HOT

Winners

It is like the Shark Tank for Rhode Island high school students.

Daisha Jackson, a senior at the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center, won first place and a $5,000 scholarship in Lieutenant Governor’s Entrepreneurship Challenge, a business pitch competition for high school students.

Entrepreneurship Challenge is organized by the Office of Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos and was first created by Governor Dan McKee in 2018.

“I am deeply proud of today’s contestants, all of whom made compelling and interesting presentations. I hope that, in addition to the scholarships they won, our students have come away more enthusiastic than ever about becoming entrepreneurs,” said Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos. “Today showed that the future of Rhode Island’s small business community is bright!”

Jackson's business idea, Yoga for All, was awarded the highest marks out of the five finalists by a panel of judges. Four other teams won scholarships of their own, having been selected for the final round out of dozens of submissions from Rhode Island high school students.

The final results of the Lieutenant Governor’s Entrepreneurship Challenge are:

    •    1st Place, $5,000: Daisha Jackson, “Yoga for All,” The MET High School

    •    2nd Place, $4,000: Faith Basler, “NugSafe,” East Greenwich High School

    •    3rd Place, $2,500: Zainabou Thiam, “SunuBody,” The MET High School

    •    4th Place, $1,500: Alyssa Davidson “Crow’s Nest Art Supply,” Scituate High School

    •    5th Place, $1,000: Siddharth Gupta, Liam Helfrich, and William Sturla, “Community Connections,” Barrington High School

HOT

Printmaker, Printmaker

GoLocal's art contributor Michael Rose has a great breakdown of a show of printmakers: 

Printmaking is a complex and often misunderstood art medium. Covering areas as varied as woodcuts, etchings, lithography, screen printing, and more, the printmaking community is full of talented and passionate technicians. Audiences, however, do not always fully appreciate the craft and labor behind printed artworks. A new show organized by PVDPrintmakers at WaterFire Arts Center goes a long way toward teaching visitors about how prints are made and the unique aesthetic values they bring to the table.

Appropriately titled Demystifying Process, the exhibition is on view through February 26 and offers works of fine printmaking that utilize a variety of methods. Many of the area's most talented print-based artists are among the exhibitors. The show includes works by Joanna Booth, Sara K. Dunn, Carey Good, Lara Henderson, Sara Inacio, Serene Lincoln, Marius Marjolin, Elliot Morgan, Sam Nehila, Ariana Padovano, Jules Sharpe, Nicolle St. Cyr, and Zainab Zulfiqar.

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HOT

Cranston's Finances

The City of Cranston is reporting better than anticipated financial performance not only on its annual budget but also on its pension and healthcare obligation costs.

This past week, Cranston Mayor Ken Hopkins announced that the city ended the last fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2022, with an approximate $643,000 budget operating surplus.

Hopkins said the surplus is comprised of $443,000 from the city’s operating budget and $200,000 from city schools. The mayor stated that “these latest audit results being reported to the City Council and taxpayers are very favorable news in a difficult inflation and recessionary period.”

Unfunded Pension and Healthcare Obligations

Equally important to the annual budget performance for Cranston is addressing the city’s long-term pension and other post-employment benefits (OPEBS).

OPEB long-term costs are usually dominated by healthcare costs for city employees after their retirement.

The Hopkins administration made a dent in the unfunded liabilities despite a turbulent stock market.

“The city’s unfunded actuarily accrued liability fund moved from $217,346,978 at the beginning of FY22 to $215,833,860 at the end of the fiscal year. OPEB moved from $47,533,523 to $45,156,037 from the beginning to end of FY22. Please note the city of Cranston fully funded its required actuarily determined pension and OPEB for the last fiscal year,” said Zack DeLuca of Hopkins’ office.

HOT

Tom Brady

Tom Brady announced his retirement from the NFL via Instagram on Wednesday morning. 

Brady posted a video on social media today in which he announced his retirement.

He acknowledged in the video that he said the same thing one year ago today, but he insists that this time there’s no going back.

If he walks away without CTE and brain damage, it is a win.

NOT

McKee Administration Warns of "Dangerously Cold Weather" 

So let's get this straight. We sometimes cancel school for as little as 3 inches of snow.

This weekend we are expecting "dangerously cold weather" and in Providence alone, more than 13,000 children don't have bus service. Providence schools finally decided to close on Friday, but many other children across the state will have to walk home when temps are -10 to -20 degrees below zero with the wind chill.

But, we are not closing schools. 

I guess frostbite is on the nose of the beholder.

NOT

Always Good to Quote MLK, Jr. When Booting People, NOT

Jennifer Tejada, chief executive at PagerDuty Inc., told staff last week she was cutting 7% of employees. According to the WSJ, PagerDuty is one of a number of companies that have recently delivered layoff news through email and have apologized for the downsizing.  

In her 1,671-word layoff memo, she included a quote from Dr. King about leadership. 

“I am reminded in moments like this, of something Martin Luther King said, that ‘the ultimate measure of a [leader] is not where [they] stand in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where [they] stand in times of challenge and controversy,’” she said in an email to staff on Jan 24. 

She later apologized for quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a layoff announcement, saying her email to employees was “inappropriate and insensitive.”

She did not hire them back.

Care New England's Most Horrifying Number

Let's forget that Care New England only has 45 days of cash on hand.

What is really horrifying is that they have so little research dollars.

"Research Revenue was unfavorable to the forecast by $123,653 or 1.4% and Research Expenses were unfavorable to the forecast by $516,611 or 6.2%.

Research revenue was $344,841 or 3.8% lower than the prior year and research expenses were $353,324 or 4.1 % higher than the prior year," reported CNE.

NOT

Losing Ranney

Brown University has lost arguably its biggest academic — and media — star to another Ivy League school. 

On Tuesday, Yale announced that Dr. Megan Ranney, “an internationally recognized public health leader, investigator, advocate, and clinician-scientist, will become dean of the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) on July 1.”

During the pandemic, Ranney was one of the most prominent faces in public health, in terms of the response to coronavirus. 

As such, GoLocal recognized Ranney as its 2020 Woman of the Year for Rhode Island. 

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NOT

You Wanna Talk Cold

At the Weather Station at the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire, the temperature with the wind chill is expected to be -100.