Rhode Island | featured news

Car owners who owe back taxes are no longer told that their vehicle's registration will soon expire — and if it does expire, that exposes them to car impoundment if they're pulled over and insurance coverage lapses if they're involved in a crash. It's another stumble by an expensive new state-government computer system.

WARWICK — The latest budget proposal from the city's school system calls for about $7.7 million more than what Mayor Joseph J. Solomon proposes.This afternoon, the City Council is taking up the matter at the outset of a marathon budget hearing.Solomon’s $322.8-million budget calls for $165.9 million in school spending.The school system [...]

PROVIDENCE - State police are investigating after a driver fled the scene of a rollover crash on Interstate 95 North early Tuesday morning.At around 1 a.m., a 2013 Infiniti with New York registration was seen heading north near the Atwells Avenue overpass when it crossed all lanes of travel, struck the concrete barrier and rolled over, landing on its roof in the high-speed lane, according to Rhode Island State Police spokeswoman Laura Meade Kirk.The driver fled and the vehicle [...]

PROVIDENCE — Legislation to give the victims of childhood sexual abuse more time to sue their abusers — and the institutions that shielded these predators — won the unanimous approval of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday night en route to a vote by the full House before the end of the week. "This is Annie's bill," said the choked-up sponsor — Rep. Carol Hagan McEntee — who introduced the bill in the name of her now 66-year-old sister who [...]

PROVIDENCE — It's called Summit Fever, the compulsion to summit Mount Everest even though every inch of your body tells you to turn around.It has contributed to one of the deadliest climbing seasons on the world's tallest mountain, with 11 deaths this year. It has resulted in traffic jams on the knife-like ridge to the top, with climbers stacked up dozens deep while their oxygen tanks run dangerously low.Tim Warren, a chiropractor from North Kingstown, climbed Everest in [...]

NARRAGANSETT — Narragansett residents are being warned to watch out for bears after a woman had the a close encounter — the second in two days — with one Tuesday afternoon."Yes, it's 'cool', but it is a bear, a wild animal," Narragansett Animal Control posted on its Facebook page. "If sighted please secure yourself as quickly as possible!"According to Narragansett Animal Control, a woman took photos of the American black bear exploring her car after she [...]

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — When Susana Vazquez saw a West Kingston Fire Department float carrying a statue of a Native American holding a flathead fire axe coming down the street during the South Kingstown Memorial Day parade, her immediate thought was, who signed off on this?“Honestly, the first thing that came to mind was, who let this go through?” said Vazquez, 34, of South Kingstown, who was at the parade on Monday with her children.The appearance of the statue [...]

PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — Workers simulated the shutdown on Tuesday of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, just days before the plant will stop producing energy after 47 years of operation.On Friday, a team of workers will begin the process of reducing the plant's power output from the current 40% of its capacity to zero.The final process will occur over about a five-hour period in a 1970s-era control room that contains hundreds of levers, gauges, lights and buttons. [...]

Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea's decision to shield a key piece of the state's voter rolls from public view could soon be enshrined in state law.As The Journal battles Gorbea over the matter in court, The House Judiciary Committee Tuesday passed a [...]

WARWICK — A proposal for a large offshore wind farm that could power as much as a quarter of Rhode Island’s electric load cleared a major hurdle on Tuesday when regulators approved a contract between the developers and the state’s dominant utility.The state Public Utilities Commission unanimously voted in favor of the 20-year agreement under which National Grid will buy power from the 400-megawatt Revolution Wind Farm that is being developed in Rhode Island Sound [...]