- Moses Brown alumnus Brian Nichols rose to become assistant U.S. secretary of state, steering diplomacy in the Western Hemisphere.
- How a “sweetheart deal” allows West Warwick’s town manager to earn a $300,000 salary while collecting a $91,000 police pension in the state retirement system.
- How to get tickets and see a list of nominees for Tuesday’s All-State Rhode Island High School Sports Awards, featuring former Patriots safety Devin McCourty.
- Take our news quiz to see how well you followed what happened this week.
Here’s a look at some of The Providence Journal’s most-read stories for the week of June 18, supported by your subscriptions.
Here are the week’s top reads on providencejournal.com:
A fundraiser at a Providence Walmart featuring a Black employee in a cage asking for “bail” money to contribute to the Hasbro Children’s Miracle Network drew criticism after it was posted to social media, with some calling the move offensive.
Angela Boateng spotted the display on Wednesday night at the Silver Spring Street location, where she was making a return. She snapped a photo that was later posted to Twitter by Angela Ankoma, who leads the Rhode Island Foundation’s Equity Leadership Initiative.
“As I was exiting that Walmart on Silver Spring, I noticed this cage, and I felt like I saw somebody and I went closer … and I’m like, is there a young male in the cage? I just did not understand what was happening, but I was mortified,” Boateng recalled in an interview with The Journal.
Local news: Providence Walmart put a Black employee in a cage for a fundraiser. BLM demands an investigation.
Their adventure in Rhode Island contract-land did not begin or end on the now-famous Friday in March when two high-level Rhode Island state officials took a scandal-producing, one-day trip to Philadelphia that became a national punchline and a hashtag: #PhillyVeganCheese.
But by then, the top executives at the Philly-based urban-design firm Scout Ltd. say they already had ample reason to wonder if Gov. Dan McKee’s administration was trying to walk away from both the $56-million re-use plan they proposed for the Cranston Street Armory and their signed development contract with the state.
Scout executives say they felt pressure to voluntarily give up the $25,000-per-month fee they were promised in their June 2022 agreement with the state for “predevelopment services.” A text to one executive from David Patten, then director of the state’s property management division, said it would “go a long way with the governor if you weren’t collecting this [$25,000] monthly holding fee.”
Government: Scout speaks out on Philly scandal, says RI officials acted ‘bizarre’ even before trip
Former pro-hockey player and coach Clark Donatelli has been cleared of all charges related to the alleged sexual assault of a 46-year-old woman in Providence in November 2018.
Donatelli, 58, went to trial before Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Procaccini and was cleared of four counts of second-degree sexual assault in a sharply worded bench ruling Wednesday that faulted witness testimony as confusing and contradictory.
Courts: Former RI hockey player, coach Donatelli acquitted of sexual assault charges. Here’s why.
Providence City Councilman Justin Roias knows what it’s like to hit on hard times.
Roias is one of several council members who are renters, navigating the same frenzied market as their constituents, giving this year’s council new insight into the housing crisis.
Council President Rachel Miller said she worries about where she would go if she ever needed to leave her Willow Street apartment.
Real estate: Providence’s housing market is ‘cutthroat.’ Even city councilors are caught in the middle.
How many villages do you think there are in Rhode Island?
The answer, according to Roberta Mudge Humble, a former English professor at the Community College of Rhode Island who’s written Rhode Island trivia books and games, is more than 400. Roughly speaking, that’s one village for every 2½ square miles in the state, though not everywhere is part of a village.
And these villages are fiddly to track. Some are very clear, but others can cross town lines, be a village within a village or just have vaguely drawn boundaries. This became abundantly clear when a What and Why RI reader wrote in asking what are the accepted boundaries of Cowesett?
What and Why RI: Rhode Island has a lot of villages and they can be confusing. We try to answer why
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