Here are some of The Providence Journal’s most-read stories for the week of Dec. 29, supported by your subscriptions.

• We’re now several days into 2025, but forgive us for still taking some backward glances to make sense of all that happened in 2024, which was … a lot. Who better to put things in perspective with tongue firmly in cheek than columnist Mark Patinkin – from the evolving mess of the Washington Bridge, to the weddings of Olivia Culpo and Elizabeth Beisel, to the arrival of giant trolls in Charlestown and elephants in Newport, not to mention all the celebrity sightings during the filming of “Ella McCay” and the Watch Hill visits by Taylor Swift and her A-List posse.
• You might not expect newsworthy stories to spring from the real estate listings, but again, Rhode Island did not disappoint. We even had a historic island for sale.
• In sports, Jacob Rousseau reflects on his first year with The Journal, including that rookie mistake he made in the Fenway Park press box. His colleague Bill Koch looks ahead with predictions on what 2025 will bring for the college hoops scene in Rhode Island. For those stories and other college, high school and Patriots action, go to providencejournal.com/sports.

Here are the week’s top reads on providencejournal.com:

PROVIDENCE – New Year’s Day ushers in a raft of new state laws, and the final step in a years-long march to a $15-an-hour minimum wage for Rhode Island.

Some of these laws were debated and passed during the legislative session that ended in June, and others years earlier with phased-in effective dates, as was true with the minimum wage law passed in 2021 that raised the rate from $11.50 to $15 an hour over four years.

Other laws taking effect on Jan. 1 include one of the most popular to emerge from the 2024 session, benefiting those age 65 and older. Read the full story for a rundown of changes affecting Rhode Islanders in 2025.

Politics: Minimum wage hike, flavored vape ban and more: These new RI laws go into effect Jan. 1

PROVIDENCE – As feared, the hackers who breached Rhode Island’s expansive, Deloitte-run public benefits computer system RIBridges have released “at least some” files to a site on the dark web, the governor’s office disclosed on Monday.

“Right now, IT teams are working diligently to analyze the released files,” the governor’s office reported in a news release that went out at 11:52 a.m.

“We do not yet know the scope of the data that is included in those files, but as we’ve been saying for several weeks, we should assume that data contained in the RIBridges system has been compromised,” the statement said of the benefits system formerly known as UHIP.

The system contains the records of roughly 650,000 people who are receiving – or have previously received – Medicaid and SNAP (formerly known as Food Stamps), or who enrolled in private health insurance through HealthSourceRI.

Data breach: Stolen info from RIBridges hack being posted to the dark web. What to know.

In 2018, Timothy and Anne-Marie Corbett paid $2.2 million for a four-bedroom home near Sandy Point Beach in Portsmouth. The real estate listing featured photographs of a lush, green lawn with panoramic Sakonnet River views and gushingly described it as “one of the most spectacular waterfront sites available.”

Over the years, that lawn has grown smaller as the ocean has gotten closer. According to the Corbetts’ lawyer, Michael A. Kelly, approximately 30 feet of the couple’s property washed away in storms during the last two winters.

He blames the Coastal Resources Management Council, which prohibited the Corbetts from using heavy boulders to fortify the crumbling bluffs at the edge of their backyard – a defense mechanism that can help stave off erosion but often at the expense of neighboring properties and nearby beaches.

In December, Kelly filed a class action lawsuit that alleges it’s unconstitutional for the CRMC to stop homeowners from taking such steps to reduce erosion. He expects dozens of other waterfront property owners to join in.

Read on to learn more about the latest chapter in Rhode Island’s tug of war between public shoreline access and private property rights.

Political Scene: RI couple’s lawsuit challenges whether CRMC has say over homeowners’ seawalls. Why it matters.

It has the ring of an urban legend.

So it’s easy to understand why one What and Why RI reader wrote in to ask, “Was Al Pacino really arrested in Rhode Island?”

But it’s true.

Years before he made his movie debut, Pacino was briefly inmate #48634 at the Adult Correctional Institutions, which listed his occupation as “unemployed.” He’d been picked up by the Woonsocket Police Department early on the morning of Jan. 7, 1961, and charged with possession of a concealed weapon.

What happened next? Read the full story to find out.

What and Why RI: Was Al Pacino really arrested in Rhode Island? Here’s the story

As 2024 drew to a close, Journal food editor Gail Ciampa declared that it was one delicious year.

Restaurants and chefs in Rhode Island put on a remarkable show. Ten were honored with James Beard Foundation nominations, widely considered the Oscars of the dining world. Many were noted for excellence by Yelp, the crowd-sourcing platform and Open Table, the reservation company. National media including the New York Times and USA Today cited several for excellence.

Here are five experiences that topped Gail’s list. Will they be on your menu of dining destinations for 2025?

Dining: Five memorable meals across RI made 2024 a delicious year. The places to try in 2025

To read the full stories, go to providencejournal.com. Find out how to subscribe here.