Rhode Island, Providence | featured news

Rhode Island's proposed crackdown on state public safety workers spending years on paid injury leave is facing pushback from public-sector unions and now from municipal leaders disappointed that cities and towns have been cut out of potential changes.Gov. Gina Raimondo's budget proposal for next year would close "loopholes" in Rhode Island law that allow [...]

PROVIDENCE — An offer of two cigarettes led to a mother's freedom.Another cigarette secured the release of an 8-year-old boy.But Sgt. Michael Wheeler still had to persuade three armed men to surrender without anyone getting hurt: the cops, the suspects and a father who was still being held hostage in the apartment.This was hours into the hostage [...]

PROVIDENCE — State Medicaid administrators are chasing nursing homes across the state for the repayment of $60.8 million they were advanced to hold them over while the applications of scores of prospective nursing home patients were snagged for long periods by the state's balky "UHIP" computer system.The immediate problem: most of that money represents double payments to nursing homes which are not responding now to the state's entreaties to pay the money back, state [...]

Mayor Jorge Elorza announced Thursday that members of the Providence State House delegation would withdraw the Municipal Water Supply Systems Transactions Act, the bill that would have allowed the city to lease its water-supply system to an outside entity, an idea that was met with resistance by residents and office-holders.

Votes don't impede facility's operation, which is governed by a quasi-public board. But action comes in response to the holding of immigrant detainees at the prison.

Rhode Island transportation officials are asking lawmakers' permission to borrow $200 million for the long-planned reconstruction and widening of the Route 95 north viaduct through downtown Providence.

Connor’s peers said a few words for him at the start of Wednesday’s unified basketball game, and during a moment of silence in his honor, all that could be heard were soft sobs from a few people in the packed gymnasium.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — The crew of the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed shortly after takeoff last month performed all of the procedures recommended by Boeing when the plane started to nose dive but could not save it, according to a preliminary report released Thursday by Ethiopia's government.The report was based on data from the recorders of [...]

WASHINGTON - The senior White House official whose security clearance was denied last year because of concerns about foreign influence, private business interests and personal conduct is presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, according to people familiar with documents and testimony provided to the House Oversight Committee. Kushner was identified only as "Senior White House Official 1" in committee documents released this week describing the testimony of Tricia Newbold, a [...]

HAMPDEN, Maine (AP) -- A Maine police detective was fatally injured on Interstate 95 Wednesday when a wheel came loose from a logging truck and struck him as he was attending to a disabled vehicle, state officials said. Detective Benjamin Campbell, 31, was out of his vehicle Wednesday morning when two wheels separated from the truck, which was driving past, Maine State Police said. Campbell, who had been a member of the Maine State Police for about seven years, was in the [...]