The statement added, "Our hearts are with Tim's family, friends, colleagues and students during this very difficult time."

On Facebook, Klein's wife wrote, "So this man we all LOVE, Tim Klein, went climbing with 2 dear friends, Jason and Kevin, and from what I understand there was a haul bag from a party above the dropped, and as a result, Tim and Jason were pulled off El Capitan this morning. They both are no longer with us."

El Capitan is the name of a well-known rock formation in Yosemite National Park.

Klein's wife, JJ Klein, told NBC4 that there was still a bit of uncertainty about how the accident had occurred or if a haul bag was indeed involved, but she was certain it had been a "freak accident."

Tim Klein, 42, was an elite level climber, and his wife said he holds the Guinness World Record for fastest indoor climb the height of Mr. Everest. According to her, he had climbed El Capitan more than 100 times.

In her Facebook note, Klein's wife added, "The best thing you can do is pray for us, the boys especially. He has left a void that no man can fill. We are grateful for all the ways that you have impacted his life, as he has yours."

An American Airlines flight was diverted to El Paso Sunday night due to severe weather, officials say.

American Airlines flight 1897 departed from San Antonio International Airport at 6:57 p.m. Saturday en route to Phoenix, but landed in El Paso after the aircraft sustained damage due to weather about two hours into the flight, according to the airlines. 

The aircraft, an Airbus A319, landed at 8:03 p.m. MST with 130 passengers and five crew members, the airlines said. No injuries have been reported.

The nose and windshield of the airplane sustained hail damage.

Read the full statement from American Airlines:

"American Airlines flight 1897, from San Antonio to Phoenix, diverted to El Paso due to damage sustained by weather in flight. The aircraft, an Airbus A319 with 130 passengers and a crew of five, landed safely at 8:03 p.m. MT. The aircraft is currently being evaluated by our maintenance team. We never want to disrupt our customers' travel plans, and we are sorry for the trouble this caused."

Another plane was assigned to the flight to continue the trip to Phoenix. 

Former President Bill Clinton says he would not have approached how he dealt with the Monica Lewinsky scandal differently, even in light of the #MeToo movement, he told NBC News' Craig Melvin in an interview that aired Monday.

He also acknowledged that he's never apologized privately to the former White House intern in the 20 years since their relationship led to his impeachment, though he noted he apologized to her publicly. 

"I don't think it would be an issue," the ex-president said when Melvin asked if he would have "approached the accusations differently" if he were president today.

Clinton said he stands by his decision to fight impeachment rather than resign: "I think I did the right thing. I defended the Constitution."

Lewinsky recently spoke out about the #MeToo movement and how the scandal affected her.

A new bridge on Interstate 95 between New Haven and West Haven is set to fully open to traffic after a $141 million replacement project, according to Connecticut transportation officials. 

The northbound side of the West River Bridge is scheduled to open Monday, nearly two weeks after the southbound side was completed and opened. 

The project began in 2014 and included installing three traffic lanes in each direction. Officials said full shoulders were added to help reduce lane closures in the event of an accident or police activity. 

The 1,000-foot bridge first opened in 1958 and is one of the longest and most traveled in the state. More than 136,000 vehicles cross it every day.

A Derby couple who owns a remodeling company is accused of not finishing work on a home addition and refusing to return the money. 

Ansonia police started investigating when they received a report that M & R Remodeling failed to complete remodeling work. 

The company had received payment of $134,000 for a home addition, but only finished $69,000 worth of work, then stopped working at the house and refused to reimburse the unused balance, according to police. 

Richard Signor, 37, and his 36-year-old wife, Melissa Marti-Signor, own the company and police said they arrested Signor on May 31 and they arrested Marti-Signor on June 1. 

They were both charged with larceny in the first degree and conspiracy to commit larceny in the first degree and they are due in court on June 12.

A bear ran out in front of a motorcycle in Washington Sunday afternoon and two people sustained minor injuries.

Police said the bear ran out in front of the motorcycle on Route 202 just after 1:30 p.m. and the driver and the passenger were taken to Danbury Hospital.

The bike was towed from the scene.

A 27-year-old New Haven man told police he was attacked and robbed in Hamden when he arrived to meet a woman for a massage. 

Officers responded to Alstrum Street at 1:15 a.m. to investigate a robbery and the New Haven man told police he had made an arrangement on a website to meet a female for a “massage,” so he went to the address and three men assaulted him and stole $250, police said. 

The victim refused medical treatment and police said they did not find the assailants. 

As the victim spoke with police, he decided to withdraw his complaint.

First lady Melania Trump hasn't been seen in public with President Donald Trump for nearly a month, prompting conspiracy theories and leaving the White House without a key player, NBC News reported.

She was last seen by the press on May 10, four days before she had surgery for a kidney problem. She won't go to an economic meeting in Canada this week or the nuclear summit in Singapore next week, though she is expected to attend a private, closed-to-the-press event for Gold Star families Monday afternoon at the White House.

Her disappearance from the public eye has prompted speculation about her whereabouts, condition and even her relationship with her husband.

Even her response, a tweet last week in which Melania Trump said, "I see the media is working overtime speculating where I am & what I'm doing," raised new questions about who wrote it, since it had some of the president's rhetorical tics.

After spending decades forgotten somewhere in a film canister, a film of previously-unknown footage showing aftermath of San Francisco’s devastating 1906 earthquake and fire will finally go on public view.

English photo collector Jason Wright purchased the reel of film from historian David Silver who discovered it at a flea market. After premiering the footage at a pair of film festivals, Wright plans to post the video online, giving the public its first chance to see the footage which is credited to the Miles Brothers, San Francisco’s first film company.

Wright allowed NBC Bay Area News to premiere the video in its newscast Sunday night.

"This is for the people from San Francisco," Wright said. "This film was saved for them and they deserve to see it."

The Miles Brothers are well-known for the now-famous footage called A Trip Down Market, which captures the bustling chaos on San Francisco’s Market Street from a moving trolley car. Film Historian David Kiehn, who runs the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, used clues in the video to pinpoint the day of the filming to just four days before the 1906 Earthquake which struck in the early morning hours of April 18.

"To think it was only four days before the earthquake gives you a kind of like a perspective on these people and what they were going to enter in a few days later is kind of sobering," Kiehn said.

The newly discovered footage retraces the Miles Brothers earlier journey up Market Street toward the Ferry Building, only now the camera captures mass devastation on both sides of Market Street.

"You can see here the body language is a lot different," Wright said, watching a copy of the footage. "There’s not as much hustle and bustle. There’s no smiling people and kids running in front of the camera."

Wright said scaffolding outside the Ferry Building led he and Kiehn to conclude the footage was shot about two weeks after the quake. A sign outside a store alerts customers that the business is "now open."

He said the new video shows elements of the disaster that hadn’t been seen before, such as the large industrial machinery called "steam donkeys" which were used to pull down the old buildings.

Another fresh perspective is the sight of hundreds of people in buggies filled with belongings waiting to board ferries at the Ferry Building.

"This just shows the real business end of what was happening, the effects of the quake on San Francisco and everyone getting the heck out of there," Wright said.

Kiehn digitized the film at his museum and was flabbergasted as the long-forgotten frames slowly came to life.

"That was pretty exciting to think I was the first person to see this stuff in decades," Kiehn said. "I think the film adds another piece to the puzzle of film history and the Miles Brothers history."

Kiehn said the four Miles Brothers shot more than two hours of footage following the quake, but very little of the footage survived. However, the discovery of the new film left him hoping more footage would turn up.

"To think that this film had been around all these years, laying there waiting to be discovered kind of gives you hope there’s more stuff out there waiting to be found," Kiehn said.

Wright is in the process of loading the video to a YouTube site. In the meantime, he plans to load instruction on how to see the video at his own site.

One cat died and another was rescued after a fire in Hartford that displaced nine residents Monday, according to officials at the scene. 

The fire was on Sisson Avenue.

All eighth graders from St. Cornelius in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, were given a bulletproof Safe Shield insert for their backpacks as a graduation present.

Police have arrested an East Hartford High School student after an investigation into an online post.

Police said the 18-year-old, a senior at East Hartford High School, is fully cooperative and apologetic.

He is being charged with breach of peace.

Authorities did not specify what the post said.

School officials said the concerning post was found to be not credible and was handled by the School Resource officer and Board of Education.

“School safety is of the utmost importance, and police coverage is an important part of safety planning through the school year & graduation,” a statement read.

Parents in South Windsor plan to attend a town council meeting Monday night, to put pressure on council members to help expand the Parks and Recreation’s 4th R Program. 

In March more than 75 parents camped out for hours, trying to secure a child a spot in the program. Most of them were put on the waitlist. 

Since then, the town manager directed the parks and recreation director and his staff to do an extensive review, look at expansion options and look at what surrounding towns provide. At this point the director concluded it is impossible to expand because they need to hire more staff and need more space for recreational activities. 

That is why the four Republican members of the town council said they voted against forming a committee to address the issue. 

“It appears they’re trying to force the expansion of this, which isn’t feasible at this point in time. We don’t want a diluted program and we don’t want to negatively affect the students that are in there now,” Janice Snyder, one of the four town councilors who voted against it, said. 

There are 320 students enrolled in the before-and-after school program, 39 of them were originally on the wait list, according to Ray Favreau, the director of parks and recreation. 

Snyder, who voted against forming a committee, said this is a great opportunity for private businesses to open up. 

“Daycare is not the responsibility of town government or the board of education or the taxpayers. We empathize with their need, we recognize with their need and we know this is an issue. But there’s other ways these types of problems can be solved,” Snyder said.

But parents, like Corie Tracey, said they exhausted many of those options and many daycares are already full. Others in South Windsor do have space, but they fall out of the busing boundaries for the individual schools. 

Tracey said she hopes the Republican council members who voted against forming a committee will reconsider. 

“No one is asking for the town to pay for it. No one is asking for this to be offered to us for free. We’re just asking the town to come together,” Tracey said. “To me this is a community issue, not a daycare issue. Our town enrollment is projected to rise. They’re building new homes, there’s families moving here. And I think if we want to attract new, younger families, which is great for the town’s growth, we need to provide some type of solution.” 

The parks and recreation department still needs to replace 18 staff members for the next school year. Any additional staff will help them accommodate more students. 

“It’s a challenge to attract folks and we pay pretty well, way above minimum wage. So we encourage people who are looking to work with children to come on in and see us,” Favreau said. “We are not going to jeopardize the credibility or the safety of the program. If things change and more appropriate space, more appropriate staff is available, we’ll be happy to take those folks in.” 

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeatedly claimed President Trump "did nothing wrong" Monday in response to his tweets about his ability to pardon himself.

Police officers were called to a detention center in Brownsville, Texas, on Sunday when a Democratic senator tried to visit children who had been separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s new policy toward families trying to enter the United States.

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon says in a Facebook video that Casa Padre, a center run by the non-profit Southwest Key, was housing possibly hundreds of refugee children who had been separated from their parents. He arrived at what he said was a former Walmart after he was refused an official visit by the federal Office of Refuge Resettlement and Southwest Key, with which it contracts for the care of the children.

“I think it’s unacceptable that a member of Congress is not being admitted to see what’s happening to children whose families are applying for asylum,” he says in the Facebook video.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” policy last month intended to dissuade undocumented Central American families from trying to enter the U.S. Everyone crossing the border illegally is to be prosecuted and children will be separated from mothers or fathers who are jailed. Before most parents were allowed to remain with their children in family shelters while they awaited the disposition of asylum or deportation cases.

Administration officials said last month that the ramped up enforcement would apply only to people arrested while trying to enter the U.S. illegally. Families who seek asylum at a designated port of entry would not be separated, according to NBC News.

But on Friday, NBC News reported that some parents seeking asylum had been separated from their children by ICE officials, according to Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which leads migrants to the U.S. in caravans.

In the Facebook video, Merkley, who was accompanied by reporters, asks two unidentified staff members whether he can enter the building and then requests to speak to a supervisor. While he is waiting for the supervisor to come outside, police officers arrive.

When the supervisor emerges, he says he is not allowed to issue a statement and eventually asks Merkley to leave. The police officers speak briefly with the senator.

The Administration for Children and Families responded that no one who arrives unannounced at one of its shelters, even those claiming to be U.S. senators, would be permitted access to the children in its care.

“Thankfully for the safety, security and dignity of the children being cared for there, they were denied access,” it said in a statement.

The shelter that Merkley and five others tried to enter is for children who arrived in the United States unaccompanied by an adult, it said.

“Senator Merkley should respect the (unaccompanied alien children’s) program and engage in the appropriate processes, as many of his colleagues have done before him, to visit (Office of Refugee Resettlement) facilities,” it said. “We would welcome him to engage in that process so that he may visit the facility to make headway on this important issue, rather than just headlines.”

Merkely says he wants to ask Southwest Key whether it had second thoughts participating in a program detaining children. 

On its website, under its mission, it says: "A national, nonprofit organization, Southwest Key is committed to keeping kids out of institutions and home with their families, in their communities. We do this through three areas of programming: youth justice alternatives, immigrant children's shelters, and education."

“You’re seeking asylum and the first thing that happens when you get here is you’re torn away from your parents,” Merkley says in the video. “America has never done this before.”

Authorities have identified a body found in the area of Spicer's Marina in the Noank section of Groton last week.

On May 30, the Groton Police Department, Mystic Fire Department, State Environmental Conservation Police and the US Coast Guard all responded to a call for a body in the water near the mooring field outside Spicer’s Marina. The body was tangled in lines, according to USCG officials.

The body has been identified as that of 66-year-old Kenneth Johnsen, from Des Moines, Iowa.

Groton Town Police said the case does not appear suspicious and is being treated as an untimely death investigation.

The autopsy results are pending further study, police said.

Willimantic police have arrested two men in connection with a shooting in August 2017.

Kysean Price, 20, and Tavon Burch, 20, are both accused in a shooting on Pleasant Street in Willimantic on Aug. 7, 2018 that left another man injured.

Burch was arrested in December and charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery. He is currently being held at Corrigan Radgowski Correctional Center.

Price fled Connecticut, according to police. He was later found in the New Jersey correctional system and has been incarcerated since Sept. 18, 2017. In November 2017 he was convicted on assault charges unrelated to the Willimantic incident.

In June Price was extradited back to Connecticut. He faces charges of first-degree assault, unlawful discharge of a firearm, possession of marijuana, and first-degree robbery. He was held on a $250,000 bond and is due in court on June 5.

Police said the shooting took place around 9:45 p.m. at 503 Pleasant Street. The victim was taken to the hospital, where he is listed in stable condition.

According to police, this is an isolated incident and there is no danger to the general public. More information was not immediately released.

The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Eric Dean at 860-465-3135.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is searching for vandals who spray-painted swastikas and other graffiti on trees and the ground at Lake Williams State Park Scenic Reserve in Lebanon.

DEEP officials said the vandalism happened sometime over the weekend. State Environmental Conversation Police are investigating.

“Our state parks are meant for the enjoyment of all, regardless of a person’s background,” said DEEP Communications Director Chris Collibee in a statement. “Acts of vandalism, in particular those that express hate, have no place in our society. It is disappointing that some individuals would express themselves in such a manner that causes fear amongst others.”

Anyone with information on the vandalism is asked to contact EnCon police at 860-424-3333.

Danbury police and state police responded to Western Connecticut State University to investigate reports of a person with a gun, but school officials said it turned out to be an employee with a microphone stand and the scene is clear.

Officials from WCSU said there was a report of a person with a gun at White Hall on the Midtown campus and many people were evacuated while others were told to shelter in place in the building and throughout the campus.

Crews on the WCSU campus did a floor-by-floor search of the building and apprehended someone, but that person did not have a weapon and did not match the description provided, school officials said, and they continued to search.

Officials said the alleged gun carrier was actually a university employee who was preparing to provide audio and media support for a campus graduation. He was never taken into custody.

Mayor Mark Boughton said although the incident was a false alarm, officials are grateful to the people who reported their concerns.

"You can never be cautious enough. At the end of the day, if we didn’t take the appropriate precautions, if this was part of a larger plan to disrupt our school system and hurt our children, people would criticize us for not doing enough," Boughton said.

The mayor added that the man was interviewed and then released once the situation was explained.

"He even readily admits look it looks like a gun. I can see how this could have happened. He passed the two other instructors going in. He had sunglasses on. They didn’t realize he was an instructor," Boughton said.

Several public schools in Danbury were placed on lockdown.  Those schools include Broadview Middle School, Alternative Center For Excellence, Ellsworth Avenue School, Hayestown Elementary School, Adult Education Program and the Sites and Facilities Building, according to Danbury's deputy school superintendent, Dr. William Glass.

All other schools were in a "shelter in place" mode, Glass said.

State police were also called in.

The all-clear was given at 2:05 p.m. and the school has returned to regular operations.