This Just In: PR gets a grip in cities and towns; a look at hunger in RI
Good afternoon and welcome to This Just In. I'm Mike McDermott, managing editor of The Providence Journal. Today is Nov. 22; President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on this date 58 years ago.
The Rhode Island Department of Health announced seven coronavirus-related deaths and 1,144 additional cases of COVID-19 over the last three days, along with 26,592 negative tests, for a 4.1% positive rate. There were 103 COVID-positive patients in Rhode Island hospitals at last count, down from 113 reported Friday. Rhode Island has reported an average of 473 new cases a day over the last seven days, the highest point that seven-day average has reached since early February. The number of hospitalized patients, on the other hand, has not changed much since the start of October.
Pilgrim High School in Warwick is closed for a second week in the wake of a coronavirus outbreak that has been linked to a high-school dance, where the principal appeared without a mask. Today the School Department announced that an acting principal has been named.
When the Providence City Council hired TV reporter Parker Gavigan as director of communications, it raised eyebrows not just because of Gavigan's reputation as an investigative reporter, but because the City Council already employed a full-time communications associate and had an ongoing contract with an outside PR firm. And it's not happening in a vacuum; as Patrick Anderson and Amy Russo report in this week's Political Scene column, public-relations work for municipal governments is a growing business in Rhode Island.
In 2018, a first-of-its-kind study, "Resilient Rhody," detailed concrete steps that should be taken to help Rhode Island prepare for climate change. So what has been done so far, and what remains to be done?
Judges forgave more than $360,000 in court fines and fees last week during the first-ever Superior Court debt review program, designed to help those who have been arrested in the past get on with their lives.
Hunger is not as big a problem in Rhode Island as it was a year ago, but it remains worse than it had been before the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank's annual Status on Hunger report.
Over the weekend, Journal executive editor David Ng reflected on an important lesson he learned from a woman who was living on the streets in Staten Island: We all deserve to be seen.
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This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: PR gets a grip in cities and towns; a look at hunger in RI
