‘Tis the season: tree pollen allergy season.

"You know, you can feel it in the air,” said allergy sufferer Lucy Rosado of Waterbury.

While it’s a beautiful day in Waterbury, the hospital lab's is collecting details on pesky pollen.

You can check the results daily online.

Medical technologist Sarah Paisley says Tuesday's tree pollen count is north of 7,500.

"I come in to work every day and people say, ‘hey is the pollen count high today? You know my eyes are really watery.’”

A count of more than 1,500 is already considered very high levels.

Dr. Christopher Randolph breaks down the hospital’s data.

“When these counts get high people will get nose and eye symptoms particularly with trees because trees are at nose and eye level."

With back to back allergy appointments, NBC Cnnecticut had to speak with Randolph over the phone.

"The particulate effect of all that pollen in the air can get irritant to people who are not allergic as well,” he explained.

Randolph suggests talking to your doctor about what treatment works best for your symptoms. He says sometimes regular over-the-counter nose sprays work best. Other treatments include staying inside or even allergy injections, he says.

"I just won’t come out of the house. You know I just stay home,” said Rosado.

"I take allergy medicine every day regardless, so I think maybe that has helped me. So yeah, I’m an allergy sufferer for sure,” said Julie Donato, who works in Waterbury.

Randolph says tree pollen season tends to end mid-June, and then we can look forward to grass pollen allergies.

At least 7 people were injured Tuesday in a Colorado school shooting. Two suspects were taken into custody, officials said.

Nurses help give comfort and care during patients' most critical times. During National Nurses Week, Lawrence + Memorial Hospital wanted to bless their nurses for the work they do.

The Blessing of the Hands ceremony took place in healing garden on hospital grounds Tuesday.

"Our hands touch so many lives throughout our careers," said Nurse Manager Janine McDonald, who helped create the ceremony about 10 years ago.

Ever since she was a child, McDonald wanted to be a nurse.

"I was the little girl that got the nurse's kit--doctor's kit at that time because they didn't really have nurse's kits," McDonald said.

Her career trajectory inspired one of the most important people in her life to also choose a career in nursing: her older sister Michelle Bohmbach.

"My sister is a wonderful person and out of everyone in the world, I think I respect her the most," Bohmbach said.

Bohmbach works in critical care at L+M Hospital.

"Lot of times (patients) don't even know we're taking care of them, or they don't even know what's going on, but you have to put all your faith in God that they will get better. They might not know who we are, but they might remember how we touched their lives," Bohmbach said.

Bohmbach and McDonald are the two youngest of six children and grew up in East Lyme. These sisters are best friends. So are their daughters.

Their bond and commitment to others inspired three of their children to explore the medical field in college.

In their careers, they Bohmbach and McDonald have impacted countless lives. Tuesday's ceremony touched theirs.

"It means a lot of to have our hands blessed," McDonald said.

Bohmbach said while McDonald started the Blessing of the Hands ceremony, she took it over this year-- once again following her sister's footsteps. She called it another shared experience.

Tolland voters voted on Tuesday in favor of borrowing $46 million to tear down and rebuild Birch Grove Primary School, which has a crumbling foundation.

Community members have had several meetings, all to prepare them for Tuesday's vote.

Tests confirmed that pyrrhotite, the mineral linked to crumbling concrete is present in the foundation of the school.

The state has agreed to pay 52 percent of the $46 million price tag, but that leaves more than $20 million up to the taxpayers to cover.

The town said they're still hoping for federal support as well.

With referendum approved, the two-year construction project will begin as soon as this school year ends.

During the repairs, students will be in portable classrooms.

Some Uber and Lyft drivers are planning to strike Wednesday, a call that's being answered across the country, including in Connecticut.

They plan to turn off the ride-hailing apps during the morning rush hour, and some plan to stop working all day.

They’re fighting for better pay and benefits.

If you order a ride on Lyft or Uber, you might see Rosana Olan pull up.

“I like driving. That’s why I got in,” Olan said.

But the West Haven woman is growing frustrated behind the wheel.

She says in just the last year she’s watched her pay per ride drop.

“We depend on this. So it was no more fun for us,” Olan said.

Now she and other drivers around the country plan to strike on Wednesday, some from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. while others plan to be out all day.

They’re demanding better pay and treatment from Uber and Lyft, plus for the ride-hailing companies to support a bill that is moving through at the Capitol.

“We’re seeing in the case of Uber and Lyft they’re doing very well,” State Sen. Matt Lesser (D – Middletown) said.

Lesser is a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 989, which among other things would require that drivers keep at least 75-percent of the paid fare.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure those folks who are working for Uber get paid a fair wage, a percentage of your fare that is reasonable, fair and protects their rights,” Lesser said.

In a statement, an Uber spokesman wrote in part:

“If this bill passed drivers would have to pay as much as $4,500 a year more in insurance costs out of their own pockets, and it would make it significantly harder for people in CT to hail an Uber."

Uber also highlighted its incentives for drivers.

As for Lyft, a spokesman tells NBC Connecticut, on average drivers make more than twenty bucks an hour and that, “We know that access to flexible, extra income makes a big difference for millions of people.”

Olan says some drivers are already thinking about taking other jobs, especially with fears their pay rates will be cut even more.

“I’m just hoping they can fix this soon,” Olan said.

This all comes days before Uber’s initial public offering, which could value the company upwards of $90-billion.

Many drivers feel shortchanged as the company’s founders could become very rich.

A family of six, including four children no older than 11, died in a blaze that tore through their Harlem apartment early Wednesday, officials say.

The names of those killed in the overnight fire, which broke out in a fifth-floor apartment kitchen at the Frederick E. Samuel Apartments on Seventh Avenue, around 1:30 a.m., were not immediately released. Fire officials said they're all from the same family -- 3- and 8-year-old boys, 6- and 11-year-old girls, their 45-year-old mother and a 33-year-old male relative.

The victims were found unresponsive in back bedrooms after firefighters doused the flames; they were all pronounced dead at the scene. Three other people suffered minor smoke inhalation.

A cause of the blaze, which was under control in about two hours, is under investigation though authorities do not believe it to be suspicious. An unknown number of people were displaced by the blaze. 

It's one of the deadliest New York City fires in years. In 2017, one in the Bronx, sparked by a toddler playing with a stove, killed a dozen people. At the time, the FDNY commissioner called the blaze "historic in its magnitude."

Ten years earlier, 10 people died -- nine of them children -- in a four-story house fire in the Bronx. Excluding the Sept. 11 attacks, the 2017 fire was the city's deadliest since 1990, when 87 people were killed at a social club fire in another part of the borough.

Community members have been doing all they can to keep the conversation focused on the recent police-involved shooting in New Haven.

On Wednesday night, the Hamden Police Commission is meeting at the Government Center. The commission is authorized to oversee the department and hear any complaints that people have against the department or specific officers.

Members of the community plan on attending the meeting and hope to pressure the commission to take action after the April 16 shooting where a Hamden police officer and a Yale police officer opened fire on a car with two people inside.

Police found the car and said it matched the description of a car believed to have been involved in an attempted armed robbery earlier that night.

The passenger was shot. The driver was not.

For the first time, we're also hearing from the Hamden police officer's attorney. He said his client, Officer Devin Eaton, did not know a Yale officer had already arrived on scene and was shooting at the driver. He said he thought the driver had a gun and was the one shooting.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found most Hamden residents do not think the police-involved shooting in New Haven was justified. Full poll results can be found here.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found that a majority of Hamden residents believe the shooting in New Haven involving a Hamden police officer was not justified.

According to the poll, 66 percent of residents believe the shooting on April 16 was not justified. However, 62 percent of residents approve of the job Hamden police is doing.

There were racial differences in the attitudes about police in the poll, according to Quinnipiac University. The shooting was not justified according to 88 percent of black residents, 60 percent of white residents and 68 percent of Hispanic residents. The overall approval of Hamden police is 50 percent among black residents, 67 percent among white residents and 66 percent of Hispanic residents.

"This survey suggests that Hamdenites regard the incident as an aberration, rather than indicative of how the Hamden Police Department operates," Quinnipiac University School of Law Professor William Dunlap said in a statement.

Seventy-nine percent of Hamden residents said they can trust the local police to do what is right, the poll found. That includes 85 percent of white residents, 67 percent of black residents and 78 percent of Hispanic residents.

The poll found 70 percent of Hamden residents said the officers involved in the shooting should be disciplined including 64 percent of white residents, 91 percent of black residents and 74 percent of Hispanic residents.

Only 38 percent of Hamden residents said the officers should be fired while 36 percent of all residents said the officers should face charges, according to the poll.

Fourty-seven percent of Hamden residents said that local police do not have enough training to know when they need to fire their weapon. And 93 percent of residents said they support the use of body cameras that are automatically activated by an action such as when the officer opens the door of a police car of by the sound of gunfire.

Quinnipiac University said they surveyed 1,699 Hamden adults from May 2-May 6 and there is a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.

You can read the full poll here.

The poll comes after a police-involved shooting in New Haven on April 16 where a Hamden police officer and a Yale police officer opened fire on a car with two people inside.

Police found the car and said it matched the description of a car believed to have been involved in an attempted armed robbery earlier that night.

The passenger of the vehicle was shot. The driver was not.

The shooting led to multiple protests and pushes for accountibility and transparency.

Derby High School was evacuated Wednesday morning after a portable heat source caught fire during a teacher appreciation breakfast. 

The superintendent’s office said it happened around 8:30 a.m. and a staff member quickly put it out, but the school is required by law to evacuate in the event of any fire. 

The fire department responded and gave the all clear to return to the school building. 

No one was injured, and students were able to return to class, according to the superintendent’s office. 

A New London public school employee has been arrested in connection to an on ongoing police investigation involving criminal activity with a youth, according to police.

Officers said 35-year-old Corriche Gaskin, of Groton, was arrested on Tuesday on an active arrest warrant in connection to the investigation.

Gaskin is facing charges including sexual assault, possession of child pornography, voyeurism, disseminating voyeuristic materials and multiple counts of risk of injury. His bond is set at $500,000 and he will be in court on Wednesday.

Back in April, Gaskin was arrested as a result of "alleged" criminal activity involving a student and was charged with risk of injury to a minor, police said.

According to officers, Gaskin is a climate specialist with the New London public school system. He is on paid administrative leave.

Anyone who has information concerning the investigation is encouraged to contact New London Police Department's Detective Bureau at (860) 447-1481 or anonymous information may be submitted through the New London Tips 411 system by texting NLPDTip plus the information to Tip411 (8474110.

Tuesday was a gorgeous day at the Hartford Yard Goats ball park, not for baseball, but instead for people raising money and awareness for Alzheimer’s disease.

“This is such a sad disease, but we can do things that are fun and great and still help this cause. So literally you can do anything you want to do to raise money for Alzheimer’s,” said Tori Vigorito, a walk manager with the Alzheimer's Association.

On Tuesday, the Connecticut Alzheimer’s Association kicked off “The Longest Day” campaign. They are inspiring people to pick an activity that they are passionate about and then from sunrise to sunset on June 21, people can do that activity and raise money.

“Trying to inspire people to recognize and do what they love as a fundraiser,” said Tina Hogan, the Development Manager with the Alzheimer's Association. “It is as easy as spinning a wheel to get an idea what you want to do for a fundraiser, it is anything you are passionate about.”

Vigorito said she’s passionate about the mission to raise awareness and money for Alzheimer’s after losing both of her grandmothers to the disease.

“I lost her, before I actually lost her. That was really hard to deal with,” said Vigorito.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, someone is diagnosed with the disease every 65 seconds. There are 78,000 people suffering from Alzheimer’s right here in Connecticut and the disease is impacting the lives of around 178,000 caregivers.

“The great hope out of all of this is that eventually we find a cure,” said Hogan.

June 21 is the Summer solstice and along with "The Longest Day" campaign, it will also be Alzheimer’s awareness night at the Hartford Yard Goats game.

If you want to get involved with The Longest Day, you can make a fundraising page here. There's also a helpline available 24/7 at 800-272-3900.

It may soon be harder to go out for a smoke in Beverly Hills.

On Tuesday night, the Beverly Hills City Council moved forward on recommendations from the health and safety committee to ban the sale of all tobacco products.

"This reflects the values of our community," said Mayor John Mirisch. "We are a city that has taken the lead on restricting smoking and promoting public health. Somebody has to be first, so let it be us."

According to the National Association of Tobacco Outlets, the city may face lawsuits if it goes ahead with the law, which would be the first of its kind in the U.S.

The proposed ordinance for the ban specifies that hotels will still be able to sell tobacco products to guests but only through concierge services and cigar lounges will be exempt of the ban. 

Starting Jan. 1, 2021, tobacco retailers such as gas stations, convenience stores, pharmacies and newsstands would not be able to sell tobacco products.

Some business owners from cigar lounges, gas stations and drugstores are upset that the new legislation would strip them of a large profit source.

"For sure it's going to affect the gas too because people, they buy gas and cigarettes," said Roshdui Sidarous, a business owner in Beverly Hills. "If I don't sell cigarettes they're not going to stop to buy gas here."

Added Keith Sterling, a Beverly Hills resident: "We do have a lot of international visitors in Beverly Hills and a lot of folks that visit will use tobacco. I think that's been part of it."

Beverly Hills already has strict regulations on how people smoke. Doing so while standing still, for example, is illegal — if you're going to smoke, you must be walking and continuously moving.

A team of ambassadors was hired by the city to monitor this. In December 2018, the city banned all flavored tobacco products from being sold, with penalties of up to $1,000.

Beverly Hills has been exploring the new bill since February. If drafted into law, it would ban the sale of all tobacco products in the city. Tobacco and e-cigarette retailers already have to apply for a city permit to make sales, while any vending machines for tobacco products are banned.

The City Council would revisit the ordinance again in three years from the effective date. 

Danny Glover will be speaking at Goodwin College's 2019 commencement ceremony.

The actor, who has appeared in “Lethal Weapon,” “The Color Purple," "Mandela," Beloved" and several other films and miniseries, will be a guest speaker and honorary degree recipient at the ceremony on Saturday, June 8.

Glover is a frequent guest speaker and has delivered addresses on social justice, diversity, activism and global citizenship. 

In addition to his films, Glover served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program and currently serves as UNICEF Ambassador. 

A New York City woman is suing over an explosion she blames on a can of household cooking spray that ignited her hair and left her horribly burned. Five similar lawsuits involving plaintiffs across the country were also filed Tuesday, though all those named food packaging giant Conagra as the defendant.

Most of the six separately filed lawsuits involve PAM, though the brand allegedly involved in Maria Mariani's case was different and possibly made by another company. She bought it at a major retailer. 

According to her lawsuit, Mariani was using the stove to boil water at her mother’s Staten Island apartment on April 5. Just as she shut the flame off, a cooking spray can erupted and set fire to her hair, the lawsuit alleges. The flames spread to her clothes and body, charring nearly 30 percent of her skin. Mariani now has to undergo surgery and rehabilitation, according to the lawsuit.

The other five lawsuits detail similar incidents across the country. In one case, jarring surveillance footage captured an explosion at a Texas restaurant after, according to the lawsuit, a worker put a can of PAM cooking spray on a shelf in front of a grill. In another, a Utah couple was set on fire, allegedly when another PAM can exploded. In yet another case, a college student in Texas had to be placed in a medically induced coma for two weeks.

In a statement, Conagra said that "when PAM is used correctly, as instructed, it is a 100-percent safe and effective product."

All six lawsuits were filed in Cook County Superior Court in Chicago Tuesday morning, where Conagra maintains its headquarters.

Cooking spray is most commonly designed as an aerosol container. In 2011, Conagra began using a new kind of aerosol can in an effort to save money, according to the lawsuits filed Tuesday. The new design is used primarily for cans that contain more than 10 oz. of product and includes a venting mechanism on the bottom of the can, which looks like a four U-shaped score marks. This mechanism is allegedly intended to allow the container to vent its flammable contents in a controlled manner.

The plaintiffs in these six cases have alleged that the design of the cans is faulty, dangerous and prone to explosion even when used properly.

“It is beyond irresponsible that, to increase profits, Conagra Brands made and sold cans of household cooking spray that are susceptible to explosion, choosing not to use the safer designs as it had for the last sixty years, and failed to warn consumers about the very serious risks,” J. Craig Smith of Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, the law firm that represents the victims in each of the cases, said in a statement.

According to the law firm, Conagra is aware of the danger the new can design poses, and has inferred to business partners that, as of Jan. 1, it discontinued additional production using the new design, but did not issue a nationwide recall of already-shipped product, which has a shelf life of several years.

Conagra's statement goes on to say that the vented design in question was used on a limited number of cans over the last several years and was subsequently removed from active production as the company sought to standardize their cans across the entire aerosol cooking spray product line.

"We fully stand by this product. To reiterate, the vented can design is no longer in production. And, when PAM is used correctly, as instructed, it is a 100-percent safe and effective product," Conagra said.

Police are investigating what was reported as a burglary in progress in West Hartford.

They said the report was in the 900 block of New Britain Avenue.

No additional information was immediately available.

Students are being hailed for their heroism Wednesday, a day after they rushed one of the shooters at STEM School Highlands near Denver and helped to disarm them, NBC News reported.

Among them are a recruit to the U.S. Marines, Brendan Bialy, and 18-year-old Kendrick Castillo, whom a classmate said died while lunging at the attacker.

Nui Giasoli told the TODAY show she was in class when a shooter entered and drew a gun before Bialy and the others rushed them.

They "were brave enough to bring him down so that all of us could escape and all of us could be reunited with our families," Giasoli said.

UConn is doing some spring cleaning and that’s good news for UConn Husky fans. The school is holding a UConn Athletics surplus apparel and equipment sale.

The sale will be held today at the Hugh S. Greer Field House and you will be able to buy T-shirts, shorts, sweats, hoodies, polos, pullovers, jackets and some uniforms.

The equipment available will include running shoes, cleats and accessories, including backpacks.

Regular sale hours will run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Based on product availability, the sale might be extended to Thursday May 9 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Cash and credit cards will be accepted but checks will not. Anyone paying by credit card needs to have an ID.

Only small purses will be allowed inside the sale and checkout bags will be provided.

To get to the sale, take Hillside Road, in front of the Field House, at the doors closest to the Blue Gym and there will be signs indicating the start of the line. 

Parking is available in the north and south garages and any designated spot with the appropriate permit.

All sales are final. There will be no returns or exchanges, according to UConn.

Only the right shoulder of Route 8 North in Seymour is getting by after a multi-car crash.

State police said the crash is in the areas of exits 21 and 22 and minor injuries are reported.

Drivers are encouraged to use alternate routes.

Connecticut State Police are trying to identify a man accused of following a woman into a bathroom at a Stafford business.

The Stafford Resident Trooper’s said it happened on April 25 around 8 p.m.

Anyone who recognizes the suspect pictured above should contact the Stafford Resident Troopers Office 860-684-3777.

Our beautiful Connecticut coastline is at the forefront of climate change, warming four times faster than the global ocean. And while the gradually increasing water temperature may not be noticeable to beachgoers, to local fishermen it is changing the game.

“The amount of fish that we saw in the Long Island Sound the fish that are resident in Long Island Sound of the flounders and the different shellfish...those fish began to disappear noticeably disappear,” explained Gary Yerman, a fisherman and founder of New London Seafood Distribution.

Gary has been fishing out of Connecticut for 47 years. While his catches started in Long Island Sound, the evolving ecosystem has made trips longer and farther.

“Out trips were actually daytrips where we leave early in the morning,” Yerman said. “And we’d get back late in the evening and we download our fish and go the next day that turned into overnight fishing where would be gone for two days and then in the mid-80s when all we started seeing all of these changes and fisheries regulations changes and what not we ended up fishing in the ocean, in North Atlantic. We fish room all the way from Virginia to the Canadian line.”

While it’s not the only factor in play, the gradually increasing water temperature of the Sound is making big waves.

“It’s pretty clear that Long Island Sound has been warming the whole time,” said University of Connecticut Professor of Marine Sciences James O’Donnell. “And the recent 30 and 40 years maybe warming a little bit more and so it doesn’t seem like a lot - you know, two or three degrees but some organisms are particular sensitive to thresholds so the duration of the summer which is warmer than a particular value is longer than if you have a small change in temperature so it’s got a big ecosystem impact.”

Research is showing that water temperatures closest to the northeast coast are warming faster than 99 percent of global oceans. This supports the shift in the ecosystem that we’re seeing here in the northeast.

“We’ve seen a lot of the inshore populations diminish, we have seen our flounder population or lobster populations especially in eastern Long Island Sound,” Yerman said. “It was this slow evolution that we saw changing right in front of us.”

And now Connecticut’s former environmental chief is chiming in on what it means for our Connecticut seafood staples.

“The water is too warm for the lobsters,” said Gina McCarthy. “And that was a pretty dramatic shift for Connecticut that they had to deal with a decade or a little more than that that when it began. So we have to recognize that our ecosystems are changing because of climate change.”

As for the price of your seafood, there hasn’t been a largely noticeable difference given how much it varies on any given day.

“The price of whiting one day in the market can be 30 cents a pound. If the weather is severe or our boats haven’t got now they can jump to a dollar and a half two dollars a pound within a day or two,” Yerman explained.

But warming water isn’t the only factor impacting the ecosystem in Long Island Sound. Rising sea levels associated with climate change are altering the lives of those that live along, and in, the water.

“What they all want to do is try and protect their houses from flooding by building sea walls and tied gates and stuff,” O’Donnell said. “But what that does is put pressure on the ecosystem because fish and birds and things that live on the Sound eat in marshes, will now have less suitable habitat. So it’s going to be a conflict I think in the near future between preserving the ecosystems and the Sound, and protecting housing and roads and flooding - and do you know that I think is going to threaten some of it some of the advances that environmental protection is achieving over the past for five decades around here.”

It's a delicate line to walk, but scientists, lawmakers, and fishermen alike agree that changes need to be made.