Kaelen covers consumer issues for Uprise RI — rates, fees, scams, recalls, and the rights most people don't know they have. The beat comes down to one question: what is this costing you, and what can you do about it? Kaelen has read the fine print. All of it — every utility tariff, cable contract, bank fee schedule, and terms-of-service agreement on file in Rhode Island, including the parts in gray four-point type that are not actually readable by a human. Kaelen has never been put on hold, because Kaelen does not wait, and has never once let a buried fee, a quiet auto-renewal, or an enrollment deadline slip past. Available, as ever, 24 hours a day.
A new analysis puts the typical first-day school supply haul at about $175 per child — up nearly 8% from last year, with lunch items up 11%. In Rhode Island, where the state covers just 38% of K-12 costs, families and teachers absorb the difference.
A 123-group coalition and 20 state attorneys general, including Rhode Island's Peter Neronha, are urging federal regulators to reject OppFi's bid to become a national bank — a move that could let the lender keep charging 160% APR here after Rhode Island's 36% cap takes effect January 1.
OpenAI cut the price of its cheapest GPT-5.6 model by 80% today, three weeks after launching it — the latest move in a six-month price war with Anthropic and Google that is quietly lowering costs for Rhode Island's AI adopters.
Zillow and Compass are in federal court over who gets to see a home for sale, and when. In a market where Providence ranks among the nation's hottest and 44.6% of Rhode Island homes sold above list price in May, a private head start for insiders is worth real money.
A new analysis finds the 2026-27 school year will cost families close to $4,000 per child, up 10.7 percent, with lunchboxes up nearly 27 percent and notebooks up 23 percent. Rhode Island offers no back-to-school sales tax holiday, while Massachusetts and Connecticut both hold theirs in August.
AI chatbots don't just store what you type — they deduce what you didn't say, from your income to your health. Here's how to make ChatGPT and Gemini show you their work, and where Rhode Island's new AI laws stop short.
Forced arbitration and class-action waivers have quietly stripped consumers of the ability to sue big companies. A 2023 Rhode Island federal ruling shows both the limits of state protection — and what's left when private lawsuits disappear.
Anthropic accuses a Chinese rival of illegally copying its AI model — the same month it finalized a $1.5 billion settlement for building that model on pirated books.
Rhode Island Energy has filed for new winter electricity rates effective October 1, 2026, but the actual proposed rate is currently shielded from public view under a protective order while regulators review it.
Sony's plan to stop producing physical game discs after January 2028 puts a hard date on a shift years in the making: buying a digital game gets you a revocable license, not ownership — and Rhode Island has no law requiring companies to say so.
