Attorney General Peter Neronha announced today his office will press no charges against any officers involved with the Jhamal Gonsalves moped crash on October 18. The announcement from the AG’s office comes after a two and half month investigation. Jhamal Gonsalves had been driving a moped for the Ride Out rally on that day, before […]
Rep. Joe Shekarchi is officially the new Speaker of the House in Rhode Island. The state’s House of Representatives met today for the first meeting of the new legislative session. Shekarchi became speaker-presumptive last fall, shortly after then-Speaker Nicholas Mattiello lost his race to Barbara Fenton-Fung in District 16. “The COVID crisis has dealt a […]
A few weeks ago I went to a virtual screening of PechaKucha (look it up, you won’t regret it) and stumbled across a wonderful initiative in Rhode Island, an Instagram account called the_hidden_worlds_of_pvd, which chronicles the adventures of Justin Foster, who has dubbed himself an “urban wanderer.” Foster defines it simply: “Urban wandering is the […]
President Donald Trump signed the combined $900 billion pandemic relief bill and $1.4 trillion omnibus funding bill around 8pm on Sunday, December 27, after almost a week of issuing implied threats that he might not do so. The delay already allowed critical unemployment insurance (UI) provisions to lapse the prior day, although the bill provides […]
In the last few days, there has been a near-panic reaction to the discovery of a mutation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. The mutated lineage – in virology, a “lineage” suggests a variant somewhat closer to its immediate ancestors than a “strain” – is now named “Variant of Concern 202012/01,” having been referenced […]
A second inmate has died from COVID-19 at the Adult Correctional Institution (ACI), according to a statement from the RI Department of Corrections (DoC) on the afternoon of Friday, December 25. Motif previously reported the first inmate death on Saturday, December 19, and the first staff death on Monday, December 14. “The inmate requested ‘Comfort […]
Governor Gina Raimondo, DOH director Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, DOA director Brett Smiley and Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor gave the weekly COVID press briefing today at 1pm. DOH reports 880 new cases of the novel coronavirus since yesterday, from around 12,000 tests taken yesterday. The positive test rate is 7.1%. There are 440 people hospitalized with […]
The most recent meeting of the state Senate, with pols sitting in auditorium chairs using iPads to cast their votes, looked more like a university debate club than a session in the storied Smith Hill chamber. After a five-month pause, legislators met offsite to allow adequate separation. The Senate convened in Rhode Island College’s Sapinsley […]
While expected by political observers, the announcement that the General Assembly had finally confirmed the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s first non-white associate justice – and the first Asian American Superior Court judge, and the first Latina to the Family Court – might have come as a surprise to many, given the state’s overall racial diversity […]
The Moderna vaccine against COVID-19 was unanimously approved for use in RI this morning at an emergency meeting of the RI Department of Health (DoH) Vaccine Sub-Committee, following the issuance by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) on Friday, December 18. Doses are expected to begin arriving in […]