Rhode Island, Providence County | featured news

NEW YORK — David Letterman says he stuck around on network television about 10 years too long.He made that admission during an appearance Thursday on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show. Letterman quit in 2015 after 33 years as a late-night host on CBS and NBC, and is beginning his second season on his more leisurely paced Netflix show."That's not true," DeGeneres told him."Yes, it is true," Letterman replied. "It turns out nobody had the [...]

PROVIDENCE — The verdict has come down on the Rhode Island lawmaker who voted not just once on a run of House bills, but a second time for a colleague who was not there.On Thursday, House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello's chief of staff handed Rep. Raymond Hull — a Providence police sergeant — a "letter of admonishment."It was signed by Mattiello, House Majority Leader K. Joseph Shekarchi, House Majority Whip John "Jay" Edwards and House Rules Committee Chairman [...]

PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island Commerce Corporation board meeting, at which tax breaks for a proposed Farm Fresh RI food hub is expected to be discussed, has been postponed from Monday to Tuesday at 4 p.m., a corporation spokesman said.Farm Fresh RI, based in Pawtucket, has proposed a $15.5-million, 61,500-square-foot building on a 3.2-acre site on the southern bank of the Woonasquatucket River at 498 Kinsley Ave., where a warehouse burned down in 2015. The facility would house [...]

For the first time since the start of the Great Recession, the number of jobs in Rhode Island has dropped from above 495,000 to below that mark, according to monthly figures made public Thursday by the state Department of Labor and Training.

SCITUATE — The state police on Thursday announced charges against 88 people who investigators say fraudulently received food stamps.The suspects got about $469,000 in public assistance over the last several years, even though they had outstanding criminal court warrants when they applied, the state police said Thursday.People who faced those warrants, with charges ranging from attempted murder to robbery to drug charges to felony shoplifting, aren’t eligible to [...]

Warwick City Council President Steven B. Merolla has fond memories of public moorings in waters close to Goddard Park. He and colleagues on the City Council have set out to bring them back, with help from state lawmakers and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

PROVIDENCE — In some states, one political party dominates even without a lift from gerrymandering.The most extreme examples are Massachusetts, Hawaii and Rhode Island, all of which have legislatures controlled by Democrats.Their control is so complete that in about two-thirds of legislative races in each state last fall, voters had just one ballot option: the Democratic candidate.The percentage of races lacking major party opposition was 71 percent in [...]

Fred Adler, an immigrant from Romania, opened Adler's Army and Navy Store in 1919. It was one of three businesses in the building that's now 173 Wickenden St., alongside a butcher and a plumbing supply store.

NEW BEDFORD — The New Bedford Historical Society and the Frederick Douglass Memorial Committee are calling on artists, artisans or artist-lead-teams to create a permanent original artwork of a young Frederick Douglass.The sculpture will celebrate Douglass through the creation of a timeless and permanent art sculpture of [...]

PROVIDENCE — Periodically interrupted by boos and shouts from members of the audience, Mayor Jorge Elorza and members of his staff gave a presentation Thursday night about the city’s proposal to monetize its water-supply system as a way to help pay down its pension liabilities.Eight protesters stood holding signs and banners at the front of the auditorium at Nathanael Greene Middle School, where the second of three public information sessions on the water proposal [...]