NEWS

This Just In: Meet our election panel

Mike McDermott Journal Managing Editor

Good afternoon and welcome to This Just In, on a lovely Friday afternoon. I'm Mike McDermott, managing editor of The Providence Journal.

Last month, we asked for readers to form a panel to help guide our coverage of the 2020 presidential election. We received many responses, and today, we're unveiling the 17 Rhode Islanders who will ultimately be taking part. My boss, Alan Rosenberg, explains here how they were selected.

When Joseph Giachello, the Westerly man who would go on to kill one woman and wound two others at the housing complex where he lived, attempted in November to purchase a gun, the FBI-run National Instant Criminal Background Check System told the dealer to delay the sale. Authorities wanted more information on something that may have disqualified Giachello. As it turned out, the federal system never returned a final answer on whether Giachello should be allowed to have a gun. The gun shop, Hope Valley Bait & Tackle, was not obligated to wait more than three days for an answer from the feds, and the sale went through. It remains unclear whether the federal government would have turned up information that would have disqualified Giachello from buying the gun.

It was a miserable morning for drivers trying to get to Newport on the Pell Bridge. Emergency repairs to the bridge, the result of a chunk of concrete breaking off the deck and creating an 8-inch hole in the eastbound passing lane, stalled traffic for more than an hour. An official with the Bridge & Turnpike Authority said the hole discovered Thursday was a "recipe for disaster" that needed to be fixed immediately.

Robert McKinney, who was serving a life sentence for the 1995 murder of John D. Carpenter in Providence, will soon be a free man as a result of a ruling by the Parole Board -- and the intervention of the Rhode Island ACLU.

The East Providence police are going to have a presence once again on "Live PD," about a month after the Police Department said it was going to be "taking a break" from the show.

With the General Assembly set to consider two bills that would allow school districts in Rhode Island to charge for field trips once again, Mark Patinkin took a how the current policy has made these trips increasingly rare.

A judge in Massachusetts has dismissed a domestic assault case against Sarah Behn, the head coach of the Brown University women's basketball team.

Have a great weekend. And remember, if you enjoy This Just In, please encourage a friend to sign up.