This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. U.S. Sen. Ed Markey cruised to a decisive victory in Massachusetts’ Democratic primary against U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, as voters soundly rejected the Salem congressman’s effort to turn the race into a referendum on Markey’s age. […]

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Mike Minogue, a wealthy former medical device company CEO who poured more than $15 million into his campaign, closed out a Republican gubernatorial primary race that had begun to feel more like a formality, decisively defeating […]

In 1967, Ernie Boisvert returned from Vietnam, having served about a year before he was injured in a rocket launcher attack that killed his platoon’s lieutenant. He came back to a country that was different from when he left it after being drafted at age 20. “I didn’t want to be seen with my uniform […]

Eight days out from the Sept. 9 primary, Gov. Dan McKee’s reelection campaign is attracting national attention — and not the positive kind. A clean energy super PAC funded by solar developers and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs is spending $500,000 on a pair of McKee attack ads, the group announced on Monday. The organization, Invest in […]

The Rhode Island Ethics Commission on Tuesday declined to investigate a complaint against the president of the state Senate over votes a Koch-funded Virginia nonprofit claims benefited the education union she leads. Commissioners did, however, open a separate probe into the chamber’s No. 2 Republican over allegations involving his day job as a town public […]

The seasonal swings in energy bills will be a lot bumpier this year under a series of extra charges and discounts authorized by state utility regulators. The upshot: Rhode Island Energy customers will have to start paying more in fees beginning Sept. 1 under a $138 million revenue plan authorized by the Rhode Island Public […]

Rep. Julie Casimiro is ending her final term in office early, confirming in a Monday afternoon email to Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office that she is resigning at the close of the day. The three-paragraph email, obtained by Rhode Island Current, comes amid mounting pressure for Casimiro to give up her seat — […]

Dave Talan thinks it’s hateful. Rep. David Morales thinks it’s the right thing to do. And Providence Mayor Brett Smiley thinks it’s legally unenforceable. The candidates in Providence’s mayoral race are divided over Question 7, a citizen-led proposal that will appear before Providence voters on the Nov. 3 ballot. The ordinance — buoyed by two […]

I spent 20 years as a police officer, commanded the Investigative Services Division, and worked a federal drug task force alongside the FBI and DEA. So let me say the part my fellow privacy skeptics often leave out: a license plate reader is a genuinely useful tool.  When a suspect fled the Brown University shooting […]

Two campus police dispatchers were on duty at Brown University when reports of gunfire first emerged at 4:04 p.m. on Dec. 13, 2025. Within minutes, they were overwhelmed. The flood of incoming calls and radio chatter that stunned dispatchers is one of the communication breakdowns described in an independent review of the mass shooting at […]

Chalk it up to the high-profile and contentious primaries for state general offices and Providence mayor. Or maybe increased awareness around more convenient ballot-casting methods. Either way, over three times as many voters cast ballots at in-person polling places in the first eight days of early voting, compared to the same time frame in the […]

Providence’s response to the December 2025 mass shooting at Brown University was “highly effective” and “decisive,” according to an independent review commissioned by Mayor Brett Smiley earlier this year.  But the 76-page report published Friday by the Washington, D.C.-based Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) also identified gaps in communication and coordination among local, university, state […]

At 47 years old with nine years in elected office, Sen. Dawn Euer is hardly the most seasoned lawmaker in a chamber where many members are retirees with multiple decades in their seats. But her Democratic primary opponent — her first since winning office in a 2017 special election —insists it’s time for fresh blood […]

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha is urging state regulators to reject two insurers’ proposed increases to premiums for individual health plans in 2027. After a July administrative hearing by the state’s Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner (OHIC), Neronha’s office formally submitted a brief objecting to Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island’s (NHP) request […]

Has Gov. Dan McKee closed the gap with his Democratic primary opponent, Helena Buonanno Foulkes, as a WPRI-TV 12 poll published Tuesday indicates? Or, is the incumbent trailing by an even more significant margin while Foulkes picks up support from previously undecided voters? The latter is the finding of a University of New Hampshire poll […]

A yearslong court battle against Meta will see Rhode Island receive a payout of at least $49.4 million as part of the windfall won by a multistate effort alleging the social media behemoth knowingly designed Instagram to addict young users while misleading the public about the risks involved. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha joined […]

About one in four applicants seeking to be Rhode Island’s first inspector general has the certification required for the job, the commission tasked with selecting finalists revealed Wednesday. Only eight of the 33 applicants had certification from the Association of Inspectors General, but the panel narrowed the candidates down to six names during a 45-minute […]

The more than six-year saga of an oyster farm proposed for Tiverton’s Sapowet Cove continues with no end in sight, after a state coastal lawyer rejected neighbors’ attempt to scrap the project. A small crowd packed the second-floor state office where the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council met Tuesday, lured by a single line […]

The woman still in her pajamas sized up the man in a black jacket and blue jeans holding a clipboard at her door in Providence’s Smith Hill one rainy Saturday in May. He had just told her he’s running for U.S. Senate. As Connor Burbridge outlined a platform of taxing billionaires and support for universal […]

The state of Mississippi has long been sick of being the nation’s educational runt. For decades, they’ve scored last among states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) a.k.a., the Nation’s Report Card. Educators in other lagging states consoled themselves with: “At least we’re not Mississippi.”  Until 2019 when the state wowed the nation’s […]

Gov. Dan McKee is finally gaining ground among Democratic primary voters, but remains 15 points behind challenger Helena Buonanno Foulkes, according to a new WPRI-TV 12 poll published Tuesday. The survey of 1,000 likely voters, conducted Aug. 21 and Aug. 22 by Emerson College Polling, marks the first public poll this year in which the […]

To many Rhode Islanders, the “Rule of 90” sounds like an obscure lesson from high school geometry. Not to Scott Conley. The 53-year-old special education teacher at Davies Career and Technical High School has had more than a decade of schooling on the rule proposed as an alternative to the 2011 pension reforms led by […]

The cost to redevelop Providence’s iconic Superman building has multiplied, and so has the state taxpayer-backed financing. Rhode Island Commerce Corporation on Monday approved nearly $10 million in additional state incentives intended to help High Rock Development complete the $327 million transformation of the vacant office skyscraper overlooking Kennedy Plaza. The requested subsidies were made […]

Nearly three dozen people want to be Rhode Island’s first inspector general to root out waste and improve government efficiency. But the pool of qualified candidates may be much smaller. The five-member Inspector General Independent Advisory Commission received resumes from 33 applicants by Friday’s deadline for the position created in the fiscal 2027 state budget, […]

Rhode Island’s former U.S. attorney, along with a labor lawyer and policy adviser to the House of Representatives, are among a total of eight finalists under consideration by Gov. Dan McKee to fill two vacancies on the state’s Superior Court. The state’s Judicial Nominating Commission sent two lists of recommendations to McKee following the panel’s […]