It's a love story for the ages.

Laurie McGrath left part of her heart in Ireland 26 years ago. On a trip with friends in 1990, she buried half of the necklace her then-boyfriend Bill McGrath gave to her.

"'You break it in half,'" I said. "'You wear one half and bury the other half in Ireland and we'll go dig it up someday,'" said Bill McGrath, Laurie's now husband.

Four kids and four grandkids later, that day finally came.

For their 25th wedding anniversary, the couple returned together to a cemetery in Castletownroche. Using pictures as their guide, they looked for the necklace.

The love letter Laurie wrote more than two decades ago might have been destroyed, but inside a plastic bag was the half of a necklace. The symbol of the young love between Bill and Laurie still shining bright 26 years later.

"It's got to be here because we took two days in that spot just to make sure we were going to find it. We would've dug everything will cemetery," Bill McGrath said about search.

"We found it in 45 minutes," Laurie McGrath laughed.

All these years later the couple shares a love stronger than ever.

"Too much in love still after all these years," Bill McGrath said.

As for the other half of Laurie's necklace, it is hidden somewhere in her house for safe keeping. She said her next quest with Bill is to find it and make the necklace whole again.

Ken Maynard's Enfield home, built in 1984, is crumbling beneath him. At night he can hear the pops. The cracks are spreading and widening. He calls it a cancer to his foundation.

"This might be the last year for the chimney. Next year we might have to take the chimney down. The base is crumbling," said Maynard.

A couple years ago, Maynard says he noticed the cracks and hired a company who told him they could fix it for $35,000. Maynard says he paid the company but that it didn't stop the cracks.

The NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters broke the story about crumbling foundations last year and that led to a multi-agency state investigation. Since then, hundreds of homeowners across Hartford, Tolland, and Windham counties have discovered they have crumbling foundations.

Virtually all claims have been denied by insurance companies. Maynard says his claim was denied too and that to replace the foundation, it will cost $183,000.

The Enfield Town Council allowed those like Maynard to reassess their home and lower their tax liability. Maynard says his home, once worth $200,000, is now worth about $10,000.

On Monday night, councilors took another step to try and ease the financial burden by voting unanimously to waive building permit fees for those repairing or replacing foundations.

South Windsor and Vernon have taken similar action.

"It's not the homeowner's fault. It's not the town's fault. But to be that partner with a homeowner and help in a very small way financially, to help them recover from this situation," said Mayor Scott Kaupin.

The mayor says the permit saves affected homeowners a few thousand dollars, but they're hoping to do more. Kaupin says they're looking to get the Planning & Zoning Commission involved. Current regulations allow temporary housing and storage on a homeowner's property if there's a house fire. He says he'd like to see that regulation extended to those repairing or replacing foundations.

In addition to that, the mayor says they need to press officials on the crumbling foundations.

"We have to lobby as well our state leaders, our federal leaders and be a voice of the residents that are affected," said Kaupin.

Maynard says he'd like to see more homeowners with crumbling foundations step forward and register with the state.

Homeowners looking for more information about crumbling foundations can check out previous stories by the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters and visit the Department of Consumer Protection website.

The severe drought in Connecticut isn’t going away anytime soon.

Connecticut Water, which supplies 92,000 customers statewide, is now asking residents in several shoreline communities to cut back their water usage even more.

In Guilford, Hilary Catala and her children are coming up with ways to conserve water.

“Things that the kids aren’t able to do outside, you know, we usually fill up a kiddie pool,” she said.

Like other Connecticut Water customers in Guilford, Madison, Clinton, Westbrook and Old Saybrook, the Catala Family on Monday received a recording asking to reduce daily water usage by 15 percent. That’s about six to eight gallons per person.

The company is asking customers statewide to continue lowering their daily water usage by 10 percent.

“Even walking around here, around town, we have a lot of different water, ponds and everything and they’re definitely not as high as they usually are,” Catala said.

The same can be said about the Killingworth Reservoir, one source of Connecticut Water’s supply.

“We’re about 8 or 9 feet down here,” Director of Service Delivery David Connors said.

“With the long term drought forecast that we’re looking at right now, it looks like we’re in for a sustained period of dry conditions,” Connors added.

The severe drought extends across more than 85 percent of the state, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“Water is a precious commodity,” Bill Shank from Guilford said, “so you have to always be concerned about it.”

Shank had some of his own ideas how to save water.

“Reduce showers, like you can lather up, turn the water off, and then rinse off and then when you do dishes,” he said, “don’t leave the water running, simple things like that add up.”

The message from Connecticut Water is any bit of conservation can help.

“We just like residents to be mindful of how much water they use,” Connors said.

While this week feels like summer, Catala’s children won’t get to play in the kiddie pool.

“Next week hopefully it will start to be more fall and seasonable,” she said, “and start to rain.”

Another way to prevent water from being wasted during this drought is fixing a leaky toilet or faucet.

The people arriving at the United States' southern border are no longer Mexican migrants, mostly men, in search of jobs, but a steady stream of asylum-seekers, NBC News reports.

The Obama administration said Monday that the prevailing view of the border is outdated, and that more Central Americans were seized along the border than Mexicans in fiscal year 2016, only the second year that's happened.

And that demographic puts a unique strain on the immigration system, since many are asylum seekers whom border agents can't simply turn them or deport.

"Walls alone cannot prevent illegal migration," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement Monday. "Ultimately, the solution is long-term investment in Central America to address the underlying push factors in the region."

An upstate New York man apparently high on hallucinogens broke into his neighbor's home to save their dog from what he thought was a burning home, police say.

There was no fire, state police told WNYT-TV. The man had consumed LSD and cough medicine and thought his neighbor's home in Saratoga County was being consumed by flames last Thursday, officials say. 

He went around his Halfmoon neighborhood banging on doors and yelling about a fire, WNYT reported. When no one would help, he drove his black BMW sedan through his neighbor's fence, went to the back door and smashed through it to retrieve the dog. 

He emerged triumphantly with the large white dog, and responding officers found him standing outside the home with the dog in his arms, police said.

"He believed that the residence was on fire and he was rescuing the dog," State Police Troop G spokesman Mark Cepiel said. 

The man, 43-year-old Michael Orchard, was arrested on charges of burglary and criminal mischief. He was jailed on $15,000 bail. 

The Nobel Academy can't seem to find Bob Dylan after he won the prize for literature, NBC News reported.

The academy's permanent secretary, Sara Danius, said she had emailed and called Dylan's "closest collaborator" to ensure he gets his hefty award of $927,740, according to a translation published in The Guardian.

So far, she said, she's received "very friendly replies," according to The Guardian — but Dylan is still nowhere to be found.

This leaves the academy in the odd position of giving up on tracking down their laureate.

Syrian opposition activists are circulating a video that appears to show a boy dangling from a building in Aleppo as rescuers try and save him, NBC News reported.

The boy seems to be secured only by his legs, which were wedged in the rubble of the partially pancaked structure in Aleppo's Qaterji neighborhood.

At first it is not clear if he has survived the attack, but his head is seen moving in response to shouts and rescuers below and the glare of their torches.

Crews move a cherry-picker into position and slide a ladder under the boy, who is eventually freed from the rubble to jubilant shouts of "allahu akbar" — meaning "God is great" in Arabic.

Former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice defines “champion” differently two years after video was released of what he calls “the worst decision of my life."

“Winning is big,” he said. “I take that and I cherish it, but if I played and never got another Super Bowl but I helped save some men in the locker room, then I'm a champion.”

Rice may be best known for what he was seen doing on a surveillance video from an Atlantic City hotel rather than anything he’d done on a football field before it. The video showed him knocking his fiancée, Janay Palmer, unconscious with a blow to the face, then dragging her off an elevator.

“It was the worst decision of my life, and I'm going to pay that consequence for the rest of my life,” Rice told News4 for the domestic violence awareness project "Safe at Home." “I have two kids, who I now have to raise my son to grow up to be a man but I also have to protect my daughter from myself, a guy that could potentially be like me in my worst moments.”

Rice said he never dealt with issues before hitting Palmer, and issues came at a young age. The eldest of four siblings, his father was shot and killed when he was very young, and he was raised by his mother.

“Me being the oldest in the house, I had to be the man at a very young age,” he said. “I tell the story that I started paying bills when I was 11 years old. I go to college and I was chasing the dream."

Rice played football at Rutgers, and then, the NFL called. The Baltimore Ravens drafted him in 2008 at the age of 21, and with that came money and fame, which he said compounded his problems, particularly in his relationship with his high school sweetheart, Janay Palmer.

“If you don't deal with issues, a small problem in your household might become a big deal,” Rice said.

Rice was indicted for aggravated assault for the incident on the videotape. Soon after, he reached a plea agreement, which included a program for first-time offenders, which required regular counseling. The case against him was dropped after he completed the program.

Now, Rice speaks out about domestic violence, most recently at a forum on the topic for the Big 12 last month.

“I want my story to be told,” he said. “There's a lot of detail to it, but I want it to be told. I want to help as many people as I can.”

“Domestic violence is a real issue,” Rice said. “It is a real issue. It happens every 12 seconds as we speak. But if you think about it, the conversation wasn't really being had the way it is now because of my video. If I can explain it to young men my worst decision I know that I can save someone.”

Palmer is now Rice’s wife. They live with their daughter and newborn son in Connecticut, not far from where they grew up in New Rochelle, New York.

“First and foremost, I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a son,” Rice said. “I was going through life trying to be ‘the man’ instead of trying to be ‘a man.’”

Initially benched for two games in 2014, Rice was suspended indefinitely from football by the NFL after the videotape was made public in September 2014. Later that year he appealed his suspension, and it was lifted, but he hasn’t played since.

“I'm not going to say I don't miss the game,” he said. “I do miss the game. The moments I miss are camaraderie with teammates. But everything I do I want to be genuine, now. I don't want to use this interview or anything like that to get back to playing.”

Rice said setting an example for his kids is most important to him, now, and he knows it's something he will have to work at for the rest of his life.

“I have to make a decision every day that I'm going to be better than I was on tape,” he said.

Before Central Park in downtown New Britain was remodeled, Mayor Erin Stewart said the area used to be a gathering spot for the homeless.

While the park was in construction for 18 months, that location changed to city property behind 85 Arch Street. The area is located behind the Friendship Center, which helps provide services to the homeless.

“The city cleared the brush away from it and we put a couple benches back there for people who live in the building to hang out back there,” Stewart said.

But for some, like Madeline Flores, the area has become a concern.

She is the property manager of Pinnacle Development Group. Flores said the group owns nearly 40 apartments near the Arch street gathering area. and she’s received complaints from her tenants.

“They do want to move out because they feel the place is unsafe especially you can’t walk at night,” Said Flores.

The New Britain Police Department said they’ve received calls about incidents in that area, including a stray bullet that struck a woman there.

Police tell NBC Connecticut they are constantly patrolling that area.

Flores’s tenant, Jose Antonia Irizarry, said he has seen them.

“A lot of nights the police come everyday over here,” Said Irizarry.

When NBC Connecticut asked if either the tenant or property manager had ever complained to the city, they told us they did not.

Stewart also told NBC Connecticut she had not received any complaints about the area, but encourages the public to call if they have concerns.

“If they do see something going on back there that would warrant a visit by the police department to contact the police department, that is the necessary channel, or the Friendship Center, or my office,” Stewart said.

Temperatures around the U.S. are expected to climb to mid-80s in the Northeast, and 90s in the South, breaking records on Tuesday, NBC News reported. Forty-four cities experienced record-breaking temperatures Monday, with Dodge City, Kansas reaching 100 degrees.

The heat wave is expected to hit the eastern part of the nation through Wednesday, with a strong cold front following.

“[Tuesday and Wednesday] should be the highest numbers,” Weather Channel meteorologist Kevin Roth said. “I would expect some 50 records or more set each day.”

Roth said that Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York could see the unseasonably warm weather bring temperatures into the mid-80’s.

A 12-year-old girl was hit by a minivan near her school in Manchester this morning and she has been transported to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center to be treated for a leg injury.

Police said the girl is a student at Illing Middle School and witnesses told officers she unexpectedly darted into the road and was crossing East Middle Turnpike, east of the Brookfield Street intersection, when she was hit by a Chrysler minivan.

Police said the girl was not in a crosswalk, the pedestrian controls were not activated when she was hit and the traffic light was green as the driver who hit the girl was traveling through the intersection.

Police responded to the intersection just before 8 a.m. and said the 12-year-old sustained a non-life-threatening leg injury. She is in stable condition.

The driver was not injured and is cooperating with the investigation, police said. The minivan sustained minor damage.

The Manchester Police Department Traffic Unit is investigating and police are asking witnesses to call Officer Augusto at 860-645-5560.

A Watertown High School teacher who is accused of inappropriately touching two high school students is due in court today.

Sixty-one-year-old Stanley Mikrut, of Southbury, is accused of touching the students between November 2015 and June 2016 during school and was charged with two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault and two counts of disorderly conduct.

Investigators said the teens, who are under the age of 18, reported it to the school earlier this month and the district immediately reported it to police and the state Department of Children and Families.

Watertown Public Schools said in a statement that Mikrut was put on administrative leave immediately.

Mikrut has been a teacher in Watertown for 15 years.

With Donald Trump underwater in almost every poll and Republicans retreating from him, Hillary Clinton's campaign is attempting to drive a wedge between the Republican nominee as the GOP standard bearer, aligning their own message with that of down-ballot Democrats, NBC News reported.

"Donald Trump is becoming more unhinged by the day, and that is increasing prospects for Democrats further down the ballot," Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said Monday while announcing millions of dollars in new aid for House and Senate candidates.

Clinton has yet to adopt the new message; she's been off the trail in recent days while preparing for Wednesday's debate. But President Obama marked the change last week when he blamed the GOP for creating Trump while campaigning for Clinton in Ohio. 

The pivot is a sign that Clinton is confident enough in her own prospects to start thinking about what comes after Nov. 8, when she'll need a friendly Senate to approve her nominees, and would like to help Democrats make inroads in the House.

McCormick & Company is recalling a specific brand of its taco seasoning because some dairy-free bottles were inadvertently filled with a product containing whey, which can cause severe reactions in people allergic to milk. 

The company said it is pulling 24 oz. Club Size Original Taco Seasoning Mix with best buy dates of June 27, 2018 and Sept. 16, 2018. The products were shipped to stores nationwide. 

McCormick said it has received one report of an allergic reaction related to the product covered by the recall. In sensitive individuals, an allergic reaction to milk can cause hives, stomach upset, vomiting and in very rare cases, anaphylaxis, a rapid onset allergic reaction that can be fatal. 

McCormick has told grocery outlets to remove the affected product from store shelves and distribution centers immediately, and to destroy it in a manner that would prevent further consumption. 

Consumers do not need to return the product to the store where it was purchased. Instead, consumers are urged to throw it out and call McCormick Consumer Affairs at 1-800-632-5847, weekdays from 9:30 AM to 7:00 PM (Eastern Time), for a replacement or full refund.

A statue of Hillary Clinton in the buff has popped up in Manhattan.

Photos posted to social media Tuesday morning showed a statue of the Democratic presidential nominee wearing an open blouse in Bowling Green.

The depiction appears to show Clinton with cloven hooves. A man in a suit -- reportedly a Wall Street banker -- peeks from behind the Clinton as she waves her hands in the air.

A video later posted to Instagram shows a woman knocking over the statue before sitting on it. The Instagram user who posted the video said that the woman threatened to attack a man who tried to pick the effigy back up. 

The woman spotted in the video was an employee with the National Museum of the American Indian, according to a spokesman for the Smithsonian Institute, which administers the lower Manhattan museum.  

"(She) was acting as a private citizen who was personally offended by the statue," the spokesman said. "Museum management is currently evaluating the situation with the employee."

The NYPD said that no artists have come forward taking responsibility for the piece and that no one was arrested or ticketed over the artwork.

The fracas comes after several statues of a naked Donald Trump were placed around the country -- including in Union Square.

One of those statues was later placed on a roof in Jersey City, welcoming drivers as they headed toward the Lincoln Tunnel. 

It's not clear if the statue of Clinton will be removed by city workers. After the Trump statue was placed in Union Square, the city Parks Department said in a statement "NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small."

A driver hit a 42-year-old mother and her 1-year-old son on Route 1 in Branford on Monday afternoon and both were seriously injured, according to police. 

Police responded to Route 1 in Branford, at the Interstate 95 exit ramp, around 3 p.m. and found a Branford woman and her 1-year-old son lying in the road.

Witnesses told officers the mother was pushing her son in a stroller and another child was walking beside them when the mother pushed the stroller in the road to avoid debris. While they were in the road, a North Branford woman struck them with a car, according to police.

Paramedics treated the mother and child at the scene and later brought them to a medical facility to be treated. Their injuries are serious, but not life-threatening, according to police. 

The other child was not injured. 

Police left the scene just before 3:40 p.m. 

A Connecticut Mental Health client placed at the Best Western Hotel in West Haven was arrested and charged with sexual assault after he was accused of groping a maid, choking her and putting his hand over her mouth to quiet her screams, according to police. 

Police responded to The Best Western Hotel at 490 Sawmill Road just after noon on Monday and the hotel staff member told police a guest assaulted her. 

Police said 22-year-old Paul Stephen Lake, of New Haven, asked the maid to clean his room, then came up from behind as she was cleaning, held her and grabbed her breasts. 

As the woman struggled with him, Lake continued to grope and grab her, then put his hands around her neck, choking her to the point where she was light-headed and dizzy, according to the incident report.

When she tried to struggle again, Lake threw her into the closet, held her down, continued to choke her and covered her mouth to try and quiet her screams, according to police. 

The victim was able to get free, screamed and ran from the room, police said, and Lake locked himself in his hotel room. 

Officers found Lake in his room and the victim identified him. 

When police spoke with Lake, he said he was in the shower and heard someone screaming, according to the incident report.  

The public defender representing Lake said he has been a ward of the state for many years, has cognitive difficulties, is on many medications and has lived in a group home.

According to the police report, Lake is a client of Connecticut Mental Health and Marrakech, which provides services for clients of the department of mental health, placed him at the hotel on Oct. 14.

When police reached out to Marrakech, they said Lake is under the care of the state department of mental health and she would contact them .   

Lake was charged with unlawful restraint, third-degree sexual assault, strangulation, third-degree assault and disorderly conduct. 

He has no criminal convictions, but was charged with assault in Maine, officials said.

He was held on bond and the victim was transported to an area hospital to be treated for minor injuries.

It's not clear if he has an attorney.

A school bus driver is accused of sexually assaulting a 5-year-old girl in his car while driving her home from a friend’s house in January, according to police and online court documents.

Ricardo Julien, 39, of Bridgeport, has been placed on an unpaid leave of absence from Dattco and picked up children in Trumbull when he was working there, according to police and Dattco. He is accused of sexually assaulting the child in his own car, then driving her home.

After learning of the allegation, the girl’s mother called police, then confronted Julien at his home, police said.

When police spoke with the 5-year-old, she said Julien previously sexually assaulted her at his home.

Julien, who police said was a friend of the victim’s family, was charged Monday with first-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a child, according to the online court docket.

He told police he is stressed and no longer able to work, police said.

Officials from Dattco said Julien worked for the company from August 2013 until February 2016, when the company learned of the allegations .

They said they conducted FBI fingerprint checks, an annual criminal background checks, multiple pre-employment examinations and federal and state requirements.

“In February of 2016, our company was informed of a pending investigation by officials of the Department of Children and Families. The company immediately placed the employee on unpaid leave of absence, pending the outcome of that investigation. He remains in a non-work status at this time, and Dattco will continue to monitor the investigation, cooperating with the authorities as required,” Dattco said in a statement.

Julien is being held on $200,000 bond and it’s not clear if he has an attorney.

He is due in court on Nov. 8.