The Providence Journal

Do some time traveling at Coggeshall Farm in Bristol

I'm keeping my promise to get to all the special places in Rhode Island, and my most recent trip was to Coggeshall Farm Museum in Bristol. I even got to chat with Shelli Costa, the executive director. Set on 48 acres, Coggeshall Farm recreates the...

Brown parts ways with embattled police chief

Amid reports that a legal settlement has ended Rodney Chatman’s fiveyear tenure as Brown University’s police chief, the institution announced Wednesday, April 8, that a former Providence police chief has taken over Chatman’s previous role. Brown has...

NOW PLAYING

PROVIDENCE – The IMAX theater in Providence just got a major upgrade, with a new screen, a new projector and an updated sound system. The upgrade is the first in a planned series for the movie theater in Providence Place, now owned by Apple Cinemas....

OUT OF THIS WORLD

Who better to put Artemis II into context than Woody Spring? He’s Rhode Island’s only astronaut, having spent a week on the space shuttle in 1985, including 12 hours of space walks. Spring is now 81, lives in Stuart, Florida, still summers in Rhode...

BOSTON MARATHON

BOSTON – Opening Day here has a way of renewing the spirit. The Red Sox certainly felt it for at least one afternoon. Wilyer Abreu might have been the only player coming in who could have justifiably argued against criticism after what was an ugly...

Woonsocket wonder

OONSOCKET – In what was once a vibrant FrenchCanadian neighborhood in Woonsocket, a cavernous church houses the largest collection of frescoes in North America, all done by a single Italian artist who saw an opportunity to create his own Sistine...

WINNING COMBINATION

At first glance, it looks like a regular after-school program. Kids trickling in off buses. Snacks are being made and offered. Some quiet time for homework. A book discussion. Plans for community service. And then, “Pop. Pop-pop-pop.” It’s the sound...

Creating division

For the last two weeks, a firestorm of controversy has swirled around a Providence gay bar’s mural memorializing Iryna Zarutska, a murdered Ukrainian refugee. Democratic politicians want it taken down. Republicans think it should be saved. If that...

Rally urges support for RI Voting Rights Act

PROVIDENCE – “We are living in a moment where this country is dangerously close to repeating one of its ugliest chapters,” said Shahidah Ali, sounding the tone for the “Voting Rights” rally that packed the State House Library on Tuesday, March 31, with...

A FLYING START

401Gives community members celebrate hitting the $1 million mark March 31, just hours into the opening day of the annual fundraising drive benefiting Rhode Island nonprofits. 401Gives is the United Way of Rhode Island’s signature donation event. Donors...

Nature lover or nuisance?

For years, Susan Norlin delighted in feeding the wild birds that flocked to her Portsmouth home. She tossed popcorn to pigeons, threw hunks of bread to the seagulls who’d line up politely in her backyard, and poured out cracked corn for 40 mallards...

A DAY OF PROTEST

MOVING FORWARD

The remnants of the Point Street Bridge’s old swing structure that once allowed ships into the upper Providence River are set to be removed later in 2026. ● The state Coastal Resources Management Council is working with The Nature Conservancy and the...

GOP reps push back on DHS funding deal

WASHINGTON – Republicans in the House of Representatives revolted at the 11th hour against a deal to end the sixweek-long Department of Homeland Security shutdown, hurling the prospects of any impending solution into serious political jeopardy. After...

‘Trump slump’ hit U.S. tourism in 2025

With an upcoming FIFA World Cup being staged across the nation, 2026 was supposed to be a bumper year for tourism to the United States, driven in part by hordes of arriving soccer fans. And yet, the U.S. tourism industry is worried. While the rest of...

Good fit for Friars

PROVIDENCE – You’ve probably seen the clip by now. Bryan Hodgson, at the podium Tuesday afternoon, March 24, during his introductory press conference as the next men’s basketball coach at Providence College, offered his better half, Jordan, as...

FAMILY CIRCUS

The Vargas quadruplets of Cranston are identical twins, so the easiest way to tell them apart is from their different personalities. And those personalities are emerging, all right, just a year after they were born, roughly 10 weeks early in a...

WARMTH AND COMPASSION

PROVIDENCE – A pilot program to provide more shelter beds during the coldest nights this winter has supplied a cot and meals for thousands of people over more than 50 days since December. Operation No One Dies received an initial $200,000 grant from...

NOT A GOOD FIT

For the last 15 years, the Rhode Island-based apparel and accessories brand Kiel James Patrick has sold an aspirational image of preppy coastal New England life, gaining more than 1 million followers on Instagram. Lately, though, some of the brand’s...

WHERE RIGHTS FOUND ROOTS

As the nation prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, The Providence Journal and Newport Daily News are celebrating the women who played key roles in the early years before and just after the...

HOME AGAIN

PROVIDENCE – When Joshua McCombe’s landlord suffered a massive stroke and then died 18 months later in 2022, the sweetheart deal they’d had for rent went away. The landlord’s sister wanted to do all the deferred maintenance on the building – new...

Forever ‘brothers’

PROVIDENCE – Keep those Blackstone Valley Schools hockey jerseys close. The ones that witnessed Jaxon Boyes score in quadruple overtime in the championship. And Colin Dorgan lift the team, which has become more family than anything, in double overtime...

‘THIS CAN’T BE RIGHT’

Dr. Stephanie Lueckel was decorating her Christmas tree at home, “trying to have a moment” with her three children on Saturday, Dec. 13. Then she got a text about a mass shooting at Brown University. As she hustled to her car to make her way to Rhode...

BLIZZARD OF COSTS

Rhode Island literally can’t afford any more snow. Westerly and Woonsocket have already spent more than twice what they budgeted for snow removal this winter. Providence has spent roughly $7 million, a sum triple the size of the city’s annual storm...

CELEBRATING THE GREEN

Bob Drouin grew up in Woonsocket playing folk and rock music, but his life changed when he “fell in love” with Irish music. He remembers well being smitten. Drouin was in his early 20s, driving in his car when he came across a radio station playing...

HELPING HANDS

It’s 23 degrees on a Tuesday morning in January, and John Chiellini trudges through ankle-high snow at a tent encampment in Pawtucket. ● “John from Better Lives — anybody there?” he yells repeatedly, going from tent to tent to see how everyone is...

A mother's love, a son's unraveling

Aphoto on Susan Levanti’s Facebook page shows the pretty young mom carrying her son, Zachary, on her shoulders, their identical bright blue eyes shining. ● Another photograph, taken the last time Susan saw her son alive, in August 2024, shows a dazed...

KIM ENGLISH OUT

Providence College has fired men’s basketball coach Kim English after three seasons. The Friars announced the news in a statement on Friday morning, March 13, less than a day after their elimination from the Big East Tournament. Providence suffered a...

TRACKING A KILLER

It’s about 8 a.m. on Dec. 15, 2025. Less than 48 hours have passed since Claudio Manuel Neves Valente’s attack on a group of students at Brown University, killing two and injuring nine. Now, the 48-year-old mass shooter is in Brookline, Massachusetts,...

CRATER CITY

Outside Providence Place mall, a Subaru slaloms around potholes like an Olympic skier, skillfully dodging the gaping chasms and yawning craters that have turned Francis Street into an obstacle course. On Dorrance Street, across the corner from...

Bill would bar algorithmic pricing online

Should how much you pay for something online change depending on where you live? What about your browsing history? The trove of personal data advertisers have on you? If you live in a wealthy or a poor ZIP code? If your phone battery is low? In Rhode...

Oil prices soar as Iran names leader

As the U.S.-Israel war with Iran entered its 10th day on March 9, oil prices soared over fears of a prolonged conflict, President Donald Trump demanded “unconditional surrender” and the Pentagon made public the name of the seventh U.S. service member...

DEADLY TREND

Both the shooting at a Pawtucket rink on Feb. 16 and the shooting in a lecture hall at Brown University on Dec. 13 took place in public settings with many vulnerable bystanders nearby. And in both cases, the gunfire resulted in mass casualties. From...

WHAT'S THAT SMELL?

Maurice Doire has tried to cope with the nauseating odors that drift across the Blackstone River from the cityowned sludge incinerator a quarter mile away. ● He and his wife, Mabel, have stopped inviting company over. They take their two young...

The cow comes home

It’s something out of a bygone era: the milkman stopping at your home, leaving glass bottles of milk right in the refrigerator. ● But A.B. Munroe Dairy, founded in 1881 in East Providence, never stopped delivering. And now it’s taking steps to bring...

Trail of abuse

The story of priest Robert Marcantonio is one of the more “egregious” spelled out in Attorney General Peter Neronha’s recently released report on clergy sex abuse, and coverup, in the Diocese of Providence. It’s a story that spans decades, hundreds of...

Clergy abuse report released

In a scathing report on the alleged sexual abuse of at least 315 children by 75 Catholic clergy members, Attorney General Peter Neronha provides painfully graphic detail on the lengths Rhode Island’s Catholic leaders went to in an effort to hide the...

ATTACK ON IRAN

The United States launched military strikes and “major combat operations” against Iran on Feb. 28, President Donald Trump said, targeting the country’s missile capabilities. “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent...

COLD WARRIORS

PROVIDENCE – Bored of board games and feeling cabin fever after a record-setting blizzard, siblings Zack and Danielle Wilbur decided, with the help of a friend, to try a different kind of game. A snowball fight. “And we were like, you know what?...

POISONOUS LEGACY

WESTERLY – Bradford Dyeing Association used “forever chemicals” to waterproof fabrics for the military over several decades until it closed in 2012. The mill complex’s toxic legacy could last much longer. A recent study by scientists at the...

‘WINNING’

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump declared the country is booming, his opponents are “crazy” and his administration is engaged in unprecedented levels of “winning” in a marathon State of the Union address that comes as polls showed deep skepticism of...

THE BIG DIG

They came by skis. Or hiked through waist-high snow. But, more likely, they just slept, catching a few fitful hours where they were needed most, and waking to start it all again. They are the doctors who deliver babies at Women & Infants Hospital in...

BLIZZARD OF ’26

A powerful storm with “peak blizzard conditions” pummeled Rhode Island Sunday into Monday, Feb. 22 to 23. Forecasters had predicted the storm would rival the Blizzard of ’78, and preliminary reports show snowfall records have been shattered across the...

A NEW HEIGHT

Providence’s Neutaconkanut Hill is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. At 296 feet above sea level, Neutaconkanut Hill is the highest point in Providence, according to a press release from the Rhode Island State Historic...

Providence's almost SUBWAY

Providence was ascendant in January 1913 when Mayor Joseph Gainer took office with plans to make the city bigger and better. ● Already the jewelry capital of the world and an industrial powerhouse, the city’s most pressing policy challenge then was how...

IN HARM’S WAY Three Good Samaritans teamed up to stop shooter

Editor’s note: This article discusses suicide and suicidal ideation, including suicide methods. If you or someone you know needs mental health resources and support, please call, text or chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or visit...

‘Always a smile’

Rhonda Dorgan reigned as the joy of the party, always with a smile on her face and a ready laugh. She bonded quickly with a close group of female friends who spent countless hours a week watching their children practice competitive dance at Shannon...

Epstein visited Newport in 2014

Jeffrey Epstein made a trip to Newport in 2014, bringing young women who were told they would be extras in a movie being filmed by Woody Allen, according to records released by the U.S. Department of Justice. Emails released as part of the socalled...

‘A CITY IN MOURNING’

Two people were killed and three were injured in a shooting that took place at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket on Feb. 16 in what police are investigating as a “targeted” murder-suicide amid a “family dispute.” Gunshots rang out at 2:28 p.m....

Bill would ban sale of parrots from RI breeders

A bill that would mostly ban the sale of parrots at pet stores in Rhode Island is under consideration by the House Corporations Committee. The committee hosted a hearing on the bill, H7334, on Wednesday, Feb. 11, and held it for further study. The...

FUMING AT THE SMELL

NORTH KINGSTOWN – Some people living north of the Quonset Business Park say heavy, noxious odors began infiltrating their neighborhood shortly after an asphalt plant began operations in December – and they’re concerned it’s going to get worse when the...

As we honor a Restaurant of the Year, what’s your favorite?

Rhode Island is full of great restaurants, and I’m sure I’m not the first to tell you that. Even with so many great choices, we all have our favorites, those places we go back to and never get sick of. In some cases, you order the same thing every...

KNOCKED COLD?

If you think the recent freezing temperatures will have any effect on Rhode Island’s surging tick populations, think again. “One thing people need to know about ticks is they’re not killed by the cold weather,” said University of Rhode Island tick...

MORE CHANGES AHEAD?

The bathhouses at Easton’s Beach, however beloved, could be next on the chopping block for Easton’s Beach facilities, as a recent report shows significant deterioration and the potential for future structural problems. The City of Newport has released...

GOING HOLLYWOOD

For the filmmaking Kinnane brothers of Little Compton, the message of hope resonates in their new movie, “Solo Mio,” starring Kevin James. The team of eight has been chasing childhood dreams of making movies for years and has had several successes,...

IN HARM’S WAY

PROVIDENCE — Developers buying up properties near Providence College, the endless languishing of the Cranston Street Armory and the demolition of historic schools are a few of the Providence Preservation Society’s 2026 list of most endangered...

‘An inspiration to all of us’

PROVIDENCE – The Brown University community came together Feb. 7 to honor the two students killed and nine others injured in a mass shooting on campus late last year, as they collectively journey toward healing and recovery. Through prayer, music and...

LONG DAY IN THE BAY

Super Bowl 60 wasn’t complete by press time. Please check Providencejournal.com for full coverage or the subscriber-exclusive Sports Extra E-Newspaper. See how Journal reporters spent their week in the Bay Area covering the Super Bowl,

SUPER BOWL 60

Patriots impact children, charities and chefs. Kickoff: Today at 6:30 p.m. at Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, CA Latest game coverage online at providencejournal.com

A PIECE OF THE PRIZE

When the New England Patriots take the football field for Super Bowl LX on Sunday, Feb. 8, in Santa Clara, California, they will seek to bring the Vince Lombardi Trophy back home to New England for the first time since 2025. Wait, the football fans in...

HIGH STAKES

Most Patriots fans traveling to San Francisco to root for their team are paying a pretty penny for the experience. Travel packages easily exceed $10,000 per person. Some include flights; some don’t. Some include tickets; some don’t. They do include...

TOP OF THE LINE

HOPKINTON – What do squash, fishing and surgery have in common? Here’s a hint: There’s one thread that ties them all together. If you’ve ever had stitches, there’s a good chance the doctor sewed you up with sutures made by a two-centuryold twine...

NOT DIGGING IT

After years of fairly mild storms, Providence is struggling to cope with a heavy dumping of snow that continues to block sidewalks, parking spaces and bus shelters, and has turned roads into one-way streets. Some residents are voicing frustration with...

‘Peaceful’ or ‘reckless’?

After listening to the news and watching the videos, high-profile Republicans and Democrats in Rhode Island came away with some very different opinions about the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents. When asked,...

Swift-Kelce wedding could use 1 million flowers

If Taylor Swift decides to get married in Watch Hill, the first public clue might be two weeks before, when a fleet of trucks full of flowers shows up in Westerly. “If they see large tractor-trailer refrigerated trucks around, that must be a sign,”...

Mental health groups in turmoil

The federal government recently announced it would cut an estimated $2 billion in Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grants for programs that provide opioid treatment, youth prevention, homelessness and mental health...

DIGGING OUT

After years of light snowfall, a mid-winter whopper dumped a load on Rhode Island on Sunday, Jan. 25 into Monday morning, covering the region with a frosty layer of flakes that exceeded depths of 18 inches in some areas. The storm, which came with...