Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

By Michael P. McKinney
Journal staff writer

A 55-year-old South Kingstown woman has received one year's probation after pleading no contest to breaking in to a University of Rhode Island sorority house last year. She must also undergo mental-health counseling and is barred from the university by a no-contact order.

Margo A. Caddick made the plea yesterday in Washington County Superior Court to one felony count of breaking and entering a dwelling place and one misdemeanor count of receiving stolen goods worth less than $500, according to Michael J. Healey, spokesman for Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch. Last March, the police said Sigma Delta Tau sorority sisters found Caddick looking into the sorority house refrigerator.

Prosecutors dismissed a related multiple-felony/misdemeanor case brought later last year that covered alleged stealing of Tiffany lamps, computers, televisions, and jewelry from area homes and the university.

According to Healey, the state dismissed the case because "because it had a legal issue that arguably we may not have been able to overcome" -- namely, the defense lawyer's argument of an improper process that led to the police obtaining search warrants.

Caddick, after opting not to cooperate during an initial police interview and thereby invoking her right to remain silent, was interviewed by the police a second time and gave information that authorities used to secure search warrants. However, according to Healey, there is case law to suggest that the police can only go back to interview a suspect if the person initiates it and if the suspect is provided a lawyer.

By Michael P. McKinney
Journal staff writer

CUMBERLAND -- Cumberland's teachers union is asking a court to overturn an arbitrator's ruling that found the school district will not have to find an additional $1 million-plus for salaries across two years.

The union's motion to vacate, filed Jan. 29 in Providence County Superior Court, says the arbitrator "exceeded his powers or so imperfectly executed them." The motion asks the court to also sustain the underlying union grievance that led to arbitration and to grant any further relief to the teachers union that the court deems "just and proper."

The disagreement centers around which salary increases should correspond to a schedule of "steps" in the contract that ends Aug. 31.

Union members ratified the three-year pact on Sept. 1, 2006, after the old contract expired. However, some teachers got paychecks in the contract's first year for amounts below figures presented by the union's negotiators. Teachers complained.

Arbitrator Lawrence E. Katz's decision said that union negotiators made an apparent error in the salaries/steps they presented to the union membership as ratification loomed three years ago. The decision also noted that negotiators from both sides erred by not having clarity and relying on information not in writing.

The arbitrator said the union reviewed its presentation "and realized that an error was made" for teachers in salary steps five through eight. Union and School Committee representatives met, with spreadsheets of how salaries would correspond to steps, but disagreement on the contract interpretations lingered.

"Numerous" teachers complained in year-two of the contract, the arbitrator said, because they believed paychecks issued on Sept. 14, 2007, placed them on a salary schedule at one step lower than they should have been.

Katz's 75-page ruling said the union's interpretation the salaries/steps "would produce a disproportionately high pay increase for the teachers."

By Michael P. McKinney
Journal staff writer

WOONSOCKET, R.I. -- So that the city can pay its bills without police and firefighter layoffs, the City Council has approved recommendations by Mayor Susan D. Menard to cut all city employee salaries by 5 percent, compel them to pay 15 percent of their health insurance costs, and require residents who had been getting free trash pickup to pay $96 a year for it.

The seven-member council last night approved proposals that Menard has said aim to close a financial chasm opened by an expected $3.6 million loss of non-school aid from the state.

The moves -- approved on a 6-to-1 vote -- add up to $2.4 million in savings. A proposed $1.2 million in short-term borrowing that had been part of Menard's recommendations was not part of what the council approved last night, Councilman John F. Ward said.

Also in the council-approved plan is an expected $1 million in host fees -- $500,000 in each of two years -- that would come to the city by having someone privately run the sewer lines and pumps that go to the wastewater treatment plant, Ward said. The city currently manages them. The city is soliciting bids.

The health insurance element of the plan also states that employees who have worked a certain number of years to make them eligible for retirement would contribute 10 percent to the cost of their health care, not the 15 percent other employees will have to pay.

The Journal reported in December that union leaders said officials had raised the potential of laying off up to a third of the city's firefighters and police officers.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A former Rhode Island Hospital security guard today was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for stealing hospital patients' identity information and opening cell phone and charge accounts at a Cranston RadioShack -- with help from some store clerks.

Michael Bermudez, 27, of Regent Avenue, Providence, received a 39-month prison sentence from U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith after pleading guilty in August to conspiracy to commit credit card fraud, trafficking in unauthorized and counterfeit access devices (credit cards and cell phones), and aggravated identity theft, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente's office.

The sentence includes a mandatory, consecutive two-year sentence for aggravated identity theft. Bermudez must also pay $18,000 restitution to RadioShack, Sprint and AT&T.

>> Continue reading: Ex-R.I. Hospital guard sentenced for patient ID thefts

By Michael P. McKinney
Journal staff writer

The Rhode Island inmate who garnered national media attention after an online photo showed him in a "jail bird" prison jumpsuit for a Halloween party two weeks after his drunken-driving crash injured a Lincoln woman will continue to wear the real thing -- at the Adult Correctional Institutions.

The Parole Board today denied Joshua Lipton's parole request, which came a third of the way into a two-year sentence at the ACI in Cranston. It was Lipton's first eligibility for parole consideration.

In its decision, the board said it "believes strongly" that Lipton should serve the full two years of his sentence.

"To parole Mr. Lipton would depreciate the seriousness of the offense," the board's decision stated, according to Kenneth Walker, Parole Board chairman.

Walker said the board closely examined Lipton's case and his time served at the ACI, the testimony, and weighed the serious injuries to the victim.

>> Continue reading: No parole for wearer of 'jail bird' jumpsuit on Facebook

By Michael P. McKinney
Journal staff writer

LINCOLN -- When Rhode Island commemorates the 200th birthday of the nation's most famous Lincoln with a ceremony for the launch of commemorative postal stamps, the question is: where to go and who to invite? The answer: The town named in honor of Abraham Lincoln, and two former Rhode Island politicians named Lincoln.

One of the invited Lincolns was former Gov. Lincoln Almond, and the other, former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee. Almond has confirmed for the Feb. 9 stamp launch at Lincoln High School but Chafee will be out of state, Randall Rosenbaum, secretary of Rhode Island's Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, said today.

"It's a day full of Lincolns," Rosenbaum said.

Abraham Lincoln, the nation's sixteenth president, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation, figured prominently in the lead-up to the inauguration of Barack Obama, the first African-American elected president -- a lead-up that included performances in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington the day before Obama's swearing-in on Tuesday.

The U.S. Postal Service is issuing four commemorative stamps about Abraham Lincoln, and the Feb. 9 ceremony is for the "first day of issue" of the stamps. Each stamp features a different image if Lincoln: president, lawyer, rail splitter, and politician.

There's an only-in-Rhode Island moment, too: Former Governor Almond's nephew is T. Joseph Almond, the town administrator in Lincoln. Rosenbaum said that the draft program for the 10 a.m. ceremony at Lincoln High School calls for, among other things, a welcome by the town administrator, schools superintendent and a bicentennial commission official, the national anthem performed by the Lincoln High School chorus and "A Reflection on Lincoln by Lincoln" -- given by former Gov. Lincoln Almond.

Jenny McKay-Fazzina, postmaster in Pawtucket, will do the stamp unveiling. And the Lincoln High School Band will perform "The Blue & the Gray," described as a medley of Civil War music.

A reception will follow in the school library.

More bicentennial events are scheduled in Rhode Island this year and into the first two months of next year. Go to http://www.rilincoln200.org/events.html for information.

PROVIDENCE -- The city's property revaluation process is getting under way and today residential interior inspections will start.

Richard Kerbel, the city administration director, on Friday announced that the process of a "full" revaluation has begun. In full revaluations, properties are reviewed individually, while statistical revaluations are based on home sale price data.

CLT, the revaluation firm that did 1999's full revaluation and did statistical revaluations in 2003 and 2006, will begin in the West End neighborhood. It is expected to be a year-long process.

Rhode Island requires a revaluation every three years and a full revaluation every nine years.

The news release said the main reason for revaluation is to establish fair market value on all property to maintain equitable property tax distribution.

Data will go to the tax assessor for the Dec. 31, 2009 tax roll. The new valuations will be reflected in 2010 tax bills.

Property owners are not required to allow data collectors into their homes or businesses, but public participation is important in obtaining accurate values, according to the news release.

Head to Fall River, Mass., tonight to hear Paul Geremia, whom the Journal's online calendar, projothebeat.com, describes as one of the best country blues guitarists around.

"His unique stylings and encyclopedia like knowledge of the blues make him a national treasure," the description says.

The show is at 8 p.m. at the Narrows Center for the Arts, 16 Anawan St.

Tickets are $15 in advance and $17 on the day of the show.

By Mark Reynolds
Journal staff writer

CRANSTON -- A 62-year-old Cranston mobster was accused of delivering cocaine and prescription drugs to locations in Providence and Cranston in an indictment handed up today by the Providence County grand jury.

Gerald M. Tillinghast, of 33 Meadow Court, is among three individuals named in the indictment, each whom allegedly violated the controlled substance laws, according to the grand jury's report.

Last fall, the mob enforcer was accused of running a narcotics and gambling ring in the aftermath of his release from prison in 2007, which followed a 30-year sentence for the 1977 murder of loan shark George Basmajian.

Tillinghast and two other men, 64-year-old John Souza, also of Cranston, and 47-year-old Michael Borders, of Johnston, are accused of conspiring to deliver hydrocodone and cocaine, says the grand jury's report.

The men allegedly delivered controlled substances to confidential informants on Sept. 19, 2008, says the report.

Tillinghast and Souza allegedly made other deliveries to informants in Cranston on Sept. 12, Sept. 26, and Oct. 3, the report says. They allegedly delivered hydrocodone to an informant in Providence on Oct. 18, it says.

The grand jury indictment also accuses Souza, of 23 Golini Drive, and Borders, of 87 Victoria Avenue 2nd Floor, of engaging in bookmaking in Cranston in September.

Tillinghast is charged with one count of conspiring to violate the controlled substance law; and six counts of delivering a controlled substance.

Souza is charged with one count of conspiring to violate the controlled substance law; six counts of delivering a controlled substance; one count of conspiracy and one count of bookmaking.

Borders is charged with one count of conspiring to violate the controlled substance law, two counts of delivering a controlled substance; one count of conspiracy and, one count of bookmaking.

The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 4 in Providence County Superior Court.

The Rhode Island State Police, the attorney general's office and the Massachusetts State Police conducted the investigation.

Also named in an in an indictment handed up today was the well-known owner of the flea market where Tillinghast allegedly ran his schemes.

Lloyd Morse, of 46 Cliffdale Ave., Cranston, made headlines when he feuded with Cranston officials over their efforts to take down a 25-foot inflatable gorilla in his yard.

The indictment charges Morse with conspiracy, larceny over $500, seven counts of delivering a controlled substance, unlawful sale of a firearm, aiding and abetting and possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

Anthony J. Carter of Pawtucket was sentenced this afternoon to two life sentences after reaching a plea bargain today in Providence County Superior Court. Providence Journal photo / Bob Thayer

PROVIDENCE -- Anthony J. Carter today was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment for killing two women in Providence in 2007 and then setting fire to an apartment where his victims were living to try to destroy evidence.

Carter, of Pawtucket, was sentenced in Providence County Superior Court for the slayings of Heather Jesus, 20, and her cousin, Amanda Sousa, 17, at Jesus' Silver Lake apartment on June 14, 2007, and for various robberies over the previous 12 days.

Carter also received several other provisions in his sentence, all of them running concurrent with the life terms. He got 10 years for conspiracy, 20 years for arson, and he got 20 years each for six first-degree robberies in which he was a co-conspirator. The sentences for the robberies will not begin until Jan. 28.

Raymond Clements, who was a co-conspirator in the robberies, is serving 15 years on the robbery charges. He has not been indicted on murder charges.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney, with reports from Journal staff writer Talia Buford

A Fall River man who authorities said raped a mentally retarded man multiple times between January 2004 and October 2006 has been convicted and sentenced.

Buddy Smith, 23, was found guilty by a Taunton, Mass., Superior Court jury of charges of indecent assault and battery of a retarded person, witness intimidation, and rape, according to a news release from Bristol County District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter's office.

Judge Barbara Dortch-Okara sentenced Smith to 7 to 10 years in state prison. Smith will be placed on probation for five years upon his release.

The district attorney's office said the charges carried a maximum 20-year sentence in state prison; the Commowealth had recommended 15 to 20 years.

Smith's probation conditions are he must stay away from the victim and victim's family; he can't work or volunteer with disabled people; he can't have access to computers or chat lines; he must register as a sex offender; and, he must attend counseling for sex-crime perpetrators.

He will be required to wear a global positioning system monitoring bracelet during his probation.

The trial lasted five days and the jury deliberated for about four hours, according to the district attorney's office.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

By John Mulligan
Journal Washington Bureau

Tributes have continued to pour in for the late Sen. Claiborne Pell, who died on Jan 1.
One noteworthy encomium this week came from a long-ago protégé, newly sworn in as a member of the 111th Congress. Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia, recalled in a House floor speech his years working under Pell as a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Connolly, who has served for several years as chairman of the Fairfax County legislature, recounted some of the familiar facts of Pell's public service -- and added some little-known quirks, as well as a personal note.

``Senator Pell came from a political family that had five members serve in the House or Senate, including his great-great-granduncle George M. Dallas, who was a senator from Pennsylvania in the 1830s and vice president under President James K. Polk in the 1840s,'' Connolly said in his speech. ``Sen. Pell's version of his family genealogy insisted that Dallas, Texas, was named for his distinguished forebear.''

Connolly added, ``I had the great privilege of working with Sen. Pell during his tenure as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where I served on the Committee staff. Sen. Pell was a gracious and thoughtful man. He met with any and all constituents who requested a meeting, and he did so always on time.''

PROVIDENCE -- Judge Gilbert V. Indeglia today sentenced Hamlet M. Lopez to life imprisonment without parole for murdering Lopez's former girlfriend, Miledis Hilario, 40, in her Federal Hill apartment on May 20, 2007.

The judge concluded in Providence County Superior Court that there had been "aggrevated battery and torture" and that Lopez, 53, is not a good candidate for rehabilitation. Those are two legal prerequisites for imposing the maximum sentence in Rhode Island of life in prison without parole.

Indeglia said that "a monster ... dwelling within him" exploded that day and Lopez slashed and stabbed Hilario 40 times, including a four-inch knife thrust to the heart.

Both the prosecution and the Coalition Against Domestic Violence called it a classic case of domestic violence.

Lopez, in his statement to probation officers, continued to proclaim his innocence, as his did family. Lopez had worked as a teacher's aide in city schools and has hosted his own Spanish-language radio show.

His lawyer, John F. Cicilline, immediately filed a notice of appeal with the court.

-- Journal staff writer Gregory Smith, with Journal archival reports

PROVIDENCE -- A businessman who illegally distributed steroids and human growth hormone was sentenced today to two years in federal prison and ordered to pay $19,000 in restitution to Blue Cross & Blue Shield.

Daniel McGlone had pleaded guilty to 50 counts, including conspiracy, illegal drug distribution, money laundering and health-care fraud.

In sentencing him, the judge today described McGlone as the lynchpin of a drug-dealing operation.

McGlone ran American Pharmaceutical Group from his New Brunswick, N.J., apartment and advertised in magazines geared to bodybuilders. When customers contacted McGlone, including some from Rhode Island, he advised them on which drugs they should take.

McGlone today apologized to people to whom he sold drugs and to his family

Prosecutors have said McGlone paid doctors to write medically unnecessary prescriptions for hundreds of patients they never met or examined.

-- With reports from Journal staff writer Katie Mulvaney and The Associated Press

Tonight, President Bush will give his farewell address as president and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick will deliver a State of the State address.

NBC Nightly News reported that it will begin carrying coverage of the president's speech at 8 p.m.

Patrick is scheduled to speak at 7:30 p.m., according to the governor's office Web site. It is slated to be broadcast on Boston channels 5, 7, 38, and New England Cable News, some radio stations, and streamed live by the legislature. Video and transcript of the speech will be available on this site shortly afterwards.

The Associated Press in Boston reports the sagging state and national economies prompted Patrick to transform his speech "from the typical recitation of lofty political ideals to a more practical call to arms for reforms achievable only in such dire circumstances, he said Thursday.

The Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Seven states -- including Rhode Island and Massachusetts -- sued the federal government today over a new rule that expands protections for doctors and other health-care workers who refuse to participate in abortions and other medical procedures because of religious or moral objections.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed the lawsuit in federal court in Hartford on behalf of the states.

They claim the federal rule, issued by the Bush administration last month and set to take effect Tuesday, would trump state laws protecting women's access to birth control, reproductive health services and emergency contraception.

Blumenthal said the regulations "are flawed and defective" and would "unconstitutionally and unconscionably interfere with women's health-care rights."

Blumenthal said the rule "shrouds the term abortion in new and unnecessary ambiguity" and encourages medical providers to define it themselves and deny patients contraception, including emergency contraception for rape victims.

A call was left seeking comment with a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Under long-standing federal law, institutions may not discriminate against individuals who refuse to perform abortions or provide a referral for one. The administration has said the new rule is intended to ensure that federal funds don't flow to providers who violate those laws.

"Doctors and other health-care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said last month when the rule was issued.

President-elect Barack Obama's transition team has said he will deal with "all eleventh-hour regulations" once he is president.

While campaigning in August, Obama criticized the proposal: "This proposed regulation complicates, rather than clarifies the law. It raises troubling issues about access to basic health care for women, particularly access to contraceptives," he said.

California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island joined Connecticut in the lawsuit, which seeks a court order blocking the new rule.

Planned Parenthood of Federation of America Inc. and National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association said they are filing separate, parallel lawsuits.

Mary Jane Gallagher, president and CEO of the family planning association, said the rule is unnecessary because there have been laws on the books for decades protecting medical providers if they refuse to participate in abortions and sterilization services.

She accused the Bush administration of trying to appease religious conservatives who are opposed to contraception.

"It's all ideology. It is how to appeal to this small minority of people who don't want women and men to have reproductive health choices," she said.

Gallagher said the rule most likely will affect poor and uninsured women who rely on family planning clinics for counseling, education and contraception.

By Alisha A. Pina
Journal staff writer

EAST PROVIDENCE -- Its leaders say heckling teachers may have forced the School Committee to end Tuesday's meeting early, but the city's Taxpayer Association will have its time at the podium.

The group is holding a news conference tomorrow at 10 a.m. in front of East Providence High School. Part of its message will state the teachers' requests for a new contract will push the city further into debt and cost the average homeowner $1,300 over the next three years.

"The members of the taxpayers association and other community observers were disappointed by the behavior of the teachers at the School Committee meeting," association spokesman Bill Murphy wrote in one of two news releases today. "There were many inappropriate expressions of personal views that prevented rational, civil discourse."

The high school auditorium that night was filled with teachers from all over the state. Most came to support the East Providence Education Association, which represents the city's more than 500 teachers. Several also held signs criticizing the committee for unilaterally reducing its teachers' salaries nearly five percent, forcing them to pay 20 percent (they previously didn't contribute anything) toward their health-insurance costs and several other unprecedented measures that were taken earlier this month.

The committee said it had to do this to stop the "bleeding" of a growing $8.3-million deficit. Some board members, and several other city officials, have also said the union's last contract contributed significantly to city's financial downturn. They say the contract, which expired Oct. 31, 2008, was unaffordable and "desperate times calls for desperate measures."

The union said the committee's action was illegal and it took the matter to court. All of Rhode Island, which have now tuned in, is waiting to hear if Superior Court Judge Mark A. Pfeiffer will reverse the changes.

The audience erupted in cheers when union President Valarie Lawson told the committee it should accept a recent arbitrator's suggestions for a new contract, which included a wage freeze this year and teachers contributions to health care that increases to 15 percent -- 5 percent this year and 10 percent next year -- within three years. She said the teachers were willing to and simply wanted to go back to the business of teaching.

Yet the rest of the meetings was dominated by boos and outbursts, most of which were directed at Chairman Anthony A. Carcieri. They called him a bully once and a bum another time.

One flyer distributed said Carcieri was "bloated" and not the teachers' previous contract.

"The teachers heckled the one member of the general public who spoke and were so disruptive that the School Committee had to shut down public comment for fear that the crowd would get out of control," Murphy wrote. "This was most unfortunate and a terrible example to students and the community. We thought it was particularly appalling that the police had to escort the members of the School Committee out of the building to shield them from the crowd."

Union representatives disagree.

"The police chief (speaking on the John DiPetro show) was abundantly clear: There was no threat or danger," union lawyer John Leidecker said in an e-mail today. "While some people were speaking out, the meeting was not on the verge of becoming out of control."

WASHINGTON -- Congress has approved extending federal "wild and scenic" environmental protection to the lower Taunton River, delivering a blow to developers who want to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in Fall River, Mass.

The Massachusetts congressional delegation today praised the measure to include the river in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to preserve specially designated rivers.

Republicans complained the bill was a backdoor way to block the LNG project at a time of high energy needs. Democrats said efforts to protect the river began three years before the facility was proposed.

The plan by Weaver's Cove Energy, which faces several government hurdles, has won Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval.

-- The Associated Press

By Bruce Landis
Journal staff writer

The Bank of America plans to lay off 121 employees at a facility in Lincoln.

The bank would not answer any questions about the layoffs. But in a mandatory notice it filed with the state, the bank attributed the layoffs to its merger with Merrill Lynch, the big financial services firm, Jan. 1.

Dated Jan. 9, the notice said that the 121 employees work at the bank's Investment Center and Premier Relationship Center, both at 670 George Washington Highway in Lincoln. It said that the layoffs are permanent, that the affected employees are not represented by a union, and that they therefore have no "bumping" rights.

Bank spokesmen would not say now many people the bank employs in Rhode Island, nor whether any further layoffs are coming.

The Donald W. Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls. Providence Journal file photo / Mary Murphy

By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal staff writer

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has ended its contract with the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, stemming from the death of detainee Hiu Lui Ng last summer.

Kelly Nantel, ICE press secretary in Washington, said, "We have no intention of putting anybody else into Wyatt, and the agreement will terminate 60 days from tomorrow."

She said ICE officials in Washington notified the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation, which operates the Wyatt, that "we are terminating our agreement to house detainees at Wyatt."

An investigation by the its Office of Professional Responsibility "revealed a consistent lack of communication regarding Mr. Ng's healthcare needs between medical and security personnel at Wyatt. The investigation also revealed that there were instances of non-compliance by Wyatt contract personnel with the ICE National Detention Standards and multiple failures to adhere to the facility's rules and policy," said a statement from ICE.

"As part of the investigation, ICE reviewed the policies and procedures used by Wyatt to evaluate the health care needs of Mr. Ng and to provide him with access to health care. ICE further reviewed the procedures used to distribute medication to detainees and the use of wheelchairs to assist in the transportation of detainees, including Mr. Ng.

"ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) found that contract personnel at Wyatt failed to provide Mr. Ng a wheelchair on a number of occasions, resulting in Mr. Ng effectively being denied access to his counsel as well as to a medical appointment. ICE OPR also found that the facility guards and medical staff failed to adhere to the facility's use of force policy."

The investigation was completed on Jan. 12, 2009, according to today's news release. Read the 33-page OPR report on the investigation.
.
On Dec. 8, "ICE took precautions and promptly ceased sending additional detainees to the Wyatt contract facility, and quickly relocated the remaining 153 ICE detainees from the facility," the statement said.

By John Hill
Journal staff writer

CRANSTON -- Five corrections officers were hurt Wednesday after they were attacked by an out-of-state inmate at the Adult Correctional Facilities intake center, corrections officials said today.

A lieutenant and four officers were hurt enough to require hospital treatment, said Dave Mellon, president of the Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers. He said the lieutenant needed "multiple stitches" to close wounds he suffered in the attack.

Corrections spokeswoman Tracey Z. Poole said the lieutenant and one of the four officers were hurt seriously enough that they will be off work for an as yet undetermined amount of time.

The assault took place at about 3:45 p.m. in the Adult Correctional Institutions Intake Center in Cranston, Poole said. The convict was identified as Patrick Kelly, 46, who Poole said had been in the Oregon prison system since 1980.

Elizabeth Craig, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Corrections, said Kelly was serving a life sentence for aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, assault, supplying contraband and four inmate weapons violations. He had previously completed sentences for kidnapping, robbery and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

Kelly had been put in a cell with another inmate upon his arrival at the ACI. He asked to speak to a lieutenant, Poole said.

The lieutenant, who was not identified, went to the cell and was attacked by Kelly, she said.

"He sucker-punched him," Mellon said.

It took four other correctional officers to subdue Kelly, Mellon and Poole said. Kelly was in the prison's high-security section today, Poole said, awaiting his return to Oregon.

>> Continue reading: ACI: 5 guards injured in attack by Oregon inmate

By C. Eugene Emery Jr.
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- A team led by Brown University researchers say they have unraveled some of the complex genetic signals that integrate temperature and sunlight measurements to tell a plant the best time to flower.

The research, published today by the journal Science, could guide future breeding programs of important crops to help expand their range, and should help predict how plants will react to a changing climate.

"People have looked at all these environmental signals separately, but we really wanted to know how plants integrate the response from these combined signals to come up with a good decision of when to flower," said Amity M. Wilczek, chief author of the study.

How a plant actually behaves in the wild depends on how those genes interact. The genes looking at different environmental signals may be releasing chemicals that give conflicting messages. Other genes weigh that input, then send out chemical signals of their own to control flowering.

>> Continue reading: Brown-led researchers unraveling how plant flowers

By Tracy Breton
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- The justices of the Rhode Island Supreme Court appear ready to implement rules to effectuate a law that will allow people to hire retired judges to preside over private trials in civil cases.

In a hearing this morning that lasted less than an hour, none of the five justices -- including newly retired Chief Justice Frank Williams -- expressed reservations over the constitutional implications of the law raised by some of those who presented arguments against its implementation.

It would be up to the General Assembly to amend or revoke the law, which has been on the books since 1984 but never used. The judges took the position that the only thing they are being asked to decide is how the law should be carried out since it is already on the books.

Family Court Judge Howard I. Lipsey -- who like Williams just retired on a pension from the courts and continues to work as a judge at his court voluntarily -- is person who began the push to implement the law that would allow secret trials in civil cases. He's expressed an interest in being hired by parties to hear their cases behind closed doors.

Standing before the Supreme Court justices today, Lipsey said that the contested divorce calendar in the Family Court is clogged and "a few big-money cases are not allowing the ordinary working person to get heard in a reasonably prompt fashion." Such cases could easily be heard before a private judge -- off-hours, in secret -- and save the parties the trouble of taking a day out of work to come to court.

"If a husband and wife choose not to air their dirty linen in public, why can't they do it privately...in a simple dignified way?" Lipsey asked.

Acting Chief Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg said she could envision using what some lawyers are calling the "rent-a-judge law" to hold secret proceedings in highly sensitive cases -- or for portions of cases.

>> Continue reading: RI justices don't oppose private-trials measure

PROVIDENCE -- The state Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a Providence man serving a 35-year prison sentence for a rash of violent armed robberies in 2003.

Jason Palmer, who was found guilty in May 2005 by a Providence County Superior Court jury of first-degree robbery charges, argued in his appeal to Rhode Island's highest court that the judge erred in an instruction to the jury and in handling a defense objection to the prosecution's challenging of a juror.

During a 24-hour stretch on June 4-5, 2003, Palmer was involved in robberies and one attempted robbery in Providence neighborhoods. He threatened people with a loaded handgun and, at two locations, pistol-whipped his victims, according to evidence at trial. Two stores and two gasoline stations were robbed, and gold neck chains were stolen from a man that he and accused accomplices saw on a sidewalk.

Palmer's first trial ended in mistrial because of a hung jury. At the second trial in 2005, he was found guilty of one count of conspiracy, four counts of first-degree robbery, one count of attempted robbery, two counts of carrying a pistol without a license, five counts of committing a crime of violence while armed with a firearm, and three counts of assault with a dangerous weapon.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney, with Journal archival reports

Due to expected weather conditions, Cranston, Warwick, North Providence, and Lincoln school districts are closed tomorrow.

The National Weather Service says there is a chance of snow, mainly after 3 a.m. Night time snow accumulation is not expect to be more than an inch.

But tomorrow, the forecast is for snow, which could be heavy at times, mainly before 3 p.m. Wind chill values of as low as -3 are also in the forecast. North wind is expected between 5 and 13 mph, with gusts as high as 26 m.p.h. Chance of precipitation is 100 percent -- new snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches is possible.

The listing for Cranston also states there will be no out-of-district busing. The listing for Lincoln says no after-school activities.

That's the list so far. Check here for updates.

Cranston police will put a parking ban in effect starting at midnight. Smithfield's parking ban also goes into effect starting at midnight. Narragansett has a parking ban slated to go into force from 6 a.m. tomorrow to 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Journal photo / Frieda Squires
Herb Krueger and an employee were rescued by a Providence Fire Department ladder truck after they were stuck in the bucket of a crane on Weybossett Street today.

By Amanda Milkovits
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- Two construction workers were rescued by firefighters this afternoon after the bucket of the aerial lift they were using malfunctioned and left them swaying 85 feet in the air above Weybosset Street.

Herb Krueger, from Krueger's Waterproofing, said that they had been replacing stones along the 100-foot high rooftop of one of the buildings across from the Arcade when the controls malfunctioned. He said that he and another worker were trying to lower the bucket they were in when something went wrong with the switches.

They were stuck 85 feet up for about an hour, until Krueger called one of the police officers who'd closed the street for the construction work and told him they needed help.

Firefighters on Ladder 1 raised their bucket next to the aerial lift's bucket, as they checked with a mechanic to make sure it was safe for them to work, Deputy Chief James Mirza said. With the buckets side-by-side high in the frigid air, the firefighters in their safety gear helped Krueger and his employee step out of their crane and into the fire truck's bucket.

The rescue took just a few minutes. Krueger and his worker said they weren't injured, just very, very cold.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported the street where the incident occurred.

The state Departments of Health and Elderly Affairs today issued an extreme cold advisory, as the forecast calls for frigid temperatures starting this afternoon that will plummet further by the weekend.

The departments said it's important all Rhode Islanders take these precautions:

* Check on elderly family, friends and neighbors frequently. The elderly are especially susceptible to extreme cold.

* Watch for ice that can cause falls and leave someone unable to get back inside.

* Indoor temperatures should be set according to activity level, health and medications. "A safe, fuel-saving temperature for a young, active family may be dangerous for an older person who has trouble moving or is taking certain medications," the advisory says.

* Wear a coat, hat, scarf, and gloves even for a short walk to a mailbox. A fall or a locked door can leave someone exposed to extreme cold.

* Dress warmly if inside, especially if a person is not physically active.

* Avoid drinking alcohol as it can lower the body's ability to keep warm.

* If someone is exposed to extreme cold and shows signs of hypothermia -- confusion, trouble walking, shivering -- dial 911 immediately. Cover the person with a warm blanket. Do not rub the person's arms or legs.

The Pell Bridge's E-ZPass electronic toll collection system will be completed on Jan. 19, the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority announced today.

Once conversion finishes, there will be no more token-only lanes on the span, which connects Jamestown and Newport. Tokens will be accepted in the cash lanes until Feb. 1, according to a bridge and transit authority news release.

"In an effort to ease the transition, we are allowing tokens to be used in the cash lanes until Feb. 1. We hope this will help smooth out the process," David Darlington, RITBA chairman, said in the statement.

The first E-ZPass lanes opened Dec. 16.
Unused tokens can be redeemed at the bridge and transit authority administration building in Jamestown from Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; at the E-ZPass office next to the authority's office, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and, at the E-ZPass satellite office at the Newport Gateway Information Center, 23 America's Cup Ave., Newport, Monday through Friday, from noon to 7 p.m.

Tokens can be credited towards an E-ZPass account or the bridge and transit autority will send a check.

Under E-ZPass, drivers set up an account, prepay tolls and attach a small electronic device to their cars. Tolls are automatically deducted from the prepaid account as an E-ZPass customer's car goes through the toll lane.

For more about E-ZPass, check www.ezpassritba.com.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

By Richard Salit
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- According to a study by the Corporation for National and Community Service, Rhode Island is short 27,000 volunteers, ranking it 41st in the nation for its overall volunteer rate and 46th for its overall volunteer hours.

Now two nonprofit agencies dedicated to promoting volunteerism are merging to create one statewide organization and they hope to address the shortage of volunteers.

The merger between the Volunteer Center of Rhode Island and Serve Rhode Island was formally announced today when the two organizations held a news conference at 3 p.m. at the State House. Since the names of both organizations are well established, part of each name will remain. The umbrella organization will be called Serve Rhode Island and it will oversee an operation to be called the Volunteer Center at Serve Rhode Island.

"We were a little surprised," said communications and development director Kim Stowell, when asked about the survey results.

Each of the organizations will give up its current headquarters and move to a new location on Broadway in March, she said.

Two new programs will be started. Serve Corps will provide a resource for nonprofit organizations that are struggling to provide services with scarcer resources. In doing so, it aims to recruit at least 20,000 more volunteers in Rhode Island.

Another program, Service Bridge to Work, will strive to place 380 unemployed R.I. Works clients into volunteer positions to train them in skills that might help them land jobs. It will also help them avoid the loss of assistance, which requires recipients to look for work and meet other requirements, including performing 20 hours of community service a week.

PROVIDENCE -- The state Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a man on sexual assault and child-molestation charges.

Barry A. Farley was found guilty in 2006 by a jury of molesting two children. He was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison, with another 15 years suspended with probation.

Farley's appeal to Rhode Island's highest court argued the trial judge erred in letting the prosecution elicit testimony from a witness it had not disclosed during pre-trial discovery process; that a witness should not have been allowed to testify about her son's cognitive ability; and, that the judge should have cautioned the jury about the prosecutor's comments about the defense lawyer's "use of leading questions during cross-examination," the court opinion states.

Farley wanted his conviction overturned and a new trial.

But the Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

PROVIDENCE -- Three men who are suspects in an armed robbery here this morning are slated to be arraigned in District Court, Providence, tomorrow.

The police declined to name the suspects, who lived in Providence. They will be charged with first-degree robbery, according to Providence police Maj. Thomas F. Oates III.

About 10:35 a.m. today, the police responded to the Georgia Avenue area for a reported robbery in which a male and female said they were robbed at gunpoint by three people who fled in a car bearing a temporary Rhode Island license plate.

An officer saw the vehicle on Eddy Street and began a pursuit that went on for several minutes, at one point ending up on Route 95, then back onto city streets. The suspects abandoned the car on the area of Gordon Avenue and Colfax Street and fled on foot, according to Oates.

Numerous police, including State Police, were involved in the pursuit. Providence police apprehended the three suspects.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

By C. Eugene Emery Jr.
Journal staff writer

EAST GREENWICH -- The high school band is making final preparations to go to Washington, D.C., to march in a parade in honor of Barack Obama's inauguration Tuesday, after the Town Council voted Monday night to appropriate as much as $5,000 for the trip.

"We're set to roll. We're practiced up. Uniforms are pressed. The money came through last night and it helped put us right over the top," band director Brendan Carniaux said today.

The state put up another $5,000 because East Greenwich will be representing Rhode Island in the parade.

>> Continue reading: E. Greenwich HS band gets funds to go to inauguration

By Gina Macris
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE (RI) -- There is no evidence -- so far -- linking peanut butter to four cases of salmonella poisoning under investigation in Rhode Island, according to the state Department of Health.

Health officials in Rhode Island and 42 other states, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, are trying to trace the sources of 410 cases of salmonella reported since last September. The most recent Rhode Island case occurred in November.

Minnesota officials last week said a particular brand of peanut butter, sold to nursing homes and other institutions, was the likely cause of many of 30 cases reported in that state.

But the CDC says brands of peanut butter sold in grocery stores have not been associated with the outbreak.

Three of the four people who fell ill in Rhode Island have been interviewed by the health department's Office of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases, department spokeswoman Annemarie Beardsworth said today.

None of three had eaten peanut butter before they were stricken. Nor was there any other factor linking the three Rhode Island cases to each other, Beardsworth said. No information on the fourth case was available today.

The 410 cases under investigation nationwide all share the same strain of bacteria, but peanut butter has been identified as the cause of only some of them. The same strain of bacteria can come from multiple sources, Beardsworth said.

A week ago, Minnesota officials isolated the bacteria involved in the outbreak in an open 5-pound container of King Nut peanut butter, distributed by an Ohio company to schools, universities, nursing homes and other institutional buyers in seven states. King Nut Companies recalled the peanut butter last week.

PROVIDENCE -- Tomorrow's Senate Finance Committee hearing on the proposed agreement between Governor Carcieri and the Bush Administration to revamp the state Medicaid system has been moved to 3 p.m.

The Medicaid system provides health care for the elderly, poor and disabled.

The second day of the hearing on what is called the global Medicaid waiver will be held in Room 313 in the State House and is open to the public.

Rhode Island would become the first state in the nation to secure a controversial five-year plan that gives the state more liberty on how it spends its Medicaid money in exchange for agreeing to a $12.1-billion, five-year cap on Medicaid spending.

Carcieri, who is scheduled to testify at the beginning of the meeting, proposed the overhaul as part of his attempt to balance the state budget.

The House Finance Committee wrapped up its hearings yesterday.

Organizations in Coventry, Warwick and Westerly will share in a total of $13.2 million-plus in federal money aimed at helping people get affordable housing, according to U.S. Sen. Jack Reed's office.

The goal is to help increase affordable housing supply with supportive services for the elderly and disabled people. These programs allow individuals to live independently in a safe and supportive environment. Section 202 and 811 also provide rent subsidies for the projects to help make them affordable.

The money comes through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 202 and Section 811 Supportive Housing Programs.

"This federal aid is targeted to help vulnerable citizens with limited resources find a safe, decent place to live," Reed said in the statement. "It also helps refurbish old properties and creates more affordable housing in Coventry, Warwick, and Westerly."

Here's the breakdown:

* Coventry Housing Association Corporation is getting $4,925,800 in "202" money to develop 34 one-bedroom units of newly built housing in three buildings for very low-income elderly people in Coventry. The association is also getting $480,300 for a three-year rental subsidy.

* The Saint Elizabeth Community of Warwick is getting $5,153,700 in "202" money to build 34 one-bedroom housing units for very low-income elderly and frail elderly people. An additional $480,300 is also coming for a three-year rental subsidy.

* The House of Hope Community Development Corporation in Warwick is getting $724,300 in "811" money to rehabilitate convalescent home and develop five affordable housing units for very low-income disabled people. The development corporation is also getting $70,800 for a three-year rental subsidy.

* WARM Inc. in Westerly is getting $1,278,100 to build eight independent living units for disabled people and their families. Also on the way is $113,100 for a three-year rental subsidy.

By Benjamin N. Gedan
Journal staff writer

A youth hockey tournament that begins tomorrow in Rhode Island is expected to draw 3,000 players and fans, giving a boost to local hotels and restaurants struggling from the economic downturn.

The Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau says the John W. Kennedy Memorial Hockey Tournament will include 102 teams from 12 states. Games will be held at Providence College's Schneider Arena, the Cranston Veterans Memorial Rink and at other sports complexes. The tournament runs through Monday.

The recession has dramatically dampened consumer spending, hurting a variety of industries that rely on disposable income. Last week, for example, Collette Vacations laid off 40 employees, 9 percent of its global work force, citing steep declines in advanced bookings for 2009, The Providence Journal reported.

HOPKINTON -- About 30 people were taken to three hospitals after a smoky oven fire today at an elderly housing complex here drew crews from several departments and sparked the evacuation of about 50 people to a nearby senior center.

Eight residents, three EMTs and 19 firefighters were being transferred to Rhode Island, Westerly or South County hospitals, primarily as a precautionary step, according to Fred Sherman, chief of the Hope Valley EMS, because of concerns they may have inhaled toxic substances.

Hope Valley-Wyoming Fire Chief Frederick A. Stanley said preliminary indications are the fire started when a woman who lives on the first floor put a transistor radio in her oven, forgot about it, and then turned on the oven.

After the fire was put out, personnel this evening were testing rooms in the 55-unit complex for hydrogen, cyanide and carbon monoxide in the Canonchet Cliffs II, a housing complex on Route 3, near Exit 2 on Route 95 south.

As many as 40 ambulances responded to the complex, while more than 10 fire trucks from Hope Valley-Wyoming, Ashaway, Carolina-Richmond and Stonington, Conn., fire departments could be seen. A reporter at the scene about 5:40 p.m. saw about 10 firefighters being treated with oxygen. Inside a lobby in the complex, an EMT triage worker was asking people if they had breathed any smoke.

A manager from the company that manages the housing complex said that it was expected that people will be able to return to their apartments, except for the apartment in which the fire happened.

Michael Octeau, Hopkinton Emergency Management Agency director, said about 50 residents, most of whom are elderly, were being bused out, including on some school buses, mainly to get them out of cold weather. Stanley, the fire chief, said people were being taken to the Richmond Senior Center on Route 138 in nearby Wyoming.

Octeau said the housing complex was opened to clear the air. Officials had been waiting for the building inspector to determine when people can return. Octeau said he expected residents will be able to return to the complex. By 7 p.m., many were on their way back home.

Joe Arsenault, Richmond Emergency Management Agency director, said he was calling in volunteers to help set up the temporary shelter at the center, which is in the same building as the Richmond Police Department.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney, with reports from Journal staff writers Donita Naylor and Amanda Milkovits

By Richard C. Dujardin
Journal staff writer

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, which until last week had 14 priests carrying the title of monsignor, now has 10 more.

Bishop Thomas J. Tobin announced that Pope Benedict XVI has accepted his recommendation that 10 additional priests be named "chaplains to his holiness" with the title of monsignor. It marks the first time that priest in Rhode Island has been accorded the title since Msgr. John Darcy, the chancellor and diocesan vicar general, was honored by the Holy See in 2004.

While the title is largely honorific -- recognizing the recipient's service and commitment to the church -- the recipient traditionally wears a black cassock trimmed with "Roman pink," actually purple piping and buttons and a purple sash.

The new monsignors are:

• Msgr. Raymond B. Bastia, 60, pastor of St. Joseph parish in Providence and the diocesan secretary for planning and financial services;




• Msgr. Barry R.L. Connerton, 64, pastor of St. Augustine parish in Providence, one of the largest parishes in the diocese, and a former associate editor of the diocesan weekly newspaper.




• Msgr. John C. Halloran, 72, pastor emeritus for St. Thomas More parish in Narragansett, former director of the Tower Hill residential camp for underprivileged children and a former rector of the diocesan college seminary.




• Msgr. Nicholas J. Iacovacci, 83, the former pastor of St. Ann parish in Providence and who now lives and assists at St. Peter parish in Warwick while offering pastoral and sacramental ministry to inmates at the state correctional facilities.




• Msgr. John W. Lolio, 64, pastor of Our Lady of Mercy parish in East Greenwich since 1992.




• Msgr. Anthony Mancini, 57, rector of the Cathedral of SS. Peter & Paul in Providence since 2004. He has also been the cathedral's music director since 1991 and director of the Gregorian Concert Choir.




• Msgr. Gerard O. Sabourin, 74, administrator of the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic Community in Exeter, which he started in 1981, and the director of the diocesan apostolate for persons with handicaps.




• Msgr. Richard D. Sheahan, 64, pastor of Holy Apostles parish in Cranston, and a member of the diocesan finance council.




• Msgr. Ronald P. Simeone, 55, judicial vicar for the diocesan tribunal and pastor for the last nine years at St. Anthony's parish in Woonsocket.




• Msgr. Victor M. Vieira, 66, who fled came to Rhode Island in the wake of rampant chaos and mass murders in Portuguese Timor, and who now serves the Portuguese community in East Providence as pastor of St. Francis Xavier.

Bishop Tobin said he recommended the names to the Holy See after consulting with diocesan advisers, deans and the priests personnel board. No more than 10 percent of the priests of a diocese can be accorded the honor of monsignor. There have been 80 priests accorded the title since the diocese was established in 1872.

CRANSTON -- The police want the public's help in finding a man involved in the abduction of a woman last week from the YD Nails and Spa.

The police identified a suspect as a thinly-built, six-foot-tall white man who is about 28 years old, with light eyes, short light-brown hair.

"We are also interested in a blue van/minivan that was seen in the area which may be involved," the police news release says.

The adbuction happened Tuesday about 9:15 a.m. at the nail salon, which is at 789 Atwood Ave. The woman, whom police have not named, was later located at a shopping center in Braintree, Mass. Last week, authorities said they interviewed her about the incident.

An FBI news release last week said the woman who was abducted had been opening the salon and that she was released about 11:15 a.m. at South Shore Plaza in Braintree. Braintree police took her to South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., from which she was released.

The police ask that people with information about the suspect, the vehicle or both to call (401) 477-5160.
.

Head over to Chan's Restaurant in Woonsocket tonight to hear Michelle Wilson perform the blues live.

The Journal's online calendar, projothebeat.com, describes the show as the "annual birthday bash for this blues diva extraordinaire."

The performance is at 8 p.m.

Chan's is at 267 Main St. For information, call (401) 765-1900.

WARWICK -- Firefighters are at the scene of a three-alarm fire at Brookside Village apartments, just north of Cowesett Road, this evening.

A dispatcher said rescue trucks have not taken anyone for medical help at this point from the complex, which is at 3687 Post Road.

Cranston fire personnel are covering a couple of fire stations while Warwick firefighters fight the blaze.

A winter storm watch is in force from tomorrow afternoon through Sunday morning, the National Weather Service said in a 4 p.m. statement.

Snow is predicted to reach Providence and Worcester, Mass., around 6 or 7 p.m. tomorrow. The forecast calls for it to reach Boston around 8 or 9 p.m.

Prediction is the storm will deliver as much as an inch of snow an hour through Sunday morning.

"People should plan to use common sense and alter their travel plans," Neal Strauss, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Taunton, Mass., said this afternoon.

The storm is expected to dump five to 10 inches of snow on southern New England, according to the weather service.

Two areas of moisture, one coming east from the plains and one moving northeast from Arkansas, are likely to meet over most of New England tomorrow evening.

Conditions should become hazardous overnight, Strauss said. The weather service has issued a storm watch, meaning that meterologists expect at least six inches.

Rhode Island's only ski area, Yawgoo Valley Ski and Sports Park, has plenty of snow, and offers skiing, snowboarding and tubing.

"We'll have it all groomed," said Max de Wardener, owner of the park in Exeter.

-- projo.com staff writers Donita Naylor and Michael P. McKinney

The Angell family of North Kingstown: Mom Chantha, baby Eva, 6-year old Alexi, and dad David Angell.

South County Hospital's emergency-room waiting room turned into something else for a pregnant mother who could wait no longer.

David and Chantha Angell had turned in at about 11:30 last night in their North Kingstown home. If the miracle of life was on its way soon, Chantha Angell said in an interview, she was expecting soon to mean perhaps later today. (Baby's delivery date had been pegged at Jan. 19).

"Yesterday was supposed to be may last day at of work," Chantha Angell said this afternoon. "I didn't feel anything all day [from the baby] but maybe minor pressure."

Her contractions started coming around bedtime last night, but "they were very far apart," she said.

Come 3:45 a.m. today, Chantha woke up her husband and told him her water had broken.

Things escalated on the car ride to South County Hospital, in South Kingstown's Wakefield section.

"She was saying, 'I feel like I need to push now'," recalled David Angell. He dialed 911 and asked if he should pull over so an ambulance could pick them up.

Keep driving, he was told.

"I just felt like the baby wanted to come out," Chantha Angell said.

The couple and their 6-year-old daughter pulled up to the hospital lobby. Inside, he said he found no one at first. He yelled around and went through a door marked "Do not enter." He told a nurse what was happening.

Angell said he could see the imprint of the baby's head through his wife's clothing.

Several nurses came out and delivered baby Eva (pronounced Ay-va) in the waiting room at about 4:20 a.m. She weighed in a 7 lbs., 5 oz.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

CENTRAL FALLS -- Crews have responded to a fire in the area of a three-story residence at 34 Darling St., according to the Fire Department.

By Gregory Smith
Journal staff writer

A 22-year-old man from Marblehead, Mass., who tried to help an acquaintance in a fight outside a nightclub in the Washington Park section of Providence, was shot in the leg early this morning, according to the police.

Resean Akil Smith was treated at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence for a non-life-threatening wound to his inner left thigh, police Maj. Thomas F. Oates III said.

Police officers responded to a call of a disturbance at 1 a.m. at the nightclub Platinum at 1206 Broad St. -- the former location of La Rumba nightclub -- and saw people lying on the ground and others running away, Oates said. There had been a fight, he said, and one of the people on the ground was Smith.

Smith told the police later that he had been invited to a private party at Platinum and that while he was there, he began to help collect money at the door. When the club closed for the night, he said that a large fight broke out right in front of the building.

He told the police that somebody he knows was being beaten by a group of individuals and that he went to help. As he grabbed a man who was on top of a pile of fighters, he was shot, he said.

Oates said that he will have the police license enforcement unit investigate the incident, in addition to the criminal investigation, and that the matter almost certainly will be referred to the city Board of Licenses for a possible sanction against the holder of Platinum's liquor license.

The police often ask the board to sanction licensees for violence that occurs on the licensed premises or in proximity to the premises. A sanction sometimes is an order by the board that the licensee hire or enlarge a private-duty detail of police officers or otherwise arrange for better security. There was not detail yesterday, according to Oates.

Oates said the police have had their eye on Platinum since it opened as a successor to La Rumba, where the police and the board had to deal with violent incidents including a murder.

PROVIDENCE -- A Massachusetts man today was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison for a rash of Rhode Island bank and drug-store robberies.

David R. Cahill received 63 months' imprisonment from Judge Mary M. Lisi in U.S. District Court, Providence, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente's office.

Cahill, 32, was also ordered to pay a total of $71,230 restitution to robbery victims.

Cahill pleaded guilty in August to seven counts of robbery: two at banks for cash and five at drug stores, where he took oxycodone after brandishing what appeared to be a handgun, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

Prosecutor Zechariah Chafee said at the plea hearing that the government could show Cahill robbed:

* Bank of America on Bald Hill Road, Warwick on May 29 2007, where he handed a teller a threatening note and took $7,538;

* Bank of America on Washington Highway Lincoln on June 7, 2007, where he took $2,361 via a threatening note;

* Brooks Pharmacy on Mineral Spring Avenue, North Providence on June 16, 2007, where he stole oxycodone after brandishing a gun that later turned out to be a realistic looking BB pistol;

* CVS Pharmacy on Park Avenue, Cranston on June 22, 2007, where he took oxycodone at gunpoint;

* The same CVS Pharmacy on Park Avenue on December 12, 2007, where he again obtained oxycodone at gunpoint;

* CVS Pharmacy on Reservoir Avenue, Cranston, two times last year -- Jan. 6 and Feb. 12, where he took oxycodone at gunpoint.

FBI SWAT arrested Cahill at his Mendon, Mass., home after law-enforcement agencies investigated in communities where the robberies happened.

Cahill confessed to most of the robberies and evidence linked him to others, the U.S. Attorney's office said. Cahill also confessed to other robberies committed at a drug store in Bellingham, Mass., and a bank in Groton, Conn.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

By Linda Borg
Journal staff writer

BARRINGTON -- The Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union is strongly opposed to a proposal by Police Chief John LaCross requiring all students attending high school dances to take a breathalyzer test.

In a letter sent to school officials this morning, ACLU Executive Director Steven Brown acknowledged the pressures on school officials to address the serious problem of underage drinking in town but called the proposal "ineffectual and inappropriately dismissive of students' legitimate rights.

Brown supports the school's current policy, which allows breathalyzer testing upon reasonable suspicion that a particular student is impaired.

"Rather than treating every student as a suspect," Brown wrote, "the current policy recognizes the privacy rights of students should not be so cavalierly ignored and that intrusions on those rights should be limited to circumstances when officials have reason to believe a student may have engaged in improper conduct."

High School Principal John Gray said he's been meeting with parents and town officials and will meet with students to discuss the proposal, but said the issue is long from settled.

"This is a topic that's been brought up that we should discuss, and it's a possible change in policy," Gray said.

The current district policy does not include mandatory testing.

"We are concerned about (the) continuing culture of underage drinking," Gray said. "Our goal is to provide a safe environment for our kids."

Gray said any action would likely follow a report from a Town Council-hired consultant that is expected to be presented to the town next month.

LaCross had said publicly that students in nearby Seekonk, Mass., no longer show up to school dances with alcohol on their breath after a similar policy was adopted there. The ACLU, however, said that social problems like underage drinking are not so easily solved and suggested that some students may simply decide to wait until after the school dance to drink.

Brown also pointed out the technical challenges inherent in implementing a breathalyzer policy on all students: the tests must be administered properly and the machines must be maintained.

"Since we assume that a zero reading ... will be required," Brown wrote, "the possibilities for error are not insignificant when every student -- not just those suspected of drinking -- is subject to a test."

The letter concluded by stressing that there are no shortcuts in dealing with a social problem like underage drinking.

"Tragic teenage deaths, not to mention increased and severe penalties, have not solved the problem," Brown wrote, "but little is gained by implementing policies that undermine the rights of students."

--With reports from projo.com staff writer Maria Armental

WOONSOCKET -- Responders are fighting a structure fire in the area of 134 Asylum St., according to the Fire Department dispatch.

No other information was available.

By Tracy Breton
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- Governor Carcieri's plan to defer $10 million in settlement money the state has offered to the victims of The Station nightclub fire would only delay payment of the funds for a matter of months, the governor's press secretary said today.

Carcieri is planning to allocate payment of that money in the budget that begins on July 1, his spokeswoman Amy Kempe said today. Lawyers for the more than 300 victims of the catastrophic West Warwick fire -- which killed 100 people and injured more than 200 others -- had hoped the money would be divided among the plaintiffs by springtime. But Kempe said today the "the main part of the reasoning" behind Carcieri's proposal to delay the payments until the next fiscal year was based on the slow pace the case is taking in the U.S. District Court.

"It appeared that details and finalizing the settlement were moving very slow and are still being worked out. It is our intent to put it in next year's budget," Kempe said.

Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch's office, which has represented the state in the civil suits brought by the fire victims, said it was not consulted about delaying the payment.

"The governor's office called us Wednesday afternoon to let us know about it, but we hadn't been involved in any discussions with him about the timing or method of payment," Lynch spokesman Michael Healey said. "As the state's lawyers, we advised the governor and the legislature to settle because we think settling is in Rhode island's best interests, but we are not part of the appropriations process.

"Ultimately, by law, the legislature must approve the $10 million. Also, in our many discussions with counsel throughout the various stages of this litigation, we've never committed to a specific payment timetable or method of appropriation because doing so would clearly have been beyond our authority," Healey said.

Extra: Read the Journal's continuing coverage of the Station nightclub fire.

PROVIDENCE -- Legal heat over rice -- boiled or steamed, white basmati or brown basmati -- between two Providence Place mall food court restaurants has resulted in a split decision from the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

In 2006, a Superior Court judge ruled that Cathay Cathay, a Chinese restaurant, had exclusive right in the mall to sell white rice and some dozen other Chinese-type foods and that a lease barred other restaurants from selling food "substantial similar in content or form."

The lower court also dropped another food court eatery, Gourmet India, as a defendant because its basmati rice looked and smelled substantially different.

But Cathay Cathay appealed to the state's highest court.

In a ruling today, the Supreme Court upheld that the use of basmati rice at Gourmet India is excluded from the ban on the sale of "white rice or fried rice." Cathay Cathay "would not be entitled to an injunction against Gourmet India preventing it from selling basmati rice."

However, the high court disagreed with the Superior Court judge's wording regarding a legal concept known as tortious interference.

The justices instructed the Superior Court to have a new trial on Cathay Cathay's assertion that Gourmet India tortiously interfered with Cathay Cathay's leases by, according to the high court opinion, "knowingly contracting to sell white rice in violation of plaintiffs' exclusive right to sell certain food items."

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

WOONSOCKET -- The attorney general says a convicted child killer will be sentenced next month after his lawyer decided not to file a motion for a new trial.

Gilbert Delestre was convicted last month of second-degree murder for the October 2004 beating death of 3-year-old T.J. Wright.

Prosecutors said Delestre and his girlfriend, Katherine Bunnell, took turns beating the boy after they returned from a night out drinking and found a mess of eggs, yogurt, milk and feces in the living room and kitchen of their Woonsocket apartment.

Bunnell was T.J.'s aunt and foster mother. She was also convicted.

Delestre admitted that his actions caused T.J.'s death, but he claimed they were unintentional.

He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
-- The Associated Press

(Information from: The Call of Woonsocket, www.woonsocketcall.com)

Check out a photography exhibit of Rhode Island landscapes tonight at Cranston Public Library.
The exhibit of photographs by David Gong is open until 8 p.m.

There will be long exposure 35 mm, 35 mm digital and 120 film night photography of urban landscapes, including the Route 195 relocation project known as the Iway and the Providence Power Plant. There will also be Rhode Island beach photographs

The event is free.

For information, call (401) 943-9080

For more that's going on, visit projothebeat.com, the Journal's online calendar of happenings in Rhode Island and beyond.

By Gregory Smith
Journal staff writer

The Providence police are investigating the death of a Federal Hill man whose body was found in an alley Sunday, hours after he apparently fell or jumped from the window of his third-floor tenement apartment across the street from Caserta Pizzeria.

Police Maj. Thomas F. Oates III today identified the man as Brian Westphal, 33, of Apartment 3, 108 Spruce St., and said no foul play is suspected because he apparently fell or jumped.

The Rhode Island state medical examiners' office tentatively determined in an autopsy that Westphal, who was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, died from hypothermia or exposure, according to Oates. None of the injuries that he suffered in the fall was fatal, the medical examiner determined.

A final conclusion about the cause and manner of death is pending toxicological tests, Oates said.

A live-in property manager at 108 Spruce told the police that he heard a noise in the alley at about 5 a.m. Sunday and, assuming it came from one of the vagrants or scavengers who frequent the alley, he shouted for the person to keep quiet and to leave.

When the manager went outside at about noon, he discovered Westphal and called the police.

The victim's roommate said that when he arrived home the night before, the door to Westphal's bedroom was closed and he assumed that Westphal was asleep.

The police found the bedroom window open and the window screen on the ground near the body.

PROVIDENCE -- Providence rescue has been sent to the area of 66 Branch Ave. for a report of a male who was possibly struck by a vehicle, according to James Taylor, chief of communications for the Providence Fire Department.

By W. Zachary Malinowski
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- The investigation into the unsolved murder of a young man in the city's Mount Hope neighborhood last year has apparently heated up.

Today, Superior Court Judge Robert D. Krause granted a prosecutor's request to dismiss three felony charges against Terrell Bliss, 20, a prime suspect in the December 2007 killing of Nathan Davis-Gilliard.

Michael Healey, spokesman for Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, said that the procedural move was necessary to clear to way for potential murder charges.

"The Providence police and our prosecutors want to do some more digging,'' he said. "We believe (Terrell Bliss) may be implicated in a more serious crime.''

Healey said that a conviction on the assault and gun charges would have precluded his office from prosecuting Bliss on murder charges. ``You can't be charged twice for the same crime,'' he said.

Providence Police Maj. Thomas F. Oates said that detectives are aggressively pursuing leads and they have been tracking down information `"on a daily basis.''

Bliss, who survived a shooting last summer and has had multiple run-ins with the police, is being held at the Adult Correctional Institutions for violating the terms of his probation from a previous conviction.

Last September, the murder of Davis-Gilliard was highlighted in a story in the The Providence Sunday Journal about vandals desecrating his grave in the North Burial Ground on North Main Street. Investigators believe that the gravestone was damaged and set afire as part of a simmering feud between young men from Chad Brown and Mount Hope.

On Dec. 21, 2007, Davis-Gilliard and two friends, Kevin Perry and Eugene Lowell, were walking near the corner of Jenkins and Knowles Streets in Mount Hope when a carload of young men from Chad Brown, a housing project in the city's Wanskuck neighborhood.

The police said that Bliss hopped out of the back seat of the car with a .25-caliber handgun and pointed it at Perry.

Moments later, several shots were fired and Davis-Gilliard's bullet-ridden body was found outside 10 Knowles St., not far from the house where he was raised with his brothers and sisters.

Bliss has not been charged with murder, but a year ago, the Providence police arrested him for threatening Perry with the handgun in the moments before the murder. He was charged with felony assault with a dangerous weapon, using a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence, and carrying a firearm without a permit.

The police did not recover the gun.

Yesterday, those three felony charges were dropped.

Healey, the spokesman for Lynch, said the murder investigation is "continuing and expanding.''

By Tatiana Pina
Journal staff writer

PAWTUCKET -- The police say they are looking for a young woman who walked into Gee's Liquor Store on Broadway and robbed the owner at knife point yesterday afternoon.

The incident occurred at 4 p.m. A slim, blond woman in her 20s walked into the liquor store, went behind the counter and pulled a kitchen knife on the owner and demanded money, according to Detective Donti Rosciti. The owner was unhurt and there was no one else in the store at the time, he said.

The woman made off with about $300, he said. She ran into a dark four-door vehicle and fled southbound on Broadway.

JOHNSTON -- Henry Fellela, the husband of state Rep. Deborah Fellela, admitted he used another person's credit card to snatch $400 in cash from a credit union's ATM in New Hampshire.

During an appearance in Milford, N.H., District Court this morning, Fellela pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor credit-card offense and he was sentenced to a suspended six-month prison term.

Judge Martha Crocker suspended the prison term on the condition that Fellela not commit any felony or misdemeanor during the next year, according to court records.

Fellela, of 3 Diaz St., used a credit card registered to a man named Bruce McConnell at the Granite State Credit Union on Route 101A in Amherst, N.H., on Aug. 26.

Fellela knew the card was issued to McConnell and he knew he didn't have permission from either McConnell or his bank to use the card, according to the complaint against him.

Crocker ordered him to repay the money he took.

Proceedings for two other charges -- receiving stolen property and attempt to commit credit-card fraud -- were discontinued, according to a clerk.

Fellela was accused of attempting to use McConnell's credit card to buy gas at Amherst Mobile on Aug. 25, according to records

PROVIDENCE -- A former bookkeeper at Ledgemont Country Club in Seekonk, Mass., pleaded guilty in federal court today to bank fraud in which she stole about $375,000 from the club over a five-year period.

Bernadine Urbanowicz, 61, admitted to forging signatures on checks made out to petty cash, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente's office. Urbanowicz entered the plea to one count of bank fraud before Judge Mary M. Lisi in U.S. District Court, Providence.

Prosecutor Andrew J. Reich said at the plea hearing that the government could show that, between 1999 and 2004, Urbanowicz prepared checks payable to petty cash against the Ledgemont account, signed her name on each check as one of the signatories and forged the second required signature.

She cashed forged checks at Citizens Bank branches. Urbanowicz, who was bookkeeper and office manager from 1986 until November 2004, also made out two club checks to herself shortly before she ended her club employment, and cashed those checks.

Urbanowicz hid the scheme by storing the cancelled forged checks at a location separate from other cancelled checks and by creating false entries in the club's books, the U.S. Attorney's office said. From October 1999 to December 2004, she stole $375,000 by cashing 366 checks.

Maximum penalty is 30 years in federal prison and a $1 million fine.

Urbanowicz is free on bond pending a scheduled April 2 sentencing.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

By Richard C. Dujardin
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- Newly elected North Providence Councilman Joseph J. Giammarco has pleaded innocent to a charge of drunken driving brought by the North Providence during a December snow storm.

District Court Judge Michael A. Higgins called for a pre-trial conference on Jan. 22 and released Giammarco on $1,000 personal recognizance.

Giammarco, who appeared subdued, said that on the advice of his attorney he is withholding any public comment on the matter until his case goes to trial.

The charge of driving under the influence stems from an incident which unfolded during a snow storm the night of Dec. 19. According to police reports, town police went to Obed Avenue in North Providence in response to a call that there were vehicles in the road obstructing snow removal equipment.

Patrol officer Michael Zaccagnini said that when he arrived, he saw some cars in the middle of the road and that he was advised by one woman operator that she and other residents had moved out into the street to allow a plow to clear their parking lot.

She said that while she waited, a man in a white Taurus -- later identified as Giammarco -- came on the scene and said, "These cars need to be moved right now because the plow truck is one street away and if they're not gone, they will be towed."

The plow operator said he was also approached by Giammarco, who said, " 'I'm Joe Giammarco, the councilman here. I want these cars towed and the streets cleaned right away.' "

Zaccagnini said at that point he didn't know who Giammarco was and that after spotting the white Taurus on Charles Street with a tinted license plate and determining that it belonged to Giammarco, he radioed the dispatcher to ask if he was a town employee.

The dispatcher told him to speak with Mayor Charles Lombardi, who was then at the public works garage monitoring the town's snow removal operations.

While Zaccagnini continued on to meet with Lombardi, two other officers, Sgts. Richard J. Varan and Joseph R. Charette, pulled Giammarco over on Mineral Spring Avenue to ask what he had been doing on Obed Avenue.

The officers said they noticed Giammarco, who was then a councilman-elect, leaning against his car as if for support and asked him to take a field sobriety test, which they said he failed. They reported seizing a nearly empty bottle of brandy from beneath the seat of his car.

>> Continue reading: N. Providence councilman denies drunken driving charge

The FBI is asking the public's help after a woman was abducted in Cranston on Tuesday morning by an unknown white male who was armed.

An FBI news release today said the woman was opening the nail salon Y D Nails, at 789 Atwood Ave., Cranston, when she was abducted at about 9:30 a.m. She was released at about 11:15 a.m. at the South Shore Plaza in Braintree, Mass.

Braintree police took the woman to South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., from which she has been released.

The FBI said law enforcement officials want to speak with anyone who has information about the abduction or witnessed it. The FBI asks people to call Cranston police at (401) 477-5143. Names of those who provide information will be kept confidential, the FBI said.

By Amanda Milkovits
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- The man found dead under an overpass on Eddy Street last Friday has been identified as 56-year-old Paul Langlais, of Coventry, according to a state health spokeswoman.

The R.I. medical examiners office found that Langlais had died of heart disease.

Langlais' body was found by a construction worker early Friday morning, after a night of frigid temperatures.

Langlais was known to people at the Crossroads Rhode Island shelter in Providence, where he'd last been seen two years ago. The police said they also knew Langlais; he had a long criminal record with charges related to alcohol abuse.

Correction: An earlier posting misspelled Langlais' name.

PROVIDENCE -- Governor Carcieri's presentation tonight of his plan to grapple with Rhode Island's $357 million current-year budget deficit can be seen and heard by the public as it happens.

It's slated to air on Channels 6, 10 and 12 and, for radio listeners, on 630 WPRO-AM and 920 WHJJ.

Channel 12's Web site, wpri.com, and Channel 10's Web site, turnto10.com, will also Webcast the address.

The governor is due to speak at 7 p.m.

By Gina Macris
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- The city of East Providence must be allowed to join in legal arguments against the teachers' union, which wants the Superior Court to reverse a salary cut effective at the end of the current pay period, Jan. 16.

City officials say it is particularly urgent that they be permitted to intervene in the case in light of a cumulative $9.3 million deficit projected for the schools and the possibility that the city is facing bankruptcy.

"It's worse than broke," Mayor Joseph S. Larisa Jr. said at a City Council meeting Tuesday night.

"If we were to pay all of [the school district's still accumulating deficit], we would need a 20 percent tax increase, at least, in this economy," he said.

This afternoon, City Solicitor Matthew T. Oliverio said, "We can't sit by idly. We have to intervene and advance very critical arguments" that Judge Mark A. Pfeiffer must consider before he decides whether to grant the relief sought by teachers.

The School Committee is counting on a salary rollback of about 5 percent that would save nearly $3 million by the end of the city's current fiscal year, Oct. 31.

"We laud the School Committee for their position," Oliverio said after a conference in Pfeiffer's chambers, "but it is not enough."

The school department incurred a $4.2 million deficit in the last budget cycle and is expected to rack up an additional $4.1 million in debt by the end of October, Oliverio said.

By Amanda Milkovits
Journal staff writer

PAWTUCKET -- Two families were left homeless after a fire ignited today in the basement of aa home at 42 Campbell St.

Fire Capt. Timothy Noiseux said the firefighters on Engine 6, the first responding company, quickly knocked down the fire, but a 17-year-old boy living in the house was taken to Memorial Hospital for smoke inhalation. The Rhode Island Chapter of the American Red Cross was called to offer temporary shelter and assistance.

The Red Cross has had a busy winter in responding to house fires. In November and December, the Red Cross handled 33 house fires and assisted 229 people with food, clothing and shelter, said spokeswoman Marisa Albanese.

By Richard Salit
Journal staff writer

A Prudence Island mother said today that a coyote attacked her 7-year-old daughter in their backyard and might have dragged her off into the woods if their family dog hadn't fought off the wild animal and saved her from harm.

If accurate -- no adults actually witnessed the incident and it remains under investigation -- it would be the first known attack on a human in Rhode Island since coyotes first arrived here nearly 50 years ago, according to Charles Brown, principal wildlife biologist.

"It's an extremely rare occurrence," he said. "We've never had a case like this."

Denise Allard said that coyotes have been seen with increasing frequency the past couple of years on the sparsely-populated island off Portsmouth in the middle of Narragansett Bay. On Dec. 30, her daughter, Lauren, went to play outside with Kelly, their yellow Labrador, just as it was getting dark.

When Allard went out to check on her daughter, at about 4:15, "I heard the dog barking frantically and Lauren screaming," Allard said.

Her daughter had gone across a narrow street behind her house to a wall that borders state-owned woods. Now, she was hysterical and running home with Kelly.

The girl said that a dog by the wall had suddenly lunged at her and grabbed her arm with its mouth. The animal was tugging on her until Kelly jumped into the fray. The girl thought Kelly bit the other animal and that Kelly might have been bit, too.

Allard, who hunts deer with a crossbow and has seen coyotes lurking in her neighborhood, immediately figured it was no dog that attacked Lauren. She's confident it was a coyote.

Once inside, Allard could find no bite marks on Lauren's arm. And Kelly, who was up to date on her vaccinations, only seemed to have a slight mark under her chin.

Allard reported the incident to the Portsmouth Police and its animal control officer. The state Department of Environmental Management was also notified. Volunteer firefighters tended to her daughter, but Allard declined having the Portsmouth paramedics visit by boat. Instead, she consulted with Lauren's physician.

The state recommends that any dog that has been vaccinated immediately receive a booster shot and be quarantined at home for 45 days, according to DEM spokeswoman Gail Mastrati, speaking on behalf of the state veterinarian. Allard said her veterinarian directed her to quarantine Kelly and not to bring the dog in for a booster until afterward.

By Thomas J. Morgan
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- The Rhode Island Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of a suspect facing a drunken-driving charge who contended that law-enforcement officials improperly obtained records from Westerly Hospital that have become part of the evidence against him.

The court ruled that the case is moot because the records are already in the hands of Connecticut officials and said any ruling by the Rhode Island court system would not be binding on Connecticut courts.

John S. Remington Jr., whose age and address were not listed in the Supreme Court decision, was involved in an accident on Sept. 18, 2006 in Stonington, Conn., according to the court ruling. Remington's motorcycle struck the back of another vehicle after a party at Misquamicut Beach in Westerly, the court said, and he was knocked unconscious.

Remington was taken to Westerly Hospital, where medical personnel took blood samples.

Suspecting that Remington had been legally drunk, the police in Stonington enlisted the help of the Rhode Island Attorney General's office to obtain the results of the blood test. When the Office of the Attorney General issued a subpoena for the test results, Remington filed a motion to quash it. The Rhode Island Superior Court denied the motion, ruling that it had been filed in an untimely manner. The Superior Court later allowed the Office of Attorney General to obtain the blood test results, which were then turned over to the Stonington police.

"Now that the medical records are in Connecticut, this Court lacks the authority to tell our sister state what to do with them," the Supreme Court decision declared.

And, the court said, because any decision by it on the merits of the case "will not have a practical effect on the underlying controversy, the case is moot."

Read the court's order.

Reporter Linda Borg is new to Barrington and would like to speak with parents about the public schools. She is looking for story ideas, trends, anything that's on the minds of parents with children in the schools. You can reach her at lborg@projo.com or 277-7823.

Sit Down Baby plays the blues tonight at Tazza Caffe and Lounge in Providence.

The music begins at 9 p.m. Blues on Tuesday is a weekly feature at Tazza, at 250 Westminster St.

Check out what else is going on tonight and through the weekend by consulting projothebeat.com, projo.coms calendar of events in Rhode Island and beyond.

By C. Eugene Emery Jr.
Journal staff writer

If you own an old television set and haven't made your request for one of those $40 coupons to help you buy a digital converter box, you may be seeing a lot of snow on your Sony after Feb. 17, even if you request a converter today.

The problem could apply to as many as 10,000 households in the Providence-New Bedford television market.

The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced this week that its coupons program has run into a cash flow problem.

People who requested vouchers for the boxes this week are now on a waiting list that, as of Monday, was roughly 103,000 names long. They will only get their coupons as already-delivered coupons expire.

About half the coupons that have been ordered have gone unused.

The converter boxes, which range in price from $40 to $80, are needed so older TVs can recognize view over-the-air signals when stations switch to digital broadcasts next month. Cable television subscribers will not be affected.

The creation of the waiting list prompted Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch to issue a statement today warning consumers not to fall for conversion-related scams designed to charge people far more than the cost of the box itself.

"As frustrating as it is that the federal government has failed to adequately fund this initiative, it will be worse if consumers become victimized by scams in the days leading up to the switch-over," he said.

>> Continue reading: Coupons for converter boxes run into cash-flow problem

By Tracy Breton
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- At the request of lawyers representing victims of The Station nightclub fire and the parties they sued for money damages, federal Magistrate Judge David L. Martin has rescheduled the next status conference in the case until Jan. 20 at 10 a.m.

At a hearing yesterday, Martin had set Jan. 14 as the date for the next conference.

More than 300 plaintiffs who suffered injuries or lost a loved one in the Feb. 20, 2003, nightclub fire are expecting to receive money from a $176 million settlement fund. A court-appointed special master, Duke University Law School Prof. Francis E. McGovern, is expected to submit his plan for distributing the proceeds to the court on Friday.

Cranston police have been in Massachusetts today, working with the FBI to determine what happened to a woman from Cranston found today at a Braintree, Mass., shopping center.

An attempted abduction is one possibility police say they are looking at, but the investigation is ongoing. Few details are available at this time.

Cranston police Maj. Ronald T. Blackmar said Cranston police received a call at about noon today in reference to a situation involving the woman. Cranston detectives have been talking with the woman, he said.

PROVIDENCE -- Mayor David N. Cicilline has ordered that flags in Providence be flown at half staff in memory of Fire Capt. Frank J. Quetta, who died Tuesday.

Quetta, who received several commendations for bravery and heroic actions since joining the department in 1979, had been struggling with leukemia.

-- Journal staff writer Richard C. Dujardin

By Felice J. Freyer
Journal medical writer

Mario Della Grotta, the Cranston man who became the first American to undergo brain surgery for obsessive-compulsive disorder, died Monday night at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. He was 40.

Della Grotta died of a medical illness that was not related to his psychiatric disorder nor to his brain surgery, according to his psychiatrist, Dr. Benjamin D. Greenberg of Butler Hospital. His wife, Sheri, said he fell ill on Dec. 27 and had been in the hospital until his death.

In February 2001, Della Grotta became the first person in the United States to have electrodes implanted in his brain for the purpose of controlling OCD, in a procedure called deep brain stimulation. The experimental surgery, performed at Rhode Island Hospital with Butler Hospital researchers, was an attempt to quiet the malfunctioning brain circuitry that underlay his extremely severe and disabling OCD.

At the request of Della Grotta's family, a fund is being established to support OCD research at Butler Hospital. Checks can be sent to the Mario Della Grotta Memorial OCD Research Fund, Funds Development (attn: Michele R. Berard), Butler Hospital, 345 Blackstone Blvd., Providence, RI 02906.

>> Continue reading: OCD brain surgery recipient dies of unrelated causes

Journal file photo / Frieda Squires
Now up for sale, the old Shooter's Waterfront Cafe has been heavily vandalized, as seen in this photo taken last September.

By Phlilp Marcelo
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- A former waterfront nightclub in the Fox Point neighborhood that was purchased by the state is going on sale to finance the next parts of the Route 195 relocation project. The property has an appraised value of $3.5 million.

The State Properties Committee, which manages the state's property assets, this morning approved a request by the state Department of Transportation to dispose of 73,436 square feet of land at 25 India St., the former Bootlegger's Nightclub (previous to that it was known as Shooter's Waterfront Cafe).

The state purchased the nightclub for $4.7 million in 2000 by eminent domain, which is the state government's power to seize private property, with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent.

The land up for sale is about 2 acres of the more than 3-acre property that initially was purchased. Part of the area (56,658 square feet) has been for part of the new stretch of Route 195, often referred to as the Iway. The rest was used temporarily as a staging area for construction.

State properties Committee chairman Kevin Flynn said that the state is obligated to put the property up for sale because 80 percent of the purchasing costs were covered with federal money, on the condition that whatever was left over be sold at market value and the proceeds used to help pay for the highway project.

The property will be advertised in a public auction, with the properties committee having say over whether the state moves forward with a sale or not.

Since the property was taken by eminent domain, Chestnut Street Associates owner Michael C. Kent, the original owners of the property, has the opportunity to match the highest bidder, a right that is often referred to as the right of first refusal. The city would be next in line to exercise that option.

Opened in June 1990, Shooter's was the city's first waterfront nightclub, a three-story dancehall and restaurant that could fit nearly 1,600 people. Since being taken over, the building and property have been the targets of much vandalism.

Providence firefighters work to extinguish a two-alarm fire at 89 Waldo St., on the city's South Side. Providence Journal photo / Frieda Squires

PROVIDENCE -- Firefighters are battling a two-alarm fire at an apartment house in the area of 89 Waldo St., according to fire department dispatch.

About a dozen fire trucks are on scene. Much of the building is charred.

It was not known whether anyone had been inside or if there were any injuries.

-- With reports from Journal staff writer Donita Naylor

Imax Corp. has sold Feinstein Imax Theatre in the Providence Place mall to Quincy Amusement of Dedham, Mass. That means Rhode Island philanthropist Alan Shawn Feinstein and Imax "part company," according to a news release from the Feinstein Foundation today about the sale.

The new management "would not continue some of the rights" that Feinstein has had in an agreement with Imax Corp. The rights he's had were naming rights, free admission for local school children and their parents, on-screen dedication of the theater to the state's school children "and their good deeds," and a yearly donation to help fight hunger.

The new management asked for "a very huge sum of money from Feinstein to continue just the naming rights alone," the Feinstein Foundation news release states.

Feinstein stated he could not accept that.

"I would rather give that money to the schools," he said in the statement. "I had a contract with the Imax Corporation. I kept my part of it and I would expect them to keep theirs -- and the promises they made to me and our school children."

Quincy Amusement is parent company of Showcase Cinema, according to the release.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

By Gina Macris
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- The East Providence teachers' union pressed Superior Court Judge Mark Pfeiffer this morning to issue a temporary order barring the School Committee from unilaterally cutting its members salaries and imposing a 20 percent contribution to their health-insurance premiums.

But Pfeiffer was not inclined to rule without having had a chance to even read the union's complaint, which was filed moments before this morning's 11 a.m. hearing.

And the judge noted that the cuts, rolling back base pay about 5 percent, would not affect teachers until the next payday, Jan. 16. By that time, he said, he will have issued an order.

Pfeiffer continued the case until tomorrow at 2 p.m.

A "significant winter storm" will affect parts of southern New England late tonight and tomorrow, the National Weather Service said in a winter weather advisory issued shortly after 11 a.m.

The weather advisory -- for a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain -- is in force from 11 p.m. tonight until 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Snow is in the forecast for late this evening, and warmer air will turn it to a mix of sleet and freezing rain shortly after midnight.

For the latest weather conditions, visit projo.com/weather.

Accumulation of snow and sleet combined will be less than one inch.

But "occasionally difficult travel" will happen between midnight and 7 a.m. tomorrow. Be prepared for potentially icy surfaces tomorrow morning.

The weather service said enough warm air should arrive between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. tomorrow for things to turn to rain.

By Lisa Vernon-Sparks
Journal staff writer

EAST GREENWICH -- A suspect has been arrested in the robbery this afternoon of an Independence Bank on Route 2 just south of Division Road, authorities said today.

Two officers took Lincoln Craighead, 58, of Hull, Mass., into custody after another person pointed him out in the Panera Bread restaurant at 1000 Division St., according to Lt. James Poccia.

At about 2:30 p.m., a robber entered the branch at 1370 South County Trail and presented the teller a note demanding money, Poccia said. The teller turned over the undisclosed amount of cash, and the robber fled the bank on foot heading north. No one was hurt.

The employee followed the robber out of the bank and up the road into the sandwich shop.

Poccia said Craighead was arrested on a charge of second-degree robbery but had not yet been arraigned.

This is the second bank robbery on Route 2 in East Greenwich in the past two weeks.

A man wielding a machete robbed a BankRI at 1269 South Country Trail last month.

Matthew Joyce, 37,of Lincoln was arrested in the parking lot of Dave's Marketplace, a grocery store in the same shopping plaza on Division Street. Police made the arrest after an off-duty police officer followed the suspect to the nearby parking lot.

By Thomas J. Morgan
Journal staff writer

NORTH SMITHFIELD -- A house fire caused police to shut down Route 146A briefly this afternoon, but the highway was reopened by 5 p.m., according to the police.

Capt. Norman A. Malboeuf of the North Smithfield Fire Department said a second alarm had been rung in for the blaze at 343 Eddie Dowling Highway, and said the department had requested help from surrounding communities.

Malboeuf said the house was an occupied one, but he did not know whether anyone had been at home at the time of the fire. He said there were no reports of injury.

The captain said firefighters ripped open the roof to get at the flames.

A Cumberland man was sentenced today to more than four years' federal imprisonment for tax and bank fraud.

Michael P. Tatro, 38, was also sentenced to five years of supervised release to be served after the 51 months of prison by Judge William E. Smith in U.S. District Court in Providence, according to a news release from the office of acting U.S. Attorney Nora Dannehy in Connecticut, who handled the prosecution.

Tatro pleaded guilty on March 11 to one count of making and subscribing a false tax return and one count of bank fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.

From May 2002 through September 2003, Tatro "engaged in a scheme to defraud Citizens Bank," the news release states, through which he caused various checking accounts to be opened, created counterfeit checks, caused the counterfeit checks to be negotiated through accounts under his control, and caused the money to be withdrawn or otherwise moved out of the accounts before it was disocovered the checks were counterfeit.

Tatro filed a false 2002 federal tax return stating he was single and his income was $77,944, when he was actually married and had gotten income "substantially in excess" of the stated amount that year. Tatro failed to report on his tax return bank fraud proceeds as well as money he obtained under false pretenses from his employer, Thielsch Engineering.

Tatro admitted the intended loss related to the bank fraud was $150,134, and the tax loss to the Internal Revenue Service was $58,000.36.

As part of the supervised release, Tatro must pay $59,178 in restitution to Citizens Bank and cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service to resolve his outstanding tax liabilities. He also has to participate in a mental health treatment program.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

By Barbara Polichetti
Journal staff writer

Albert E. DeRobbio Jr., son of the late District Court Judge Albert E. DeRobbio Sr., was arrested in Cranston Sunday on misdemeanor charges of domestic disorderly conduct and domestic crank or obscene phone calls, according to police reports.

Police reports state that DeRobbio's wife, Lori, called Cranston police shortly after 7 p.m. and stated that she had received repeated threatening phone calls from her husband and that he insisted that he was going to stay at her home on Uxbridge Street in Cranston.

Lori DeRobbio also told the police that her husband threatened her and her family.

Police officers who went to her home stated that her phone showed evidence of numerous phone calls from DeRobbio, a former state trooper. Also while there, Cranston police observed at least nine more phone calls from him between about 8:26 p.m. and 8:56 p.m.

According to the police report, Lori DeRobbio told her husband that she did not want to speak to him and the marriage was over.

DeRobbio was arrested at his wife's home shortly before 10:30 p.m. Police reports list his address as 61 Deerfield Drive, North Scituate.

Cranston police today declined to comment on the report.

DeRobbio was held overnight at the Cranston police station for arraignment today in District Court.

Judge DeRobbio died on Dec. 22.

By Katherine Gregg
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- Governor Carcieri will unveil the details of his plan to close a $357-million current-year deficit in a live televised address Wednesday night.

Carcieri will deliver the address at 7 p.m. on all three local network affiliates: WJAR Channel 10, WLNE Channel 6 and WPRI Channel 12.

"Theses are truly extraordinary times. Rhode Island is facing unprecedented budget challenges that will require many difficult decisions to resolve," Carcieri says in a statement.

"My supplemental budget plan will include many hard choices necessary to bring the budget back into balance and to put the state backon the right path," the governor states.

The proposal, which will represent a significant rewrite of the current-year budget, is expected to touch tens of millions of dollars in local aid. Beyond that, it remains unclear.

Friday Night Live presents The Open Stage, a monthly event for young performers featuring house dance troupe Case Closed and hosted by Everett Dance Theatre's Sokeo Ros. The Open Stage happens on the first Friday of each month from 8 to 10 p.m., immediately following the Friday Night Live comedy show at 7 p.m.

The Open Stage is at The Carriage House Theatre, 7 Duncan Ave., in Providence's Mt. Hope area.

The aim is to give local youth performers a forum to show their talents in front of a live audience. Each show will feature an opening act by local hip hop theater troupe Case Closed as well as a different headliner each month.

Audience members will have the opportunity to sign up for a 5-minute performance slot before each show.

Call (401) 831-9479 for information.

For more to do tonight and this weekend, check out projothebeat.com, the Journal's online calendar of events in Rhode Island and beyond.

Journal photo/ Kathy Borchers
Icicles hang from the exterior of the Garner Building, 40 Fountain St., Providence, where a burst pipe spilled water on several floors. The Providence Biltmore is reflected in the window.

PROVIDENCE -- Several state employees at the General Treasurer's Office and Department of Health and Human Services were sent home this morning after a pipe burst on the sixth floor of the Garner Building, 40 Fountain St.

The floor houses the Department of Health and Human Services' Disability Determination Services. A state employee said there were 3 to 4 inches of standing water in some places and lots of puddles elsewhere, said Tim Gray, a spokesman for the treasurer, whose offices occupy the 1st, 7th and 8th floors.

Power was shut off in most of the building as crews worked on pumping out the water.

The pipe has been repaired, according to a news release this afternoon from the Office of Rehabilitation Services, which includes the Disability Determination Services unit.

The Office of Rehabilitation Services, which also includes Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired and Vocational Rehabilitation Program, will stay up and running but will work out of other places including the Department of Administration, local One Stop Centers and other community organizations.

Case workers with the Department of Health and Human Services called clients this morning to offer an alternate meeting location or reschedule appointments, said spokeswoman Anne-Marie Beardsworth. Most employees were sent to work at alternate locations. Those employees who chose to go home took personal or vacation time, Beardsworth said.

The Office of Rehabilitation Services said this afternoon that counselors in the office are calling all people who have appointments scheduled for Monday to notify them of a different location for their appointment.

People can reschedule appointments if unable to meet at the new location.

People who appear for services at 40 Fountain St. will be met in the building lobby by a staff member and directed to the most appropriate different location.

Customer information is at (401) 421-7005. People served by Office of Rehabilitation Services can call that number and leave a message including their name, telephone number and reason for calling. Staff will retrieve messages over the weekend and will return calls as needed.

All staff are expected to report to work, the Office of Rehabilitation Services said. Managers will contact staff over the weekend to tell them where to report on Monday.

The Department of Administration is working with the landlord to get the 40 Fountain St. building ready for occupancy as soon as possible, according to the news release.

No records were damaged, treasurer's spokesman Gray said.

Non-critical employees in Treasury were sent home this morning, said Gray, but the offices were still open for business.

Video: Firefighters respond to the Gardner Building

-- Reports from projo.com staff writers Maria Armental and Michael P. McKinney

EAST PROVIDENCE -- In an extraordinary announcement, the School Committee today said it will roll back a nearly 5 percent pay increase given to East Providence teachers in May 2007 and start requiring them to pay 20 percent of the cost of their health insurance.

The news release from committee chairman Anthony A. Carcieri also said a "buy-back" program is gone. Under the program, the statement said, teachers have been paid more than $5,000 a year if they got health insurance from their spouses' employers.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," Carcieri said in the statement. "On Oct. 31, we had $4.5 million in bills we couldn't pay. It's only gotten worse since then. If we don't stop the blood loss now, we'll owe $9 million next October, and the schools will simply stop functioning. This is a death spiral. We've got to stop it."

The School Committee and teachers union hit a negotiations roadblock on Oct. 29, a couple of days before the last contract expired. Mediation followed, but without agreement.

The city has about 500 teachers.

An arbitrator in the teachers contract disagreement last week agreed in a nonbinding decision with the city manager's view that East Providence's financial woes stood out from those of other communities in Rhode Island.

"Seldom, if ever, has the neutral member of the panel encountered a school system in greater financial difficulty," arbitrator Michael C. Ryan wrote. "Not only is the city somewhat hamstrung by statute from raising revenue through taxation, but the department's longstanding deficit has been compounded by a once-in-a-generation national economic crisis that began only a few months ago [and] is projected to extend years into the future."

Ryan said there should be no pay increases this year and that teachers should pay part of their health insurance coverage cost. He did take the union's side on other issues.

The School Committee and the union had presented proposals to Ryan's panel.

The committee wanted to reduce the base salaries of its teachers by 5 percent and make them pay a 35-percent share -- 50 percent for new hires -- of their health insurance costs. Currently the teachers contribute nothing. The committee also wanted to increase the teachers' work year and rid the district of the buyback clause.

The union did not call for immediate salary increases in its proposal but did call for increased stipends for coaching positions. It called for setting up a joint committee to study citywide employee contributions to the cost of health insurance. Union representatives asserted to the arbitration panel that the financial problems are "self-inflicted" and said the burden of resolving them shouldn't land on the teachers alone.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney, with Journal archival reports

Vice President-elect Joseph Biden, a long-time friend of former Rhode Island U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell, was considering attending Pell's funeral this coming Monday, according to former Pell staffer Jay Ghazal, as was New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, nominated to be the nation's new secretary of state.

A planeload of Washington dignitaries, including a delegation of U.S. senators, are expected to fly into Rhode Island Monday for the funeral of Pell, who died yesterday at age 90.

Former staffers of Pell, who represented Rhode Island for four decades before his retirement in 1997, were working today with representatives of Trinity Episcopal Church and Salve Regina University, both in Newport, on the logistics of Monday's 10 a.m. service and the following reception at the school's Pell Center.

Ghazal, who worked for Pell between 1985 and 1997, said all 100 U.S. senators had been invited to the funeral.

Confirmation hearings in Washington on some nominees to President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet are expected to begin next week and may play a role on who attends the funeral, said Ghazal.

At historic Trinity Episcopal Church, built in downtown Newport in 1726 and with a current capacity for 600, officials were preparing seating for the anticipated overflow crowd at the church's adjacent Carr Rice House. Large television screens and audio equipment would likely be brought in as well, church officials said.

Both the funeral and the reception are open to the public.

-- Journal staff writer Tom Mooney

There's a slight chance of snow showers this evening, the National Weather Service says.

Low temperatures tonight will be in the 20s. West winds of 5 to 10 m.p.h. are in the forecasts; gusts up to 20 mph after midnight. Chance of snow is put at 20 percent.

Tomorrow is expected to be sunny.

Sunday during daytime is also expected to be sunny. But on Sunday night, the forecast is for it to be mostly cloudy with a chance of freezing rain. Low temperatures will be in the mid 20s and west winds will be around 5 m.p.h. The chance of precipitation is put at 30 percent.

A portrait of Rhode Island's former U.S. senator, Claiborne Pell, who died yesterday and who had served in the Senate for 36 years, will be displayed in the State House rotunda in Providence beginning Monday.

Governor Carcieri's office said in a news release that the public is invited to view the portrait and share thoughts and prayers in a guest book.

The portrait and guest book will be on display through Monday, Jan. 12.

The State House will be open to the public every day, including Saturday and Sunday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The portrait of Pell is on loan from the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University in Newport.

The governor has extended the request that all state and federal flags fly at half staff through Jan. 12.

Journal photo / Steve Szydlowski
Aaron Broccoli, 17, his mother, Rebecca, brother Avery, 15, and his father, Anthony, hold a mock check from the Rhode Island Lottery, representing their winnings in the Rhode Island Lottery's Million Dollar Raffle Game.

By Kate Bramson
Journal Staff Writer

New Year's Day morning Rebecca Broccoli turned to her husband of 20 years and asked him if he wanted another cup of coffee.

He had this "gray, sick look," she said.

"Are you sick?" she asked.

No, Anthony Broccoli said, "I got it ... the ticket."'

The 47-year-old Johnston man now had tears in his eyes, but Rebecca still didn't know what he was talking about.

"What ticket?" she asked, her voice rising.

"We got the winning ticket," he said, and then he handed the paper to her to double check.

Indeed, one of the four tickets Anthony Broccoli bought for Rhode Island's first Million Dollar Raffle bore the numbers his wife now says she'll never forget: 105995.

Anthony Broccoli had watched the announcement the night before, but he thought the 105 was higher than the beginning numbers on any of the tickets he had purchased. He went to bed without checking further.

He likes to buy his lottery tickets early. So he gave a $20 bill to an employee at Ribs & Company on Atwood Avenue in Johnston, where he likes to play Keno, and he asked him to buy one of the first tickets for him when they went on sale. But he "had a few extra bucks" close to the deadline and bought one last ticket.

"I was actually saying, " Some jerk bought a ticket last minute, and he's going to win,'" Broccoli said Friday at the lottery headquarters in Cranston. "And it turned out that I was that jerk because I did buy a last-minute ticket and it turned out to be the winning ticket."

Thursday morning, as the winning number was reported again on television, he pulled his tickets out of his wallet. He was surprised to see that one of his tickets began with the number 105 -- and ended with the remaining three winning numbers. He went to the computer, where he had to first download a version of Adobe Reader to check his number.

"I checked it and then I checked it again and a third time," he said. "Then I X'ed out of everything and rebooted the computer -- just in case -- and checked it a fourth time."

That's when he told Rebecca he had it.

The couple who won Rhode Island Lottery's Million Dollar Raffle Game claimed their prize this morning at lottery headquarters then headed out for breakfast at about 11:25 a.m.

The tax man got his share, of course, so their winnings work out to $680,000.

The Broccolis will put money toward college tuition for their sons, Aaron, 17, and Avery, 15, they said in an interview this morning.

Anthony Broccoli owns an auto body shop in Warwick. He says he's lucky and won $21,000 in a Keno game earlier this year. He said he is always lucky -- he often plays Keno and won enough to put in an above-ground pool at their home one year.

They bought the winning ticket at Convenience Plus, 1501 Atwood Ave., Johnston, according to a lottery spokeswoman.

-- With reports from Journal photographer Kathy Borchers

By Amanda Milkovits
Journal staff writer

PROVIDENCE -- A man was found dead under an overpass on Eddy Street this morning.

The police are not releasing the man's identity until they contact his next of kin. The dead man, who is believed to be in his 50s, was a transient and known to the police, who are working with the medical examiner's office on tracking down his relatives, said Maj. Thomas Oates.

The body was discovered at around 9 a.m. by a worker for Cardi Corp., who happened to be going by and noticed the man, Oates said. While the police and the medical examiner's office are investigating his death as suspicious, there were no outward signs of trauma, Oates said.

The weather was bitterly cold last night, with temperatures recorded as low as 10 degrees.

Journal photo / Bob Thayer
Parking lot attendant Steve Jones of Providence waves cars into the Fogarty Building parking lot on Sabin Street in Providence as they arrive for Bright Night festivities late this afternoon. Despite the snow, the events are on.

PROVIDENCE -- Some flakes continue to fall, and the skies are overcast early this evening.

But by 5 p.m., a snowstorm that swept through Rhode Island was essentially over, with just a few pockets of light snow falling, said William Babcock, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Taunton.

Cumberland saw the state's highest snow fall total, with about 9 inches as of 3 p.m., while northerly Burrrillville saw 7.5 inches and Charlestown on the south coast saw 4.7, according to the weather service.

The temperature, however, is falling.

Behind the storm will be northwest winds and the coldest weather thus far this winter. As of this writing, it's 21 degrees in Providence. Lows will be in the single digits overnight. With the wind chill, it will feel like it's about 10 to 15 below in the northern part of the state and about 10 below along the coast, Babcock said.

The National Weather Service's winter storm warning remains in force until 8 tonight, though the heaviest snow has moved off shore.

The warning area takes in Rhode Island -- save for Block Island and northwest Rhode Island, and southeastern Massachusetts -- except for Cape Cod and the islands.

Snowfall in the warning area is expected to range from 5 to 8 inches -- amounts up to 10 inches are possible in a few locations.

Winds will increase to 15 to 25 mph with gusts to 35 mph late this afternoon and continue through the night. Wind gusts up to 45 mph are possible this evening.

That may mean blowing and drifting snow and reduced visibilities into early evening.

If you're heading outside this New Year's Eve, the weather service advises that people wear layered clothing as well as scarves, hats and mittens.

And that's just what pedestrians spotted on the slightly-slushy streets of downtown Providence appeared to have on, as they began to turn out around 6 p.m. Another common site: Coats with hoods.

Get the latest conditions, forecasts and more here.

-- With reports from Journal staff writer Randal Edgar

PROVIDENCE -- Rhode Island's political leaders are considering raising the state's cigarette tax as they confront a massive budget deficit.

Incoming Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed said officials from the General Assembly and Governor Carcieri's office have discussed raising the state's tax of $2.46 per package of cigarettes to a level comparable with Massachusetts.

Massachusetts recently raised its cigarette tax to $2.51 per package to help close a budget deficit there. Connecticut charges a $2 tax on packages of 20 cigarettes and a $2.50 tax on packages of 25 cigarettes.

Paiva-Weed said a final decision has not been made. She said lawmakers would have to consider how a cigarette tax increase would affect retailers.

A spokeswoman for Governor Carcieri declined to comment.

In the meantime, the House Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing on the agreement with the federal government to allow Rhode Island a waiver on Medicaid spending regulations to reduce costs.

The hearing on the agreement, known as the Global Medicaid Waiver, has been posted for Friday, Jan. 9, at 10 a.m. in Room 35 in the basement of the State House. Public testimony will be taken, according to an Assembly press release today.

The committee has also posted a second hearing date, Monday, Jan. 12, at 1 p.m., in case more time for testimony is needed.

Earlier this month, the federal government approved Governor Carcieri's bid for a waiver seeking extraordinary flexibility in Rhode Island's use of Medicaid funding in exchange for limiting its Medicaid spending to $12 billion over the next five years. The current year's state budget relies on a $67 million savings expected as a result of the waiver.

The General Assembly has 30 days from the agreement, which was announced Dec. 19, to take any action on it. Otherwise, it becomes effective as written. The waiver has left advocates for the poor worried, and led to concern from the state's congressional delegation.
The General Assembly's legislative session begins on Tuesday, Jan. 6.

-- The Associated Press, with projo.com reports

For those still at work on snowy New Year's Eve, think back.

It's snow days that trace the route from childhood to adulthood.

Back in the day -- the day being several thousand days, from kindergarten through college -- the fear of wintery flakes in freefall triggered an it-came-from-the-skies! reaction: classes were cancelled, whether nap time on our nursery school mats or a college survey class of William Faulkner's novels.

But adulthood soon intruded.

Sliding the kid-loaded sled downhill turned into sliding the debt-laden car during the morning commute.

We traded hot cocoa packets at the ready for car insurance cards within arm's reach.

Wiping snow from faces transformed into clearing ice from wiper blades.

We swapped watching the winner on daytime TV's The Price is Right! react to "a new car!" for the Weather Channel's warning of a new storm system.

We left behind figuring out how to get out of the house.

We figured out how to get home.

For many Rhode Islanders these days, of course, comparing a childhood of carefree snow days with an adulthood of staring out at snow heaps through workplace windows is a luxury.

Year's end will arrive with a high unemployment rate in the Ocean State and other uncertainties -- some don't have the luxury to wax poetic about cold days bathed in nostalgia's warm glow.

They may instead look to New Year's Day with hope. And if resolutions come true, maybe then a few more can afford the moment to think back to the snow days that were escape and ahead to the snow days from which we plan our escapes.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

Greyhound and Peter Pan bus lines cancelled/delayed trips connecting Providence with Boston and Providence with New York today because of the weather.

Peter Pan bus lines says on its Web site that trips connecting Providence and New York at 3 p.m., 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. are cancelled. Trips connecting Providence and Logan Airport in Boston at 2:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., and 8:30 p.m. are cancelled. Trips from T.F. Green Airport to Logan Airport at 2 p.m., 4:45 p.m. and 8 p.m. are cancelled. A 7:30 p.m. trip from Logan Airport to T.F. Green is cancelled.

Providence to Hyannis, Mass., trips at 5:45 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. are cancelled. Hyannis to Providence trips at 3:15 p.m. and 5:15 p.m. are cancelled.

Could it be a sign that any inferiority complex Rhode Islanders may hold toward the clearing of the state's roads --compared to the clearing of neighboring states's roads -- is out of date?

Sure there were near white-out conditions in the air, and it may be anecdotal, but a Journal reporter who took Route 295 through North Smithfield and Lincoln this afternoon encountered three lanes open and a speed of about 40 miles per hour.

When he got into Massachusetts on the same highway, it was down to two lanes and the speed hovered around 30 miles per hour.

-- With reports from Journal staff writer Tom Mooney

Journal photo / Bob Thayer
Jim Beller, doorman at The Providence Hotel on Mathewson Street, tips his hat to a passerby as he shovels out the front entrance today. The snow just kept coming, and Beller just kept on shovelling.

Providence has not instituted a parking ban today, despite the snow.

Several other cities and towns have posted parking bans already.

But Peter Gaynor, Providence's emergency management director, said officials did not want to shut down the city if they did not have to given that it is not a typical work-week day. Schools are off, traffic is light, some people are having reduced work hours and the latest forecast calls for less snow of 3 to 4 inches' accumulation, he said.

Gaynor said the snow is forecast to taper off around 4 p.m. to something lighter. However, he said the cold temperatures mean roads may need more attention into the evening, when New Year's Eve revelers turn out.

"Police and DPW are monitoring the situation, so if anything changes," the city can make adjustments, he said.

Gaynor said police are posted at some of the locations where car traffic is common. He emphasized that drivers should take it easy and be safe.

"We wanted to ensure that the roads were safe and that the publci was welcome into the city before Bright Night tonight and other events," including a scheduled Providence College Friars game at 4 p.m., he said.

Organizers have said that Bright Night festivities, which include a laser light show at midnight, will go on despite the snow. Ditto for the Friars' game; it's a go, no matter what.

Click here for information on closings, cancellations and parking bans around our region.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney, with reports from Journal sportswriter Kevin McNamara

A jack-knifed truck on Route 95 south in eastern Connecticut has shut down the highway in the exits 90-93 area -- from Mystic to the Rhode Island line -- according to Connecticut State Police.

Two other vehicles were apparently involved in the accident and injuries may have occurred, according to state police Sgt. Chris Johnson.

The call reporting the accident came in at 10:48 a.m. State Police expect the highway will reopen at 2 p.m.

Rhode Island's traffic cameras on Route 95 in South County showed few cars on the highway -- and a highway covered with more than a thick frosting of snow.

The National Weather Service's latest statement, sent just before noon, says a winter storm is "pounding southern New England."

At 11:50 a.m., the weather service's radar and observations found a band of heavy snow has moved into Providence county, with snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour.

Get the latest observations, radar, and closings at projo.com/weather.

-- with reports from Journal staff writer Donita Naylor

Hundreds of rats were found in three glass aquariums, two bird cages and three cat carriers on Hemlock Road in Foster Tuesday. In one of them there was a six-inch layer of dead rats that had live rats living on top of it. Photo courtesy of the RISPCA

By John Hill
Journal staff writer

FOSTER -- The police and the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to animals are trying to find out who left 280 dead or starving rats in eight containers on the side of Hemlock Road Tuesday. The SPCA is offering a reward for help in arresting whoever is responsible for dumping them.

Dr. E. J. Finocchio , an East Providence veterinarian and president of the Rhode Island SPCA, said in a 45-year veterinary career what Foster police found on Hemlock Road was the "grossest, most sickest thing I've ever seen in my life."

The rats were in three glass aquariums, two bird cages and three cat carriers, he said. In one of them there was a six-inch layer of dead rats that had live rats living on top of it. Some had resorted to cannibalism, he said.

"Despite the fact that they are rats, they are living things. You just can't do that," he said.

"I have never, ever seen anything like this in my life," Finocchio said.

Of the 280 rats, 72 were dead and 208 were still alive to varying degrees, he said. All of the surviving rats had to be euthanized individually, by hand, by SPCA members, he said. The bodies were cremated, though a half dozen or so corpses were frozen to be used as evidence in any criminal prosecution.