The Providence Journal
A WELCOME MAKEOVER
PROVIDENCE – Repair and restoration work has started on the historic La Pigna Arch on Federal Hill with the expectation that the $400,000 project will be completed in time for Columbus Day. ● It’s the first major repair and restoration of the landmark...
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Taxes, housing top reader suggestions to make RI affordable
As expenses rise across Rhode Island and the nation, The Providence Journal asked readers how they would suggest state leaders lower costs for residents. For many respondents, the answer revolved around taxes and housing. Rosemary Murphy said the...
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REPORT IDs ‘OPPORTUNITY’ TO IMPROVE
Soon after a mass shooter killed two students and injured nine other people late last year, the first police officers at the scene faced an “inherent” risk of friendly fire, according to a newly released after-action report. The report by the Police...
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STANDING HIS GROUND
In Dan McKee’s Rhode Island, roads are in their best shape in years – and getting better; new homes and apartments are popping up all over the place; and the state’s public schools are on track to become “the best” in the country by 2030. This is what...
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FIRST DAY BACK
The nearly 20,000 students and 2,000 teachers of Providence Public Schools returned to class on Tuesday, Aug. 25. And for the first time in seven years, they returned to a district governed by local officials, as the state’s takeover concluded in...
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FAULT LINES
The Democratic primary battle for governor between Dan McKee and Helena Foulkes is personal. She calls him mediocre, incompetent, unable to keep pace with the ideas and economic growth in neighboring states. He calls her corporate, greedy, focused...
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Puzzling decline for Providence election
State Rep. David Morales has said that he’s running the largest voter mobilization effort in Providence history. Mayor Brett Smiley has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars beaming election ads into Providence homes. And the city’s population has...
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CAPITAL FIGHT
The Providence mayoral campaign between Brett Smiley and David Morales is an old-school clash of ideas. Democratic socialist Morales is headlining a push by Providence’s political left to take control of City Hall, where it already has a council...
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This tiny bug is causing BIG ISSUES for Block Island residents and travelers
Fueling up for a long day as a delivery driver, Travis Jaeger started a mid-June morning with a hearty breakfast of steak, eggs and bacon. Around 11:30 a.m., he paused to eat a roast beef sandwich for lunch. ● Jaeger was unloading paper products at The...
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CAUGHT BY SURPRISE
Gerard Perreault was surprised in July when he pulled up a World War IIera hand grenade while magnet fishing off the Rocky Point State Park fishing pier. He was beyond shocked when he hauled in another grenade a few weeks later. “I could never have...
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Back for more
The late Warwick historian Henry A.L. Brown was one of the founders of the annual Gaspee Days parade. But when his sons were growing up, they never got to go. That’s because Brown, who died in 2025 at 93, always presided over the community clambake...
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PRYING EYES?
A South Kingstown official wondered about the capacities of automated license-plate-reading cameras in her community. Her question involved a very old form of public messaging: bumper stickers. The councilwoman understood that devices supplied to...
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HUNG
Cost of coffee rising in Rhode Island java shops. Make rent or eat healthy? That is a choice many Rhode Islanders are having to make lately as a perfect storm of inflation, supply shortages and federal food aid cuts is buffeting them, forcing them to...
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Too much to bear
NORTH KINGSTOWN – The Department of Environmental Management has fined a new asphalt plant in the Quonset Business Park $8,500 – and ordered it to come up with an odor mitigation plan within 60 days. The administrative action comes in response to...
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WHAT GOES ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK?
With prices increasing on everything from groceries to utilities, some Rhode Islanders are cutting back on discretionary spending to ensure they can manage the bills on essentials. What are Rhode Islanders cutting out or cutting back on? It’s a long...
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Prices on the ballot
Maybe it’s your jaw dropping to the floor or a shake of your head, but we’ve probably all been in a similar state lately. ● The cause? The increasing cost of just about everything we encounter in life. ● Planning a summer cookout? Steaks on the grill...
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FAIR SHARE OF FUN
The Washington County Fair, the state’s largest agricultural event, is in full swing and runs through Sunday, Aug. 16, in Richmond. A summer tradition since 1967, the fair includes vendors, livestock, crafts and food, as well as an array of rides and...
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CLASH OF THE CANDIDATES
PROVIDENCE – The battle over who will be Rhode Island’s next governor moved to live TV for the first time on Wednesday night, Aug. 12, with incumbent Dan McKee and his Democratic primary challenger Helena Foulkes clashing sharply over the actual state...
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BIG OPPORTUNITY
PROVIDENCE – While mall vacancies have piled up across the state, roughly 50 local vendors at Providence Place have pioneered a creative way to fill space and boost the local economy. Three empty storefronts surrounding the Apple store on the first...
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‘AN ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE’
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS): synthetic chemicals that contain fluorinated carbon atoms, are used in consumer and industrial products for their desirable properties (such as water, stain and fire resistance), are highly resistant to...
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OUT FOR A SPIN
Heritage Hills Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Smithfield and Elmhurst Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Providence have been doing a “Bucket List” series with residents to help them fulfill their lifelong dreams. On Aug. 6, they visited...
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AGE-OLD DEBATE
Nothing in politics is permanent, but in Rhode Island, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed is the closest thing. ● The Cranston native, first elected to Congress in 1990, has posted gaudy favorability numbers and barely needed to campaign for reelection since...
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Down a rabbit hole
I work with people who feel like family, and I would wish that for everyone − it really makes work feel less like “work.” In the beginning of the summer, I got a FaceTime call from my daughter, who lives in Providence. She was panicking because a...
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Democratic socialism: What it is, what it isn’t
Ahead of a challenging midterm election, Republicans have seized an opportunity to castigate their opponents as extremists after democratic socialists won Democratic congressional primaries in New York City, Colorado and Washington, DC. ● GOP leaders...
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Iran says it struck U.S. military targets
Iran struck U.S. military infrastructure targets in other countries in the region, state media reported July 9, the latest in a fresh back-and-forth as President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire between the nations “over.” Attacks were reported...
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ROCKS OF AGES
The town of Cumberland has an estimated 160 miles of stone walls, but some worry that the historic landmarks could be swallowed by development. To protect the rugged walls that run along roads, through the woods, and border farms and cemeteries, the...
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Makeover on Bellevue
What was once a stone villa on Bellevue Avenue in Newport that was torn down in 1957 for a shopping center parking lot is set to once again become a three-story luxury building. Procaccianti Companies is doing site work for a three-story, 90-room...
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ART THAT DRAWS
Two vending machines sit inside East Side Cheese & Provisions, owned by Jeff and Angie DiMeo. These vending machines are not filled with the usual snacks and candy bars, but prints that are sought after around the country. Inciardi Prints, created by...
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Zoo’s elephant trio set for sanctuary
The three elephants at Roger Williams Park Zoo will be moved late in 2027 to an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, the zoo said in a press release Tuesday night, June 30. The zoo announced in February 2025 that African elephants Alice, Ginny and Kate...
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OF THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE
TEEEEEEEEEEEEE he 56 steps, cut from pink granite, ascend to a neoclassical temple that seems plucked from ancient Greece and deposited on a Kentucky hilltop. One for each year of President Abraham Lincoln’s life. ● If the first eight steps, rising...
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‘Talk of liberty and the times’
For Rhode Islanders, July 4, 1776, was a day like any other. ● As the Declaration of Independence was being signed in Philadelphia, the Colony’s roughly 58,000 inhabitants went about their daily lives. The news reached Rhode Island in just a few days,...
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OVERDUE RECOGNITION
The cemetery in downtown Wilmington, Delaware, is squeezed between ChristianaCare and Interstate 95. Blaring sirens and zooming cars often disturb the peace for those observing the weathered headstones of the Revolutionary and Civil War-era soldiers...
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‘BEACON’ OF PRIDE
NEWPORT – For her entire life, Akeia de Barros Gomes has proudly told people that she is from Newport when introducing herself. Over the years, the Brown University adjunct lecturer has gotten used to receiving one standard response. “Oh, Black people...
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BRACING FOR THE HEAT
The temperature in the Providence area could exceed 100 degrees later this week, and the National Weather Service has issued an extreme heat watch from July 1-3. The high temperatures for the Providence area over those three days are expected to reach...
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SUMMER HITS
It’s summertime and the living like a “Real Housewives” star is easy. The hit Bravo television show, featuring a cast of Rhode Island women enjoying all that the Ocean State has to offer − along with a heaping helping of drama − has likely left...
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PROGRESS TO BUILD ON
For nearly 30 years, Grow Smart Rhode Island has championed a commonsense approach to development: Creating more housing and encouraging economic growth in urban areas and town centers, which helps protect open space and provides an alternative to...
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100 YEARS of helping hands
For Paola Nuñez Reyes, the wake-up call came when her husband got sick with COVID-19. Reyes – who has worked two jobs most of her life – was making $10.50 an hour and hustling 60 to 70 hours a week. “Even having two jobs, it was living paycheck [to]...
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SHADOW MENACE
PROVIDENCE – When Natalie Pattillo and Colton Conroy saw the pictures on Craigslist in 2023 of an apartment in Providence taking up the top two floors of a triple-decker, the house looked great. They’d been taken six years ago, when owner Jonathan...
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SCHOOL OF FISH
Campers taking part in the youth fishing camp sponsored by the Rhode Island Saltwater Anglers Association and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management head to their boats at Rocky Point State Park on June 25. The camp was funded through...
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CUP OF CHEER
Providence estimates that 50,000 people have visited the World Cup FanZone in Station Park since it opened June 11, and 7,000 of them turned out when Cape Verde fought Uruguay to a stalemate on Sunday, July 21. On the other side of downtown, thousands...
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BURNING ANGER
Vanessa Desjardins eagerly awaits July Fourth in Bristol each year. She rents tents, invites friends and family and puts on a party spread at 12 Robin Drive. Guests can watch the fireworks from the comfort of her backyard, set on a hill overlooking...
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A picture-perfect Rhode Island summer is just around the corner
Back on Memorial Day weekend, I asked readers for their summer bucket list items; unfortunately, no one had anything to share. So, in the theme of this being our 2026 Summer Guide, I’ll share some things that aren’t necessarily bucket list items for...
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A heart for Father’s Day: RI man thrives and welcomes grandchild
With his liver failing and needing a heart transplant, Cumberland resident Jack Ferreri wondered if he would live long enough to meet his first grandson. While he waited for a new heart, doctors told Ferreri he would have to be hospitalized because...
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ROOM TO GROW
PROVIDENCE – Rising six stories above a sea of hospital parking lots, a new 178-unit apartment building is slowly moving in residents. Called The Flynn, after the school that once sat on its lot, the building is 30% occupied. The developer and owner,...
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LOSS OF AN ICON
SOUTH KINGSTOWN – The signs are all there. “1/2 PRICE EVERYTHING,” says an 81⁄2-by-11-inch piece of paper taped to the front door. A peek inside reveals near-empty candy shelves and magazine racks, which once boasted more than 3,000 different titles,...
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FOOD FIGHT
PROVIDENCE — Eight years after planners first envisioned bringing permanent food service and public restrooms to 195 District Park, a 3,500square-foot pavilion opens this month — amid criticism from some nearby restaurants that taxpayers are funding an...
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FRIENDLY WAVES
Nate and Jackie Barrington often rely on technology to communicate with their 20-year-old son, Ian. Ian, who is on the autism spectrum, can understand his parents. But he struggles with communicating back. “His receptive capacity is amazing. It is...
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‘A LONG TIME COMING’
Robert J. Barrat was an upbeat young man with a large group of friends while growing up in Woonsocket. With World War II raging in Europe and the Pacific, Barrat left Rhode Island State College, now the University of Rhode Island, during his second...
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