Breaking News

Rapidly breaking news, usually short takes.

Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine fully approved by US FDA: RI hopes will boost take-up rate

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved full licensure for the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine that was given Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) on December 11, 2020, for recipients age 16 and older. It will now be known under the trade name “Comirnaty” (pronounced koe-mir’-na-tee). The identical vaccine will continue to be available under […]

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Police punching, spitting on juveniles: Body cam video released by PVD

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 […]

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Eviction moratorium extended to Oct 3: Covers 90% US population

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 […]

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RI Unemployment Insurance website fixed: Was blocking weekly reporting

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 […]

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