The Modern Milkman is a new take on a business model from the past. The Ellington business is bringing dairy products and more to your home.

Connecticut State Police are helping parents navigate the difficult world of teens and apps by touring the state and educating both adults and children on social media safety.

School Resource Officer Trooper Kate Cummings is the expert when it comes to kids socializing on social media. She goes to Connecticut schools and talks to students about the risks of certain apps and how to be smart online.

Police say Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube are the hands-down favorite apps for kids and young adults. However, Trooper Cummings showed NBC Connecticut that there are plenty of other apps parents should know about.

“We have been doing these internet safety presentations. Over the course of the last four years, we have done about 350 -- communities, schools, with parents, caregivers, businesses, whoever will listen. And we like to ask kids their favorite apps. And we are seeing regionally within Connecticut that there is a big fascination with apps where things are anonymous,” said Cummings.

Police said anonymous apps like Whisper, Sarahah, Burn Book and Hot or Not can lead to cyber bullying. They also recommend parents watch out for secret socializing on the apps Kik or House Party. They remind parents that most apps have some sort of message capabilities.

Police said the video making app TikTok or gaming apps like Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox can be a breeding ground for predators to reach out to younger adolescents.

“Parents get this false sense of security of, 'oh okay, it's a kid app,' but we know now that predators are aware of which apps are popular among elementary and middle school aged students. And so for them to go on and create a fake profile - it is much easier for them to start grooming children,” said Cummings.

The next red flag for parents is if they see any dating apps such as Bumble, Grindr or Tinder. These apps are meant for adults only.

“As a child, if you are downloading that it will automatically start pulling your location from our map feature on your phone and then it will show you where other users are. Unfortunately, we are seeing across the state, speaking with other school resource officers and youth officers, we have been seeing children under the age of 18 downloading these apps and using them as hookup apps,” said Cummings.

One of the most troubling apps police said is called hidden calculator. The app both looks and acts like an actual calculator, however, if you type in a passcode it opens up a vault where you can store secret pictures and videos.

“So this a great place for kids to hide pictures and videos that they don't want mom and dad to see, or internet sites that they are not supposed to go to. So when parents are checking phones periodically, if they see multiple calculators, that is a red flag that it is probably not a functioning calculator,” said Cummings.

For parents, it’s a world tough to navigate. Police said kids are often sending nude photos, a crime if you’re under the age of 16, and they’re not thinking about the consequences or risks.

“I think a lot of parents feel they are behind the curve and kids are always going to be ahead of us because they spend so much time on it,” said Cummings.

So what can parents do? Police suggest starting with three steps: communicate, control and research.

“I think for parents, asking questions. Downloading the apps themselves, becoming familiar with it and then also having that control piece. So especially the younger kids you should have their user name and passwords for all of their accounts,” said Cummings.

Police suggest parents ask kids what apps they like, why and who do they follow? Then download the apps and follow the same people. Parents should also remind kids that what goes online, stays online as part of their digital tattoo forever.

Police suggest parents go to this Common Sense Media website for help. They also recommend that parents download parental control apps on their young children’s devices and set boundaries early on.

If parents want help, Connecticut State Police often hold social media safety seminars across the state.

Here is a list of the upcoming dates:

• April 9th: Wilcox Tech High School (Meriden) 6:30 p.m.
• April 23rd: Ellington Youth Services 7 p.m.
• April 25th: Staples High School (Westport) 10 a.m.
• April 25th: Borrows STEM Academy (North Windham) 5:30 p.m.
• April 29th: Suffield Middle School 6:30 p.m.
• April 30th: Breakthrough Magnet School (Hartford) 6 p.m.
• May 1st: CES (Trumbull) 6 p.m.
• May 4th: Holiday Inn (East Hartford) 1:30 p.m.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is awarding Sandy Hook Promise (SHP) with the regional 2019 FBI Director's Community Leadership Award on Monday.

Special Agent in Charge Brian Turner is expected to present the award to Sandy Hook Promise's Co-Founders and Managing Directors Nicole Hockley and Mark Barden. Hockley and Barden each lost a son in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

The Director's Community Leadership Award is presented to "organizations and community leaders who have demonstrated outstanding contributions to their communities in the prevention of crime and violence," according to officials.

"SHP is being honored for its work in training over 6.5 million youths and adults nationwide in its proven Know the Signs programs that focus on prevention to help end the epidemic of gun violence by identifying at-risk behavior and intervening to get help before a tragedy can occur," Sandy Hook Promise officials said in a release. "Through these no-cost programs, SHP has averted multiple school shooting plots, teen suicides, and countless other acts of violence."

The award will be presented Monday at 1 p.m. at Sandy Hook Promise Headquarters in Newtown, during the start of its annual National Youth Violence Prevention Week. The week uses activities to help students learn about how young people can make their schools and communities safer.

A large piece of metal on the highway in Waterbury punctured dozens of tires Monday.

State police said around 34 vehicles ended up with flat tires because a large piece of metal was in the road on Interstate 84 to Route 8 North.

Crews from the state Department of Transportation responded and used a payloader to remove the metal.

Anyone who does hit an object in the road should turn on the vehicle’s hazard lights, move as far right as possible and call 911, state police advise.

Hamden fire officials have released the cause of a house fire on Dixwell Avenue on Saturday night.

Firefighters were called to a home on Dixwell Avenue around 10:15 p.m. after getting a report of a structure fire.

According to fire officials, a couple had just returned home and heard smoke detectors sounding throughout the home.

When crews arrived, they said they found smoke on the first and second floors of the home.

Firefighters said one of the occupants of the home re-entered the home to try and rescue family pets. Crews at the scene found him inside of the home by using a thermal imaging camera. He and the family pets were safely removed from the home.

Crews were able to contain the fire to the room of origin which was a master bedroom on the second floor, firefighters said. The Fire Marshal's Office determined the fire had started by a candle that was left burning on a dresser in the bedroom.

The fire was brought under control shortly before 10:41 p.m., but it left heavy smoke damage throughout the home and water damage, according to fire officials. The occupants of the home are staying with family members while their home is being repaired.

A 78-year-old woman was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital to be evaluated and she was released the next day, firefighters said.

U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Donna Shalala vowed to take legal action against the Trump adminstration after they were denied entry Monday to a detention facility housing migrant children in Homestead, Florida.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told the lawmakers last week they would not be allowed access to the federal detention center. Despite the rejection, the congresswomen from South Florida on Monday attempted to gain entry – citing the refusal is a violation of a law signed by Trump himself.

“We are going to get access to this facility, upon our terms, not ORR’s [Office of Refugee Resettlement] terms,” Wasserman Schultz said.

Joined by Shalala and Mucarsel-Powell, Wasserman Schultz told reporters outside the facility that the new law affirms members of Congress “must be given access to conduct oversight” and rejected the ORR's claim that facilities require a two-week notice.

“There is no time limit, there is no limitation at all,” she added. “And if they don’t let us in, they are violating the law.”

Mucarsel-Powell said she finds the resignation of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen "extremely troubling" as the Trump administration felt Nielsen, "the woman that was overseeing the cruel policy of family separation," was "too friendly to the immigrant population."

Homestead is now one of the facilities with the largest number of migrant children in the U.S. The children in custody are teenagers, ages 13 to 17, who arrived on their own, hoping to join relatives. 

The attempt to take the tour comes after HHS announced that they will significantly expand the bed capacity at the shelter despite lingering concerns over inadequate staffing, space and other services, according to the congresswomen.

“Denying entry to oversee the conditions and care provided to the unaccompanied children in the Homestead facility would not only be a breach of transparency and confidence in the care provided there, it would violate the law,” said Wasserman Schultz, Shalala, and Mucarsel-Powell in a joint statement.

This is the second time the facility expands its bed count. The government had announced in December that the facility in Homestead was increasing the number of beds from 1,200 to 2,350. The expansion will now take the bed count to 3,200.

The expansion is set to take place later in April.

In June 2018, Wasserman Schultz was initially denied entry to the facility along with former U.S. Senator Bill Nelson and others. They were eventually allowed to tour the facility days later.

“During our last visit to Homestead, we witnessed children living in cramped, prison-like conditions,” the joint statement said. “The idea to force even more children into an already full detention facility is not only unsafe but is cruel and violates basic tenets of human decency.”

An e-mail from a DHS adviser said the expansion was due to a surge of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Children who arrive without parents or legal guardians are placed in the custody of the agency.

New federal requirements mandating more stringent background checks on their families since last summer have slowed the children's release to family members. The average length of stay at Homestead has gone up from 25 days last June to 67 days as of December.

A legal team visited the shelter in February to verify whether it complies with a 1997 agreement known as the Flores settlement, governing how migrant children are housed in custody. J.J Mulligan Sepulveda, an attorney at the Immigration Law Clinic at University of California, Davis, said they interviewed children and described a few instances in which they broke into tears describing the "military-style" conditions at the facility where they can't hug one another.

Some feared that expressing emotion could get them referred to mental health services.

"A lot of them saw mental health services as a punishment, and thought it would affect their immigration case," Mulligan Sepulveda said. The attorney also said he met a boy who was separated from his brother when the center began its expansion. He said they are only allowed to see each other once a week.

The Florida Department of Children and Families said in an emailed statement in January that because it is a federal facility the state agency "does not have any jurisdiction or involvement with children placed there."

Comprehensive Health Services, which is part of Virginia-based Caliburn, isn't able to use Florida records to screen the staff for child abuse and neglect because Florida law bans any outside employer from reviewing information in its child welfare system. Child abuse and neglect checks were waived because of these limitations, officials say.

President Donald Trump has for months urged his administration to reinstate large-scale separation of migrant families crossing the border, three U.S. officials with knowledge of meetings at the White House told NBC News.

Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump's outgoing Homeland Security Secretary, resisted, setting her at odds with the president.

According to two of the sources, Nielsen told Trump that federal court orders prohibited the Department of Homeland Security from reinstating the policy and that he would be reversing his own executive order from June that ended family separation.

Trump has been pushing this policy since January, the sources said, when the numbers of undocumented immigrants crossing the border began to rise.

New Metro-North schedules go into effect on Sunday and they will impact travelers on the New Haven line. Metro-North said trains will have different departure times and the travel times will be longer.

The most extensive infrastructure work will be on the New Haven line and Metro-North says morning and evening peak train schedules will be lengthened by one to six minutes.

Morning peak trains will leave their initial station one to 10 minutes earlier and schedules will be lengthened by one to six minutes. New Canaan, Danbury and Waterbury Branch trains will depart one to four minutes earlier with schedules lengthened by one to three minutes.

Weekday Schedule:

Evening peak trains will leave Grand Central Terminal at the same time but schedules will be lengthened by one to six minutes.

Trains on the New Canaan and Danbury branches will depart at the same time but their schedules will be lengthened by one to three minutes, while Waterbury Branch trains will be unchanged, according to Metro-North.

Inbound off-peak trains will leave their initial station between 10 minutes earlier and four minutes later and their schedules will be lengthened by one to 11 minutes, depending on the length of the trip and the time of day,

Outbound off-peak trains will leave Grand Central Terminal at the same time and their schedules will be lengthened by one to 11 minutes. New Canaan, Danbury and Waterbury Branch local trains will depart their initial station three to 16 minutes earlier and arrive three to 16 minutes later than previously, depending on the schedule of the mainline connection.

Weekend Schedule:

Inbound weekend trains will leave their initial station up to 10 minutes earlier and their schedules will be lengthened by two to 10 minutes.

Outbound weekend trains will depart Grand Central Terminal at the same time and have their schedules lengthened by two to 10 minutes.

Metro-North said more service is being added for customers, with more weekday, Saturday and Sunday New Haven Line trains accessible for travel that was previously restricted between Fordham and Manhattan.

During off-peak times, service between Fordham and Manhattan will operate around four times an hour instead of twice an hour.

Learn more here. 

Multiple students were taken to the hospital to be evaluated after a crash involving a school van in Hartford on Monday morning.

Police said three students from Oak Hill School in Hartford were in the van when it collided with a car at the intersection of Bloomfield Avenue and Albany Avenue.

The students were taken to the hospital as a precaution. No injuries were reported, according to officers.

The cause of the crash is under investigation.

One person was taken to the hospital in a private vehicle after shots were fired in Hartford Monday.

Police said shots were fired in the area of Enfield and Mather streets and the person who was injured went to Saint Francis Hospital. No information was immediately available on the person’s condition.

The Hartford major crimes division is investigating.

The confidential personal information of approximately 12,000 Baystate Health patients was accessed as part of a recent email phishing incident.

The health care system said in a statement that between Feb. 7 and March 7, it learned of "unauthorized access to a limited number of employee email accounts... due to a phishing incident."

An investigation showed patient information was contained in the emails, including patient names and dates of birth, health information including diagnoses, treatment information and medications, and in some cases health insurance information.

Baystate said the incident did not affect all of its patients, and they have no indication that any patient information was actually viewed, acquired or misused.

To be safe, they've begun mailing letters to affected patients and established a call center to answer questions about the breach.

Anyone who thinks they may have been affected is urged to call 1-833-231-3361.

To keep this from happening again, Baystate said it has increased the level of email logging, blocked access to email accounts outside of the network and required all affected employees to change their passwords.

Baystate Health is a nonprofit health care system serving over 800,000 people across western New England. Its facilities include Baystate Medical Center and Baystate Children's Hospital in Springfield and three community hospitals -- Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield and Baystate Wing Hospital in Palmer -- plus a network of more than 80 medical practices, home care and hospice services and laboratory and diagnostic services.

Randolph Alles, the director of the U.S. Secret Service, is leaving his position, NBC News confirmed on Monday.

Alles, a retired Marine major general who was appointed two years ago, reports to the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, who resigned under pressure on Sunday night and is leaving the post on Wednesday.

More ousters of agency heads within DHS are possible.

CNN first reported Alles' departure.

Alles was tapped by Trump in April 2017 to lead the agency. He was the first director of the agency in at least 100 years to not come from the agency's ranks, according to The New York Times.

Friendly's has closed 23 of its restaurants in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut and New York, according to MassLive.

More than half of the closures are in New York, but the closures also include three stores apiece in Massachusetts and Connecticut, two in New Hampshire and one in Maine.

The company was founded in Springfield, Massachusetts, more than 80 years ago.

Click here for the full list of store closures.

Norwalk police have arrested a Stamford man suspected in a violent home invasion last week.

Police said a resident called 911 around 8:30 a.m. Friday and said a man had gone into the home and pointed a gun at the victim.

Officers responded and the suspect, identified as 46-year-old Alvin Collins, of Stamford, was gone Collins, who knows the victims, had left in a vehicle, police said.

The victims told investigators that Collins had pointed a gun at one occupant and pulled the trigger, but the gun did not fire. Then he assaulted and pistol-whipped the other victim, and the first victim ran to the bathroom to call 911, police said.

The victim who was assaulted was transported to the hospital. The injuries are not life-threatening, according to police.

Police obtained a warrant charging Collins with home invasion and first-degree assault and he turned himself in at the Stamford Police Department Monday. He was then brought to the Norwalk Police Department.

Bond was set at $1 million.

Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Collins at 203-854-3191.

The Trump administration is moving to undercut a landmark agreement enabling Cuban baseball players to play on Major League Baseball teams, a senior administration official tells NBC News, by overturning an Obama-era decision that said Cuba’s baseball league is not part of the Cuban government.

The administration has discretion to decide whether the Cuban Baseball Federation is too closely aligned with that country's sports ministry to allow independent agreements involving players. The Trump administration has worked to pull back from the closer ties to Cuba that were established during President Obama's tenure.

"Major League Baseball has been informed of the dangers of dealing with Cuba,” the senior administration official said.

A woman was robbed while heading to church in Hamden Sunday morning, according to police. 

Police said the 67-year-old Hamden woman was walking to her church, near Dixwell Avenue and North Street, when she was robbed around 10:30 a.m. 

The man who robbed her was on a mountain bike and grabbed the purse from her shoulder and fled south, police said. 

Several hundred dollars were in the purse, according to police. The victim was not injured. 

Hamden Police searched the area for the suspect and did not find him. Anyone with information is asked to call Officer Jeremy Brewer of the Hamden Police Department Patrol Division at (203) 230-4030.

The City of Milford has moved to raise the legal age to buy tobacco products from 18 to 21.

There are currently six states – California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon, Hawaii and Maine, that require customers to be 21 to purchase tobacco products.

Advocates of the move say the higher purchase age will have public health benefits, including keeping tobacco out of the hands of young people. The new ordinance includes e-cigarettes and vaping products and goes into effect in Milford on April 19.

In December the surgeon general called the use of e-cigarettes among young people an epidemic amid a reported 75 percent increase in high school student use from last year, and a 50 percent increase by middle schoolers.

According to the surgeon general, in 2018 one in five high school students reported using e-cigarettes within the past month. E-cigarette use is more popular among high school students than adults. 

Other Connecticut municipalities, including Bridgeport and Hartford, have already increased the age. But critics have voiced concerns about how such rules could hurt retailers, and how younger adults could simply go to another city or town to make their purchase.

The issue has been raised to Connecticut lawmakers. One bill being considered this session would increase the minimum age to buy these products from 18 to 21, and bar the sale of flavored tobacco products. 

There have also been proposals increasing penalties against those who sell products to underage purchasers, increasing taxes on vaping products and funding vape detectors for schools.

Police have arrested two juveniles and charged them with arson in connection with the fire that destroyed the historic Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford in January. Police said the teens have also been charged in burglaries in town. 

Stratford police said they arrested the two juveniles after a lengthy investigation. 

Both juveniles were charged with arson in the first degree, burglary in the first degree. criminal trespass in the second degree, reckless endangerment in the first degree, conspiracy to commit arson in the third degree, criminal trespass in the third degree, burglary in the third degree and criminal mischief in the third degree, police said.

Shakespeare Theater opened in 1955 and was mostly vacant since the 1980s. The town acquired the theater from the state in 2005 and it burned down on Jan. 13.

Authorities have not named the suspects because of their ages. 

Police said the investigation is ongoing and more arrests are expected.

The famous Simon and Garfunkel tune “Bridge Over Troubled Water” is getting a lot of play at Vinny’s Deli in Wallingford.

“It’s almost like an American Idol of subs,” says owner Vincent Iannuzzi.

Iannuzzi gives away free sub sandwiches to customers who belt out a few lines of the 1970 hit. Marjorie Tietjen’s husband saw the deli’s Facebook post and the couple decided to the restaurant for lunch for the first time.

“I wasn’t going to do it. But, here I am,” she laughed.

Most customers are regulars, who’ve watched and waited for the 34.5-foot bridge over Wharton Brook to be back to normal.

“There’s a brook. It’s not the Connecticut River, it’s not the Q Bridge, it’s a tiny little brook, seven years, do the math,” Iannuzzi said.

“It just seems kind of ridiculous that this takes so long. The bureaucracy that’s going on in this state is crazy,” added customer Jim Iannini.

Other residents are concerned with the state of the site, which sits at the entrance to town.

“Just look at the junkyard that the state has left us with, it has been this way for a year and a half,” said Wallingford resident Jim Seichter.

Some customers took a playful approach to the song, adding their own lyrics.

“Why is the bridge taking so long? I don’t know. I pay my taxes,” sang one customer whose rendition was posted on the deli’s Facebook page.

However, a spokesperson for the state Department of Transportation, which is in charge of the project, said this is “no laughing matter.” Kevin Nursick said the project was halted after the contractor discovered that as crews demolished one side of the bridge, the other, which was open to traffic, was being destabilized. Those “unforeseeable conditions” as he called them have forced the state to spend time reexamining how to move forward.

Iannuzzi said he first heard about plans to redo the bridge in 2004, and was told it would be finished in 2011, then 2019. Now, it may not be done until 2022.

“The DOT is not going to speed up the project at the risk of public safety,” said Nursick.

“If it’s safety, then why is it 15 years later there’s a half a bridge and we’re still not rushing to get the thing done,” said Iannuzzi.

“It’s just very frustrating. It just seems to be totally ridiculous,” added Wallingford resident Jim Seichter.

During construction, traffic was reduced to one lane, but both lanes have since reopened. However, the manager of the gas station across the street says customers tend to avoid the area now.

“It’s impacted us very badly because people don’t want to go on the bridge because they say it’s hard to get into the store,” said Yasar Choudhray, Global Food Mart manager.

Problems with the project have not only come at a cost to local businesses, but also to taxpayers, adding an extra $2 million to the price tag, which now sits at just under $6 million.

“I hate to see money wasted and all this is wasted money,” said Iannuzzi.

The state expects to start mobilizing construction crews on the project next month. Nursick said they’ll have to secure one side before they can resume the original demolition and rebuilding project.

A Maryland man stole a U-Haul van with the intent of using it as a weapon in an ISIS-inspired plot against pedestrians at National Harbor, the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Rondell Henry, 28, of Germantown, harbored hatred of non-Muslim people for two years, according to prosecutors.

He walked off his job March 26 with the intent of driving in to pedestrians, prosecutors said. He drove around the D.C. area looking for a vehicle bigger than his to use and followed a leased U-Haul van into a mall garage in Alexandria, Virginia, where he stole it.

The person who rented the van reported seeing a car follow the van off Interstate 395, onto mall property and into the garage, parking a few spaces away, prosecutors said. Police learned that car was registered to Henry.

According to prosecutors, Henry drove the van to Dulles International Airport about 5 a.m. March 27 but didn’t find a big enough crowd to satisfy his plot. Instead, he entered the terminal and tried to breach security by attempting to slip in behind a person who had been cleared and by studying a security checkpoint for weaknesses. He thought an attack there would get a lot of attention, prosecutors said.

After two hours he went back to the U-Haul and plotted again to drive into a crowd, prosecutors said.

He reached National Harbor about 10 a.m., parked the van and scouted the area for a place to attack, prosecutors said. He decided to wait until the crowd got bigger and broke into a boat to hide overnight.

Police found the van at National Harbor March 28 and waited for him, prosecutors said. Police arrested Henry after seeing him leap over the security fence at the boat dock.

Henry said he was inspired by ISIS and wanted to create the kind of “panic and chaos” that happened in France, prosecutors said. According to prosecutors, Henry said, “I was just going to keep driving and driving. I wasn’t going to stop.”

Henry is charged with interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle and faces 10 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors filed a motion to keep Henry in custody as a flight risk. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the July 2016 attack in Nice, France, in which a terrorist drove a truck into a large crowd, killing 86 people and injuring hundreds more.