Top 10 stories of 2024 in Rhode Island

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

69% : Common Cause Rhode Island came to an initially more damning conclusion: that McKee violated state ethics laws for accepting, and not reporting, free campaign consulting services from a separate firm linked to Magee.
66% : But Trump had his best showing among Ocean State voters yet, cracking the 40% threshold for the first time in his three presidential campaigns.
65% : Yes, Kamala Harris led Donald Trump by a decisive 13.7 percentage points and secured all four of the state's Electoral College votes, according to final results of the Nov. 5 election.
59% : And so it was: The Council on Elementary and Secondary Education approved an extension of state control that could last through 2027.
57% : In Central Falls, the state's only majority-minority community, Trump gained nearly 10 percentage points compared with his showing in 2020.
53% : There was no surprise in the expiry of federal pandemic relief money to states, which can be spent through 2026 but must be allocated by Dec. 31, per U.S. Dept. of Treasury rules.
51% : ""We will continue to advocate for a system that can be responsive to the complex needs of our children and youth, in real-time," she said.-- Alexander CastroPlenty of questions remain about an end-of-year news dump regarding an end-of-year data breach of RIBridges, the system run by Big Four accounting firm Deloitte is used to determine eligibility for numerous social benefits from food stamps to Medicaid.
50% : But after two losing bidders, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island and Tufts Public Health Plans, Inc., appealed the decision based on flaws in scoring criteria and membership of the review panel, the state agreed to revisit all four bids.
48% : That means the personal information of an estimated 650,000 Rhode Islanders -- like Social Security numbers, home addresses and banking info -- could be released by Brain Cipher, the cybercriminal group that took credit for the breach.
41% : Trump leaned heavily on the state's western half, characterized by more conservative cities and towns, but also made inroads with voters in Pawtucket and Central Falls.
37% : The long-awaited results of an investigation unveiled by the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General and Rhode Island State Police in late October, fell short of legal standards for a criminal conviction.
37% : The district spans Richmond, Exeter and a slice of Hopkinton, all of which voted for Trump over Harris in the presidential race.
36% : Come Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, the relative financial plushness under President Joe Biden's administration will give way to a sequel Donald Trump presidency that promises to reimagine federal funding via DOGE -- a still-embryonic initiative that shares its name with a decade-old meme.
34% : Trump also flipped Woonsocket, which hasn't voted for a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.