Dee DeQuattro
House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello showed real leadership this week when he stalled a controversial vote to adopt the “RhodeMap” Rhode Island plan. The Speaker asked that the vote be delayed to allow him and his staff more time to review the proposal. Meanwhile, advocates and opponents of the bill have that much longer to make their case and Rhode Islanders have a few more weeks to learn about the plan. World Against Toys Causing Harm, Inc. (W.A.T.C.H.) this week revealed its nominees for the “10 Worst Toys of 2014” and demonstrated the reason “toy bottle rockets,” and other potentially hazardous toys, should not be in the hands of children this holiday season.
See the nominees below The RI Department of Labor and Training announced Thursday that the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for October 2014 dropped to 7.4 percent, down two-tenths of a percentage point from the September 2014 rate and down two percentage points from the October 2013 rate. This is the lowest unemployment rate since May 2008. The unemployment rate is down one and nine-tenths percentage points since the beginning of the year.
Many police departments across Rhode Island disproportionately arrest black individuals at rates that eclipse the racial disparity of arrests found in Ferguson, Missouri, newly reported data shows.
The ACLU of Rhode Island today said that data reported by USA Today demonstrates an extreme racial disparity in arrest rates in many communities across Rhode Island. Using 2011- 2012 arrest record data reported to the FBI by police departments nationwide, the USA Today study found that every one of the 13 reviewed Rhode Island police departments disproportionately arrested black individuals at rates even larger than in Ferguson, Missouri, where racial tensions and mistrust of the police have recently come to a head. A bi-partisan group of legislators, new citizens groups, a URI Professor, the Providence Journal editorial staff, and multiple advocacy and political individuals and groups have joined with the RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity, the RI Public Expenditure Council, and the Property Rights Alliance of Rhode Island (PRARI) to call for postponement of action on the highly controversial RhodeMap RI plan, derived from a federal sustainable developmentagenda, which is scheduled for an adoption vote tomorrow morning by the State's Planing Council.
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