A man from Hamden and a man from Ansonia are accused of robbing a man from Willimantic during a dating app meet up in Hamden on Tuesday night.

Officers say they responded to Goodrich Street around 8:00 p.m. after getting a report of a street robbery.

Investigators later determined that a 31-year-old Willimantic man had arranged what police say was a "sexual encounter" through a dating app. When the man arrived to a house on Dudley Street, officers say 25-year-old Romeik Best of Hamden and 20-year-old Lamar Parker of Ansonia demanded money from the man. Best and Parker then briefly detained the man, threatened him and pushed him several times before stealing his credit cards, according to police.

Officers say both Best and Parker are facing criminal attempt to commit robbery and breach of peace charges. They were both detained on a $1,000 bond and are scheduled to appear in Meriden Superior Court on July 3.

In the two years since a deadly dog attack in New Haven, the city’s Board of Alders Public Safety Committee has been working on new rules to hold owners of dangerous dogs accountable.

New Haven fire, police and EMS have already changed how they respond to dog attacks. All animal 911 calls in the city are now considered Priority 1 calls. Now, the alders are looking to make changes to how dogs are classified as dangerous based on the laws in another Connecticut city.

Two years ago 53-year-old Jocelyn Winfrey died after being mauled by two dogs in an attack on Ella Grasso Boulevard. This week, the New Haven Board of Alders Public Safety Committee reviewed proposed changes to the city’s ordinance that regulates animals and pets.

“We looked at a number of different ordinances around the state, the one that stuck out really was from New Britain,” said New Haven Alders Public Safety Committee Chair Gerald Antunes.

Under the New Britain law, a dog or animal that has bitten, injured or attacked a human with provocation would be deemed vicious or dangerous. This definition would not apply to dogs that were defending a person from attack.

“We don’t want to go by breed, we want to go by the individual animal and their characteristics because any breed can be vicious or violent at any particular time,” Antunes explained.

In addition to registering their dogs with the Animal Control Division of New Haven police and making sure they’re micro-chipped, owners of dangerous dogs would be required to post a beware of dog sign in a highly visible manner at their homes and place a muzzle on the dog when not inside the house.

Owners would also not be allowed to leave the dog unattended outside, or allow the dog access to children.

Jennifer Stock, who has owned her dog Sebastian for eight months, said she thinks the regulations make sense.

“I know from owning Sebastian that dogs go through phases sometimes where they can become shy or aggressive but I think there’s a lot owners can do to make sure that their dogs don’t harm other people,” Stock said.

New Haven’s alders also want to adopt new regulations that crack down on uncontrolled breeding. The public safety chair is confident the city’s corporation counsel will approve the proposed changes.

There will be a public hearing on the animal issues at a later date.

Tuesday brought several developments in the race to become the next governor of Connecticut.

First, late Tuesday, Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim and Greenwich hedge fund manager David Stemerman, a Democrat and Republican, respectively, were certified to appear on the August 14 primary ballot.

Both Ganim and Stemerman were petitioning on to the ballot through a signature collection process whereby each campaign had to collect signatures from two percent of the registered members of their parties. For Ganim, he collected more than 17,000 when he needed about 15,000, and Stemerman, it was announced, collected more than 10,000 signatures when he needed 9,000.

Ganim is in the midst of a political rebirth after spending more than six years in federal prison on corruption charges stemming from his first stint as Bridgeport mayor.

He said he wants the race against the endorsed Democrat, Ned Lamont, to be a wide open race filled with debates and public appearances.

"This is too important for the next seven weeks to go by without debates, open frank candid discussion about me and what I feel about Connecticut and what I can bring as its next governor," Ganim said Wednesday.

"The message I will be delivering to voters over the next eight weeks is simple: we need to turn the moving trucks around and once again make Connecticut the best place in the country to live, work, and raise a family," Stemerman said in a statement.

The other major development of the day was that both Mark Boughton and Tim Herbst, two Republicans seeking their party’s nomination, were approved for $1.35 million each for public financing for the respective campaigns.

Boughton, the current mayor of Danbury, is the endorsed candidate of the Connecticut Republican Party. He said in a statement, I will continue to engage Connecticut voters and the general public with our message of fiscal restraint and common sense with a plan to re-shape our state's future.''

New Britain police have arrested a 74-year-old man who is accused of killing his 18-year-old daughter in 1995.

Robert Honsch is accused of killing his daughter, Elizabeth Honsch, whose body was located wrapped in a sleeping bag and plastic trash bags behind 589 Hartford Road on Sept. 28 of that year.

The body of her mother, 53-year-old Marcia Honsch, was found eight days later, 40 miles away near the entrance to a state park in Tolland, Massachusetts. She had been shot in the head and had been dead for a week when her body was discovered, according to police.

The family lived in Brewster, New York around the time the two women died.

The mother and daughter were found without any identifying information and were known publicly only as Jane Doe until 2014.

Police said Robert Honsch had moved to Dalton, Ohio, and was living under the name Tyree Honsch.  He was arrested there in 2014. 

Robert Honsch was found guilty in Massachusetts in 2017 of first-degree murder of Marcia Honsch and is currently serving his sentence there.

He has been charged with murder in connection with his daughter’s death and was extradited to Connecticut today to appear on the New Britain charge.

Honsch is being held on a court-set $1 million bond and police said the warrant in the case is sealed.

The defense has said Robert Honsch had nothing to do with the deaths of Marcia and Elizabeth Honsch. 

Electric Boat (EB) is on a hiring surge to meet the demand of building multiple submarines a year. Their suppliers also need manufacturers to meet that demand – which is good for many Connecticut students looking for a manufacturing job right out of school.

“EB is actively seeking our students,” said Marjorie Valentin, the Associate Dean of Division of Workforce and Community Education at Three Rivers Community College.

Along with having for-credit students, they’re also putting people through the Eastern Connecticut Manufacturing Pipeline – an initiative to address the hiring needs of EB, the Eastern Advanced Manufacturing Alliance (EAMA), and other manufacturers at no-cost to trainees.

“Over the past 26 months we’ve served 400 people. Over 90 percent have gotten jobs whether it be at EB or at their supply chain,” Valentin said.

In her almost 20 years, there’s more for-credit students and pipeline students hired out of college this year than any other year.

“When this friend went through, she came back with all the information from EB...the pay rates and all that. I was like, yeah I need to get in on this,” said Deb Moro of Norwich.

Moro is a pipeline student through Three Rivers. The wife and mom of two is seeking a career change where she knows there’s a need.

“It’ll be a big help but I have fun in here and if I can get paid to have fun, then yes please,” Moro said.

Companies are also looking at high school students, like those at Grasso Technical High School.

Thomas Allen is the head of the Mechanical Design and Engineering Technology Department and said over the past two years, all of his seniors were offered jobs. Plus, part of the curriculum is geared toward EB.

“We really can’t get enough students at this point to train in order to fill the required positions,” Allen said.

Grasso Tech is also starting a welding program in fall of 2019. It would take EB’s requirements directly to the school, which would make students prime candidates to be hired by the company.

Statistics send by CT Department of Labor Communications Director Nancy Steffens reveal from May 2017 to May 2018 there’s been an increase in 4,1000 manufacturing jobs, it’s the third highest job creator – only health care and social assistance are above it – and there will eventually be more manufacturing job opening as companies hire to replace workers who have retired or are nearing retirement age.

A Naugatuck woman ended up in collections and watching her credit score suffer even though she said she paid her bills on time.

Denise Monks has two credit cards through the same financial institution. She said she has always paid her bills online without issue. Then in March, she got hit with a late charge for one of the cards.

Monks said she did not do anything differently when paying her bill and that her account information was stored online.

When she called customer service, Monks learned the payment was applied to her other account. She asked if the amount could be transferred, and an agent promised to look into it.

Monks said the same thing happened the next billing cycle. She continued to make payments toward the balance, but did not feel she should have to pay the late fees or interest charges.

Monks said she spent hours on the phone with the bank trying to resolve the issue. When the bank sent the account to collections, Monks saw her credit score drop 100 points.

“I went to work the next day almost crying. Because I felt like I just couldn’t straighten this out myself,” she said.

Monks knew she needed help and reached out to NBC Connecticut Responds.

Our consumer team asked the bank to take another look at Monks’ situation. The company said Monks entered the wrong account number when she paid her bill.

The bank transferred the payments to the correct account, and waived the late fees and interest charges calling it a “goodwill gesture.” The company also took the account out of collections and notified the credit bureaus.

Monks does not believe she entered the incorrect account information.

Once she confirmed the issue was settled, she paid both accounts in full and cut up the cards.

Monks said her credit score has gone back up.

A billboard in Texas urging "liberals" to keep driving until they leave the state is being removed after it created backlash on social media.

The sign near Vega, about 30 minutes west of Amarillo, reads "Liberals Please continue on I-40 until you have left our GREAT STATE OF TEXAS."

Kyle Mccallie, 25, saw the billboard on his way to work Tuesday and posted it on Facebook. The post was widely shared on social media, sparking controversy and quickly gaining national attention.

Burkett Outdoor Advertising, the company that owns the billboard, said it was taking down the sign amid the uproar.  Randy Burkett, the company's owner told the Forth Worth Star the person who paid for the billboard was reimbursed.

"I believe in free speech, but this country is divided enough as it is," Burkett told the paper. "I’ve spoken with the client, and he’s agreed that it should come down."

A metal bracelet with a simple inscription brought three women to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

Marianne Horn, of Connecticut, says she has no connection to the war -- aside from the bracelet she received 46 years ago. It has the name of Lt. Commander Dennis Pike.

"When I was about 7 or 8 years old my mother brought home the bracelet for me and I wore it and kept it for life," Horn said.

She said her mother gave her the bracelet to honor the POWs and MIA service members of the Vietnam War. The bracelets were sold during the war, letting strangers show support for captured and missing troops, NBC DFW previously reported.

Over the years, Horn tried to find Pike's family. On Memorial Day this year, Horn did some searching online and came across a story on nbcdfw.com.

There it was.

Pike's family lived nearly 2,000 miles away in Texas. The story was about his daughter, Shannon Spake, and how she has never given up on finding out what happened to her father who has been missing in action since March 23, 1972.

The station connected Horn and Spake by phone and the two women quickly made plans to meet in Washington, D.C.

They met on Wednesday, along with Spake's mother, Lou Ann Pike.

"The only thing I really remember is his singing voice and the smell of Old Spice," Spake said of her father. 

She was just 2 years old when he disappeared, but says he always lived on through her mother, who would tell her children stories about their dad.

"He flew 132 combat missions," Lou Ann Pike said.

Pike was forced to eject from a plane during a bombing run over Laos on March 23, 1972.

He "went down with plane problems and the ejection seat did not work," Pike said.

His family spent years hoping that he’d return, praying for closure and working to make sure people remember the names that are on the Vietnam memorial wall.

"There’s a void having stories that people tell you about your dad and knowing that he was a kind man and a very much devoted family man -- that if I were to be missing, he would never give up on me," Spake said.

Spake, Pike and Horn walked to the memorial and found Lt. Commander Pike's name on the wall.

They then prayed together and honored the life of the American hero who is missing, but will never be forgotten.

"Dad if you can hear me, help us find you and bring you home. Amen."

President Donald Trump promised the crowd at a campaign-style rally in Duluth, Minnesota, Wednesday night that a border wall will soon be fully funded. The rally came hours after Trump signed an executive order temporarily halting family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border.

An East Windsor town official is accused of assaulting an elderly man, according to East Windsor police.

In a post on the department's Facebook page, police said they responded to a call from an elderly victim who claimed he was attacked by Deputy Selectman Steve Dearborn. Investigators determined the assault had occurred, and arrested Dearborn.

Dearborn was released on a $5000 bond. He is due in court on July 3.

More details were not immediately available.

The National Park Service has approved an application for the group behind the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville to host a one-year anniversary rally near the White House in August.

Organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally want to host the event in Lafayette Square Park on Aug. 11 and 12. About 400 people are expected to participate, according to the application filed on May 8.

Jason Kessler, the organizer of the rally, wrote on the application that the purpose of the event was to protest the “civil rights abuse” in Charlottesville, and host a “white civil rights” rally.

The rally would be held exactly a year after a driver plowed into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others.

Kessler had submitted a permit application in December to host the anniversary rally in Charlottesville, however, the city rejected it, saying the event would present a danger to public safety. Kessler has filed a lawsuit against the city over its denial.

He stated in the application for the D.C. rally that he expects members of Antifa-affiliated groups to protest.

Antifa, which stands for “anti-fascist,” is an organized group of protesters, left-wing activists and self-described anarchists to confront those who support bigoted or totalitarian views.

Kessler wrote in the application that attendees would meet at a rally point and march to Lafayette to give speeches. After, the group would march back to the rally point alongside law enforcement.

While the application has been approved, a permit has not been issued.

James Fields, the driver accused in the 2017 attack, faces 10 felony counts, including first-degree murder.

Bristol police have arrested a man accused of stabbing a woman in the neck.

Police said on Saturday morning they received a 911 call reporting a woman was injured on Landry Street near Divinity Street

When police arrived, they say they found a woman bleeding from a knife wound on her neck. The woman was transported to the hospital and recovering.

Through investigation, Police obtained an arrest warrant for 29-year-old Christopher Howard. Howard was located in Waterbury Wednesday and arrested.

He is charged with first-degree assault and first-degree unlawful restraint.

He was held on a court-set bond of $500,000.

A Waterbury school community is mourning the death of one of their teachers after a boating accident in New Fairfield.

Wanda Tirado, a mother of two and a teacher at St. Mary’s School, was described as a shining light in her school community.

Tirado suffered fatal injuries Tuesday when she was struck by an alleged hit-and-run boater while she was swimming in Candlewood Lake in New Fairfield.

On Wednesday the St. Mary’s community gathered at the Basilica of The Immaculate Conception to hold a prayer service for Tirado.

“The last day has just been sad,” said St. Mary’s School Principal Jonathan DeRosa. “I think everyone is sort of pinching themselves right now wondering if this is real.”

Many who knew and loved Tirado came together to pray in her memory hours after her death.

“She was the energy of our school, honestly. No matter what was going on, she came there with a smile,” DeRosa said.

The rector of the parish where Tirado taught said the community is struggling to make sense of her death and relying on each other in their time of grief.

“You just got to hold on. There’s nothing else you can do. But through love, through our relationships, that’s where we experience the healing,” said Father Christopher of the Basilica of The Immaculate Conception.

Police arrested 65-year-old Gary Morrone in connection with the deadly incident. Right now, a lot of people said they don’t understand why Tirado was taken away, but they’re helping each other to remember her life and get through this time of tragedy.

“We know that this doesn’t make sense right now, but that Ms. Tirado loved them all very much and that we’re all in this together and that we as a community are gonna support each other and get each other’s backs,” DeRosa said.

Morrone was released on a $10,000 bond. He is due in court on July 3. Information on funeral arrangements for Wanda Tirado has not yet been released.

The University of Connecticut has released hundreds of pages of documents pertaining to the university’s investigation and subsequent firing of former head men’s basketball coach Kevin Ollie over alleged NCAA violations.

The 1,355 pages, released in response to a Freedom of Information Request, detail NCAA recruiting violations ranging from players working with an outside trainer, Ollie shooting basket with a potential recruit during an official visit, and more.

Ollie, who was fired in March, has been fighting his termination.

It does not appear the school is alleging that type of violations the NCAA considers most serious like academic fraud or financial improprieties.

The Department of Defense said Wednesday night that 21 military lawyers are being sent to Arizona, Texas and New Mexico to help prosecute illegal immigration cases, NBC News reported. 

The lawyers will be appointed as full-time special assistant United States attorneys for up to 179 days, or about six months. They are to have "criminal trial experience." Emails obtained by MSNBC appear to show the Justice Department sought applicants "while we staff up" with permanent U.S. attorneys. 

The military lawyers will be given basic training in immigration law and federal criminal procedure to assist regular federal prosecutors in Yuma, Arizona; Las Cruces, New Mexico; and El Paso, Del Rio, Laredo and McAllen in Texas.

Several high-profile data and technology companies have been profiting off of contracts with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency for the last several months, NBC News reported. 

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Thomson Reuters, Microsoft, Motorola Solutions and Palantir all have active contracts with ICE, according to a public records search conducted. Their contracts show how many tech companies are putting their innovations to use with the U.S. government in ways that are not often visible to the public. 

Palantir, for example, has a $39 million contract with the agency that began in 2015. Thomson Reuters Special Services, a subsidiary of the mass-media firm and news agency Thomson Reuters, signed a $6.8 million contract with ICE in March. Palantir did not respond to a request for comment from NBC. 

A spokesperson for Thomson Reuters said in a statement, "[Thomson Reuters Special Services] supplies data to ICE in support of its work on active criminal investigations with the explicit purpose to focus resources on priority cases involving threats to public safety and/or national security."

Immigrant advocates applauded President Trump’s decision on Wednesday to end the separation of migrant families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally but fear a return to long detentions while the families’ appeals for asylum are decided.

“We’re going to go from family separation, which is a terrible practice and we shouldn’t be doing it, but we’re going to go back to longtime family detention, which is just as abhorrent a practice,” said Jacquelyn Kline, a lawyer who has represented parents and children being held at Berks County Residential Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania.

Outrage over the images and sounds of small children removed from their parents, crying on their own behind chain-link fences, forced Trump to reverse his policy, but warnings from advocates about the medical, physical and emotional damage of long detentions have not gotten the same response, she said.

“There hasn’t been as much of the same outcry,” Kline said.

A number of court rulings require that migrant children be released from the custody of government officials. Under the 1997 settlement of a class-action lawsuit, the Flores settlement, officials must turn over children who crossed the border unaccompanied to parents or other relatives — or if that is not possible to the “least restrictive” setting. A federal judge in Los Angeles in 2015 added those protections to children caught with their parents.

Meanwhile the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act guarantees deportation hearings for child migrants not from Mexico or Canada and without relatives in the United States.

Families with children are held in three centers in the United States — Berks County Residential Center, Karnes County Residential Center in Karnes City, Texas, and South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.

The Los Angeles judge, Dolly Gee of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, also found that the Texas detention centers violated the Flores settlement, which required that the facilities be licensed to take care of children and not be secured or prison-like.

Advocates have opposed licensing for all three centers and at the end of 2016, a Texas judge found licenses for the two Texas facilities to be invalid. The decision was appealed. Meanwhile the Berks County Residential Center failed to receive a renewal of its license, though it continues to hold families while officials there also appeal, Kline said. And all three are secured facilities, she said.

The executive order signed by Trump on Wednesday does not reverse the “zero tolerance” policy that prompted the chaos — the decision to charge all people entering the country illegally, typically with a misdemeanor. As adults were placed in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, children were sent to facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Now instead of removing children from their parents while they are prosecuted, the Trump administration will keep the families together, though it is not clear how it will not run afoul of the Flores’ settlement. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is directed to ask a federal court to modify the settlement’s prohibition against holding children in detention for longer than 20 days.

Then there is the question of where the families will be held. Since the “zero tolerance” policy went into effect at the beginning of May, more than 2,300 children have been taken from their parents, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“There are not enough facilities in the United States,” Kline said.

The executive order calls for the use of any existing facilities available for housing and the construction of new facilities if necessary.

The American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement said that the crisis would end only when every child was reunited with his or her parent.

“This executive order would replace one crisis for another,” said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director. “Children don’t belong in jail at all, even with their parents, under any set of circumstances. If the president thinks placing families in jail indefinitely is what people have been asking for, he is grossly mistaken.”

The New Haven Board of Alders leadership has launched an investigation into the pay increases Mayor Toni Harp gave to 37 executive management and confidential non-union employees.

“We’re shocked,” one alder who asked to remain anonymous said.

According to the payroll records obtained by NBC Connecticut from a local government source, the pay increases range from as little as 2 percent to as high as almost 28 percent for an executive administrative assistant.

“Wow, I didn’t know that, that’s too much,” New Haven resident Annette Lilly said.

The top paid employee on the list is the city’s attorney who will now take home $161,250 followed by the city’s health director who will make $155,875.

A majority of the raises for the 37 employees are 7.5 percent. Seven of the salary bumps are greater than $10,000.

“Well, I think she shouldn’t have done that because our taxes went up so high that a lot of people can’t pay for their cars and everything,” said Lilly, who just her car tax bill in the mail. They did the wrong thing at the wrong time.”

On Monday at the New Haven Fire Academy graduation, NBC Connecticut asked Harp how she could justify the raises following a big tax increase on the residents.

“Well, one has nothing to do with the other,” Harp said. “I think it is fallacious to connect the two, our budget went up 1.5 percent, the tax increase has to do with revenues that we needed."

Harp has told NBC Connecticut she proposed the 11 percent property tax increase, which the Board of Alders approved, in order to maintain city services while making up for less money from the state.

The Board of Alders leadership released the following statement to NBC Connecticut:

"In light of the unexpected increases of the Mayoral Executive Management and Confidential Employees that should have been communicated to the Board of Alders, the budgetary authority of the city pursuant to the Charter and the Code of Ordinances, we have begun a formal investigation. As a board we take our responsibility to our constituents very seriously and we will be taking appropriate steps based on our findings."

On Monday, NBC Connecticut pressed Harp on why taxpayers might not be too pleased with the pay bumps for some of the city’s highest paid employees.

“Well you know most taxpayers work in a position where they get a raise every year,” she said. “My executive staff, those who started with me haven’t gotten a raise in nearly five years, I don’t think they’d wait that long for a raise.”

The City’s Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson got a $9,000 raise even though he has been recently placed on administrative leave for three weeks.

NBC Connecticut will keep you posted on the findings of the alders’ investigation.

Should Ansonia and Derby merge their school districts?

That’s the question a new group is looking into, as both cities look to improve education and save money.

Regionalization was an issue the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters investigated last month in their “At a Price” series.

From those against Ansonia and Derby merging their school districts to those more open to the idea, there’s a lot of talk about consolidation in this area.

“There’s a big rivalry between Ansonia and Derby. And I don’t think that it’s such a great idea,” said Lisa Lewis-Hoxha of Ansonia.

“Maybe they should help each other, maybe they could work out a deal with helping each other,” said Richard Tracy of Ansonia.

Even the Ansonia mayor is sporting a special hat with both cities represented.

"I'm very excited. It's something I've been looking forward to doing for a very long time," said Mayor David Cassetti of Ansonia.

On Wednesday, representatives from each community gathered for the first time to begin getting down to the details. Many see a possible merger as a way to meet current difficulties.

“Whenever you talk about declining enrollment and rising costs and special education costs you get to a spot where it’s difficult to provide the education you want to your students,” said Jim Gildea, committee co-chair from Derby.

In the past couple of months, Ansonia had found itself in the news battling over money and laying off staff. There is hope here that combining resources could improve education, including offering more AP courses, and save money for districts that are struggling right now.

“I think certainly there are some challenges that we face. I also believe we have a fabulous opportunity at the moment to possibly enhance curriculum,” said John Izzo, committee co-chair from Ansonia.

This new regional school committee is expected to hash out the idea over the next two years. Voters would still need to approve the merger before it could go forward.