Rhode Island
Can R.I. keep Hasbro toys from leaving the state? Pawtucket has an idea. – The Boston Globe
Tasked with helping the city craft a pitch to Hasbro, Kashala touted the building’s location, which is visible from Interstate 95, centrally located in downtown, and is close to the new Pawtucket-Central Falls Transit Center that serves as a stop on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s commuter rail. Any redevelopment of the site, he said, would also complement the Tidewater Landing Redevelopment — the future home of the Rhode Island FC soccer club.
Hasbro “could have a big symbolic presence,” said Kashala.
The news comes a week after Hasbro executives confirmed that the company was exploring new options for its headquarters, which has been located in Rhode Island since its founding in 1923 by the Hassenfeld family. It’s one of the few publicly traded companies based in Rhode Island, and is the corporation behind classics like Monopoly, Nerf, Mr. Potato Head, Twister, and Play-Doh.
The company owns its 343,000-square-foot office on Newport Avenue in Pawtucket, which executives said they are ready to move on from for new digs in the Greater Boston area.
“Our Pawtucket building is full of charm and history, but it is also showing its age,” Christian “Chris” P. Cocks wrote in his message to employees on Sept. 16. Cocks said in that same message that any potential move wouldn’t take place “for at least 18 months” and that none of the details are final.
Hasbro executives have already toured multiple Boston office buildings and informally met with Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey’s office.
Hasbro employs approximately 5,500 people globally, with roughly 1,000 based in Rhode Island. If Hasbro moved out of Rhode Island, it would dramatically shift Pawtucket’s economic landscape. Yet Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien was left out of Governor Dan McKee and Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi’s initial meeting with Cocks on Sept. 19.
In July, Pawtucket started soliciting bids from developers for what is known as the Downtown Gateway Project, which centers around the former Apex building. On Wednesday, the city is expected to announce that it received four proposals, which the city’s administration, planning, and commerce departments will begin reviewing next week, Pawtucket spokeswoman Grace Voll said.
The initial solicitation did not ask developers to envision the site to include Hasbro’s headquarters.
If the former Apex building is not razed, it’s not yet clear what the total investment would be for Hasbro to use the existing building. Kashala could not provide cost estimates or describe the conditions of the property.
As one of Rhode Island’s largest corporations, officials have previously attempted to court Hasbro to stay in Pawtucket.
In 2018, when Hasbro executives considered renovating or completely vacating their headquarters in Pawtucket, Grebien made a similar pitch to Hasbro and the Pawtucket Red Sox (now the Worcester Red Sox) with the hope that both institutions would move their operations to the city’s downtown. City leaders wanted Hasbro to build a new office complex just beyond the outfield wall of a new PawSox stadium. The mayor’s presentation claimed that Hasbro becoming part of the greater ballpark redevelopment area could save the company up to $10 per square foot each year. Neither project ever came to fruition.
Under former governor Gina M. Raimondo, state officials had attempted to pitch the Industrial Trust Company Building in Providence (which is more commonly referred to as the “Superman” building) and the former I-195 land to Hasbro.
Over the last year, Hasbro has shaved down its local workforce, from 1,400 full-time employees in 2023 to 1,000 in 2024, and gave up the lease on its office in downtown Providence. In the last three months of 2023, Hasbro lost $1.06 billion.
In the state’s latest effort to keep the company in Pawtucket, Kashala acknowledges surrounding cities — including Providence — could begin a bidding war by handing out incentives or other forms of tax breaks.
“The goal should really be, how do we come together in this initial response where we take Hasbro leaving the state off the table,” Kashala said.
Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.
(WJAR) — An energy assistance program designed to help Rhode Islanders struggling to pay utility bills has extended its application deadline amid rising demand for financial assistance.
The United Way of Rhode Island announced that residents now have until June 30 to apply for aid through the Good Neighbor Energy Fund.
The program provides one-time emergency utility assistance to income-eligible households that need help paying a bill or avoiding a service shutoff but do not qualify for other state or federal assistance programs.
Demand for help has increased sharply.
According to United Way of Rhode Island, requests for assistance with electric bills rose 182% in May compared with the same month a year earlier. A total of 1,202 Rhode Islanders reported utility costs as a need last month.
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Residents interested in applying or determining their eligibility can call 211 before the June 30 deadline or visit the United Way of Rhode Island website.
The Rhode Island Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at June 8, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from June 8 drawing
03-24-34-43-49, Powerball: 20, Power Play: 3
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Numbers numbers from June 8 drawing
Midday: 5-1-4-9
Evening: 6-0-8-6
Check Numbers payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Wild Money numbers from June 8 drawing
02-04-17-22-32, Extra: 16
Check Wild Money payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from June 8 drawing
20-25-40-50-55, Bonus: 01
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize
- Prizes less than $600 can be claimed at any Rhode Island Lottery Retailer. Prizes of $600 and above must be claimed at Lottery Headquarters, 1425 Pontiac Ave., Cranston, Rhode Island 02920.
- Mega Millions and Powerball jackpot winners can decide on cash or annuity payment within 60 days after becoming entitled to the prize. The annuitized prize shall be paid in 30 graduated annual installments.
- Winners of the Millionaire for Life top prize of $1,000,000 a year for life and second prize of $100,000 a year for life can decide to collect the prize for a minimum of 20 years or take a lump sum cash payment.
When are the Rhode Island Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 10:59 p.m. ET on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 11:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky for Life: 10:30 p.m. ET daily.
- Millionaire for Life: 11:15 p.m. ET daily.
- Numbers (Midday): 1:30 p.m. ET daily.
- Numbers (Evening): 7:29 p.m. ET daily.
- Wild Money: 7:29 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Rhode Island editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Pawtuxet River flooding: Study commission weighs potential solution
The Pawtuxet River keeps flooding. Is the Scituate Reservoir to blame?
With time running out and no action scheduled yet, advocates are escalating their campaign to convince lawmakers to pass the Rhode Island “Voting Rights Act” introduced by Senate President Valarie Lawson and House Majority Leader Katherine Kazarian.
But it appears the bill has already been declared dead for the year.
Lawson, House Speaker Christopher Blazejewski and Secretary of State Gregg Amore issued this joint statement on Monday, June 8:
“From the beginning, we have all understood the importance of passing a strong Rhode Island Voting Rights Act. But we also understand that as the federal administration continues to work to make it more difficult to access the ballot box, we have to do it right.”
“Advocates and other parties raised several concerns,” the statement said. “It is imperative that we enact as strong, enforceable, and defensible a bill as possible. With those priorities in mind, we recognize there is more work to do.”
“As drafted this year, the provisions of the Voting Rights Act would not take effect until the 2028 election cycle. Therefore, we will work over the course of the off-session to put forward as strong a bill as possible for consideration in 2027 and will continue to prioritize the Voting Rights Act in the upcoming session,” the statement continued.
The reaction from one angry advocate, Sen. Tiara Mack: “I’m not done fighting.”
How did we get here?
The legislation was introduced in response to thwarted Republican efforts to pass a federal SAVE Act to require proof of citizenship to register to vote and came weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court hollowed out a landmark Civil Rights-era law that has increased minority representation in Congress and elsewhere, opening the door for more redistricting across the country that could aid Republican efforts to maintain control the House.
“This is not abstract. This is about power,” Shahidah Ali, chairwoman of the political arm of the Rhode Island Coalition of Black Women, said at a voting rights rally that packed the State House Library on March 31.
“This is about who gets to participate in our democracy, and who is pushed out of it.”
On Sunday, June 7, Ali reiterated that warning and her frustration that the bill appears, despite its high-powered sponsors, to be in limbo going into the expected final days of the legislative session, saying she didn’t understand why the bill wasn’t moving as quickly as she thought it would.
“I feel like when you’re in a super majority and it’s something that’s needed after … the gutting of the Federal Voting Rights Act, I would think that this would be a no-brainer, that the Democrats in this state would understand the importance and the urgency of a bill to protect voters, especially Black voters,” she said.
Why hasn’t the bill moved?
As of Sunday, Rep. Kathy Fogarty, a co-sponsor of the House version of the bill (H8334), has not given up hope the bill would still pass. But, she said, “my understanding is that they were concerned …. [and] wanted to review” some of Attorney General Peter Neronha’s comments about the bill after Secretary of State Gregg Amore asked him for his input.
Fogarty said the May 7 leadership change in the House put the newly elected Speaker Blazejewski and Kazarian, in her newly elevated role as majority leader, in front of a proverbial “fire hose,” with the finalization of the proposed new $15.2 billion state budget their first priority.
With the need to finalize the budget, which won House approval on June 5, “I think that this just kind of got pushed to the side,” Fogarty said of the voting rights bill.
The backdrop
The proposed Rhode Island Voter Rights Act was introduced to enshrine federal protections against voter suppression, vote dilution and “racially-based gerrymandering” in state law.
The legislation was introduced in response to the push by President Donald Trump and his GOP allies in Congress for passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, known more familiarly as the SAVE Act.
While Rhode Island already has its own Voter ID law requiring prospective voters to show a photo identification to cast their ballot, the SAVE Act would require proof of citizenship – such as a valid U.S. passport and certified birth certificate – to register to vote.
If the U.S. Senate were able to muster the votes to pass the SAVE Act, critics say millions could be disenfranchised, including married women whose adult names do not match the names on their birth certificates.
Speaking at the March 31 Rhode Island rally, U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner said not enough attention has gone to the proposed requirement that a voter present the same level of documentation to obtain a mail ballot, “but only if they showed up to their board of canvassers in person to prove their citizenship.” This would obviously be problematic for people too ill to leave their homes, hospitalized, out of the country or even, out of state on business.
As currently drafted, the proposed Rhode Island Voting Rights Act would take effect on January 1, 2027.
What were the concerns about the bill?
The edits Neronha’s staff suggested to the Secretary of State’s Office were largely cosmetic – the deletion of an extraneous word here or there, or clarification of a potentially muddy sentences.
In a June 6 letter to John Marion, executive director of the citizens-advocacy group Common Cause Rhode Island, Neronha said: “I do not view our comments on the proposed Act as particularly extensive nor burdensome nor time-consuming to implement, in whole or in part, should there be a desire to do so.”
Neronha’s letter said that his comments on the bill shouldn’t impede its passage, or be taken “even as a suggestion” that he doesn’t support the bill. His office’s role, he said, was to make a “laudable piece of legislation better if we could.”
“We undertook that task because we were asked to, and I agreed because I believe that passage of a Voting Rights Act is important to protecting the rights of Rhode Islanders and our democracy,” Neronha said.
Advocates are not giving up
In recent weeks, Ali said she went on radio to make an appeal to Black and brown men, in particular, to support the legislation, while she and other advocates distributed 3,300 postcards to be mailed to state lawmakers.
The message: “Dear Senator (Representative), The Voting Rights Act is one of the most important statutes we have in this country as it protects everyone’s right to vote and allows our country to function as a true democracy. Until it is codified into Rhode Island state law our fundamental Civil Rights are at risk.”
“We cannot afford to lose our Civil Rights with an election coming.”
This story has been updated with new information.
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