Connecticut’s Speaker of the House is close to waving the white flag on the issue of tolls or the regular session, shifting the focus to a possible Special Session devoted to the issue of infrastructure investment this summer.

"This is the type of issue that I would like to get done before we adjourn but I wouldn't be opposed to coming back in special session to,” said Rep. Joe Aresimowicz, (D – Berlin), the speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives. “It's that important to the state."

Aresimowicz and Majority Leader Rep. Matt Ritter (D-Hartford) said the state is still waiting on guidance from the Federal Highway Administration on what a toll framework has to look like in order to pass federal muster, and to maximize the amount of matching funds the state would receive from Washington.

Republicans reiterated that they would not vote for any toll proposal under any circumstance or condition, including limiting the bill to trucks only, which is what Gov. Ned Lamont campaigned on, and later abandoned in favor of tolling all cars from Connecticut and elsewhere.

"We stand 100 percent against tolls in the State of Connecticut,” said Rep. Themis Klarides, (R – Derby), the House minority leader.

Republicans rolled out their latest proposal last week, which included the analysis of the five bridges and crossings in the worst condition, and a slightly scaled back borrowing proposal to cover transportation projects in the coming years.

Democrats have said there is no support in their caucus for the GOP ideas.

Ritter said, "We have to do something. We all agree on that. Whether it happens in the next two weeks. At some point there will be a vote on making our Special Transportation Fund solvent.”

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it would provide $5 million to install carbon monoxide detectors in public housing, after an NBC News investigation revealed the lack of protections for millions of low-income tenants who live in federally subsidized rental units.

The funding for public housing authorities represents "the first time HUD is targeting grants specifically for the purchase and installation of carbon monoxide detectors,” the department said Monday in a press release and NBC News reported.

Carbon monoxide detectors are not currently required in HUD housing, despite the deaths of at least 13 residents from carbon monoxide poisoning since 2003, according to an NBC News tally based on federal records, interviews with local housing officials and local news reports. HUD does not keep an official tally of carbon monoxide deaths in the housing that it oversees.

“Carbon monoxide poisoning presents a risk to families living in public housing,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in the press release Monday. “This funding will allow more public housing authorities to purchase and install these lifesaving detectors.”

It was a who’s who in the aerospace industry and not just here in the U.S.

The International Space Trade Summit brought together representatives from five countries and space agencies, joined with NASA Representatives and the U.S. Department of Commerce, Monday in Hartford.

Far from Cape Canaveral or even Houston, Hartford is not the first city to come to mind when discussing space. However, authorities see Connecticut as an important part of the landscape.

“It’s about the next generation of space and here around Hartford we have more advanced manufacturing, more material research than almost any place in the world,” explained Anne Evans, director of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The Greater Hartford area is home many aerospace related companies providing, manufacturing, fabrication and engineering.

With NASA’s plans to return to the moon by 2024, opportunity within the aerospace sector is growing. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates it to be a trillion dollar industry. Opportunities could benefit many Connecticut companies, including Collins Aerospace in Windsor Locks.

“As we contemplate the new kinds of systems we’re gonna need to go back to the moon and then on to Mars, we’re gonna have a lot more business here,” said Dan Burbank, senior technical fellow at Collins Aerospace.

Since NASA’s inception Collins has played a role. Its radios helped Neil Armstrong communicate to the world during the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. Now, 50 years later, Collins is ready to help America return.

“Overall here at Collins it means a lot knowing there’s a huge objective for us to reach.” said Jake Rohrig, Engineer, Collins Aerospace.

There’s a lengthy list of Connecticut aerospace companies, including Ulbrich Steels and Metals in Wallingford and Pioneer Aerospace of South Windsor. For them and other suppliers, opportunity could be an economic launching pad.

“We prefer to do business with local supply houses so most of our supply network is local,” adds Erica Abrahamson, deputy program manager at Collins.

Among the speakers at today’s summit was U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Connecticut). He says it’s not just big corporations like Collins that stands to thrive.

“What we saw at today’s conference was a host of small companies who are primed to supply parts and pieces for everything from rocket boosters to rovers,” said Courtney. “It’s an exciting time to be part of the burgeoning space industry, and Connecticut firms are fully prepared to take advantage of the opportunity.”

New Haven police are investigating a shooting on Congress Avenue Monday night.

Police said they responded to a ShotSpotter Activation in the area around 7:15 p.m. A short time later a 21-year-old gunshot victim arrived at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

The victim’s injuries were not life-threatening, police said.

Investigators said the shooting happened on Congress Avenue near Redfield Street.

Anyone with information on this shooting should contact detectives at 203-946-6304.

Some people who can’t afford to fix their homes with crumbling concrete have just stopped paying their mortgages, and it could be a trend on the rise.

For most of us, deciding to default on your mortgage is unthinkable.

But these are desperate times for many homeowners with crumbling concrete in north central and eastern Connecticut, and to them, this is the only way out.

It took a lot just to get in a meeting with a sizable crowd, where homeowners listened to attorney Sarah Poriss. Some are considering walking away from their homes, and possibly being foreclosed upon, because they can’t afford to stay in them and fix concrete basements crumbling underneath them.

A woman who spoke with us on the condition she remain anonymous is about to take the plunge.

“I have to do it, I have no options,” she told NBC Connecticut Investigates.

Many people with crumbling concrete, a condition experts say is caused by a naturally occurring mineral in part of our state, are what’s called “underwater” on their mortgages.

Let’s say you have a house valued at $400,000, and you still owe $300,000 on your mortgage. Then you learn your basement has crumbling concrete, dropping the value of your home to $150,000. Now you owe twice what the home is worth.

“The number of calls I’m getting from people from this area of the state, who are asking the question, should I keep paying my mortgage, is growing by the day,” Poriss said.

Poriss explains it usually takes a bank six months to begin foreclosure proceedings after you stop paying a mortgage, and the foreclosure process takes another year or more. Meanwhile, you can bank the mortgage payment you were making.

“When you’re told you can stop paying a bill, it just rattles them. It’s the scariest thing, it’s the most foreign concept,” Poriss said.

Poriss adds walking away from your home mortgage will hurt your credit, but perhaps not as long as you might think.

“There’s no magic formula. I’ve talked to people who stopped paying their mortgage. A year or two later, I check in with them, ‘Oh we were able to buy a condo, we were able to buy another house’. Some people are lucky, and they don’t suffer major credit consequences, and some people do for longer,” Poriss said.

Even with that risk, for some, they believe it’s the only way out of what they consider insurmountable debt. A number of homeowners have tried suing the now defunct company believed to be the only manufacturer of the defective concrete, along with home insurance companies, but only a limited number have succeeded.

Data collected by NBC Connecticut Investigates indicates at least several dozen homeowners from the towns hit hardest by the crumbling concrete crisis have gone through with the foreclosure process.

That’s about one to three percent of all the people who have filed complaints with the state saying they have this problem

State Rep. Tom Delnicki represents South Windsor, one of the hardest hit towns, and is trying to stem what he considers a growing tide.

He sits on the state legislature’s banking committee, which has introduced several bills to help homeowners, including ones that will:

• Continue allowing homeowners to have mediation with banks where they can modify mortgage terms, at least temporarily.
• Encourage banks to offer low interest gap loans to assist with repairs not covered by a state program
• Prohibit lenders from getting a court order to collect additional money from homeowners that sell their homes with defective concrete for less than the amount of the outstanding mortgage. It’s what’s known as a deficiency judgement. 

“They don’t want to default. They just need some help to stay in that home, to get it back to the way it should be, and to put their lives back together. That is the key, putting their lives back together”, Delnicki said.

NBC Connecticut Investigates asked both the Connecticut Bankers Association, and the Connecticut Department of Banking, for an on camera interview about this trend, and Rep. Delnicki’s ideas about helping homeowners with crumbling basements. The association and the banking department only issued statements.

The Bankers Association said, “As we have been for the past several years, the state’s banking industry remains committed to finding solutions for homeowners—many of whom are our customers—who have been affected by crumbling foundations. Our number one priority remains working to keep them in their homes, and our members will continue in their diligence to work directly and compassionately with any customer facing foreclosure as a result of this issue. We are appreciative of the efforts of the legislature in its critical funding of $100 million for the creation of the Connecticut Foundations Solutions Indemnity Company, and will continue in our work with state and federal lawmakers to find additional relief for our customers and homeowners.”

The Connecticut Department of Banking said, “The Department of Banking stands ready to assist however we can and looks forward to collaborating with the any legislator who offers solutions to this crisis.”

Of course, before you think about walking away from a mortgage, you should consult an attorney first.

A Guilford family devastated by gun violence is taking their fight for tougher laws to Washington.

On Tuesday lawmakers are expected to introduce a national version of Ethan’s Law, a measure meant to toughen gun storage requirements. The law is named for Ethan Song who died in 2018 at age 15 when he was handling the unsecured gun of a friend’s father. The gun was stored in the friend’s house in a Tupperware container alongside bullets and the keys to the gun’s trigger lock.

NBC Connecticut’s Leslie Mayes spoke to Ethan’s parent’s by Skype from Washington, D.C. at the end of their first day lobbying members of Congress.

The couple says the goal is to get gun owners to be more conscious of safe gun storage, particularly when children could gain access to their weapons.

“The point is to just change behavior, so that gun owner who is walking put their door for them to pause and say ‘is my gun really securely locked up because my children may be coming home after school and I wont be here?’” said Kristin Song.

The Connecticut version of the legislation passed the state House of Representatives in early May.

The Song family is in Washington alongside Connecticut Against Gun Violence along with the Newtown Action Alliance. They’re focusing the bulk of their time in Washington meeting with republican lawmakers, hoping to gather the same bipartisan support the bill received in the Connecticut House.

The Songs will return to Connecticut at the end of the week to be present when the state Senate votes on the local Ethan’s Law.

Roughly one month after a shooting involving police officers from Hamden and Yale, Hamden’s town council is expected to pass a resolution they hope will increase transparency and accountability.

Monday night the public came out to give their thoughts on the resolution. Some said they were glad to see it, while others said it was not enough.

This all stems from a police shooting on April 16 when a Hamden and Yale police officers fired on an unarmed couple in a car.

The female passenger was injured.

Since then there have been multiple protests, and council members say hearing from the public is what led them to spell out the changes in the resolution.

It proposes an external independent investigation for all officer-involved shootings leading to injury or death, use of force resulting in death, and in-custody deaths.

It would also look to create a civilian review board and restructure the police commission.

It would appoint a third party to review all town investigations from the April incident.

There was a range of reactions.

“I just want to commend the legislative council for creating this resolution. I think it does a lot of things the community has called for,” one commenter said.

“I was really infuriated when I saw this final resolution and there was absolutely no mention of Jarelle Gibbs’ life - his life had just as much value as each one of you sitting here,” another resident told the council.

After hearing from the public tonight, the council added investigating a 2018 police chase that ended in the death of Jarelle Gibbs.

Police said Gibbs was a passenger in a stolen car that crashed during a police pursuit.

“This is step two of a thousand mile journey. There's a lot of unravel here, there are a lot of changes that need to be made and they need to be made slowly deliberately with time,” said Mick McGarry, Hamden Legislative Council president.

The council said they have not spoken to the police department or union about the resolution. NBC Connecticut reached out for comment but has not heard back.

The high school softball regular season is winding down and South Windsor pitcher Maria Handchuk has a chance to head to states with an impressive streak under her belt.

As of Monday, May 20, the senior pitcher hasn’t allowed a run since April 24. She now as 64 consecutive innings without allowing an opposing team to score. But if you’re worried talking about it might jinx it, Handchuk and her teammates say they’ve traded in their superstitions for success.

"Like last year you would not have seen me in the black headband,” said Handchuk of her own old superstitions. “So it's honestly not thinking about those things, just realizing it's our talent and it's our minds and just going in every game knowing our ability.”

South Windsor is currently undefeated, 18-0, with two more games left in the regular season.

Three people were taken to area hospitals after a multi-vehicle crash in Berlin on Tuesday morning.

The intersection of Worthington Ridge and Mill Street was temporarily closed while police investigated the accident that happened shortly before 4 a.m.

It is unclear exactly how many vehicles were involved.

Officials at Hunter's Ambulance said three people total were taken to area hospitals. Two went to Middlesex Hospital and one went to Midstate Hospital. There is no word on their conditions.

A man is injured after getting stuck in a machine during an industrial accident at an aerospace and defense manufacturing facility in Glastonbury early Tuesday morning.

Fire officials said the incident happened at EDAC Technologies on National Drive after midnight.

The man got stuck in a machine and had to be removed by firefighters, according to fire officials.

He was flown to Hartford Hospital by LifeStar, they added.

Authorities did not release details on the man's condition.

Police are investigating the incident.

The Department of Homeland Security is requesting $232 million from the Transportation Security Administration to fund border operations in the event that Congress does not agree to fund $1.1 billion of its funding request, according to documents of a contingency plan obtained by NBC News.

Other components of DHS, which includes the Federal Emergency Management Administration, have also been asked to provide a portion of their overall budget to contribute to the $1.1 billion goal, according to the documents.

Internal emails and a PowerPoint presentation at the Transportation Security Administration last week outlined a plan on how the agency would fund a “tax” its parent agency may levy upon it. 

A spokesman for DHS said the department is “considering all options” to address the influx of migrants on the Southwest border.

Governor Ned Lamont and Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz are participating in a "Stop the Bans" Day of Action for Reproductive Rights rally at the State Capitol on Tuesday.

The rally is a demonstration against the states that are passing laws restricting women's reproductive rights.

The event is organized by the Connecticut Coalition for Choice, including the ACLU of Connecticut, Pro-Choice Connecticut and Planned Parenthood.

The rally is set to begin at 12 p.m. outside of the north steps at the State Capitol.

Cities all across the country are hosting the rally on Tuesday.

This comes after Alabama lawmakers passed the most stringent abortion legislation in the nation last week, which makes performing an abortion a felony in nearly all cases.

The law makes performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by 10 to 99 years or life in prison for the provider. The only exception is when the woman's health is at serious risk.

The bill was signed into law on Wednesday.

One person has died after an assault in Bridgeport on Sunday night.

Dispatchers received a 911 call reporting an assault shortly before 9 p.m.

Police were dispatched to 732 Noble Avenue, where the victim was allegedly assaulted.

Once police arrived, officers said first responders took the assault victim to Bridgeport Hospital where he or she was later pronounced dead at 10:45 p.m.

The victim's identity is being withheld at this time, police said. Authorities plan to release the victim's identity soon.

The State of Connecticut medical examiner conducted an autopsy on Monday and concluded that the victim's cause of death was a homicide, officers added.

Detectives are actively investigating the incident.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the TIPS line at (203) 576-8477.

Rat-infested piles of rotting garbage left uncollected by the city of Los Angeles, even after promises to clean it up, are fueling concerns about a new epidemic after last year's record number of flea-borne typhus cases.

Even the city's most notorious trash pile, located between downtown LA's busy Fashion and Produce districts, continues to be a magnet for rats after it was cleaned up months ago. The rodents can carry typhus-infected fleas, which can spread the disease to humans through bacteria rubbed into the eyes or cuts and scrapes on the skin, resulting in severe flu-like symptoms.

The NBC4 I-Team first told Mayor Eric Garcetti's office about the piles of filth in the 700 block of Ceres Avenue in October. At the time, he promised to make sure trash doesn't pile up like that.

The garbage was cleaned after the interview, but conditions have worsened over the next seven months.

"I can’t walk down the street without thinking that a flea could jump on me," said Estela Lopez, who represents business owners in the area.

After reporting the pile of waste to the city's 311 services hotline, the I-Team was told it could take up to 90 days before it's cleaned.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, of UCLA, said there's no time to waste.

"Trash and food waste attracts rats," said Klausner. "It does pose a public health risk."

An out-of-control rat population can even lead to the spread of dangerous strainsof salmonella and bubonic plague, he noted.

Other large U.S. cities, like New York and Washington DC, have teams devoted to aggressive rat control. In the nation's capital, they're experimenting with bait stations laced with a rat contraceptive.

But in Los Angeles, the I-Team learned there is no plan or program to control the growing rat population that feasts at trash piles like the one on Ceres Avenue.

"It's something that we'll look into," said Pepe Garica, of Los Angeles' bureau of sanitation.

Rats carrying typhus-infected fleas were found around LA last fall, according to county health department records obtained by the I-Team. The agency did not provide details about where the fleas were found, saying that information would cause confusion and unnecessary alarm, but the I-Team discovered that typhus-infected fleas were found on animals waiting to be adopted at the North Central Animal Shelter.  

Between 2013 and 2017, county residents reported a yearly average of nearly 60 cases. That's twice as many the number reported in the previous five years.

Last year, a record 124 cases were reported in Los Angeles County.

Symptoms of flea-borne typhus, which can start within two weeks after infection, include high fever, headache, chills, and body aches. Rashes can appear on the chest, back, arms and legs. Fatalities occur in less than 1 percent of cases.

The I-Team asked the Department of Public Health what became of the shelter animals carrying fleas that tested positive for typhus. We are still waiting to hear back.

Two moms have spent much of their free time in the last three years infiltrating private Facebook groups where parents of autistic children share dangerous methods that aim to "heal" the kids of the as-yet incurable condition, NBC News reported.

Melissa Eaton and Amanda Seigler, who have autistic children themselves, take screenshots of posts describing parents, among other things, giving chemicals to their kids and share the evidence with child protective services, Facebook and other authorities. The treatments lead to children resisting, screaming or gasping, according to images of Facebook posts shared by Eaton and Seigler.

"It really weighs on you, but kids are being abused," said Eaton, a 39-year-old single mother from North Carolina. "You see it. You have the choice of doing something about it or letting it go. And I'm not the kind of person who can see something like that and just forget about it."

A Southern California was about to leave college Sunday and enter the real world carrying $150,000 in student loan debt when the billionaire commencement speaker at his graduation made a stunning announcement: his family would be providing grants to wipe out the student debt of the entire 2019 class.

Dwytt Lewis, 21, grew up in Compton and Lynwood, and was one of the graduating members of Morehouse College that got an amazing promise from billionaire technology investor Robert Smith.

"I'm still speechless," Lewis told NBC4 via FaceTime from Atlanta.  

Smith began by telling the nearly 400 students that he was "going to put a little fuel in your bus," and then made the announcement that would change their lives forever. 

"We're looking and around and saying, 'Are we just hot or did he say this?'" Lewis said. "Picture your last 45 seconds of being an undergraduate student, you get a full ride."

A study by the Center for American Progress showed that 80% of African American students take out student loans, compared to 60% of white and Latino students.

Fifteen years after leaving college, black adults have an average balance that is 185% higher than white adults, a study found.

Lewis said now that Smith has lifted the burden of student debt off his shoulders, he can now search for a job more strategically instead of taking any work in order to pay the bills.   

He also said Smith's gift is inspiring him even more to give back to his community and become a mentor for other young men.

"I played football [in Lynwood]. I want to talk to the team. I want to talk to freshmen and sophomores," he said.

Lewis' mom, who was in the audience at Sunday's graduation ceremony, was in disbelief over Smith's generous gift to her son. She texted him moments after the announcement and asked, "Did he say he's paying off your loans?"

"Yes, man, God is real, dude," Lewis answered.

Stop, look and listen. That is what drivers in Wethersfield are being directed to do at all eight of the railroad crossings in town. For the first time in about 10 years trains will be running on the tracks. 

“We want to prevent train tragedies so we’re out here alerting the public,” Kevin Burns, the state coordinator for Operation Lifesaver, said. 

Burns was working with other transportation officials to hand out flyers to drivers on Tuesday morning at the railroad crossings, letting them know the trains will start running on June 3. 

Seven out of the eight crossings do not have gates or flashing lights and that is why the town installed stop signs and bright orange signs warning drivers about the train service resuming. 

The Providence and Worcester Railroad trains plan to blow the horns when approaching crossings. The train travels about 10 miles per hour. 

But people like Andrew Baginski, whose property backs up to the railroad tracks, worries that won’t be enough. 

“They say they’re going to be going slowly, but I don’t know. There’s a lot of traffic coming through here, a lot of people walking across them,” said Baginski. 

Baginski walks and drives across the tracks on Mill Street on a daily basis. 

Just down the road on Middletown Avenue near the Rocky Hill line, the angle of the track is so sharp it is hard for drivers to see any oncoming trains. 

“You can’t see up the tracks. And with just (a) stop sign, no warning lights or anything, I don’t like that idea,” Baginski said. 

At this time, there are no plans to install gates or flashing lights at the crossings so Burns recommends drivers stop, look and listen for the train before crossing. 

The defense attorney for Chief Edward Gallagher, the San Diego-based Navy SEAL facing court-martial for multiple war crimes, met with the judge in the case Monday, NBC 7 has learned.

The meeting came days after The New York Times reported that President Donald Trump was considering a pardon for Chief Gallagher and other service members accused of war crimes before Memorial Day.

Gallagher is accused of killing a captive, injured ISIS fighter and shooting at unarmed civilians while serving in Iraq. Some say that a pardon from the president wouldn't look good for the United States and could undermine the system of military justice.

“It's clearly a political move, because he doesn't know the facts because the facts haven't been established by the trial,” defense attorney and former JAG Judge Advocate General Doug Brown said.

Brown said the consequences of a pre-trial pardon could put American armed forces in combat zones and countries all over the world at risk, "because if the United States isn't going to follow international law, then [other nations won’t] either." 

Gallagher's attorney Tim Palatore told NBC 7 he was surprised by the Times' report of a potential pardon as he prepares for his client's trial to begin.

Palatore also said that the U.S. Navy provided documents to the defense team on Monday related to the tracking software found in emails related to the case. The attorney will be back in military court Wednesday to address what he finds in the documents.

Navy prosecutors have said Gallagher during his eighth deployment indiscriminately shot at Iraqi civilians and stabbed to death a captured Islamic State fighter estimated to be 15 years old. He also posed with the teen's corpse at his re-enlistment ceremony, prosecutors said.

Gallagher is also under investigation for the shooting death of a civilian in Afghanistan in 2010, according to a 439-page document leaked to Times.

In the document are allegations that SEAL team leadership discouraged team members from coming forward to report the alleged incidents.

NBC 7 San Diego has not confirmed the information in the document leaked to the Times, but sources say the U.S. Navy was aware of the incident in Afghanistan.

Gallagher's lawyers have said the allegations were made by disgruntled SEALs out to get Gallagher because he was a demanding leader.

The SEAL has denied the charges and Palatore said his client wants to go to trial to clear his name. His trial is scheduled to begin May 28.

A military officer, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the case, told NBC 7 there is enough evidence for the case to go to trial.

The case has garnered national attention, and reaction to the president possibly pardoning Gallagher so far has been mixed among local members of the community with ties to the military.

Robert Chavez, who served overseas in the U.S. Army, said Gallagher’s fate should be decided in court.

Tom Sandonato's son served two tours in Afghanistan, and he fully supports a pardon for Gallagher.

A trove of government documents sheds new light on the widespread use of solitary confinement for immigrant detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody under both the Obama and Trump administrations, NBC News reported.

The documents paint a disturbing portrait of a system where detainees are sometimes forced into extended periods of isolation — half of the time for reasons that have nothing to do with violating any rules, like being disabled, identifying as gay or reporting abuse from guards or other detainees.

"We have created and continue to support a system that involves widespread abuse of human beings," said Ellen Gallagher, a policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, who is speaking publicly for the first time after spending five years trying to sound the alarm within the federal government about people "being brutalized."

An ICE spokesperson defended its use of the practice in a statement to NBC News: "The use of restrictive housing in ICE detention facilities is exceedingly rare, but at times necessary, to ensure the safety of staff and individuals in a facility."

Country music fans have a chance to celebrate the Fourth of July 4 by listening to Toby Keith live. He will be performing at Mohegan Sun Arena at 8 p.m. with the That’s Country – Bro! Tour.

Tickets are $129, $95, $75, $65 and $55.

The 2015 inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame celebrated the 25th anniversary of his debut number one single, “Should’ve Been A Cowboy” at the end of 2018 and re-released his debut album, which was remastered. He also performed two shows at the Grand Ole Opry and also performed at the Nashville Symphony Ball, where he received the “Harmony Award.”