Rhode Island news and stories by mail.com

Rhode Island

Grief still smolders 10 years after RI club fire
Along a busy commercial road here sits a 10-year-old scar that hasn't healed. Next to a crumbling parking lot, rusty folding chairs sit amid dozens ...
Deadly RI fire remembered; memorial plans advance
Ten years after a deadly nightclub fire, some survivors and relatives of the 100 who died in the blaze remember it with quiet pain. Huddled together ...
100 RI fire victims remembered in outdoor ceremony
Survivors of a 2003 nightclub fire that killed 100 people and relatives of those killed huddled together in bitter cold Sunday at the site of the ...
RI records: Relatives worried about Catholic widow
The disgraced Roman Catholic religious order the Legion of Christ bent its own rules for a wealthy elderly woman while it also isolated her from some ...
RI records show inner workings of Legion of Christ
Documents released Friday shed light on the inner workings of a secretive and now-disgraced Roman Catholic order called the Legion of Christ, ...
A glimpse downstairs at America's Downton Abbey
If the Crawley family of "Downton Abbey" were American, they'd summer at Newport. The wild stateside success of the British period drama about ...
Snow-buried communities seek help from residents
With schools still closed, cars still buried and streets still blocked by the widespread weekend snowstorm, officials around southern New England are ...
Rhode Island struggles with highest unemployment
Mark Simmons began dialing Rhode Island's unemployment call center at 8 a.m. on a recent Monday. He got a busy signal. He tried 67 more times before ...
Northeast slowly recovering from blizzard
Travel eased and life slowly returned to normal for most New Englanders after a massive blizzard, but many remained without power in cold and darkened ...
New England begins the big dig-out after epic snow
New Englanders began the back-breaking job of digging out from as much as 3 feet of snow Saturday and emergency crews used snowmobiles to reach ...
Snowstorm hits NYC, Boston; 1 to 3 feet feared
A storm that forecasters warned could be a blizzard for the history books, with a potential for up to 3 feet of snow, clobbered the New York-to-Boston ...
Cast out of Monopoly, the clothes iron endures
When online voters nixed the clothes iron token from Hasbro's Monopoly game, the appliance was held up as passe, as something your grandmother once ...
Monopoly fans vote to add cat, toss iron tokens
The Scottie dog has a new nemesis in Monopoly after fans voted in an online contest to add a cat token to the property trading game, replacing the ...
Charity set up after RI fire has had modest effect
Months after they were sentenced for a 2003 fire at their Rhode Island nightclub that killed 100 people, Jeffrey and Michael Derderian set up a ...
Providence theater experiments with 'tweet seats'
Sarah Bertness slipped into her seat at a recent staging of the musical "Million Dollar Quartet" and, when the lights dimmed, started doing something ...
Brazil blaze recalls pain for RI fire survivors
Argentina, a year later. Thailand in 2008. Russia in 2009. For survivors of a 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire that was one of the deadliest in U.S.
Religious exemptions key to RI gay marriage debate
The fate of gay marriage legislation in Rhode Island could hinge on the exemptions it affords religious groups that oppose it, the state Senate ...
Rhode Island House easily passes gay marriage bill
The Rhode Island House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly passed legislation to allow gays and lesbians to marry in the only New England ...
Tattoos memorialize victims of RI nightclub fire
The sacred heart tattoo inside Paula McLaughlin's wrist serves as an everyday reminder of her brother and sister-in-law, Michael and Sandy Hoogasian, ...
Olympic medalist Michelle Kwan marries in RI
Olympic medalist figure skater Michelle Kwan and a grandson of the late U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell have married in Rhode Island. The Providence Journal ...
Smallest state is big battleground on gay marriage
Hundreds of supporters of same-sex marriage rights assembled at the Rhode Island Statehouse on Tuesday, urging lawmakers to make the nation's smallest ...
Corea, Shorter, Cole, Spalding to play at Newport
Saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Chick Corea, singer Natalie Cole and bassist Esperanza Spalding are among the greats and rising stars of the jazz ...
Officials talk guns, hold buybacks after shootings
The national gun debate swelled Tuesday as Arizona and the country commemorated the shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., two years ago that killed six ...
Cities chart course through pension morass
In Philadelphia, pension costs doubled in a single decade. Cities in Rhode Island dimmed streetlights, raised taxes and put off road repairs.