PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Robert McManus, Roman Catholic bishop of Worcester, Mass., and a former auxiliary bishop of the Providence Diocese, has been charged with drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident in Narragansett.

ROBERT McMANUS

Capt. Sean P. Corrigan of the Narragansett police said Monday the charges resulted from an incident Saturday in which McManus's vehicle collided with another as McManus was returning to a house he owns in Bonnet Shores.

Corrigan declined to say whether anyone was hurt or to identify the other driver, or release other details. He said McManus also was charged with refusing a chemical breath test for alcohol. McManus was released pending arraignment Tuesday.

McManus issued a statement saying he had consumed alcohol at dinner and asking forgiveness.

McManus, 61, is a Providence native and served as auxiliary bishop in Providence for five years. He's led the Worcester Diocese since 2004.

-- An earlier version of this report was posted at 11:51 a.m. and updated at 12:11 p.m.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A 44-year-old Fall River man has been sentenced to more than 22 years for robbing $82,000 from a West Greenwich bank where he and an accomplice tied up employees at gunpoint in 2011, according to a news release issued Monday by the office of U.S. Attorney Peter F. Neronha.

U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith also ordered Craig A. Carey to serve 5 years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term, says the release.

Previously, Carey had pleaded guilty to conspiracy, bank robbery, wielding a firearm during a crime of violence, and illegal possession of a firearm as a felon.

The matter was investigated by the West Greenwich police, the Rhode Island State Police and the FBI.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Rhode Island had the country's third-highest increase in suicides among the middle-aged in the decade that included the recession and housing crisis.

A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the suicide rate among those 35 to 64 in Rhode Island jumped 69 percent from 1999 to 2010. Only Wyoming and North Dakota had steeper hikes in the same group.

The national increase was 28 percent.

The report said Rhode Island suicides among the middle-aged went from 53 in 1999 to 92 in 2010 -- still a relatively low number overall. But the rate increased from 13 per 100,000 people to 23 per 100,000.

Rhode Island has struggled with one of the highest unemployment rates in the U.S.

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) -- A magistrate judge on Monday agreed to release a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from federal custody while he awaits trial for allegedly lying to federal investigators probing the bombings.

Robel Phillipos, 19, was charged last week with lying about visiting Tsarnaev's college dorm room after the bombings. The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth student faces a maximum of eight years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors initially asked that Phillipos be held while he awaits trial, arguing that he poses a serious flight risk. But both sides said in the court motion filed Monday they agreed to allow Phillipos to be released on $100,000 bond, provided he be confined to home and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet.

Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler agreed to the strict house arrest during a detention hearing. She told Phillipos he was allowed to leave the house only for meetings with his lawyers or true emergencies.

A huge crowd of supporters, including Phillipos' relatives, friends and grade-school principal, showed up at the courthouse. It was not immediately clear when Phillipos would be released.

Two other friends were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice by taking a backpack with fireworks and a laptop from Tsarnaev's dorm room. All four had studied at UMass Dartmouth.

Related: Funeral director: Tsarnaev's mother asks for elder son's body

TIVERTON, R.I. -- The Rhode Island Dairy Farms Cooperative, which produces Rhody Fresh Milk, will receive a $150,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed announced the grant Monday.

Rhody Fresh will use the money to bolster its marketing campaign and promote new products, such as locally-made cheese.

The Rhode Island Dairy Farms Cooperative was formed in 2004 by a group of five dairy farmers. It has since grown to eight dairy farms throughout the state.

PROVIDENCE, RI -- The state Supreme Court has upheld a $59,239 jury verdict against the City of Providence in a negligence case brought by Elizabeth Morel, who sued for personal injuries she suffered when the school bus she was driving fell into a sinkhole on a city roadway.

The accident happened on April 5, 2006 when the front wheels of the bus Morel was operating on Fairview Street fell into a trench.

Evidence was presented at trial that employees of the Providence Water Supply Board had installed a temporary patch in the road after completing a work order on pipes that ran underneath the area; "however," the court said, "the trench had 'washed out' due to a heavy rainfall, causing the patch to fail."

Family photo

Derrick Johnson

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A Providence man whom the police said was driving a car that killed a 6-year-old boy in Providence Sunday is being held on an immigration detainer.

The Providence police said Andres Morales, 39, was driving a pickup truck in the area of 98-100 Rosedale St. just before 6 p.m. Sunday when Derrick Johnson, 6, got out of his mother's car and ran across the street to his aunt's house. The pickup truck struck the Providence child, causing serious head injuries, Deputy Police Chief Thomas F. Oates III said. Derrick was taken to Hasbro Children's Hospital, where he died of his injuries, Oates said.

An autopsy concluded the child died of "blunt force head injuries" consistent with the crash, a spokeswoman for the health department said.

Morales, of 279 Waverly St., pleaded not guilty through a translator Monday morning in District Court, Providence, to a charge of driving without a license.

The original version of this story was posted at 10:21 a.m.

By Kevin Deutsch
Newsday (MCT)

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, has called the director of a Worcester, Mass., funeral home where Tsarnaev's body awaits burial -- and asked him to do what he can to get the body back to Russia, the director said Monday.

Peter Stefan of Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlor said Tsarnaeva was crying as she made the request.

"She's still his mother," Stefan said.

Tsarnaev's uncle, as well as a Muslim religious leader and two other of the uncle's friends, have cleansed and wrapped Tsarnaev's body in accordance with Islamic law, Stefan said. It is ready for burial but no cemeteries have agreed to take it, Stefan said.

He said he has a refrigeration system at the funeral home that allows for the continued preservation of the body.

Stefan also said he would pay to ship the body to another country if the U.S. State Department assures him it will be handled respectfully and buried properly.

"This has turned political," he said.

Related: House arrest set for marathon bombing suspect's friend pending trial

PROVIDENCE,R.I. -- Angela N. Romans, the senior education advisor to Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, will join the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.

She will be a principal associate in the District Redesign & Leadership practice, said AISR Executive Director Warren Simmons.

"We are very pleased that Angela will assume a senior position at the institute," said Simmon. "She brings a deep knowledge of public education policy issues, and a comprehensive understanding of the challenges facing districts and communities in their efforts to achieve equity and school improvement."

PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- State General Treasurer Gina Raimondo, joined by two Democratic lawmakers -- Rep. Anastasia Williams and Sen. Donna Nesselbush -- visited the Blackstone Valley Advocacy Center on Monday to announce their backing for two bills that would expand the Crime Victims Compensation program to include crime victims' emergency relocation costs up to $2,500.

Raimondo said bills could change lives and "quite possibly save them," since innocent victims of violent crime often have to move to rebuild their lives.

Established in 1972, the program is intended to help victims by covering associated medical expenses and loss of earnings up to $25,000. In fiscal year 2012, 422 Rhode Island families were awarded more than 1,300 payments totaling $1.9 million.

CRANSTON, R.I. -- Steven C. Taylor, a member of the U.S. Foreign Service since 1988 and a Cranston native, has been confirmed as the the new chief information officer for the Department of State.

Taylor, who served as acting CIO since August 2012 and as deputy CIO and chief technology officer of operations before that, is to oversee a budget of around $1 billion and will be responsible for technology initiatives and knowledge management services for the department and its 260 overseas missions.

He has held several prominent positions in the department over a number of years and has had assignments in Cairo; Athens; Baghdad; Berlin; Bonn, Germany; London; Moscow; and Rabat, Morocco. He is a graduate of Boston University.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- When architect Friedrich St. Florian looks to the former Route 195 land, he sees more than the "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to create new knowledge economy-based jobs that so many Rhode Islanders see.

"It should also be a contribution, really, to the 21st-century urban design," says the Providence-based architect who designed the World War II Memorial in Washington and was project architect of the Providence Place mall. "What are the expectations of urban development in our new century?"

With his historic knowledge of architecture's importance, St. Florian worried two years ago after Governor Chafee appointed commissioners to the Route 195 Redevelopment District Commission and spoke out against the lack of an architect on the powerful land panel. In response, St. Florian collaborated with two other professors to hold a joint urban design studio for advanced students at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is applauding the Senate's passage of legislation requiring large web-based retailers to collect sales taxes the same way that brick-and-mortar stores have to collect state sales taxes when they sell merchandise.

"One of the most common arguments we hear in the Senate is that government should not pick winners and losers. Unfortunately, our current tax laws are giving an unfair advantage to big internet retailers over local small businesses," said Whitehouse, a co-sponsor of the bill.

"I've heard from Rhode Island small business owners who are fed up with this unfair tax loophole and I'm proud that the Senate acted today to give them the even playing field they deserve."

Providence Journal photo / Kris Craig

Heather Abbott's room at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital is stuffed with flowers and gifts from well-wishers

But before she leaves Boston, she will appear at Fenway Park as a special honoree at the Red Sox Rhode Island Day.

In an interview Monday, Abbott, 38, sat by the window of her room at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, where she has been staying for the past week. Flowers sent by well-wishers lined the picture window, which looked out on the Tobin Bridge. The cast is off her left leg, amputated below the knee, and the stump is wrapped in gauze.

She smiled the same radiant smile that captivated the media at a press conference a couple of weeks ago at Brigham & Women's Hospital, where she was taken after the bombing and where she decided to have her severely damaged foot removed. She expressed no regrets, and said she continues to maintain good spirits.

"I'm a very logical person," Abbott said. "To dwell on negatives isn't going to help me."

She enjoys a constant stream of visitors, and friends at home holding fund-raisers for her. "It's hard to be depressed when you have that many people cheering you on," she said.

At Spaulding she undergoes three hours of physical and occupational therapy each day, building strength and learning how to get around without a leg.

For some reason, Dean Cooper, 21, decided to change clothes Sunday night between shooting at the gun range and seeing the new Iron Man movie.

He noticed a small crowd on Plainfield Pike, just before the turn to his Cranston home.

"I saw a motorcycle on the ground, then I saw somebody pinned underneath."

Once a volunteer firefighter, the 2009 graduate of Cranston West trained as an emergency medical technician.

He also has military training, although his military career was cut short because of medical reasons, he said.

Knowing what to do "just kind of takes over."

A neighbor, Howard Woolfolk, 39, had moved the cruiser-style Harley off the victim, but the man's leg was still pinned.

Cooper helped free the leg.

The man, whom police did not immediately identify, was covered in blood.

He asked a bystander to get the medical kit he keeps with his shooting gear. He asked someone else to call 911 again so he could give details -- that it was a 40- to 50-year-old male with cuts and a serious laceration to his skull -- directly to the dispatcher.

He put a military blood-clotting powder on some of the wounds. He asked for a towel to augment the gauze. He applied pressure against the most severe bleeding.

Although people told him that what he did was brave, he doesn't think so.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A hearing Tuesday afternoon of the House Finance Committee will focus on Democratic leaders' plans to revamp the state's economic development bureaucracy, which has been under fire since authorizing a $75-million loan guarantee to Curt Schilling's video game company, 38 Studios.

Among them is a proposal, introduced by House Finance Committee Chairman Helio Melo, D- East Providence to create a new "Executive Office of Commerce" headed by a "Secretary of Commerce."

The Cabinet-level office, appointed by the governor, would take over many functions of the state departments of Business Regulations, Labor and Training, Environmental Management and Administration.

And House Majority Leader Nicholas A. Mattiello, D-Cranston, has submitted legislation requiring a new "Economic Development Planning Council" convene every four years, timed with the gubernatorial election, to develop an economic policy plan.

The hearing will begin about 4:45 p.m. in Room 35 of the State House.

Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

WARWICK, R.I. -- Bring your memories of summers past and your ideas for the future.

A nonprofit group that lobbied tirelessly for the public acquisition of the seaside spot that was once Rocky Point amusement park is holding a forum Tuesday to solicit Rhode Islander's thoughts on what they think the state Department of Environmental Management should do with the property.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at Rhodes-on-the-Pawtuxet in Cranston, said John Howell, Warwick newspaper publisher and president of the nonprofit Rocky Point Foundation.

"We're looking for ideas -- any ideas and all possibilities," said Howell, adding that the foundation is working with the DEM in planning the future for the 82 acres of the landmark park it purchased this year with open space bond money.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Rhode Island has been selected for the Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative, which helps states look at costs and benefits before making policy decisions.

Governor Chafee announced Tuesday that Rhode Island became the 14th partner state as a result of his March 21 request to be included in the technical support and sharing of best practices that the initiative offers.

Gary VanLandingham, director of the Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative, was quoted in Chafee's news release as saying "Other states have used this approach to target funding to programs that provide the best bang for the buck, and we are confident that Rhode Island can achieve similar positive results."

NARRAGANSETT -- In response to objections from local officials and residents, Deepwater Wind is set to change its plan to bring a transmission line into Narragansett from a proposed offshore wind farm near Block Island.

Deepwater CEO Jeffrey Grybowski said on Tuesday that the company will commit to burying new power lines that would run through Narragansett as part of the transmission project, rather than installing them overhead on poles.

The change would mark a return to the original plan that was presented to the public in 2011. Grybowski said that his company initially made the switch to overhead lines because of cost concerns and ease of construction -- it's easier to string lines on existing poles as opposed to laying them under streets -- but he admitted that the local reaction had been less than positive.

"We understand the concerns the folks in the neighborhood have about the overhead lines," he said from Chicago, where he was attending a national wind power conference.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Rhode Island Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved three new nominees to serve on the board for the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation -- Judith Diaz, Elizabeth Francis and Oscar T. "Tim" Hebert.

That's the final step for the three, who are now officially directors of the board, which Governor Chafee has been working to fill since last spring. The collapse of 38 Studios at that time caused an exodus from the 13-member board.

Diaz is a registered nurse and director of community health services for Lifespan. Francis is executive director of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities. Hebert is chairperson, president and CEO of Atrion Networking Corp. in Warwick.

Governor Chafee has one remaining nominee who faces the advice and consent of the Rhode Island Senate -- Maeve Donohue, president of Barrington's Nami Studios.