New Haven County | featured news

NEW HAVEN >> Eighteen strangers came face to face for the first time Thursday, sharing heartfelt stories of how an historic kidney exchange at Yale New Haven Hospital - the largest ever in the state of Connecticut - saved their lives.This meeting occurred as about 100 people gathered at YNHH's Transplantation Center for a reunion of sorts, with the donors and their kidney recipients taking center stage in the auditorium to mark the milestone event.

HARTFORD >> A housekeeper and mother of four from Guatemala who fast became a national symbol in the push for immigration reform stood shoulder-to-shoulder Thursday with supporters of a fellow compatriot facing a similar fate.

Medical services to people suffering from Lyme disease jumped 185 percent in rural areas and 40 percent in urban areas nationwide over a nine-year period, according to new research from a national nonprofit.

Here's the question more and more people around the country are asking about our state: "What on earth is wrong with Connecticut?"That's also the title of a recent analysis in The Atlantic magazine, written by Derek Thompson.

Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have loosened their guidelines on testing for the mosquito-borne virus Zika, the state Department of Public Health maintained that people still need to be vigilant about the disease.

NEW HAVEN >> A former student who accused a prominent rabbi of sexual assault told police that refusing to perform sexual acts with Rabbi Daniel Greer had been punishable by bad grades and threats of expulsion from the Yeshiva in New Haven, according to the newly released arrest warrant in the case.

NEW HAVEN >> Standing behind the television cameras at a press conference addressing violence in the city, Odell Montgomery Cooper decided she had had enough."Please don't come out here talking about your programs," Cooper said interrupting the speakers. "Our children are still dying in the streets.

NEW HAVEN >> Nury Chavarria, who was on the verge of being deported for a decade back to Guatemala last week, has now been granted an emergency stay of that order.It has been an emotional roller coaster for the 43-year-old undocumented immigrant, who had gotten stays for multiple years based on humanitarian grounds, but was told in the last month to buy a one-way ticket to a country she has not seen in 24 years.

BRIDGEPORT >> Sondra Toles broke into tears as the man accused of killing her son was brought into Superior Court Tuesday morning."I am glad justice is being served but my child is dead and nothing is going is going to make that better," the Stamford woman said as she watched Deondre Bowden stand before Judge Robert Devlin.

NEW HAVEN >> A rabbi turned himself in to police Wednesday morning following a police investigation into an alleged sexual assault of a minor.Rabbi Daniel Greer, 77, of West Park Avenue, New Haven, was charged with second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor, police said. Bond was set at $100,000.