REGION IN BRIEF
Contestant on ‘Jeopardy!' moves
Trebek
PROVIDENCE (AP) — “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek got choked up when he read the final response from a Brown University student who wanted to show support as he battles pancreatic cancer.
The emotional moment came in Monday’s episode when Trebek read Dhruv Gaur’s final answer.
Instead of writing a correct response, Gaur wrote “We love you, Alex!” He substituted a heart in place of the word love.
Trebek’s voice cracked slightly as he thanked Gaur, telling him, “That’s very kind.”
Gaur was eliminated in the semifinals for the Tournament of Champions. He tweeted that Trebek had just “shared with us that he was reenteering treatment” and “we were all hurting for him so badly.”
Trebek announced in September he had resumed chemotherapy.
The Final Jeopardy clue had sought the title of a groundbreaking 1890 expose of poverty in New York City slums.
Pilot who landed on highway said he had to
think fast
EXETER (AP) — The New York pilot who landed his plane in the breakdown lane of a local highway says he had just seconds to make life-or-death decisions.
Rafael Campos says 15 minutes after he took off from T.F Green Airport in Warwick on Saturday, the engine of his Rockwell Commander 112 died, and he glided the four-seater plane down from 3,500 feet.
The 60-year-old Hempstead, New York man says the nearest airport was in Richmond, about five miles away, so he landed on the northbound side of Interstate 95 in Exeter. No one was hurt.
He says cars stopped on the highway and the drivers got out to hug him.
He forgot to deploy the landing gear but thinks landing on aluminum instead of rubber helped slow down the plane faster.
Guilty verdict in trial of man charged in
trooper's death
WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts man blamed with causing the death of a state police trooper has been convicted of manslaughter.
David Njuguna was found guilty Tuesday by a judge of involuntary manslaughter in the March 2016 death of Trooper Thomas Clardy.
Judge Janet Kenton-Walker cleared Njuguna of OUI manslaughter and felony motor vehicle homicide because prosecutors hadn't proved he was high on pot at the time of the crash.
Prosecutors say the 33-year-old Webster man was speeding and high on pot when he struck Clardy's stopped cruiser on the Massachusetts Turnpike in Charlton.
The defendant's lawyers say he had some sort of medical issue that caused a seizure and made him lose control of his vehicle.
Njuguna faces sentencing
Nov. 21.
Many state pensions
exceed 6 figures
PROVIDENCE (AP) — Some retired state workers in Rhode Island have been collecting pensions that exceed six figures while the state retirement system is underfunded, and cost-of-living adjustments have been frozen.
The Providence Journal reports that a cost-cutting overhaul passed in the General Assembly in 2011 changed age and work thresholds for retirement and froze cost-ofliving adjustments until the state pension obligations were 80% funded.
Citing numbers from state Treasurer Seth Magaziner’s office, the newspaper reports that the state employee’s retirement system is about 53% funded and the teachers’ retirement system is about 55% funded, according to the latest figures that date to June 2018.
Of the top 30 highest pensions in the state, only one is not a judge. The highest annual pension is about $209,000.
Researchers tag 50 sharks off Cape Cod
this season
BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) — Researchers have fitted 50 great white sharks found in Cape Cod waters this season with tracking and data-logging devices to study how the species kills seals to benefit public safety.