Providence Police at 5pm today released 41 separate body cam video recordings from a July 9 incident where three juveniles were arrested following a vehicular pursuit. Some of the video appears to show police officers punching and spitting on the juveniles, as well as threatening to arrest bystanders for talking disrespectfully. The video was posted […]
UPDATE: This extension of the eviction moratorium was ended by the US Supreme Court on Aug 26. See our follow-up: motifri.com/eviction-october-2 With an estimated six million Americans behind on their rent due to the pandemic, the expiration of the federal eviction moratorium on July 30 set off alarms about the possibility of a major economic […]
Required weekly recertification for unemployment insurance was failing on the RI Department of Labor and Training (DLT) website, according to hundreds of reports on Twitter. DLT advised Motif at 9:41am the problem had been fixed, and users could now certify. Motif broke this story today just before 5am — twitter.com/MotifMagRI/status/1421757112884121601 — asking for reports as […]
FringePVD 2021, the annual festival of off-off-off-Broadway unjuried theater performances, running now through July 31, adopts a hybrid model with both live outdoor and online virtual performances. Coordinated by the Wilbury Group, all five of the live performance venues are in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence: Farm Fresh, ISCO, Nicholson File Art Studios, The Steel […]
Competing narratives emerged from dueling press conferences about an incident in the streets of South Providence on June 29. By 6pm, scorching temperatures had cooled only slightly from the afternoon high of 97 degrees, breaking a record that had stood since 1934. On Sayles Street between Searle and Cahill streets, two blocks west of Eddy […]
This story has been updated; scroll to bottom of text. The sudden cancellation by RI state government of the remaining six of eight food truck events scheduled for 2021 in Colt and Goddard State Parks comes amidst a serious conflict of views as to what happened at the two events that were actually held. According […]
Gaspee Days is an annual celebration in Warwick and Cranston commemorating one of the first acts of violence by the colonists against the British government leading up to the American Revolution, when in 1772 the tax schooner HMS Gaspee was captured and burned to the waterline by Providence-based merchants and smugglers. After mostly canceling in […]
Almost all COVID-19 public health restrictions in RI will end tomorrow, May 21, for people who are fully vaccinated, Gov. Daniel McKee announced at his weekly press conference today. This is a week earlier than had been previously announced for the Memorial Day long weekend, May 29-31. RI Department of Health Director Nicole Alexander-Scott explained […]
The Cranston Police were wrong to seize guns without a warrant from a possibly suicidal man’s home after he had already been transported to a hospital for psychological evaluation, the United States Supreme Court ruled this morning, unanimously, in a 9-0 vote. The case is Caniglia v. Strom (20-157). On August 20, 2015, Edward Caniglia […]
As has been widely reported, the worst mass shooting in Providence history occurred last night in the Washington Park neighborhood. At a press conference this morning on Allens Avenue near the scene of the shooting, Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare provided the details on what he described as an “active criminal investigation.” “What we do […]