Liberal Rep. Alan Grayson angrily confronted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid during a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill Wednesday, NBC News reported. 

Grayson was angry that Reid decided to back a different candidate in Florida’s Senate race, according to three sources inside the room. 

Reid met with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, but when Grayson was called on to speak, he repeatedly asked Reid if the senator knew his name. Reid said he did and expressed his “low opinion” of Grayson. 

Grayson, who has been willing to break with Democratic leadership, and is running to fill the Florida Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Marco Rubio. But Democratic leaders have lined up behind Rep. Patrick Murphy instead.

GOP U.S. Senate hopeful August Wolf said Wednesday he's going to work to collect the necessary number of signatures to make his way on to an August 9 primary ballot.

Wolf lost to State Representative Dan Carter Monday night during the Connecticut GOP's nominating convention for U.S. Senate.

Carter walked away with more than 70 percent of all delegates, while Wolf failed to amass the necessary 15 percent in order to automatically qualify for a primary.

Wolf alleges inside baseball led to Carter's nomination.

“We found out the whole situation two nights ago was rigged" Wolf said. "A rigged game. We heard Donald Trump talk about this and he was right and I found out two nights ago.”

Wolf only said that he knew of a meeting between a representative of Carter's and Jack Orchulli, who finished a distant third in the voting.

Orchulli threw his support to Carter when it was clear he didn't have a legitimate chance at winning, which is why Wolf alleges the convention was an "inside job."

“They shouldn’t have actually had it actually at the convention center, they should have had it, the whole thing at a train station, because the whole process was a railroad job.”

Carter denies there was any deal in place before the convention. Carter said he won the vote consistent with party rules.

“I’m very happy to have been chosen by the delegates" Carter said. "You know we’ve had these same rules in place for a couple of years.”

Even with Wolf challenging him in a possible primary, Carter said the move doesn't change the message of his campaign.

“I think very clearly my goal is to keep going after Dick Blumenthal because at the end of the day that is the only thing that matters in this race.

Wolf said he thinks he can attain the number of signatures needed to secure ballot access. He added that money will be a key factor, but said that won't be an issue for him, the investment adviser and former U.S. Olympian.

“We have some firepower still in the bank. We’re not out of money. And we’re raising money. I had a meeting with a very senior CEO this morning from a very prominent CEO here in Connecticut so this train is moving.”

A man suspected of being involved in a shoplifting, then fighting with an off-duty police officer and trying to strangle a police dog told investigators that voices told him to do it, according to police.

Police said someone stole 65 Polo shirts worth $2,700 from the Sears on New Britain Avenue in West Hartford just after 5 p.m. on Tuesday, then threatened to shoot the loss prevention employee and fled.

The shoplifter fled from the store and an off-duty police officer, Tom Lazure, spotted the vehicle on Interstate 84 East and followed him to Sisson Avenue in Hartford, police said.

Police identified one suspect as, Ezekiel Scott, 51, of Hartford. They said he got out of the car, resisted arrest, fought with the officer and put his hands around the neck of Lazure’s police dog, Jett.

Lazure managed to get Jett free and arrested Scott, who made comments that “voices” told him to hurt Lazure and Jett, according to a news release from police.

Scott was bitten on his right forearm and was brought to Saint Francis Hospital. He has since been released. 

Scott has been charged with second-degree robbery, third-degree larceny, first-degree threatening, assault on a police officer, interfering with an officer and cruelty to animals. Bond was set at $25,000.

Police said they are looking for other people who were in the vehicle as well. 

A Shelton family had hoped for a sentimental measure at a high school graduation for their teenage son who died in a car crash last February. 

“Over two months we have been trying to do this. So, we’re just trying to get closure on this for everybody,” said the teen's father Ed Conklin.

Earlier this year, the 17-year-old was killed in a car crash in Shelton. 

Conklin's parents had hoped his high school would grant an honorary degree to their son.

“As a mom I want him to know that he can go on with his life wherever he is,” said his mother Barbara Conklin.

But for months the Conklin’s said they received the run-around from school and district officials.

With graduation just a month away on June 10, the family has no clear answers and time is running out to make sure their son receives an honorary degree.

“No one can understand why we’re having this type of issue just for something as simple as that. For closure for us, for his friends,” said Ed Conklin.

The superintendent said because this is a personal matter the district had no comment except that it is working with the family.

Conklin, also known as "Eddy", had been a senior at Shelton High School where he discovered his love for basketball.

Eddy was looking forward to studying biomedical engineering in college.

Shelton police are investigating three serious crashes on Route 110 this week that killed two people and injured three.

Teresa Glossy, 54, of Shelton. was struck on Howe Avenue, or Route 110, at Hill Street at 8:41 p.m. on Wednesday and died at St. Vincent’s Medical Center, according to police. The driver fled and police are trying to identify the person.

Earlier in the evening, police responded to a head-on crash on River Road, which is also Route 110. 

Police said they responded to the Mt. Pleasant Street area at 5:49 p.m. after receiving several 911 calls and one person from each vehicle was brought to Bridgeport Hospital to be treated for serious injuries.

On May 6, police responded to another head-on crash on River Road. Police said it happened in front of the Sports Center of Connecticut at 1:30 p.m.

Samantha Monaco, 23, of Shelton, was transported to Bridgeport Hospital with serious but not life-threatening injuries.

Rosemarie Dwyer, 68, of Shelton, was also transported to Bridgeport Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said. 

The Shelton Police Traffic Division Reconstruction Team is investigating and they ask witnesses or people with additional information to call the Shelton Police Traffic Division at (203) 924-1544.

Racial profiling is not rampant, but it does exits, according to state lawmakers who received results of a report on racial profiling by police in Connecticut.

The report from Central Connecticut State University’s Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy finds "significant racial and ethnic disparities” still exist in police traffic stops made by nine Connecticut police departments and one state police troop.

"Every Connecticut Police Chief remains committed to the law – but more importantly to the principle - that, stopping an individual based solely on what they look like is unacceptable and is illegal. Our expectation is that our officers are stopping violators who represent a virtual mirror image of who is actually driving on our roadways," a statement from the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association says.

Based on police traffic stop data collected between October 2014 and September 2015, researchers found significant disparities in traffic stop data from police in Bloomfield, New Milford, Norwalk, West Hartford, Wethersfield and State Police Troop H.

The findings indicate that minority motorists were more likely to have been stopped during daylight as opposed to darkness hours, the reports says. 

“Our analysis produced sufficiently strong results to determine the presence of significant racial and ethnic disparity and warrant further investigation into the source of the observed disparity,” Kenneth Barone, project manager for IMRP said in a statement.

Data from departments in Meriden, Newington, Trumbull and Windsor were found to have consistent disparities that raise the potential of racial and ethnic bias according to the three descriptive measures used to evaluate racial and ethnic disparities.

“The confidence in the validity of descriptive tests is high, and it is reasonable to believe that these four departments should be subject to further review to determine factors that may be causing these differences,” Barone said.

Last year, they found “significant racial and ethnic disparities” in East Hartford, Granby, Groton Town, Hamden, Manchester, New Britain, Stratford, Waterbury, Wethersfield, in addition to State Police Troop C and Troop H.   

“Our goal was to better understand the factors contributing to the initial findings of racial and ethnic disparities,” Kenneth Barone, IMRP project manager, said. 

The meeting takes place at 10 a.m. in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford and it will include a 30-minute presentation from research staff, followed by comments from the Connecticut Racial Profiling Advisory Board and legislators. 

A giant 80-year-old  Galápagos tortoise laid nine eggs that hatched at the Zurich Zoo in Switzerland, the only institution in Europe to successfully breed Galápagos tortoises in captivity, NBC News reported.

The 220-pound creature's offsprings each weigh between 4 and 5 ounces. 

The father, 54-year-old Jumbo, clocks in at around 440 pounds.

The tortoise, named Nigrita, is of a Galápagos species with the scientific name Chelonoidis nigra. The reptiles can live for up to 150 years.

Nigrita came to the zoo in 1946 and laid her first eggs in 1980, although none of these survived.

The Hartford Yard Goats baseball team will play its first home game tonight in Norwich. 

The game starts at 6:05 p.m. at Dodd Stadium, home to the Connecticut Tigers, because of construction delays at Dunkin’ Donuts Park in Hartford. 

"We’re very pleased to be able to assist our fellow Connecticut team and bring extra excitement to Dodd Stadium for baseball fans in Southeastern Connecticut this spring,” Connecticut Tigers General Manager Dave Schermerhorn said in a statement. "This market is no stranger to Double-A baseball and we think it’s the perfect way for our fans to get ready for the start of the Tigers’ season in June." 

The Yard Goats will host the New Hampshire Fisher Cats from tonight through May 15. 

Following is Yard Goats schedule at Dodd Stadium.

• Thursday, May 12 vs New Hampshire 6:05 p.m.
• Friday, May 13 vs New Hampshire 6:05 p.m.
• Saturday, May 14 vs New Hampshire 6:05 p.m.
• Sunday, May 15 vs New Hampshire 1:35 p.m.
• Monday, May 16 vs Akron 6:05 p.m.
• Tuesday, May 17 vs Akron 6:05 p.m.
• Wednesday, May 18 vs Akron 12:35 p.m.
• Monday, May 23 vs Bowie 6:05 p.m.
• Tuesday, May 24 vs Bowie 4:05 p.m.

TwinGo has issued a nationwide recall for an infant carrier because of a faulty waist buckle, posing a fall hazard for the babies.

The TwinGo Original Baby Carrier is designed to hold one or two infants against the caregivers bodies.

Ten reports of buckles breaking on the carriers have been filed with TwinGo in the United States, along with two in the United Kingdom and one in Canada. No injuries have been reported, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. 

The baby carriers were sold for roughly $215 at boutique stores nationwide and online at Amazon.com and TwinGoCarrier.com from December 2014 through May 2016.

The carriers sold had black fabric on the outside and were blue or orange on the inside. An 11-digit number can be found on a label in the waistband. Affected batch numbers include 3014024003, 01515026003 and 21615019001.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends consumers immediately cease using the carriers. Consumers can contact TwinGo for a free repair kit and they will be issued a replacement buckle with instructions. An instructional video is also available here: http://twingocarrier.com/pages/repairkit.

With the promise of a hug, a woman who recognized an apparently suicidal man from church talked him down from a 160-foot radio tower in Hollywood after the spectacle stopped rush-hour traffic and jammed Sunset Boulevard for hours Wednesday.

"I told him I promised to give him a hug, and he came down," Anita McMillan Murphy said.

A 55-year-old man climbed the KTLA tower on Sunset Boulevard just before rush hour and brought traffic to a screeching halt just west of the 101 Freeway.

Sunset Boulevard was closed beginning at 4:45 p.m. between El Centro and Van Ness avenues as a man in a green shirt and white shorts climbed a massive tower and refused to get down.

The Los Angeles Police Department diverted traffic as firefighters set up large air cushions at the base of the tower.

The man climbed up and down the tall tower while smoking some type of tobacco pipe and fiddling with a cellphone.

The high-traffic area remained closed for about three hours, but the man finally came down after Murphy began communicating with him from the ground.

She said she knew the man she calls "Charles" from First Baptist Church of Hollywood. Murphy said he must have recognized her blue hair.

"I explained to him that nothing’s hopeless," Murphy said. "I said, 'It's too high for me to come up, but if you come down I'll give you a hug.' And he said, 'I trust you.'"

As crisis negotiators moved in, Murphy went with them.

The man was taken into custody, but before he got into the ambulance, Murphy delivered on her promise.

"He teared up and said, 'Thank you, and I want my hug.' So I got my hug," Murphy said.

It wasn’t clear how the man was able to get to the tower which is on KTLA’s secure lot. He was not a KTLA employee.

He will not face criminal charges and was undergoing a mental health evaluation Wednesday night. Murphy said she invited him to return to church after he is released from the hospital.

City News Service contributed to this report.

The youngest victim in the San Bernardino mass shooting was posthumously awarded a college degree Wednesday.

"It's crazy — I didn't realize how many people knew her," said James Godoy, her husband, ahead of the award ceremony.

Aurora Godoy, 26, was awarded an Associate Degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences to honor her memory and recognize her as a member of Los Angeles Harbor College's class of 2016, the school said.

She worked as an office assistant at the county's public health department. 

With flowers and balloons in hand, her family was presented the award at 6 p.m. at the Wilmington school's recital hall amid cheers.

"I feel proud that she was given this recognition," her father said, fighting back tears. "She was always happy and a hard worker."

Godoy is survived by her high school sweetheart and widower, James Godoy, and their 2-year-old son, Alexander.

Godoy was one of 14 people killed in the San Bernardino mass shooting on Dec. 2, 2015. Authorities have said the gunmen, a couple who died hours later in a shootout with police, were inspired by ISIS.

The legislative session ended last week without passing a budget, but the state Senate is expected to vote on it today,

The state deals with a $960 million shortfall and not all of the details about the new budget plan have been made public.

However, it does include $830 million in cuts, layoffs for 2,000 state employees and $50 million in cuts to municipal aid.

Because of this, city and town leaders are concerned they might have to raise taxes to offset the cuts to their budget.

The Senate is expected to vote today and the House is expected to vote tomorrow.

A no-kill shelter needs more volunteers.

The Protectors of Animals has locations in East Hartford, East Hampton and Wethersfield. The shelters are solely run by volunteers and one employee.

The shelters need about 10 volunteers to make things a lot easier for them.

Shelters are looking for people to help clean and feed the animals as well as help walk dogs.

“But our biggest need right now is we need the early birds and the rise and shine folks that can come in around 7, 7:30 a.m.,” said Jody Macrina, President of Protectors of Animals. “You do work with partners so and we also train to do the duties.”

In the East Hartford shelter, volunteers would care for cats.

In Wethersfield, East Hampton and the East Hartford Petsmart, volunteers would care for dogs.

If you’re interested in helping out at any of the shelters, they’re asking you to just contact that location.

But with some volunteers needed to cover shifts, it hasn't been easy for the shelters.

“Everybody pitches in but everyone carries they’re heavy lifters some of these volunteers so I don’t like to ask them to do more," said Macrina.

If you’re interested in helping out at any of the shelters, they’re asking you to contact Protectors of Animals at 860-569-0722 with the location you'd like to help at.

Part of Massirio Drive in Berlin was closed near Stop & Shop because of a gas leak, but it has reopened after the gas company capped the leak. 

Crews from the Berlin Volunteer Fire Department said the leak was on Massirio Drive, at Farmington Avenue.  

Officials said the line was struck accidentally. 

There were no evacuations. 

The U.S. Navy SEAL killed last week in Iraq will be posthumously promoted, the Navy announced Wednesday as his body returned to Coronado, California. 

Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Charles Keating IV died May 3 about 14 miles north of Mosul in an attack launched by 125 ISIS fighters, Pentagon officials said. He was part of a small force sent to fend off the attack.

Keating’s body arrived at the Naval Air Station at Naval Base Coronado at 2 p.m. Wednesday. The Navy announced that Keating will be posthumously promoted to Chief Petty Officer.

Keating lived in Coronado with his wife, Brooke, and her family. The two married before he deployed, the family told NBC 7.

Members of the Navy, close friends, and residents lined the streets hearse carrying the body of fallen Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Charles Keating IV made its way to the mortuary.

His family and fellow SEALs rode close behind, surrounded by Patriot Riders on motorcycles, most of whom were veterans.

"These guys put themselves in harm’s way much farther than any other human being in the United States," said U.S. Marine veteran Jay Dee.

Before heading over the Coronado Bridge, the riders joined Keating’s family inside the base for a short ceremony.

"If we can just show our support to them and the troops and the wounded warrior that is going home, then we hope that has some soothing effect on the family and on the fellow members of their SEAL Team One," said U.S. Marine veteran Jim Reid.

Keating’s mother, Krista Keating-Joseph, told NBC 7 San Diego her son wished to be buried as close as possible to Coronado Amphibious Naval Base. Keating wanted to be near his SEAL Team One, she said, instead of in Arlington National Cemetery.

A private memorial will take place Thursday for his family and members of the SEAL community.

A processional following Keating’s funeral service Friday will go through C Street and proceed down 6^th Avenue, over the Coronado Bridge to Rosecrans National Cemetery. 

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The stretch of sunny weather will end tomorrow.

First though, temperatures will fall back to about 50 tonight as clouds roll in.

Any early sun will fade to clouds and give way to showers in the second half of tomorrow, and as a result, temperatures will drop from previous days to the upper 60s.

The weekend will be cooler and breezy, with beautiful blue sky mixing with large, puffy white clouds.

A few showers are possible later Saturday.

High temperatures over the weekend will be in the middle 70s Saturday, but fall into the lower 60s by Sunday.

It looks like dry weather sticks around for Monday and Tuesday, with below average highs in the 60s.

Poultry workers at plants in the U.S. are routinely denied bathroom breaks and some have resorted to wearing adult diapers, a report by Oxfam America claims.

The U.S. arm of the global poverty fighting group said its research from 2013 to 2016 found processing plant workers mocked or ignored by supervisors when they asked to go to the bathroom.

The report cited interviews with current and former workers, their lawyers and advocates, medical experts and others. The conditions are particularly tough for women who are menstruating or pregnant, the report said.

The group named Tyson Foods Inc., Perdue Farms Inc., Pilgrim's Pride Corp. and Sanderson Farms Inc. All the companies named in the report, except for Sanderson Farms, denied the allegations in statements to NBC News. A Sanderson Farms' executive said the company had no statement.

The National Chicken Council and the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association said in a statement it believed such instances would be "extremely rare" and the report used too broad a brush on the industry.

Questions linger a year after Amtrak 188 ran off the tracks in Philadelphia, taking life and limb with it, and pain persists for those devastated by the derailment.

For Robert Hewett, the warm May evening when his world flipped upside down is burned into his memory.

Hewett, 58, is among those who suffered more serious injuries in the crash, which occurred moments after the train left 30th Street Station.

He was sitting in the first car — the car shown crushed like a soda can in footage from the scene — and was the first victim taken to Hahnemann University Hospital that night.

"Right before I lost consciousness, I crashed head-on with another gentleman," Hewett recalled on Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the derailment. "I woke up laying on a pile of rocks. All my clothes had been ripped off, I couldn't move my legs, I couldn't see out of my right eye."

Hewett said fires burned in the field near where the train careened off the tracks, but he was too badly hurt to move himself to safety. So he waited.

"I was scared laying there," Hewett said. "I couldn't move, I couldn't get away. I started yelling for help."

Eventually, that help came. First responders carried Hewett away from the scene.

"I remember [the rescuer] saying, 'This guy's gotta go now or the whole back of his head's coming off,'" Hewett recalled.

Hewett would be the first derailment survivor to arrive at Hahnemann Hospital, but the last to leave. The severity of his injuries required lengthy and extensive medical treatment.

Tom Kline and Bob Mongeluzzi, two attorneys representing the majority of Amtrak 188's surviving victims, said their clients want accountability on the part of Amtrak and engineer Brandon Bostian.

Authorities have said the train was traveling at more than double the speed limit the night of May 12, 2015 when it rounded the curve at Frankford Junction, off of Wheatsheaf Lane in a desolate stretch nestled between Juniata, Port Richmond and Frankford, and lurched off the tracks.

Bostian was placed on leave in the wake of the derailment and has not returned to work. He has told investigators he recalled speeding up in the moments before the crash, then braking when he felt the train was moving too quickly into the sharp curve. When he realized the train was derailing, he recalled holding the controls tightly and thinking, "Well, this is it, I'm going over," according to documents made public in the case. Bostian is not believed to have been distracted by his phone at the time.

Investigators have also said that positive train control, a measure that automatically slows trains when necessary, was not being used on the dangerous curve at the time. Positive train control has since been installed along all of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.

Federal investigators are scheduled to meet again next week to discuss the probable cause of the crash.

For the families of the eight victims who died — and the more than 200 others injured that night — added safety measures came too late.

"This has been a trying time and a troubling time and a difficult time for all of those who were horribly devastated and lost loved ones," Kline said recently.

Most victims have elected not to talk publicly about their ordeal. Victims were treated at 10 area hospitals in the aftermath of the mass-casualty disaster.

Temple University Hospital received 54 patients that night. NBC10's Matt DeLucia talked with doctors from the hospital, who recounted a level of devastation they will likely never see again.

"I have never experienced anything that was to the volume that we saw that night," said Dr. Amy Goldberg, who was Temple Hospital's chief of trauma at the time. "When I walked in and saw the number of patients we had already on site and the numbers we were getting, it was rather impressive."

Dr. Herbert Cushing, Temple's chief medical officer, remembered the questions that raced through his mind as he traveled to the hospital's North Philadelphia campus that night.

"Do we have enough emergency rooms? Is the blood bank ready?" Cushing recalled.

Cushing said the hospital had prepared for a disaster situation like the derailment, but after living it, he feels the hospital is even "better prepared now to handle a large disaster situation."

For many of the victims, recovery has come slowly. Attorneys say they are still living with the effects of the deadly crash day in and day out.

"They feel this pain not just on the day of the anniversary of this derailment," Mongeluzzi said. "But every waking hour of their lives."

Lawmakers took the embattled Transportation Security Administration to task Thursday for giving an official a $90,000 bonus while the screeners he supervised failed a test to detect mock explosives and banned weapons, NBC News reported.

The TSA is accused of disguising the payment to Kelly Hoggan by dividing it in nine installments of $10,000 instead of one lump sum — a strategy known as "smurfing."

TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger said Hoggan was awarded the bonus under his predecessor and agreed that the bonus was not justifiable, "period." He also said he's put in a system of checks to make sure this doesn't happen again.

But, when asked if he planned to fire Hoggan, who makes $181,500 as the TSA's assistant administrator for the office of security administrations, Neffenger said no.

Rep. John Mica, who helped create the federal agency that safeguards U.S. airports and now favors privatizing the TSA, conceded that reforming the agency is a tall order.

It's the tale of the police officer who saved a gosling with an assist from mother goose. 

On Mother's Day, Sgt. James Givens of the Cincinnati Police Department helped reunite a patient mother goose with her gosling who was tied up in a balloon string, NBC affiliate WLWT reported.

Givens was sitting in his patrol car on Sunday when the mother goose began pecking at his door. After following her, Givens found the baby goose tied up in a balloon string from a Mother's Day balloon.

Concerned the geese may attack, Givens called upon his partner, Specialist Cecilia Charron, who has pets of her own, to help.

“I put my foot on the balloon and that’s the only way I got ahold of the baby because the baby was running off,” Charron told WLWT. "As soon as we got the baby free, I set the baby down and mommy and baby went into the Mill Creek and swam off."

Givens stood nearby and recorded the event on his phone. It showed the mother goose watching the rescue of her little one. Givens posted it to YouTube on May 9 where it has since been viewed more than 700,000 times as of May 12. 

“It says that we are supposed to protect and serve. I guess that includes wildlife besides people,” Givens told WLWT.

The Cincinnati Police Department has received calls and emails from as far as the United Kingdom and Italy thanking the officers for their compassionate work, a spokesman told NBC. 

"We're getting a lot of phone calls and emails saying 'way to go,'" said Tiffaney Hardy, director of communications for the Cincinnati Police Department.