WORCESTER After spending an extended day at the bargaining table, striking nurses and negotiators from St. Vincent Hospital left their face-to-face session Friday evening with no resolution.
At 7:30 p.m. 2½ hours after the anticipated end of the talks a federal mediator called an end to the bargaining for the night, and will be in touch with the parties to see about scheduling another session, David Schildmeier, director of public communications for the Massachusetts Nurses Association, said.
Just before 6:30 p.m. Friday, Schildmeier confirmed that talks, which were slated to end at 5 p.m., were continuing.
Matt Clyburn, a spokesman for the Tenet Healthcare of Dallas-owned St. Vincent Hospital, also confirmed that the talks were ongoing.
Rhode Island s Council on Elementary and Secondary Education has given the green light to three new Providence charter schools.
The council issued the final approval on Wednesday to Excel Academy, Nuestro Mundo Public Charter School and Providence Preparatory Charter School, each of which will be allowed to operate for a maximum term of five years.
Excel is slated to open for the 2022-23 school year, while the latter two are set to open for the 2021-22 school year.
The approvals, given via a Zoom meeting, followed remarks from more than a dozen speakers including parents and local leaders. Those included Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, who affirmed his support for Excel in particular.
One of the biggest and most overlooked election stories may have come out of the country’s smallest state.
Rhode Island, only 1,200 square miles and home to a little more than 1 million people, is rarely the subject of national political interest. With a majority-Democratic legislature, Democratic governor, and an all-Democratic congressional delegation, the state’s politics might seem sleepy to outsiders. Hiding beneath the surface is a much deeper story.
Much of Rhode Island’s Democratic leadership is, put simply, quite conservative. The long-standing (and now outgoing) Democratic Speaker of the House, one of the state’s most powerful elected officials, voted down abortion rights legislation, and has an A rating from the National Rifle Association. Democrats in the state House voted in 2010 to cut taxes for the rich, and in 2011, a majority of Democrats voted for repressive voter I.D. laws. The Rhode Island Democratic State Committee stripped the Women’s Caucus of privi