Police in Middletown are patrolling around the statue of Christopher Columbus today after it was vandalized on Columbus Day last year. 

The statue in Middletown was one of several statues that were damaged last year. Others were in New Haven and Norwalk.  

People who have spoken with NBC Connecticut had strong opinions of the holiday. 

"I hope everyone recognizes that indigenous people played an important role in the United States, that they were here before Columbus and that's really a fact," Chris Rice, of New Haven said. 

The West Hartford school district decided that instead of recognizing Columbus Day next year, it will recognize Oct. 14 as Indigenous Peoples Day.  

“As an Italian heritage we look forward to celebrating Christopher Columbus,” Patty Hanley, of North Branford, said. “Christopher Columbus discovered America. It's as simple as that.” 

There have been no reports of damage to the statues this year.

Two Americans, including a Yale professor, won the Nobel Prize in economics on Monday for studying a pressing issue facing the global economy: how to deal with pollution and climate change and how to foster the innovation needed to tackle such problems. 

William Nordhaus, of Yale University, and Paul Romer, of New York University, were announced winners of the $1.01 million prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. 

Romer's work “explains how ideas are different to other goods and require specific conditions to thrive in a market,” the academy said. Romer's work found that unregulated economies will produce technological change, but insufficiently provide research and development; this can be addressed by government interventions such and R&D subsidies. 

Nordhaus in the 1990s became the first person to create a model that "describes the global interplay between the economy and the climate," the academy said. 

Working separately from Romer, he showed that "the most efficient remedy for problems caused by greenhouse gases is a global scheme of universally imposed carbon taxes." 

Carbon taxes are fees imposed on companies that burn carbon-based fuels such as coal and oil. Advocates see the taxes as encouraging companies to use less-polluting fuels. 

"This is, for sure, a Nobel Prize about the big questions," University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers said on Twitter. 

Per Stromberg, head of the Nobel economics prize committee, said "it's about the long-run future of the world economy." 

"The first one is how do we keep on generating the new ideas, the new innovations, the new research that's so important to solve the problems we're facing in the future," he said.

"The second is how do we deal with the negative effects of economic growth, which have to do with the emission of greenhouse gases leading to a warmer climate - which not just hurts the economy, but risks the life of everyone on earth," Stromberg said. 

The prize comes just a day after an international panel of scientists issued a report detailing how Earth's weather, health and ecosystems would be in better shape if the world's leaders could somehow limit future human-caused warming to just 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit from now, instead of the globally agreed-upon goal of 1.8 degrees F. 

Nordhaus, who completed his undergraduate work at Yale in 1963, has argued that climate change should be considered a "global public good," like public health and international trade, and regulated accordingly, but not through a command-and-control approach. Instead, by agreeing on a global price for burning carbon that reflects its whole cost, this primary cause of rising temperatures could be traded and taxed, putting market forces to work on the problem. 

Many economists have since endorsed the concept of taxing carbon and using this financial lever to influence societal behavior. But adopting the regulatory frameworks on a global scale has been a complex challenge, and the world's political leaders are failing to meet it, the head of the United Nations said last month. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres bluntly told leaders in New York that unless current emission trends for greenhouse gases are reversed by 2020, it will be impossible to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, which was a key goal of the 2015 Paris climate accords. The U.N. chief challenged governments to end fossil fuel subsidies, help shift toward renewable energy and back a price for carbon emissions that reflects their actual cost. He cited, for example, that climate-related disasters already cost the world $320 billion last year, a figure likely to grow with increased warming. 

“Many people think that dealing with protecting the environment will be so costly and so hard that they just want to ignore the problem,” Romer said by telephone to the Swedish academy. “I hope the prize today could help everyone see that humans are capable of amazing accomplishments when we set about trying to do something.” 

The economics prize is the last of the Nobels to be announced this year. Last year's prize went to American Richard Thaler for studying how human irrationality affects economic theory. 

A hoax that is gaining ground on Facebook has some worried about a new possible hack of the social network. Facebook says to disregard the message. 

The hoax works by targeting a user's inbox on Messenger, with the message making it appear like the user could have a cloned profile. 

Here's how it works: You receive a message from an existing Facebook friend telling you they've received a friend request from you. Then it says to check your account and to forward the message to all your friends. If you do pass the message along to your friends, the hoax spreads like an old school chain email or letter.

The message may look like this: ”Hi....I actually got another friend request from you yesterday...which I ignored so you may want to check your account. Hold your finger on the message until the forward button appears...then hit forward and all the people you want to forward too....I had to do the people individually. Good Luck!”

It's not the first time a cloning hoax has surfaced. A similar scam happened in the summer of 2016.

Facebook told NBC 7 that if you get a message such as this from an existing Facebook friend, just ignore it and don't forward it to anyone.

If you're concerned, you can check to make sure there isn't a duplicate account in your name.

Facebook officials said that despite all the hoax messages, there hasn't been an unusual increase in cloned accounts recently.

If someone is impersonating your account, though, you can report them to Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/help/fakeaccount.

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The first thing you notice after you exit U.S. Highway 101 North and drive around Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood is the incessant whirring of a jackhammer — its sound omnipresent on every street corner.

A year after deadly fires ripped through the neighborhood, scorching everything in its path, there’s cement mixers instead of charred grass, rose bushes instead of burned hedges and a sense of optimism instead of doom. What once resembled a movie set from “Apocalypse Now” looks more like — to quote a resident — “an obstacle course.”

Coffey Park is busy. Rebuilding.

On a sunny September afternoon, the only remnants of the tragedy that befell this quaint little neighborhood on the night of Oct. 8, 2017, are blackened mailboxes and tree stumps and of course, the residents themselves — some never left, some are slowly starting to move back, and some still don’t know where they’ll end up. Debris and broken garden ornaments dot the street along with construction crews, a maze of trucks and colorful porta-potties.

“We’ve been in this neighborhood about 15 years and we’re actually quite surprised that there’s this much building going on,” said Hugo Aguirre. “We never would have imagined a year later there’s something like 250 houses being built.”

“That was the last we heard, it may be more,” his wife Patty Aguirre adds. “Every day that we drive around the neighborhood we see new foundation being poured. A lot of neighbors are coming back and rebuilding.”

But there are also those who will not be coming back.

It's been a year since NBC Bay Area talked to the Aguirres — their house was one of the lucky ones that survived the deadly inferno, but most of their friends and neighbors lost their homes.

The Aguirres said the family that lived across the street from them will not be moving back.

Then & Now: The rose bushes next to Hugo and Patty Aguirres' house survived the Tubb's Fire

“I think some people were just so overwhelmed by this whole thing, like the people down the street here, they don’t want to be in this neighborhood again. It brings back memories of what happened,” Hugo Aguirre said.

Another close friend of the couple’s almost moved to Arizona, but then decided to stay.

“We’re just looking forward to having all our neighbors and all the houses built, and hopefully they’ll plant some more trees,” they said.

Some Coffey Park residents said that for a few months after the fires, nothing really happened. Then all of a sudden construction took off.

Across the street from the Aguirres, Bob Daugherty, who is rebuilding after losing his two-story house in the fire, was waiting for the building inspector to come survey his property before he could start laying down the foundation.

“I’m almost 80 years old, and I have to do this at this stage of my life,” he said. “I had to think about it for six months before I made up my mind.”

Daugherty said the city has been very cooperative, but under the new building codes he had to put in a sprinkler system and heavier insulation.

“We got out of here with the clothes we were wearing and our dog. Couldn’t find our cat — she perished in the fire. We are starting all over — a little late in life to have to do it, but we don’t have a choice.”

He added: “We are not alone, there’s a lot of people in the same boat we are in. It’s a long hard process, but it’s exciting.”

The Aguirres’ house would have burned down had it not been for the shifting winds, and some very brave firefighters.

“The winds went across the street — so only like three-quarters of this house completely burned,” Hugo Aguirre said. “It was hit and miss, which house was going to burn and which wasn’t."

A few houses over to their right, it’s the first day of construction for the Sculley family, whose house on Crimson Row was destroyed in the wildfires.

“The whole family is so excited and so happy we’ve finally reached this point,” said Sue Nelson, whose sister, Lyann Scalley had to evacuate in the middle of the night.

“We’ve been coming by every day to take pictures of the progress,” she said, her voice heavy with emotion.

The Scalleys have put up a little sign with the words “Coming Back Soon.”

Everywhere you look there are signs of rebuilding and resilience. One that particularly stands out right next to the park reads: “From the Ashes We Will Rise.”

Even with all the construction and activity around them, the Aguirres say it gets lonely without their neighbors. “It’s kind of strange, it’s more strange during the day not to see anybody,” Hugo Agguire says. But Patty Aguirre says they feel safe because of all the patrol cars.

So what it’s like to wake up every day to the sound of jackhammers and construction?

“You’re woken up at 7 o’clock every morning. That’s the alarm! Hammering!” Patty Aguirre says laughing.

“At first it drove us crazy and now were just used to it. I’m used to going to work through a maze of trucks over there,” Hugo Aguirre said. “Fortunately, PG&E is almost done in this neighborhood. When they were on this street it was chaos.”

The fire has brought the Coffey Park community closer together — neighbors hold barbecues and potlucks, and last Christmas someone brought a tree and had a party all night.

“We met a lot of neighbors that we didn't even know,” Patty Aguirre said.

As for visitors, the Aguirres say they see people driving by their neighborhood all the time. “People who are just intrigued to see what’s going on here — they had to start putting up fencing,” Patty Aguirre says with a smile.

Drone Footage: Coffey Park Before & After

A flurry of activity greets you as you drive around Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood — a stark contrast from October 2017. A year after the most destructive wildfire in California history burned down parts of Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties, the neighborhood continues to rebuild.

This drone video show the aftermath of the deadly wildfires and what some of the streets — made famous in iconic aerial photos and video — look like now.

'Found Pets'- Cats (And Dogs) of Coffey Park

Right next to the Coffey Park playground is a makeshift tent with the words “Found Pets” on it. Inside it, dozens of photos of cats and dogs who were reunited with their owners. And then, those who are still missing. Some residents have donated toys and scratching posts. Others have posted rewards for any information on their pets.

The New Kids On The Block are going on tour with Salt-N-Pepa, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson and Naughty by Nature and they will be performing in Connecticut.

This is the first time these bands that all had big hits in the 1980s will tour together and one of the stops on the 53–city “Mixtape Tour 2019” tour across North America next summer is at Mohegan Sun. 

The show will be at Mohegan Sun Arena on Wednesday, July 3 at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets will go for $99, $79 and $59 and go on sale Friday, Oct. 12 at 10 a.m. through Ticketmaster.

You can log onto Ticketmaster.com or call Ticketmaster’s national toll-free charge by phone number 1-800-745-3000. Tickets will also be available at the Mohegan Sun Box Office beginning on Saturday, Oct. 13.

The tour will also make stops in Boston, Newark and Atlantic City. See the full tour list.  

New Kids On The Block has also released a new song, “80s Baby” and you can here it here.

President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are going on a speaking tour and one of the stops will be in Connecticut in April. 

“An Evening with President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton” is making 13 stops in North America, including at the Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford. 

The Clintons will be sharing stories about their careers in public service and discussing the presidential election, issues of the day as well as looking toward the future, according to LiveNation. 

They will be at the Toyota Oakdale Theater on Friday, April 26. 

Tickets will go on sale to the general public starting Friday, Oct. 12 at 10 a.m. 

Connecticut now has its first Taco Bell restaurant that serves alcohol.

The Taco Bell Cantina opened on Chapel Street in New Haven on Friday.

It's part of an expansion by the restaurant chain to open 300 new locations that include alcohol on the menu.

The expansion was announced last year in urban areas and began with cities including New York City, Chicago, and Detroit.

The menu includes $4 draft beer and bottled beer, margaritas and a "Twisted Freeze" that can include vodka, rum, or tequila.

Like most Taco Bell restaurants, this Cantina is open late-night but stops serving alcohol one hour before closing.

Students at the University of Connecticut in Storrs advocated for change on Columbus Day. The Native American Cultural Programs will host events every day this week to educate their peers on Native Americans. They also started a petition in hopes that the university will recognize Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day in the future. 

“If you think about the catastrophe that happened to indigenous people due to Columbus and colonization in general, it’s really important to get the word out to recognize it’s indigenous peoples day as well,” said Brooke Parmalee, a student from Monroe and descendant of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. 

In a letter sent to students last week, the Office of the Provost wrote, “As a land grant university and Connecticut’s flagship public institution, we recognize that we share this land and our history with those who have come before us and continue to reside, work and live in our state.” 

The letter went on to acknowledge the history of indigenous people and encourage students to participate in the NACP’s events. 

A bug in the Google+ social media service left about 500,000 user accounts open to being compromised, though there is no evidence anyone's personal information was misused, the company said Monday.

Google said it was shutting down the consumer portion of Google+, which it acknowledged had not caught on with the general public. (The company said 90 percent of all user sessions lasted 5 seconds or less.)

"We found no evidence that any developer was aware of this bug, or abusing the API, and we found no evidence that any Profile data was misused," Google said in a blog post.

The bug was patched last March. The Wall Street Journal reported that Google decided at the time not to disclose it to the public, which the company also addressed in the blog.

"Our Privacy & Data Protection Office reviewed this issue, looking at the type of data involved, whether we could accurately identify the users to inform, whether there was any evidence of misuse, and whether there were any actions a developer or user could take in response. None of these thresholds were met in this instance," it said. 

As part of a broader security review, Google said it would limits developers' access to certain Gmail data, as well as to call logs and messaging on Android phones.

The news comes less than two weeks after Facebook acknowledged its own breach, potentially exposing data on some 50 million users. 

A 71-year-old Brooklyn man has died after a crash on Interstate 395 in Plainfield Monday morning.

Police said Michael John Niejadlik, of Brooklyn, was driving south on I-395 and hit the guardrail just before 10 a.m., went across the road, hit a tree and went down an embankment.

Police said the crash happened between exits 32 and 29 and Niejadlik was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police are investigating and ask witnesses to call Troop D in Danielson at 860-779-4900.

Enfield police are investigating a case of illegal dumping.

Several items, including a mattress and sofa, were dumped in the area of Asnuntuck Street and North River Street, near the railroad bridge.

Anyone with information on who left these items is asked to contact Enfield Police Officer Officer Nuno at enuno@enfield.org or 860-763-6400 ext. 1300.

President Donald Trump said Monday that new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed after facing allegations of sexual misconduct, was "caught up in a hoax that was set up by the Democrats."

Wallingford police are warning residents not to leave valuables in cars after a number of break-ins overnight. 

“Not the way you want to spend the day,” said Susie Velsor, who spent the morning sweeping up glass from her driveway on Hope Hill Road after her car was broken into. “I’ve been on the phone all day with police and insurance just stinks.” 

She said she first noticed that someone smashed the back window of her car when she woke up on Monday morning. 

“I thought initially it was water behind my car, but it was the broken shards of glass,” Velsor said. “Then I looked and noticed my bag with all my work stuff had been taken.” 

Velsor, an eighth-grade teacher, said there was a computer inside her bag and her car was locked. 

“I always take my purse in the house, but I brought groceries in on Friday. That’s why the bag was still in there, I didn’t have a hand for it,” she said. “They didn’t take anything from the front or the back. They just did a quick smash, grab and go.” 

Not far from Velsor’s home on South Ridgeland, at least two other cars were broken into. 

Wallingford police didn’t have an exact number of how many cars were targeted but they are investigating. They said it’s a reminder not to leave valuables in the car. 

A 2-year-old Shelton boy who was found unresponsive in a swimming pool on Copper Penny Lane in Shelton Monday morning has died, according to police.

Police said they received a 911 call around 11 a.m. after a relative who was babysitting for the day found him. 

Shelton Police and EMS responded and the boy was transported to St Vincent’s Hospital, where he was later pronounced deceased.

The little boy had wandered outside and fell in the pool, according to the initial investigation. The case remains under investigation.

A man who believed he was meeting a prostitute instead encountered two robbers in Hamden Friday, according to police.

Police said the 19-year-old victim told police he was scheduled to meet with a prostitute on State Street around 2:30 p.m. Instead, he was approached by two men who told him they had a gun and rummaged through his pockets.

The victim said the two suspects forced him into the backseat of his car then drove him to several ATMs, demanding he withdraw money.

In total, the suspects stole $740 from the victim, according to police.

The first suspect is described as 5-foot-10 with a slim build, beard and mustache. The second suspect is described as 5-foot-6, also with a slim beard and mustache.

Anyone with information should contact the Hamden Police Department Detective Division at 203-230-4000.

At the Valley Regional Lodge of the Sons of Italy, their Columbus Day celebration included nods to both Italian and American heritage.

At the annual celebration of Columbus Day, they raised the flags of both the United States and Italy and enjoyed some of the best culinary offerings of their Italian homeland. Here, this holiday is as much a celebration of their heritage as it is the man credited for “discovering” the Americas.

“It’s important in the sense of its heritage and what the Italian culture and heritage has brought to us,” said Lorenzo Durante, president of Valley Regional lodge of the Sons of Italy.

But there are some who say the decades-long tradition of honoring Columbus dishonors the people who were already living in the land he discovered.

This spring, West Hartford Public Schools decided to join cities and towns across the country who now acknowledge the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day.

NBC Connecticut talked to people at the Sons of Italy celebration about the shift. Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti, himself an Italian American, says the holiday is important to him, but he sees no issues with alternative celebrations.

“The world is changing every day. Whatever decision they want to make, the different towns, it’s up to them” he said.

At the Sons of Italy, there was a nod to the growing conversation about this alternate observance on this day with one of the speakers acknowledging that all Americans originate outside of the country, with the exception of those who were here when it was discovered to the wider world.

But those attending said celebrating Columbus Day is an annual tradition they never want to end.

“Columbus Day I think every year should be celebrated. He came to the new world and found the new world and I think it’s important that we keep the Italian heritage” Cassetti said.

The Metropolitan District continues to make repairs in West Hartford after a portion of pipe liner caused a sewer blockage that flooded the area of Linbrook Road and North Main Street and sent water seeping into homes last week.

On Friday, MDC confirmed that a 60-foot section of liner failed, causing the blockage.

The company is looking into an alternative liner to replace 300 feet of pipe liner in the area to prevent any future issues.

MDC is working with affected homeowners to evaluate the need for backwater valves on their properties. A backwater valve is designed to keep water or sewage flowing in only one direction, in this case out of the house. Crews installed check valves at nine homes Monday.

MDC contractors are also working to help homeowners replace hot water heaters, boilers and gas furnaces, and get electrical service back in the flooded homes. The company has claims staff working with homeowners as basement cleanup continues. They are also handing out vouchers to residents whose cars were affected by the backup.

Crews are also washing down streets and cleaning out catch basins. MDC said Monday that it plans to provide an update and plan of action to homeowners by close of business Tuesday.

A Ledyard police officer was injured and a cruiser wrecked after police said someone smashed into the back of it during a high-speed chase Sunday evening.

“As far as putting the public in danger, nobody signs up for that. We sign up and we know what the inherent dangers are,” said Ledyard Police Officer Bobby Kempke, who was one of the two officers involved in the incident.

Never did he expect a routine traffic stop to turn into a high-speed chase. Around 5:45 p.m., Kempke was stopping a black BMW in the area of Route 214 and Spicer Hill Road for not having a front license plate.

That driver took off, and according to Kempke, reached speeds between 85 and 100 miles per hour.

“He tried to hit me, ended up going around into somebody’s front yard damaging their fence, a light pole, then back onto the roadway,” Kempke described.

Police said his colleague, Officer Ryan Foster, took a position on Shewville Road near Route 2. That’s where Kempke said the driver seemed to deliberately crash into the cruiser, forcing it to spin around.

“He wasn’t stopping for us or anybody,” Kempke said.

Foster suffered a small cut and bruising to his face.

Eventually the driver stopped on a random home’s driveway on Mathewson Mill Road to check out his car, which was smoking, Kempke said. But after a brief conversation with the homeowner, he got back in and took off.

Kempke said considering the recklessness of the situation, it could have turned out much worse.

“That’s my partner. We’re a family and to think that what the outcome could have been is terrifying,” he said.

Ledyard Police are still looking for the driver and the black BMW. There’s a white decal on the back. Police said the vehicle should have damage to its front, right side. The driver appears to be male and was wearing a dark shirt with writing on it. Anyone with information is asked to call Ledyard Police at 860-464-6400.

At a White House event Monday, President Donald Trump said Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was "proven innocent" before ascending to the high court.

Dennis Milanovich never thought he’d be a football parent. He has two daughters.

“It’s a surprise,” Milanovich said. “But it’s great.”

His youngest, Ellington High School sophomore, Caroline, surprised both of her parents this past summer when she told them she’d signed up to play JV football.

“I mean, he told me that I probably shouldn’t, but whatever,” Caroline Milanovich said about her dad’s reaction.

A head shorter than everyone else on the field, Caroline is Ellington football’s newest wide receiver.

“So football is a big thing in my family and I’ve always been around it,” said Caroline. “I don’t know, I just kind of got in on the fun.”

It really was that easy. Caroline said she asked the coach if she could play and that was it - although, she did have one condition.

“I went and I told the coach, I said, ‘I won’t kick at all,’” said Caroline.

According to the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, about 45 girls played high school football last season in the state. Though most girls get involve don special teams, primarily as kickers, which keeps them out of most of the contact. Not Caroline.

"I love getting hit,” said Caroline. “It's so much fun."

She likes to hit back, too.

"Even sometimes now, a few games into the season, people will say, 'oh are you wearing your boyfriends jersey for the game?' and I say no, I'm playing, see you at the game,” said Caroline.

Now, Dennis finds himself in the stands at a game he never thought he’d be at, but it’s one that's teaching lessons he's glad his daughter will learn.

"It's about respect,” said Dennis. “It's about giving yourself to something that's bigger than you and that's really who she is."

The bigger picture for Caroline: playing so that one day her story isn’t so unique.

"If I can have one freshman girl come on this team and say ‘hey I want to do this,’ that would be amazing,” said Caroline. “Just to have a young girl see that she can do this too."