It’s National Hug an Anchor Day, and anchors across the country are getting a little love from colleagues, fans, random people in parking lots and people in tomato costumes. Here’s a sample of how a few stations are celebrating.

KXRM in Colorado Springs enlisted the Fazoli’s mascot to help them celebrate:

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Reporters Todd Piro and Audrey Washington (pictured) are joining WVIT, the NBC O&O in Hartford, later this month.

Piro joins WVIT from KPSP in Palm Springs, where he is the weekday morning anchor. Prior to his television career, he was a litigation lawyer and recruitment coordinator for Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, a law firm in Los Angeles.

Washington has been a reporter at WJAR in Providence for the past two years. She has also worked at WSYR in Syracuse and WITN in Greenville.

In a statement, WVIT president and general manager David Doebler said he was “thrilled to add Todd and Audrey to our award-winning news team.” Read more

Jan Carabeo will join Hartford Fox-affiliate WTIC this week, the Hartford Courant reports.

Carabeo joins WTIC from WSYR, the ABC-affiliate in Syracuse, where she has been a general assignment reporter since 2010. Prior to that, she spent two years at WIVT, the ABC-affiliate in Binghamton.

She will be a reporter on the WTIC morning newscast. Her first day will be tomorrow.

Newport Television and Verizon reached a new retrans agreement over the weekend, just in time for FiOS subscribers in Albany to watch the Giants-Packers game on Sunday afternoon.

Unable to reach a new deal with Verizon last week, Newport pulled three of its stations from the fiber optic cable system: WSYR in Syracuse, WXXA in Albany, and WHP in Harrisburg.

“We appreciate our viewers’ patience and understanding during this situation,” Newport said in a statement posted on the stations’ websites on Sunday, announcing the new deal.

Terms of the deal have not been released.

The Newport Television-owned stations in Syracuse, Harrisburg, and Albany have been pulled from Verizon FiOS as the company was unable to reach a new retrans agreement with the cable provider before yesterday’s midnight deadline.

According to Newport executive Michael DiPasquale, the company has been “working diligently to reach a resolution in this matter.”

Newport’s previous retrans agreement with Verizon expired at 11:59 p.m. last night, leaving FiOS customers without WSYR in Syracuse, WXXA in Albany, and WHP in Harrisburg. Read more

Three stations owned by Newport Television–WSYR in Syracuse, WXXA in Albany, and WHP in Harrisburg–may be dropped from Verizon FiOS tonight as the station group stares down a deadline for retrans negotiations with the cable provider.

Newport’s current retrans contract with Verizon FiOS expires at midnight, tonight.

“We are currently working to reach a new agreement with Verizon FiOS TV,” reads a statement posted on the websites of Newport-owned stations affected by the negotiations. “However based on the current status of those discussions, we do not believe Verizon FiOS TV will be carrying [Newport stations after January 12th.”

Newport, which was founded in 2007, owns dozens of stations across the country but only three of its stations are carried on Verizon’s fiber optic cable service.

Traffic reporter Bob Baxa has been replaced on the WFTV morning newscasts by Racquel Asa.

WFTV news director Bob Jordan told the Orlando Sentinel that the station decided to take the morning traffic job in-house. Baxa, who Jordan said “did a good job for us,” was never a WFTV employee — he worked for Metro Networks.

“We wanted to do something different,” Jordan said. “We had it in the budget to grow on the reporter side.”

Asa joins WFTV from WSYR, the ABC-affiliate in Syracuse. She will be a reporter in addition to handling the traffic reports on the morning newscasts.

WSYR has chosen Rob Cartwright to lead its news team.

Cartwright, who most recently worked as assistant news director at KDAF in Dallas-Fort Worth, is set to join the Syracuse ABC-affiliate as its new news director early next year.

In announcing the hiring, WSYR vice president and general manager Theresa Underwood said Cartwright  “will add a new dimension to our staff and management team.”

Underwood recently appointed WSYR staffers Roger Mirabito to assistant ND and Jessica Purchiaroni to executive producer. Read more

With the recent addition of three new reporters, WFTV, the ABC-affiliate in Orlando, is done hiring, at least for the time being.

“We’re full,” news director Bob Jordan told the Orlando Sentinel. “I don’t have any openings. Right now, we’re booked up.”

WFTV’s three new reporters are Renee Stoll, Lori Brown and Racquel Asa. Stoll, who joined WFTV from WINK in Fort Myers, started last week; Brown, who was previously at WMC in Memphis, started yesterday. Asa starts early next month, after she finishes out her time at WSYR in Syracuse.

WSYR anchor James Gaddis appeared to be getting some shut eye at the top of the ABC-affiliate’s 11 p.m. newscast last Sunday.  As cameras went live, Gaddis was seen sitting at the anchor desk with his eyes closed until being startled into action (video above). To be fair, maybe he was meditating?

As the YouTube user who uploaded the video notes, “The pilot of ‘Pan Am,’ which just aired, must have put him to sleep.”