Archive - Mar 2012 - News Article
March 14th
WOONSOCKET – An unidentified city woman was injured when a fire broke out in the kitchen of her 50 Jackson St. apartment building just before 3 p.m. Wednesday.
Deputy Fire Chief Paul Russell said the woman suffered minor burns and was transported to the hospital by rescue for treatment.
A teenager living in the apartment building also suffered an ankle injury escaping the fire and Russell said a city firefighter was injured in the effort to knock down the blaze.
“It was a kitchen fire on second floor with extension of the fire into the third floor,” Russell said at the scene.
WOONSOCKET – Jim Walker is neatly dressed, well-groomed and articulate. He's also homeless.
The 51-year-old Bellingham native says he got that way after he was laid off from his job as a car salesman and his unemployment benefits ran out.
PROVIDENCE – No matter how the Woonsocket School Committee votes tonight, state officials say they are not going to allow the city to end its school year in April.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee called that idea “a non-starter,” adding that it is “just inconceivable” that the last two and a half months of the school year could get lopped off the education calendar.
Several officials pointed to a provision in state law saying that the commissioner of education would have to give the school department a waiver from the requirement that schools be in session 180 days a school year.
March 12th
WOONSOCKET — On paid leave from her $90,000 a year job since January, School Department Business Manager Stacey Busby has been quietly stripped of her salary.
School Department sources familiar with Busby’s employment status say she was informed in a letter last week that she is no longer being paid, though she remains on leave. Busby was also advised that her employment status will be the subject of a closed-door hearing before the School Committee, tentatively scheduled for March 21.
March 11th
On a Friday evening these days, just a handful of members belonging to the Alphonse Yelle Post No. 9 of the American Legion get together at the Post Home at 20 Railroad St.
The reasons they gather together haven't really changed since the post was founded by Manville soldiers returning home from World War I, but it does seem fewer of today's returning warriors have the time or willingness to maintain lasting friendships at a post.
March 10th
WARWICK — Central Falls Receiver Robert Flanders extolled the virtues of municipal bankruptcy Saturday, telling the RI Statewide Coalition that it “is not a horrible thing; it is a thing we ought to be doing.”
LINCOLN — John Wilson was just a teenager when he encountered what was the greatest challenge of his life. With World War II in full swing, Wilson left his Woodland Street home in Saylesville in 1944 to join the U.S. Navy and soon found himself serving aboard the Fletcher-class Destroyer Isherwood as it entered battle in the Philippines.
He would see action in the battles of Leyte Gulf and Lingayen Gulf and hone his skill as an anti-aircraft gunner before his ship joined the fleet supporting the invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945.
March 9th
The Woonsocket Prevention Coalition and the local police department are reaching out to the community to assist in crime prevention and helping with unsolved crimes. This billboard, located on the corner of Hamlet Avenue and Manville Road, seeks information in the unsolved killing of 22-year-old Robert Jones on October 28, 2008. Jones was shot in his apartment at 425 Diamond Hill Road in Woonsocket. The Woonsocket Police Department continues to actively work this investigation and has followed up on several leads since the incident occurred, police said.
NORTH SCITUATE — State law enforcement officials are charging two Woonsocket residents with a series of house breaks throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
PROVIDENCE – Steward Health Care System walked out of Superior Court Friday with a revamped agreement to buy Landmark Medical Center that puts more pressure than ever on state regulators, lawmakers, and private business interests to get the deal done quickly, and on Steward’s terms.
