A wedding with flare: 2 men fined over Coast Guard search

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Federal prosecutors say two Rhode Island men who touched off a needless and expensive ocean search-and-rescue effort when they fired maritime distress flares to celebrate a friend’s wedding have agreed to pay $5,000 each to settle the case. The U.S. attorney’s office in Providence says the Coast Guard and the town of New Shoreham spent more than $100,000 combined responding to the flares off Block Island on June 6, 2020, when there was no one in distress. Authorities say 31-year-old Perry Phillips and 33-year-old Benjamin Foster knowingly and willfully communicated a false distress message to the Coast Guard.