Newport native Claiborne deBorda Pell passed away yesterday, leaving behind a legacy of public service and commitment to the state of Rhode Island.
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Cuban President Raul Castro says he is willing to exchange political dissidents jailed in Cuba for five Cubans imprisoned in the US. The five people in question were convicted in 2001 for espionage. Raul Castro also emphasized his willingness to discuss the US embargo with the incoming president Barack Obama. President-elect Obama has never discussed releasing the prisoners and says he will keep the embargo until Cuba shows significant steps towards democracy.
-JB
The lawyer for Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich says that federal investigators monitored his client’s conversations illegally. These recordings are critical to the criminal charges against the governor, who is accused of trying to sell Barack Obama’s now empty senate seat. Illinois’s highest court has blocked attempts to declare Blagojevich unfit to serve, but an Illinois House committee now plans to begin the process of having lawmakers force the governor from office through impeachment.
-JB
Public schools in Providence and Cranston are closing ahead of a projected winter storm with up to a foot of snow. The National Weather Service is expecting snow to start falling around noon tomorrow, and continue throughout the evening, bringing one to two inches of snow per hour. Providence also announced a parking ban for Friday. Last year, a mid day storm created a major gridlock that stranded motorists and schoolchildren for hours. A special commission that studied the city’s response to that storm issued a 33 page report concluding that no one was in charge during crucial moments of the emergency.
-JB
The White House says helping automakers through an orderly bankruptcy as one option it is considering for rescuing the American auto industry. This drew sharp criticism from within the industry, which say that this is not a feasible solution. A worker at a Chrysler truck assembly plant that is shutting down for a month, Kevin Chatman, says he doesn’t think the Bush administration is going to anything to help the industry. He fears that the administration will dump the problem on Barrack Obama, and by the time Obama is in office, the auto industry’s problems could be much worse than they already are. The National Automobile Dealers Association and United Autoworkers Union also have expressed their opposition to bankruptcy, and are calling for fourteen billion dollars in emergency aid.
-JB
The state will get just under 200-thousand-dollars in a national settlement against a toy maker accused of selling toys with high levels of lead. Mattel, Incorporated has agreed to pay 12-million-dollars to 39-states after recalling millions of toys this year that were made in China with high levels of lead paint. Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch says the money will be sent into the state’s general fund.
Rising unemployment in Rhode Island is taking a toll on the state’s pool of money set aside to pay for benefits. Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training officials say the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund has dropped more than 40-percent in a year. The drop could lead the state to borrow from the Federal Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund if demand continues to grow. State officials say there is plenty of money in the fund right now to pay for benefits and future loans would not impact the amount or timeliness of customer benefit payments.
Governor Carcieri, Senator Jack Reed, and representatives from Rhode Island housing groups will meet today to discuss the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The program will provide 19-point-six-million dollars to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed or abandoned properties and provide first-time homebuyers with down payment assistance. The federal Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 has provided the money.