State officials have closed trails at the Sessions Woods Wildlife Management Area in Burlington after a hiker came dangerously close to a brazen black bear Friday afternoon.

Wildlife staff from the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the bear, a male, is about a year-and-a-half old and weighs 150 pounds.

Hiker Stephanie Rivkin captured video of the close encounter and shared her footage with NBC Connecticut.

"I had no idea whether or not I was supposed to be scared," she said. "I just felt if I ran, I would be attacked."

The video shows a tagged bear walking slowly toward her, then pacing back and forth. Rivkin begins walking alongside the animal as another bear approaches from behind them.

"It was unlike anything I ever experienced before, so I didn't really know how to react or respond," Rivkin recalled. "I kind of just stayed as calm as I could and it seemed to work. I got out alive."

A second video posted on Rivkin's personal Facebook page shows the bear getting closer, circling her and then scampering off. At one point, the animal appears to reach out and open its mouth as if to bite her leg.

"I felt his nose touch my leg and that's as close as he got," she said. "The teeth, I saw them clearly, but thank God I didn't feel them."

Officials said Rivkin was not hurt.

"DEEP staff had a chance to talk with this woman after her encounter with the bear," agency spokesman Dennis Schain said in a statement Friday. "We are relieved she was not injured. This was certainly an unusual incident as bears do not often approach people."

Tags on the bear's ears indicate DEEP began tracking it as a yearling over the winter. The bear was captured and relocated at least once, according to the agency.

Wildlife staff are searching for the bear and plan to euthanize it, according to Schain.

"That is the appropriate action to take after seeing this bear's behavior today," Schain explained in an email to NBC Connecticut.

Rivkin said she wishes the bears could be saved.

"I hope the bears maybe can be moved to a safer area where they're not putting hikers in danger," she said.

Signs posted at Sessions Woods notify hikers that the trails are closed.

If you spot a bear while hiking or camping, wave your arms to make your presence known and back away slowly. Do not approach or interact with the animal.

More bear safety tips are available on the DEEP website.

A new year-round professional soccer team coming to Hartford is held open tryouts in Farmington on Saturday until noon.

In June, the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters learned that Professional Sports Management Group will be bringing professional soccer to the state and team, Hartford City F.C., will play both indoors and outdoors.

"We know there will be some quality players, and hopefully we'll find some promising surprises among the rest of the pool," head coach Paul Wright, who scouted a lot of the players trying out, said before the tryout. "The open tryout is only one phase in creating our team. The goal is to find a solid group of players to invite back to training with us in September where they'll compete for roster spots alongside our other prospects."

More than 50 athletes pre-registered to tryout and the team expected walk-ons to come the day of, according to a press release from the team. The tryouts began at 10 a.m. at the Farmington Sports Arena and players got there at 9 a.m. to register. Players from Connecticut and Massachusetts colleges and club teams and Major Arena Soccer League and pro league professional players are being considered for the new Hartford team.

Hartford City F.C. has already signed one player, Tom Williams, who is a veteran player in the English league and "is expected to play a leadership role within the club and will take part in the tryout process this weekend," according to a news release from the club. The team announced that on Aug. 12.

The team has signed a deal to play in the Major Arena Soccer League, which will play indoors at the XL Center, starting in November.

The soccer club plans on releasing its schedule in the coming weeks. The XL Center will be the venue for the team's ten home games between Nov. 1, 2015 and Feb. 28, 2016. Hartford City F.C. is already taking season ticket deposits online. You can visit the team's website, http://www.hartfordcityfc.com, for more information.

Older students went the extra mile to make sure the freshmen felt welcome as they move into the dorms at the University of Hartford this weekend.

“You pull over, open your trunk, and they meet you at your car and they take all of your stuff and just move it in for you,” said Max Petras from Swampscott, Massachusetts.

The goal was to make the transition go smoothly and give the freshman and their parents one less thing to worry about.

“I didn’t expect it at all. I have two other brothers going to college and I’ve never seen that before,” said Thomas DiMauro of Middletown.

Mary Daigle, a senior at the school, has volunteered since her sophomore year. She was one of the 230 students who rolled up her sleeves to help the freshman class on move-in day.

“It’s kind of good to help everybody move in and freshman year they helped me so I might as well give back and help them,” said Daigle.

Called Howie’s Helpers, after the school’s mascot, they offered door to door service, doing all the heavy lifting for the freshman.

“I was ready to be lugging everything up to the rooms and when the squad of red caps came down and carried everything up and felt like, wow, this is awesome. I felt like tipping them,” said Thomas’s mom Anita.

“This is awesome. They have it down to a science. This is unbelievable,” said Remm Rajeh, whose son is starting his freshman year at the school.

The class of 2019 is the school’s largest freshman class since 2009.

Classes at the University of Hartford will start Tuesday, Sept. 1.

As the whole country reflects on the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina a decade later, two Coast Guard rescue swimmers described seeing a submerged New Orleans and thousands in need of help.

Lt. Benjamin Berman and Aviation Survival Technician 1st Class Robert Williams, who are now stationed at the San Diego Coast Guard sector, said Friday that the images of destruction are still fresh in their minds.

"It was 10 years ago but there are constant reminders of it. Even just flying in the helicopter sometimes I'll just have memories while we are flying around," Williams said.

He was stationed at Corpus Christi, Texas, in 2005 and had only been a rescue swimmer for two years when he got the call for help.

Williams and his crew were on a helicopter bound for New Orleans an hour later. They arrived at night, and all he could see were flashlights dotting the ground. Before long, he realized those lights were held by people who needed rescue.

"It looked like a third-world country with people on rooftops and rivers flowing down places where cars should be driving, dogs swimming in the streets, people on top of cars floating down the streets, gas pipes that were broken and on fire," Williams said.

Berman lived in Mobile, Alabama, at the time. He flew in the first night Coast Guard crews came to the rescue, joining the branch's effort to save more than 33,500 people -- one of the largest rescue operations in Coast Guard history.

One disturbing sight that stuck with him, he said, was seeing a couple who died off Interstate 10, where he and his crew were trying to help survivors.

"That kind of affected me because they died together on the side of the freeway," he said. "It was kind of devastating. There was devastation everywhere of course, but walking up to that kind of devastation was pretty impactful."

Berman said he never forgets the anniversary of the day he was sent to New Orleans because he had to leave his 2-week old son. He now calls his boy his "Katrina baby."

Both Williams and Berman told NBC 7 in San Diego that they hope their efforts made an impact on survivors and that the people of New Orleans have come out stronger.

"It's sad though that a lot of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast has not recovered from Katrina, but I stand by them and hopefully they will come back around," Berman said.

Berman has returned every year since Hurricane Katrina, but Williams has not been back since the storm. He told NBC 7 he hopes to return soon.

Pulling up to Jerry Reed's house in St. Roch neighborhood is like stepping back in time to August 2005, when Hurricane Katrina ripped through the area, devastating everything in its path. The house appears very much the same today as then, a decade after the storm, NBC News reported.

The home's foundations are unearthed, its vinyl siding peels along ragged lines that demarcate clearly how high the floodwaters rose. "Ten years after the storm, I didn't ever think it would still be — this bad," said a somber Reed as he reflected on the 10th anniversary of one of the most powerful natural disasters to ever strike a major American city.

Reed, 66, is a Vietnam War veteran who fought for his country and won the Silver Star but feels he has been forgotten here at home. He is just one of thousands of homeowners in and around New Orleans who is unable to pay for damages that remain from Hurricane Katrina.

A 30-year-old man has been charged with capital murder in the "execution-style" shooting of a deputy at a suburban Houston gas station, authorities announced Saturday afternoon, NBC News reported.

Shannon J. Miles, 30, was arrested for the murder of Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Darren H. Goforth, 47, who was pumping gas about 8:30 p.m. Friday when he was shot from behind. 

"We haven't been able to exact any details regarding a motive," Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman told reporters, calling Goforth's death a "senseless and cowardly act."

In an emotional news conference hours before Miles' arrest was announced, a visibly angry Hickman told reporters that "dangerous rhetoric" against law enforcement had "gotten out of control."

"We've heard black lives matter — all lives matter," he said. "Well, cops' lives matter, too."

Two people were hospitalized in a double rollover crash in Fairfield on the Merritt Parkway on Saturday afternoon.

Fairfield firefighters responded to the southbound side of the highway between exits 46 and 47 at 1:02 p.m. after receiving a report of a crash with injuries, according to Fairfield Asst. Fire Chief Scott R. Bisson.

When firefighters arrived, they found two cars rolled over on their roofs on the road. Firefighters "established a safety zone" at the scene and determined that two occupants involved in the crash were injured.

Assistant Chief Scott Bisson stated, ”Due to the damage and location of the accident, the occupants were very fortunate that their injuries appear to be non-life threatening and that they were not trapped inside the vehicles.“

An American Medical Response ambulance transported the two injured parties to area hospitals.

Firefighters kept a hose on hand in case any fires started due to the crash and stayed until the cars were cleared from the scene because they posed environmental hazards, Bisson said.

The highway remained open with one lane closed most of the time, but it was shut down while the cars were being cleared for about 10 minutes.

State police are investigating the crash.

Firefighters cleared the scene by 2:07 p.m.

Reservoir Road (Route 219) in New Hartford has reopened after LifeStar responded to airlift a person in a serious crash early Saturday evening.

A LifeStar helicopter landed at New Hartford Elementary to take one person to the hospital.

The road was closed for about an hour between Route 44 and Ratlum Road. No further information was immediately available.

Bridgeport’s mayor is touting the support he believes President Barack Obama has given the city from job creation to projects to rebuild the city.

So much so that Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch wants the city to name the new high school under construction after him.

The city just broke ground on a new high school to replace the current run-down Warren G. Harding High School. Finch wants the new school to be called Barack Obama High School.

“President Obama has done so much for our city,” said Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch. “He’s helped us create jobs on the waterfront, produce clean energy so our kids can breathe easier, and rebuild parts of our city that were neglected for too long. This new high school is another sign that cities are getting better during his presidency, and I suggest we honor him by naming this new school ‘Barack Obama High School.’”

Warren G. Harding School has been run-down for decades, according to city officials. Now the city is undertaking a $106 million project to build a new 210,000-square-foot high school to house 1,150 students. There will be football and baseball fields at the school and an eight-lane track. The state is footing most of the bill, covering about 80 percent of the cost.

The new school will turn a new leaf in Bridgeport, but it will rest on a historical site that already been the setting of significant stories.

Remington Arms Company built a plant there in 1915, producing rifles and weapons for Russia’s Army.

In 1920, General Electric bought the property to produce small motor and electrical devices. GE employed as many as 20,000 people there. The plant closed in 2007 after a long stretch of GE cutting back on operations in the latter end of the 20th Century.

From 2010 to 2012, GE demolished the plant, which included 13 connected five-story buildings.

The site underwent remediation and has been cleaned up, meeting state and federal standards.
In 2013, the city and GE have been collaborating to build a new high school there.

There have been other school construction projects going on in the city during Finch’s time as mayor, according to his office. The school construction program will establish over 3,000 jobs, according to the mayor’s office.

When the new high school is done and opens, the mayor’s office said that “more than half our kids will be attending new or renovated schools.”

Police are investigating an overnight armed home invasion and robbery in Manchester that happened while a husband, wife and their two children were home.

A masked man wielding a handgun burst into a unit at the Beacon Hill Apartments when the family was home early Saturday morning, police said. The couple confronted the robber and he threatened them, warning them to stay back, police said. Then he tied them up before searching the home for valuables like cash and small electronics, according to police. He fled from the scene in an unknown direction, police said.

Police responded at 2:15 a.m. to the Beacon Hill Apartments at 1196 West Middle Turnpike to investigate. Officers were coming out of a first floor apartment in the Old Chatham building, numbered 1196, all morning.

No one was injured and it's unclear what was taken. The identity of the man is unknown.

It's possible he broke into the home through a sliding glass door, police said. The armed home invader and robber is still at large and police are searching for him, according to police. A description of the man hasn't been released at this time.

Manchester police remind residents to lock windows and doors and to report any suspicious activity to the department at 860-645-5500. Police ask anyone with information about the armed home invasion or other crimes to call the detective division at 860-645-5510. Calls will remain confidential.

A 62-year-old woman who vanished while hiking in California was found alive Saturday — more than a week after she was separated from the group she was traveling with, police said, NBC News reported. 

Miyuki Harwood was spotted by members of a search and rescue team not far from where she went missing near the Courtright Reservoir, about 100 miles east of Fresno, according to the Fresno County Sheriff's Office.

Police said Harwood was hurt, but they do not yet know the extent of her injuries. She was brought by helicopter to a nearby hospital, police said.

Harwood was last seen on Aug. 20 with a hiking group from the Sierra Club, based near Sacramento

A group of kayakers captured their heart-pounding close encounter with a hammerhead shark off the San Diego coast Saturday — a sighting that prompted lifeguards to close down crowded beaches nearby.

Their incredible video shows the 8- to 10-foot shark circling and swimming under the watercraft off La Jolla Shores. Stalking the kayakers, the hammerhead followed them back to the beach as they paddled away, according to San Diego Lifeguards.

When officials saw the footage and noted the shark was exhibiting "aggressive behavior," they took immediate action.

They decided to clear the waters between La Jolla Cove and Scripps Pier, announcing the closure over loud speakers to thousands packed onto the sand. The beach will be closed for the rest of the day, according to Lifeguard Lt. Andy Lerum.

"What we're going to do is evaluate tomorrow morning," he said at a news briefing Saturday afternoon. "If there's no other shark sighting by then, we'll probably lift the closure and open it as an advisory for the full 24-hour period."

People swimming near the shark were able to climb onto other kayaks and get safely to shore.

The animal was last seen just outside the surf line at the foot of Avenida De La Playa, at the south part of La Jolla Shores.

Lifeguard crews in boats and a helicopter soon began searching the waters for shark, but no more sightings have been reported. Officials say if they find it, they will track it and make sure it leaves the area before the waters are reopened.

The closure was a disappointment to many beachgoers, who sought the cool water on the unusually hot Saturday.

"They were just going to shut it down temporarily, but then they decided to shut it down for the entire day," said Gil Durazo, at La Jolla with his two sons. "So we kind of stuck it out for a little while but then decided, you know, we've been here long enough, we're just going to head home and jump in the pool for a little while."

Lifeguards say they brought the kayakers' footage to Dr. Andy Nosal, a marine biologist at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. He said based on the size, species and behavior of the shark, lifeguards were right to close the beach.

"It's not uncommon for these types of sharks to be seen far off shore, but it's uncommon to see it so close to a popular beach like La Jolla Shores," said Lerum.

According to the lieutenant, a similar closure happened in La Jolla a couple years ago when a great white shark came concerningly close to the shore.

As for why the hammerhead was acting aggressively toward the kayakers, Lerum's best guess is food.

"Well sharks are very instinctive," he said. "Usually what causes them to act aggressively is their desire to eat, and so there may have been food in the area that we don't know of." He was not sure if the kayakers had fish on board.

Hammerheads rarely present a threat to humans, experts say. In fact, since scientists began keeping records in the 1950s, there have been just 32 documented hammerhead shark attacks, according to Mike Price, an assistant curator of fishes at SeaWorld.

However, a hammerhead bit into a local diver's hand earlier this month about 100 miles off San Diego's coast.

Two Willimantic men have been arrested after a stabbing that stemmed from a domestic dispute.

Police say they responded for a possible stabbing on West Avenue just before 8 p.m. Saturday. At first they couldn't find a victim, but received a 9-1-1 call from a nearby elderly living complex. They responded to the complex and found a male victim, identified as Robinson Acevedo 23, of 94 West Avenue lying on a deck with a stab wound to the upper chest. The victim told police he was trying to run to the hospital.

"He told me that himself," said Cpl. Stanley Parizo Jr. "He was able to get across the avenue, into the parking lot, and that's when fire rescue picked him up. He was headed up to Windham hospital which is only 11, 12 hundred meters from here."

Acevedo was transported to Windham Hospital where he underwent surgery for non-life threatening injuries.

Police arrested Acevedo’s brother-in-law, Jose Sanchez, 23, of 94 West Avenue and charged him in the incident. Sanchez is charged with First-degree assault and disorderly conduct and is currently held on a $75,000 bond.

Acevedo was also arrested upon his release from the hospital. He is charged with threatening, disorderly conduct, and third-degree assault and is currently held on a $10,000 bond.

Police say there was never any danger to the public. Both men are expected in court Monday.

One P.F. Chang's kitchen worker was stabbed to death Saturday, allegedly by another, at the restaurant in Peabody, Massachusetts.

Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said 53-year-old Jaquan Huston used a knife to stab his 38-year-old coworker at the restaurant, located at the Northshore Mall.

Police responded just after 5:30 p.m. The victim was rushed to Salem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, Blodgett said.

Huston was arrested at his home in Salem. He is scheduled to be arraigned on murder charges Monday.

"This was an isolated incident," said Blodgett. "It's a very difficult, sad situation."

Other staff members and witnesses are being interviewed as the investigation continues.

P.F. Chang's later released a statement on the incident:

"Tonight we lost an employee in a tragic incident at our Peabody restaurant. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of our colleague. We will be mobilizing support to provide care to our colleague's family, as well as our fellow employees, during this difficult time. We are also cooperating with local law enforcement as they conduct their investigation."

Two men and a woman were found shot to death inside a home in eastern Tennessee Saturday night, according to the local sheriff's office, NBC News reported. A child was also found inside the home with gunshot wounds and transported to a nearby hospital for treatment.

The alleged gunman was found "a short time" after authorities responded to the scene and he was taken into custody, according to a statement from the Sullivan County Sheriff's Office. The suspect had also been shot, but his wounds were not life threatening, the statement added.

Sheriff Wayne Anderson told local TV station WCYB that it appeared the suspect, who was not identified, was related to those living inside the home. 

"He made it up here where they live...and he just started shooting everybody," Anderson said.

President Barack Obama heads to Alaska Monday for an historic Arctic tour aimed at drawing attention to climate change, NBC News reported.

The three-day tour will include trips to a receding glacier and to coastal communities where he will talk to villagers about erosion threatening their shoreline and livelihood. 

The Arctic trip—the first ever by a sitting U.S. president— comes ahead of a major international summit in Paris at the end of the year, where he will push for a global deal to flight climate change.

Such an agreement, environmental policy experts say, could help secure his legacy as the first U.S. president to address global climate change in a substantive way.

Norwalk police arrested a drunken driver who led police on a pursuit onto Interstate 95 south and then crashed near a construction site, injuring four including two construction workers, police said.

Marino De Los Santos, 35, of Bridgeport, confessed to police that he was drinking and didn't have a license, police said.

He was driving northbound in a minivan on West Avenue in Norwalk when an officer spotted an equipment violation and began running the license plate. He kept going as the van turned onto I-95 south.. The registration plate came up as stolen, so the officer turned around to get on the highway and found the minivan on I-95 south in the right lane, police said.

The minivan pulled onto the right shoulder of the highway and slowed down to 10 miles an hour as the officer was confirming it was the same stolen plate that registered in the police database before. When the officer pulled up behind the minivan and turned on his emergency lights, De Los Santos accelerated, swerving to the left lane and then back into the right lane, police said.

The police officer activated his siren and tried to pull the minivan over. De Los Santos kept going, speeding and passing vehicles on the right by exit 14, police said.

The officer slowed down as they approached a construction zone with signs posted, but De Los Santos kept going and lost control. Meanwhile, the officer called Norwalk police's dispatcher and asked them to loop in state police about the location of the fleeing minivan, police said.

De Los Santos crashed into a guardrail and construction truck near exit 11 in the construction zone, police said. He injured two construction workers in the crash and one of his female passengers was thrown from the van, sustaining serious injuries, police said.

De Los Santos and a second female passenger also were injured in the crash, police said.

Ambulances transported De Los Santos, his two passengers and the two construction workers to Norwalk and Stamford hospitals, police said.

Norwalk police charged De Los Santos with operating under the influence, four degrees of second-degree assault with a motor vehicle, reckless operation, engaging police in a pursuit, possession of a stolen registration plate, misuse of plates, operating a motor vehicle without a license, failure to carry an insurance card and failure to have tail lamps.

Police issued De Los Santos a $50,000 bond. He is due in court on Sept. 8.

State police are investigating the crash.

Members of the public can report crimes to police by calling the Norwalk Police Department's tip line at 203-854-3111, submit anonymous internet tips at www.norwalkpd.com and text anonymous tips to CRIMES (274637) by typing NPD into the text field and any information you have.

Police have found a driver suspected of fleeing police and his estranged wife said to be taken against her will earlier in Seymour after a reported domestic dispute, police said.

Seymour police spent the day looking for Alan Gombos, 33, of 51 Brookdale Road in Seymour, and the 2004 Ford F-150 pick-up truck with Connecticut plates he was suspected of driving when he evaded police investigating a reported disturbance at his home. His estranged wife, Kelly Gombos, of 18B New Street in Seymour, was missing during that time and police said earlier they believed someone took her against her will. Police released photos of the pick-up truck as they searched.

They both arrived at the police department just before 5:15 p.m.

One of Alan Gombos's neighbors called 911 just after midnight early Saturday morning after hearing a woman screaming for "help" in what sounded like a disturbance across the street from him in Alan Gombos's home. While police were en route, they learned the people involved in the dispute were getting into a vehicle to leave the home, police said.

When officers got to Gombos's home at 51 Brookdale Road, a gray oncoming pick-up truck was speeding and tried to "ram" into the responding police cruisers, police said. The officers avoided a crash and turned around to chase the fleeing vehicle, according to police.

That pick-up truck got onto Route 8 south via the exit 19 ramp and continued speeding on Route 8 south. Police couldn't catch up with the vehicle and they lost sight of it near exit 14, police said.

By early evening, police found the driver, identified as Gombos, and his estranged wife, Kelly, who they think was taken against her will.

The pick-up truck was seen in Fairfield shortly after the disturbance and police pursuit. Fairfield police couldn't find the vehicle earlier and police spent the day looking for it.

Police ask anyone with information to call the Seymour Police Department at 203-881-7600 or the department's detective division at 203-881-7624 or 203-881-7638. Anyone with information can also email an anonymous tip to tips@seymourpolice.org.

Seymour police said they'll release further information when it becomes available.

Seven people were killed and more than 200 injured in a giant fire that tore through an oil workers' residential compound in Saudi Arabia Sunday, The Associated Press reported.

Officials said that residents of "various nationalities" were affected by the early morning blaze, which broke out in the basement of the Radium compound in the eastern city of Khobar.

The compound is used by the state oil giant Saudi Aramco, which oversees petroleum production in the country, and was the site of a 1996 truck bombing at a dormitory for U.S. Air Force personnel that killed 19 Americans and wounded 372.