Providence County | featured news

With only a week before one lucky person is chosen to flip the switch on the Brayton Point cooling tower demolition, organizers behind the raffle are reporting that more than 250 tickets have been sold to people eager to see the towers come down.

 PROVIDENCE — Over howls of protest from Rhode Island's municipal leaders, the House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a two-bill package mandating that cities and towns pay overtime to firefighters who average more than 42 hours in a workweek, as opposed to the 53-hour-a-week federal O.T. threshold.The largely party-line vote was 62-9  in a state that regularly tops the [...]

PROVIDENCE — As she read through a collection of letters at her home in Warren on Monday, Mary Goff was struck by the signature on one.Goff is an Army veteran who had served as a nurse during the Vietnam War, based in Japan, caring for U.S. soldiers. This letter, among 30 or so delivered to her during last Saturday's Honor Flight, was written by a woman who was also a nurse. The woman wrote that her son had been in Iraq, so she knew how important mail was to him and all [...]

The Red Sox celebrated the raising of their 2018 World Series championship banner before 36,179 chilled fans at Fenway Park on Tuesday. But the festivities were dampened by a 7-5 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, leaving Boston with a 3-9 record to start the season. Story, Sports, B1. More photos, A4.

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — New York City officials on Tuesday declared a public health emergency and ordered mandatory measles vaccinations to halt an outbreak concentrated among ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, putting in place the broadest vaccination order in the United States in nearly three decades.The order is the latest flashpoint in a nationwide battle to try to stop the second biggest flare-up of the disease since 2000 — spurred by travel to [...]

PROVIDENCE — Students hoping to become physician assistants, including House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello's son, are part of a push to expand the use of physician assistants in Rhode Island by giving them the legal freedom to care for patients outside the direct supervision of doctors.A bill scheduled for a committee vote Wednesday would replace mandatory physician assistant supervision by [...]

JERUSALEM (AP) — Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be headed toward a historic fifth term as Israel's prime minister on Wednesday, with close-to-complete unofficial election results giving his right-wing Likud and other nationalist and religious parties a solid majority in parliament.The outcome affirmed Israel's continued tilt to the right and further dimmed hopes of a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Re-election will also give Netanyahu an important boost [...]

WASHINGTON - In President Donald Trump's latest blowup over immigration, senior adviser Stephen Miller hovered omnipresent in the background - goading him in his threats to close the border, warning him of the dangers of looking weak and encouraging the president's sudden purge of his homeland security team. Another top adviser who has Trump's ear on immigration, son-in-law Jared Kushner, maintained a lower profile during the uproar. Shortly before joining Trump on a trip [...]

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., engaged in a fierce clash Tuesday, squaring off amid rising antagonism between the White House and congressional Democrats. Their disagreement appeared to be over something innocuous - how long Mnuchin would continue to testify at a hearing - but Waters refused to budge and Mnuchin became furious when he wasn't dismissed more than three hours after the [...]