RIDEM Plan for Providence’s Biggest Pond Falls Short, Won’t Remediate Water Quality, Say Critics

by Tim Lehnert

Mashapaug Pond, Providence’s largest body of freshwater at 114 square acres, has long been plagued by poor water quality, making it unsuitable for most recreational use. In 2025, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) released its draft general permit for the Mashapaug Watershed. [...]

Recovery grants available for East Side merchants who lost business after Brown shooting

by Alexander Castro

Editor’s Note: The following article was originally published by Rhode Island Current on January 14, 2026. Reprinted with permission. Recovery grants will soon become available to help Providence East Side businesses impacted during the roughly five-day manhunt for the gunman responsible for killing two students and injuring [...]

Distribution Center Development Near Morley Field Raises Environmental and Traffic Safety Concerns

by Emily Smith

If you’re even passively following local Rhode Island news, you’ve heard about the closure of Morley Field, a community park in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Pawtucket that was chained up and closed to residents in 2022. That park on Moshassuck Street sits along the Providence [...]

Rhode Island Environmentalists’ Biggest Opponents at the State House Revealed in Brown University Report

by Eric Halvarson

This year’s legislative session was a morbid failure for local environmental activists: only one out of the 20 bills endorsed by Climate Action Rhode Island became law. A mock funeral was held at the state house for the 19 pieces of legislation that died during [...]

Providence mayor unveils New Year’s resolutions in legislative package

by Alexander Castro

Mayor Brett Smiley will be asking for an increase in the PILOT base rate and a new authority to take over the Crook Point Bridge Editor’s Note: The following article was originally published by Rhode Island Current on January 7, 2026. Reprinted with permission. Two days into [...]

Café workers at Seven Stars Bakery vote to authorize strike against employer

by Steve Ahlquist

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Steve Ahlquist’s Substack on January 2. Reprinted with permission. From a press release: United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local Union 328, which represents over 9,000 workers across a variety of industries in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, announced that employees at [...]

Source That Unlocked the Case Applauded, and Anonymous

by Eric Halvarson

Despite making headlines for breaking open the Brown University shooter case, Providence’s own “John Doe” is keeping his own story off the front pages. John Does Appears, and Disappears Using the same Reddit account that pointed investigators towards a rental car the gunman allegedly drove [...]

What’s going on with Riverwalk?

by Katy Pickens

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Providence Post on December 18, 2025. Copyright ppsri.org. Reprinted with permission. How the area may transform, the latest engagement meeting on the Providence Riverwalk Resilience Project Since the 1990s, the Riverwalk and Waterplace Park have become cultural [...]

Brown University Shootings Expose Providence’s Emergency Communications System Shortcomings

by Eric Halvarson, Research by Kendra Eastep

On Saturday afternoon, minutes after a masked gunman entered a classroom and sprayed gunfire on students studying for an economics exam, Brown students, faculty, and staff were notified of an active shooter on campus. However, nearby neighbors without connections to the school did not receive [...]

Local Translator Brings Pacheco’s “Pandora” to English Readers

by Diane Josefowicz

Written by the award-winning Brazilian fabulist Ana Paula Pacheco, energetically translated from the Portuguese by Julia Sanches, Pandora is a strange and unsettling novel. For this reason it is also perfectly attuned to its equally strange and unsettling subject: the surreal nature of life under [...]