1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Almost three years have passed since Gov. Dan McKee signed adult-use cannabis legalization into law, and the state has yet to open the application process for handing out licenses for 24 pot shops. It was clear at the outset that it would take time to stand up the state’s Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) and develop rules and regulations, even if some of those meant to benefit from legalization found the process off-putting. The commission issued its regulations in January -- attracting almost 400 comments. There was previous talk that applications would open last year. Now, speaking on Political Roundtable, CCC chairwoman Kim Ahern said she expects the application window for new licenses to open some time this year. “I’ve said repeatedly at meetings and General Assembly hearings and also at our open forums that my goal is to regulate the adult-use cannabis market in a way that is safe, transparent, and equitable,” Ahern said. “And I think every policy decision that we’ve made, we’ve attempted to do just that and keep those pillars in mind.” The 24 new licenses will be selected through a lottery and will include six social equity applicants -- a stipulation meant to acknowledge how the war on drugs disproportionately affected people of color -- and six worker-owned cooperatives. Cannabis remains illegal federally, it takes millions of dollars to create a pot shop, and conventional credit isn’t available for cannabis entrepreneurs, so the outlook for delivering on the promise of social equity remains rather uncertain.  

2. MCKEEWORLD I: Gov. McKee ended the week on a high note with the happy news removing any doubts about the state getting $221 million in federal grants to help pay for the new westbound Washington Bridge. McKee declined to do an interview for my colleague Michelle San Miguel’s recent Rhode Island PBS Weekly report on the quest for accountability on the bridge. In a companion piece, Attorney General Peter Neronha spoke with me about the state’s lawsuit and other key questions involving the bridge.

3. MCKEEWORLD II: Earlier in the week, McKee doubled-down, as Kathy Gregg reported, on raises totaling about $82,000 for some state department heads, even as concerns were raised by both Democratic House Speaker Joe Shekarchi and GOP Senate Leader Jessica de la Cruz. “The Governor cites regional competitiveness as a driver of proposed raises, so should we not also compare Rhode Island’s budget, population, land mass, and government effectiveness to those other states?” de la Cruz asked in a statement. “Our $14 billion state budget makes our per capita spending 35 percent higher than neighboring states, while our business climate, bridges and infrastructure are ranked among the worst in the nation.”

4. STATE OF THE NATION: Who among us hasn’t wound up as part of an ongoing conversation via the messaging app Signal about U.S. military strikes in another country? (The closest for me - not very close -- was getting a release via email from Brendan Doherty’s congressional campaign 24 hours too soon in 2012 since I have the same first initial as his campaign manager.) The story about how the Trump administration shared attack plans with Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic commanded attention around the world. Via statement, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed called it “one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen. Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line. The carelessness shown by President Trump’s cabinet is stunning and dangerous.” Reed was among the senators seeking more information from the White House via a letter. U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner is slated to speak about the Signal breach on Fox News at 1 p.m. Sunday. Lawmakers are seeing more answers, even as the Trump administration tries to deflect the controversy and make it just about how a reporter was added to the chat.

5. THE COURTS: The attempt by U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Georgia Republican, to impeach John McConnell, Rhode Island’s top federal judge, appears likely to peter out. That’s because impeachment requires a majority vote in the U.S. House and a two-thirds vote in the Senate -- a bridge too far even for the GOP majority in both chambers. “I think it’s part of a larger strategy to push back on judges who are ruling in ways that Republicans feel are contrary to the president’s agenda,” Michael Yelnosky, the former dean of Roger William University School of Law, told me in an interview.  

6. CHILLING EFFECT: My colleague Olivia Ebertz takes an in-depth look at how deportations and detainments are affecting campus life at Brown University. Excerpt: “Despite Brown being under the watch of the Department of Education, professors and students at Brown say the university should stand up for its students, despite the federal climate. Last week Columbia University conceded to key Trump administration demands in order to receive $400 million in funding that the federal government had withheld. The concessions included the banning of masks used for the purposes of concealing one’s identity on campus, the hiring of 36 special officers with arrest powers, and placing some departments and initiatives involved in Middle Eastern studies under academic receivership. Timmons Roberts, a professor in the Sociology Department at Brown University, said the school should not acquiesce to similar demands. ‘I think the idea that they could hide from the howitzer that is being pointed at Columbia and Johns Hopkins, that’s not a strategy that’s going to work in the long term,’ Roberts said.”

7. MEDIA I: This is Rhode Island, where some people referred to the Journal-Bulletin long after the demise of the afternoon daily, to the NewPaper years after a name change to the Providence Phoenix, and to WRNI as the local public radio station even though we stopped using that name in favor of Rhode Island Public Radio in 2013. Next up was The Public’s Radio, when we acquired a stronger signal and expanded our coverage area to include southeastern Massachusetts. Now, a search for a new name is on since we merged last year with Rhode Island PBS. Pam Johnston, our president/CEO, joined Luis Hernandez this week to speak about the pending change and how we want your input via a survey: “I’d say that this is about building a whole new media experience here in our area, and we want to have a name that represents where we’re going, what we can be, and feels really, kind of, centered in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. We’re figuring that out. What I think is super cool about that – and what you’ll see from us on the radio side, on the television side and from this new organization, yet to be named – is we want to know what you think. We are listening to you. You are important. We are centering our audience and our community in everything we do.”

8. MEDIA II: Four takeaways from a congressional hearing featuring the heads of PBS and NPR.

9. VOTING INTEGRITY: President Trump this week unveiled an executive order on election integrity. Here’s part of the reaction from Secretary of State Gregg Amore: “President Trump has a long history of undermining voters’ confidence in our election systems and spreading misinformation about how elections work. Despite these efforts, which are at the heart of this Executive Order, I remain confident that our elections, managed by professional administrators, are safe, secure, and trustworthy. Beyond that, elements of this Executive Order closely echo pieces of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (the SAVE Act), which I have already voiced my opposition to. The SAVE Act deviates from pro-voter and pro-democracy policies that make it easier for people to cast a ballot by placing an undue burden on American citizens. It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote, and requiring documentation proving citizenship effectively creates a poll tax for voters. Through this Executive Order, President Trump is disregarding our country’s separation of powers as the SAVE Act makes its way through Congress.”

10. FOOD DESERTS: On the surface, supermarkets are about the bounty of American consumerism. Less well known is how the market is manipulated through such things as slotting fees and covenants restricting a new market from moving into the space formerly used by a different one. “This is what is causing the number of food deserts in our communities to keep growing,” Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos said during an interview with Luis Hernandez this week. “Woonsocket is a good example of that. In Woonsocket right now, you can find more properties that have a restricted covenant in place that prohibit them from having another grocery store than the grocery stores that you can find available. This is a problem. We have to make sure that we stop any future property from getting this covenant added to it.”

11. RIDING THE RAILS: Give a listen to the audio version of Ben Berke’s report on the new train service from New Bedford to Boston for a sense of how happy people are that the decades-long wait for the service has finally ended.

12. RI POLI-MEDIA SHORT TAKES: Frank Caprio Sr., “America’s nicest judge,” will be commencement speaker at Providence College …. It might be a little late in the process to get the wheels turning for a 2026 campaign, but Kim Ahern -- who worked in the AGs office with Patrick Lynch, Peter Kilmartin and Peter Neronha -- isn’t ruling out a possible run for the office …. Erich Haslehurst won election this week as the new president of the Rhode Island Association of City and Town Chairs …. Kerri Tallman recently joined Half Street Group as an account executive. A former journalist for the Standard-Times and contributor to Rhode Island Monthly, she most recently worked for nonprofits focused on homelessness …. Eli Sherman and Tim White report that U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner has reversed course on a pledge to move into his district -- a move that is not required by law …. Justine Olivia has been elevated to director of policy and research at RIPEC. She was previously manager of research. According to RIPEC, Olivia’s work “directly contributed to the passage of a statewide tangible tax exemption into law, and her research has helped fill key knowledge gaps in education policy -- achievements which respectively earned RIPEC the Outstanding Policy Achievement Award and the Distinguished Research Award from the Governmental Research Association.”

13. APEX ZIGGARUT: Little by little, another bit of old Rhode Island is slipping away, as the roofing panels of the Pawtucket pyramid are removed. While the unusual architecture of the former department store is familiar to scores of passersby on I-95, less well known, as Tim Lehnert reported in a 2004 piece in the Phoenix, is that the structure was designed by Andrew Geller, who was employed for decades by Raymond Loewy. Loewy, Lehernt wrote, “known as ‘the man who shaped America,’ ran an empire that produced designs not only for houses and offices, but also appliances (the Coldspot refrigerator); transportation (the Studebaker, the Greyhound bus, the interiors of three spaceships); packaging (Lucky Strikes’ cigarettes, the Coke bottle); and logos (Shell, Exxon, the US Postal Service eagle).”

14. KICKER: For an eye-opening listen on the cost and global impact of our disposable culture, check out the On Point episode (broadcast earlier this week on The Public’s Radio) about Alexander Clapp’s book, Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash. Excerpt: “[W]hen waste travels to a poor country, when it heads to a developing country, it stops being a solid object. As I mentioned earlier, you have these groups of burner boys, for instance, who are trying to extract some value from these electronics. What do they do? They begin processing that. Processing is just a fancy word for, they're setting a lot of this stuff on fire. And that's when all of the contaminants, all the toxins, all the additives, all the flame retardants, everything that goes into what we surround ourselves with every day. It's really dangerous.”