State legislators are considering a bill that would allow public businesses, like restaurants, summer camps and trampoline parks, to stock epinephrine auto injectors in the event that an adult or child has an allergic reaction. 

The bill has already passed through the Public Health Committee but has not come up for a vote yet on the Senate floor. 

State Senator Matt Lesser had an allergic reaction last year in the State Capitol and said he is hopeful the bill will pass. 

“I went through a life-threatening anaphylactic allergic reaction and almost lost my life. Thankfully, the Capitol Police were able to contact an ambulance and I was transported to a hospital in time,” Lesser said. “One of the things I discovered afterwards was in workplaces, including this one, workplaces across the state are not allowed to stock EpiPens and other epinephrine devices the way they are in other states.” 

State Representative Robin Comey has been a long-time advocate after watching her 12-year-old son suffer from food allergies and crafted the legislation. 

“Their throat closes up and they can’t breathe. When you can’t breathe it’s extremely scary, you have a sense of doom and you panic,” she said. 

Comey said she taught her son how to use an epinephrine auto injector at just 5 years old. 

“Can a kid administer epinephrine on themselves? You hope that they will. But it’s also great to have people nearby that are aware of it,” Comey said. 

The bill would also ensure that if someone had to administer the epinephrine auto injector and something happened, that person could not be held liable. 

Crews are responding to a crash involving a tractor-trailer and several vehicles on Interstate 84 East in Southington, according to state police. Traffic cameras show traffic at a standstill. 

No additional information was immediately available.

While Sleeping Giant State Park in Hamden remains closed to the public, dedicated volunteers that typically keep the trails clean have been working to render them safe.

"We've been out here for months and months and months and it still does not fail to make me say, oh my gosh look at that," said Kathy Gee, a longtime volunteer with the Sleeping Giant Park Association (SGPA).

On most Sunday mornings, Gee puts on a hard hat and bright orange shirt.

"Normally, we don't come out with a chainsaw during normal times," Gee explained.

Sleeping Giant has looked dramatically different since May 15, 2018. The National Weather Service said a microburst with 100 mph winds slammed into the popular park.

"It looks like a bomb dropped around here," Gee said, "it has been incredible."

The powerful microburst caused catastrophic damage, as seen on the ground and from the exclusive NBC Connecticut DroneRanger aerial view almost a year after the storm.

"It's like someone, just the hand of God just swiped (the trees) right off," said Neil Geist, an SGPA volunteer.

Across from Quinnipiac University, trees by the park's main entrance that looked like toothpicks snapped in half have been cleared away.

"It's a landscape changer," Geist said, "totally shifted the whole ecosystem. It's going to be years before the trees come back."

Instead of picking up trash and maintaining 32 miles of marked trailed, the SGPA volunteers are now focused on clearing fallen trees. Their goal is to make Sleeping Giant State Park safe so its many visitors can return.

"And once all the cutting has been done then we will go around and remark because a lot of the trees brought down markers," Gee explained.

Geist said he started volunteering in early December.

"I figured maybe they needed some more trained professional help," he said.

Geist worked as an arborist on and off since the early 1990s.

"I had a house in southern Hamden and all my kids hiked here I know every trail back here pretty well," he said.

On a Sunday morning in April, Geist took down vulnerable trees on the Cross Country and Horse trails.

"So many things were compromised, weakened, that since that storm we'll clear a trail and then two weeks later come out and there's big trees that have come down since, the root system were damaged," Geist said.

SGPA volunteer Sabrina Lewis comes all the way to Hamden from Norwalk.

"This is one of my favorite parks in the entire world," she said. "Like a lot of people i just reached out."

With a growing group of volunteers, progress has been made.

Gee said they estimate they have cleared more than 2,000 trees and piles of branches, sawed off stumps and cut up logs can be spotted along the trails.

"These are just trees that we have cleared from the trails, these are not the trees that were in the picnic area or the trees along the Tower Path,' Gee said.

And yet, when the parks open, people will still be able to see a lot of the damage.

The volunteers told NBC Connecticut they cannot wait for the day when the fencing comes down and state park officials reopen Sleeping Giant to the public.

"It will mean more to my dog than me but i'll be pretty psyched to get back out here," Geist said.

The landscape may be forever changed, but feelings about the park have not.

"It will mean i can come back home really because this feels like for many people its like home," Lewis said. "It will feel so good to come back."

No official date has been set for when Sleeping Giant State Park will reopen.

Homeowners in hard-hit communities lost power for several days following the May 15, 2018 tornadoes and thunderstorms.

The neighborhoods by Candlewood Lake in Brookfield looked more like a war zone after being in the path of a powerful macroburst.

“A year ago you, probably couldn’t even drive down here much less see a lot of the houses, they were covered with trees and wires down and poles down everywhere,” said Rosemarie Benelli, an overhead line supervisor for Eversource based in the Newtown area.

For 10 days following the May 15 storms, Benelli helped supervise power restoration efforts in Brookfield.

“I have never seen this amount of damage," she said, "especially in such a small concentrated area.”

Sections of the system had to be entirely rebuilt, Benelli said.

It was all hands on deck, with Eversource crews and contractors from across New England and the country coming to help.

"People from all over the company, the assessors that ride down the street and write down how many poles we need, what size, how much wire how many cross arms,” Eversource Operations Senior Supervisor George Escobar explained.

In his 35 years with Evesource, Escobar said the devastation from a year ago rivals what he saw after Sandy in 2012.

“Always hurricane season you kind of brace for it," he said, "but now its any time of the year we have nor’easters and then we have microbursts or tornadoes like we did in this case.”

Given the distance of the powerful downburst that came across the lake, the National Weather Service determined that a macroburst caused the extensive damage in the Brookfield community.

“It looked like God used the sickle and took the tree tops off,” Escobar said.

A falling tree came crashing down on Paula Pascoa's home, leading to a close call for her daughter.

“It was right here that the ceiling fell on her but she’s OK,” Pascoa said, pointing up to her repaired living room ceiling.

Pascoa had been living in the home for less than four months when she was forced to relocate to a short-term rental.

“You had to be on top of it," she said, "you really had to be on top of what was going on.”

Pascoa said she paid out of pocket to have large trees removed from her backyard, but insurance helped cover the cost to repair the damage to the house.

"The house is getting back to normal," she said, "better than normal so we’re doing well.”

Pascoa said she thanks the utility crews that worked tireless to turn the power back on.

“They did a great job," she said, "they were here day and night and did what they had to do to get things back.”

For Eversource employees, it is satisfying to see what the neighborhood looks like one year later.

"It’s good to see that the work is done and they’re back up and running," Escobar said. "They did a great job here.”

The U.S. military is going to provide and build tents to house 7,500 migrants at six locations near the border, NBC News reported.

A Defense Department spokesperson confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security made the request and a Defense official said Acting Secretary Patrick Shanahan is expected to sign the request.

The tents will probably not be on military bases, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, not the military, will be responsible for migrant detention and custodial support.

One year ago, the owners of Clover Nook Farm in Bethany had to quickly take cover as one of the four tornadoes tore through the farm and destroyed a nearly 200-year-old barn.

"All of a sudden all hell broke loose," co-owner Lars Demander recalled. "It wasn't gradual or anything it was just at the snap of the fingers."

For eight generations, Demander's family has owned and operated the farm.

"We heard about the last time we had something that bad here was 1938," Demander said. "It was a hurricane when we lost a different barn.”

On May 15, 2018, Demander said it was a normal day until later in the afternoon around 5 p.m.

“I saw the storm clouds roll in and standard procedure for a thunderstorm is we put all the equipment away in the barns and lock down the greenhouse,” he said.

While Demander and his parents were locking down one of the greenhouses, the tornado that touched down in Beacon Falls made its way through Bethany.

“The second greenhouse blew up on top of the one we were in, the hanging baskets started raining down and then we just made a run for it for the house,” Demander said.

It was a good thing they took shelter in their home.

"Luckily we didn’t run to the old storage barn cause that’s the barn that came down that everybody saw on the news," Demander said. "It was all over.”

Despite the extensive damage, "you chug along, a farmer you do what you have to do," Demander said.

In December, the farm reached a big milestone in its recovery from the tornado damage.

“The main thing was rebuilding the barn we lost cause we needed storage space for all the equipment which is what we built here, a new pole barn,” Demander said.

On nearby Pole Hill Road, a wooded area with many damaged trees is a reminder of the destruction Demander said he hopes to never see again.

“I’m hoping it’s a once in a lifetime thing and I got it out of the way early,” he said.

A fundraiser at New England Brewing Company in Woodbridge raised about $12 thousand to help with rebuilding efforts, Demander said.

This season Clover Nook Farm opens for business on Friday May 24.

Connecticut may be running out of time to become the latest state to legalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana.

Multiple legislative sources told NBC Connecticut the votes are not there to pass cannabis legislation in either the House or the Senate.

Publicly, leaders in both chambers acknowledged the possibility of a Special Session to address the issue.

“I hope that there’s a shot that we can get it done during the regular session,” said Sen. Martin Looney, (D – New Haven), the top member of the Connecticut Senate. “I think it’s one of the major bills. If not, I think it could be a topic for a special session.”

Democrats had moved the issue of cannabis into three different committees: Judiciary, General Law, and Finance, Revenue and Bonding. The intention was to publicly address all of the various issues related to legalizing marijuana. Each committee passed their own version dealing with the issue ranging from how to tax and regulate the substance, expunging of criminal records related to minor marijuana offenses, and how the revenue from sales would be handled.

One legislative source who has supported cannabis told NBC Connecticut, “stitching those bills together is a tough task, but I thought we could do it with enough time.”

The lawmaker told NBC Connecticut that the issue would be more difficult to pass during a standalone Special Session, and predicted the issue was dead until at least 2021.

Republican Leader Len Fasano, who leads the minority caucus, predicted that the votes are not there for legalization.

“I don’t think there are the votes for it and I think they’re going to try to get to special session on it and round up the votes, so we’ll see what happens. I hope they don’t.”

House Democrats are expected to discuss the issue of marijuana behind closed doors to determine whether a measure could be brought to the floor for a vote.

“We won’t know that until we have a full blown caucus in the House and the Senate,” said House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz.

The final day of the legislative session is June 5.

Wednesday marked exactly one year since a massive hailstorm hit Granby and Hartland, but many are still repairing the damage it caused, and it hasn't been cheap.

“It’s a once in a lifetime thing I imagine—I hope,” said Granby homeowner, Robert Rome. Rome says he usually enjoys storms. But the hailstorm that hit Granby one year ago had him and his family sheltered in their basement.

“It was like nothing we’ve ever seen,” he said, “it looked like the house was hit with a machine gun.”

The 2-inch hail shattered windows, ripped off siding and even dented his cars. One of them was his daughter’s, which she'd just driven back home from college out-of-state.

“I was like, how is this possible? This is my new baby!” said his daughter Haley.

While the Rome family still has a lot of work to do, Rob Davis in East Hartland is finally settling into his newly-repaired home. In 45 years, he never imagined having to patch up holes in the siding of his house like he did after the storm.

“Everything imaginable was had hail damage to it,” Davis said. “You look around every house here in town, and every house has at least a new roof, if not all new vinyl siding.”

The repairs cost Davis $35,000. Now, he just hopes his grandkids will get to pick blueberries from his garden again this summer.

“I lost my entire crop. I didn’t pick one blueberry last year. It was just unbelievable.”

The first success story is coming out of the crumbling foundations crisis.

A family in Tolland was the first to get their foundation fixed with help from the state.

This is a big step in the right direction four years after NBC Connecticut Investigates first broke the story.

Eighteen months after first discovering cracks in their concrete, the owners of one home finally have their foundation fixed. But, officials say it could take a decade to replace the crumbling concrete in all of the affected homes in our state.

“We don’t have enough contractors. We have a line,” explained Michael Maglaras, captive insurance superintendent.

The head of the captive insurance program created to help homeowners with crumbling foundations estimates that there are 5,000 homes in need of new foundations in Connecticut and only two dozen construction firms signed up to do the work.

“I think it’s a big endeavor to get into. We’ve probably spent in the last year probably a million dollars in equipment we’ve bought,” said James Newcity of Newcity Construction.

It took Newcity Construction just six weeks to repair Kevin and Aisling McCloskey’s Tolland home.

“There is still a little piece in me that’s angry but we kind of have to let that go and find peace,” Aisling McCloskey said.

“Today is a day of four years of hope turned into reality,” said Tim Heim of the Connecticut Coalition Against Crumbling Basements. “It was a long, hard fight.”

While the McCloskeys are paving the way for other homeowners signed up for foundation funds the work won't happen as quickly for everyone who comes after them. So far, 700 homeowners have applied.

“I’ve got homeowners signing contracts now. I won’t even get to them until the end of 2021,” Maglaras explained.

The captive is only authorized by the state legislature through June of 2022. There's not enough time nor enough money, says Maglaras. He plans to ask for an extension.

“We really think that, rough estimate, $350 to $500 million will be needed to get this job done,” he said.

The fund, paid through bonding and a $12 property tax surcharge, is only expected to receive $137 million. Single family homeowners are capped at $175,000 in assistance and condo owners get up to $70,000. Spreading the burden to Connecticut taxpayers hasn’t been without controversy.

“I know at the end of the day that there’s gonna be frustration that the insurance companies kind of got a bye on this,” Kevin McCloskey said.

Without knowing what the future will bring, Marglaras is encouraging all affected homeowners to apply sooner rather than later.

Officials say within just three weeks another 80 homes will be in the process of getting their foundations fixed.

A motorcyclist was seriously hurt when he collided with an SUV in Portland Wednesday.

Police said the motorcycle was riding south around 6:30 p.m. on Main Street and collided with a white SUV that was leaving a parking lot near Marlborough Street.

The motorcyclist was taken to the hospital with what police called “very serious injuries.” He was not publicly identified.

Investigators are looking into who, if anyone, is as fault.

No other details were immediately available.

City and school leaders in New Britain toured renovation work being done at Smalley Elementary School Wednesday.

The hope is to further energize students and staff about going to school.

“Smalley has been growing rapidly and we haven’t been able to keep up with growth with the size of the building we had had,” explained New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart.

Part of that growth is eight new classrooms, including a new wing for kindergarteners who, for lack of space, were in an off-site building. The original building dates back to the early 1970s.

“It was a hardship on families and we want to create that unity or that community feel,” said Superintendent Nancy Sarra.

Sarra says the community grew significantly after Hurricane Maria. The district took in an additional 300 students, the majority in the Smalley area.

“We will never turn children away. We’re families. That’s what New Britain is based on,” Sarra said.

The district says renovating the building as new is coming in under budget at $43 million. The city originally allocated more than $50 million.

Those officials say the state will reimburse almost 80 percent of the project, and Mayor Stewart says there was no tax increase.

“We still have to front the money. So it’s a burden on the city, there’s no doubt about it, but we can manage,” Stewart said.

The chief facilities officer for the school district says they have to shell $60,000 a year from their operating budget to rent a temporary school for two years.

But he says it’s worth it. The Gaffney School was completed about two years ago. The district says so far nine schools have been renovated, and there are five more on the list.

“I wish we had all money in the world do them all at once. But, prioritize progress,” Stewart said.

The building will also have a comprehensive medical suite, including mental health services, and an adult education center.

For safety there are almost 90 cameras on property. Windows are bullet proof and have opaque glass so people can’t see inside.

The superintendent says the hope is to get teachers in the building to see what the construction looks like. Then the plan is to move in teachers and students before the end of July so they are ready for the coming school year.

Connecticut’s Speaker of the House said Wednesday that the details of the final toll proposal have to kept under wraps or else Republicans will run a disinformation campaign aimed at swaying public opinion.

“To avoid that trap, and it is a trap, we’re being very vague. When the bill comes out, it’s not going to be an amendment that comes out ten minutes before it runs,” Rep. Joe Aresimowicz, (D – Berlin), told reporters. “We’re going to give adequate time to give people to look at it and it’s going to be consistent with what we’ve said all along.”

He said some discussions have to happen out of public view because that’s the nature of the process. He’s specifically referring to the discussions with the Federal Highway Administration, ensuring that whatever Connecticut passes will pass muster.

Rep. Roland Lemar, (D – New Haven), who chairs the Transportation Committee, followed that lead Wednesday morning, while he answered questions during debate in the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, on whether to advance the current tolls proposal.

“That is the process that we are going through right now,” Lemar said during an exchange with Transportation Committee ranking member Rep. Laura Devlin, (R – Fairfield. “In this very room, we will have the ability to look at the plan that we are allowing the DOT to enter into negotiations with the federal highway authority to seek the federal approvals necessary.”

Republicans have been united against tolls. Instead, they favor a plan that would borrow more than $40 billion paid for by Connecticut taxpayers, and depending on a match from the federal government of more than $20 billion to pay for roads, bridges, and public transit upgrades over the next 30 years. That plan, according to the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis, would not be fully paid off until about 2071, once the principle and interest rates are factored in.

Rep. Devlin and her Senate counterpart Sen. Henri Martin, (R – Bristol), have traveled the state, showing a map with tolls on each interstate highway, most of Route 15, 2, and 8. However, Gov. Ned Lamont has never supported tolls on state highways 2 and 8. Devlin insisted that any bill that doesn’t exclude roads, may eventually get tolled.

“This is not the direction that our state should be going in,” Devlin said during the committee discussion Wednesday. “Added taxes, including tolls, are what will set our state back, not bring us forward.”

The school board is taking action to protect students at New London Public Schools in the wake of a sex scandal.

A new school board member is calling for tougher rules when it comes to hiring staff.

Already the investigation has led to the arrest of one school worker and several others being put on leave.

On Wednesday there was a call for change at New London Public Schools from school board member Jason Catala.

“I have a 12-year-old daughter and I wouldn’t want someone in front of her teaching her to have these convictions,” Catala said.

It comes just days after the arrest of Corriche Gaskin.

At one point, he had worked as a behavioral therapist at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School.

Police accuse the 35-year-old of having sex with two other school workers and a student inside the school, and then showing videos of the acts to another student.

Mayor Michael Passero says he’s talked with other teachers about the turmoil.

“They’re hurting and the students are hurting and they’re sharing their pain. They’re disappointed. They’ve been betrayed. And we all want answers. And we’ll have those answers in time,” Passero said.

Now Catala says he has concerns about why Gaskin was hired despite what he calls a checkered past.

He is now pushing for tighter hiring rules as the district updates its employment check policy.

“It’s definitely important that there be language in there that specifically prohibits anyone that comes to work with our children in the district that has federal convictions dealing with drugs or anything that will impede our students who walk through our building,” Catala said.

On Wednesday at a policy committee meeting concerns were raised about the idea especially if it fits with the non-discrimination policy.

Catala said he has confidence in the current superintendent who inherited this situation.

But he thinks absolute rules are needed to guide those in charge of hiring.

“We trusted the individuals at the top and look at some of the individuals they brought forward to us. In the end we did put our students at risk,” Catala said.

The hiring policy is expected to be debated again at a meeting later this month.

The district has already fired Gaskin, who faces charges including sexual assault and possession of child pornography.

New London Police say they are thoroughly investigating the situation.

Firefighters are battling a blaze in a four-unit apartment building on Housatonic Ave. in New Milford.

Fire officials say six people have been taken to the hospital. Their conditions have not been released. Almost a dozen people were in the building when the fire broke out.

Several fire departments from surrounding areas have been asked to provide mutual aid.

The fire in under investigation but fire officials believe the fire started in the back of the building.

The Red Cross has been asked to assist families displaced by the fire.

There is new hope for animals diagnosed with cancer here in Connecticut. An experimental immunotherapy cancer treatment for pets being made in Farmington is making progress and could have the potential to help people in the future.

Over the last year, Michiel Considine has been traveling from Torrington and meeting with Dr. Steve Leshem at the Veterinary Emergency Center in Canton a lot. It's all because of Oskar, his 11-year-old cat, who certainly has nine lives.

“He is my friend. He is a good guy. He is part of the family and we treat him like part of the family,” said Considine.

Last year when Oskar was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on his leg, the news was devastating for Considine and his family.

“As a family, just very frightened and weren't sure what to do,” said Considine.

Dr. Leshem is also a surgeon and suggested amputation, but because he couldn't remove all the cancer cells, Oskar was a perfect candidate for a new experimental immunotherapy treatment.

“Let's teach the body to kill the cancer,” said Leshem. “We have had awesome success with it.

That's exactly what Torigen is doing.

“We make personalized cancer therapies to help pets,” said Ashley Kalinauskas. Kalinauskas and her team in Farmington have been perfecting the personalized cancer vaccine in their lab for the last few years. They said more than 50 percent of companion animals over the age of 10 die from cancer and they want to change those statistics.

So far, Torigen has treated more than 500 animals. Once cancerous tumors are removed, the researchers use those tumor cells to make a personalized vaccine. They then give that vaccine back to the cat or dog and prevent the cancer from returning.

“It's a vaccine. Being able to take what went wrong and provide it back in a new formulation,” said Kalinauskas.

Plus, because Torigen has been so successful in animals, the hope is that the personalized immunotherapy could eventually work for humans.

“Dogs get cancer in the same way that humans get cancer.” said Kalinauskas. “So, if we are able to make a difference in a pet and have that cancer not come back or have that patient feel better then we are able to potentially understand how that can work for humans.”

There are other immunotherapy products already on the market, however, they are not personalized. Torigen hopes this could be a treatment for humans in the next five years, but said the funding for that next step currently does not exist.

When it comes to the cost of this vaccine for pet owners, it is not cheap.

“It's costly, it seems like everything is costly. It is less costly than chemo or radiation by far,” said Dr. Leshem.

Torigen said pet owners can expect to pay around $1,500 to $1,800 to treat their animal. Dr. Leshem said the success of the treatment does depend on the type and stage of the animal’s cancer. The treatment works best when the cancer is caught early.

“It kind of ended up being a no brainer, this is a part of our family. We want to do what is best for him,” said Considine. Now Oskar is living cancer free and is back to his old self.

If you think this experimental immunotherapy vaccine would be a possible treatment for your pet, ask your veterinarian about it or head to the Torigen website here.

In the middle of what he called a “slow night” at Stanford Health Care's emergency room department, technician Jack DeWees hatched a colorful idea.

He saw that the department had run out of toys for the child patients, so he grabbed a roll of compression bandages and rolled it up into an animal figure.

[[509944251, C]]

“I think it was like an orange fish with black stripes,” said DeWees. “It turned out pretty well.”

He showed it around to colleagues and after getting some positive feedback, DeWees handed the colorful creation to a child in the ER.

“It made the kid happy,” said DeWees.

That was enough encouragement for DeWees to continue creating more, and more elaborate, figures. He called them “Cobanimals,” named after the Coban brand of bandages he uses.

[[509944291, C]]

DeWees has since created dozens of amazing figures, most of them based on movie and TV characters. 

“My first one was Mike Wazowski from ‘Monsters Inc.’ because he's basically a green ball with a big eye,” he said.

Next came Kermit the Frog. Then it progressed to characters with more complicated costumes. DeWees described the process as a whole lot of trial and error, cutting the bandages in just the right way.

[[509944311, C]]

He saw his dedication really pay off when 3M, the makers of Coban, sent him a box filled with different colors of compression bandages.

“I was just working with about five, six colors, and they expanded it to about 10 or 12 so I could really make any body I wanted now,” said DeWees. “I was very grateful to them for doing that.”

DeWees eventually started up an Instagram page under the handle “cobanimals” dedicated to showing off his work. It quickly gained a loyal following of fellow medical and veterinary professionals who praised his art.

DeWees decided to keep the ball rolling with his bandages.

[[509944321, C]]

“I decided that maybe if they were this popular, since they were kind of getting some traction on my social media, that maybe I could auction them,” he said. “Hopefully raise money and do something a little bit better with them too.”

Since he said Cobanimals started as a way to help children pass the time while they were in urgent care, DeWees wants to ensure that all the money he collected from his future auctions goes to charity.

“I decided whoever wins the auction can decide to either donate the money to Make-A-Wish Foundation or Guide Dogs For The Blind,” he said.

The first auction is set for May 31. DeWees has created a separate Instagram page for the auction, and said interested buyers can bid in the comments section. He will announce a winner within a few days after the auction closes.

“The intention behind all this is just to bring joy to people who either work in health care, work with animals or who are in health care themselves as patients,” he said. “It's just to make people happier in general.”

Mount Olive Church in Hartford is giving away free gasoline today as part of their fourth annual Gas on God giveaway.

Mount Olive Church Ministries and their partners will give away up to $20 of free gas to the first 250 Hartford residents who show up Thursday.

It started at 9 a.m. at the 7-Eleven on Park Street and Prospect Avenue. The second event started at 11 a.m. at the Mobil station on Albany Avenue.

The event is first come, first served.

For more information on Mount Olive Church Ministries, click here. 

People in North Stonington are being warned after a raccoon tested positive for rabies.

The raccoon was found in the area of Wyassup Road and tested positive for the virus on Wednesday, according to the Ledge Light Health District.

Rabies is a deadly disease that can be transmitted by scratches or when the saliva of an infected animal comes in contact with open wounds, breaks in the skin, or mucous membranes, health officials said.

The District is warning people to avoid feeding or approaching wild or stray animals.

Anyone with concerns is asked to call Ledge Light Health District at (860) 448-4882 or the animal control officer at (860) 287-2197.

There is a case of tuberculosis in a North Windham school and school officials are reaching out to families and holding a tuberculosis clinic later this month.

A message to families said the case of active tuberculosis was confirmed at C.H. Barrows STEM Academy and the person is being treated. 

School officials said the school has set a plan of action under the direction and guidelines provided by the State Department of Public Health and local health district authorities.

“We are taking this important health matter very seriously, although the risk of students or staff becoming infected is very minimal, according to the DPH,” the message says.

Students and staff members who were in class with the individual should get TB testing, the school urges, and families of the identified students will be informed in writing next week. 

The school will also offer a clinic on May 28 and May 29 at Barrows during school hours.

In addition to the clinic, there will also be a Health School Community Information Forum at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 23 and families seeking additional information are invited. 

Learn about the state's tuberculosis control program here.

One person has been taken to a hospital after a fire on Fairbanks Street in Plainville.

Officials said at least two people were inside the home.

Felicia Kenniston, a neighbor, said she was out walking and saw the smoke from the top floor.

“So we knocked on the door and a gentleman answered and we said,’ You’re house is on fire, He said, OK and closed the door and went back inside, which made us very nervous,” Kenniston said.

The police showed up a few minutes later, went in and got him out, she said.

“He said his son was upstairs and he couldn’t get the door open,” Kenniston said.

No information was immediately available on the extent of the injuries.

Mutual aid has been called in.

Check back for updates.