Happy Monday! I'm Dan McGowan, and I'm going to listen to Chuck Klosterman's new book, "Football," while shoveling for the next 12 hours. Follow me on X (Twitter) @DanMcGowan, or send tips to
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Let’s start with the obvious: If you’re a school leader who is forcing kids to do virtual learning today, you deserve to be heckled worse than Kim English after the Friars’ embarrassing loss to Georgetown over the weekend.
Rhode Island woke up to its first real snow of the winter, and productivity was canceled sometime during Sunday’s AFC Championship Game. So this feels like the right moment to bring back one of the most important public services this newsletter provides:
🛷 The list of the best places to sled in Rhode Island.
Rhode Map readers helped build this list a few years back, and it’s still open for additions –you can submit your favorite spots here. Please stick to legal locations only, because most of my lawyer friends winter in Florida.
Here are a few classic, never-fail hills:
❄️ Cranston
Pastore Complex
Especially convenient if you are a state employee or you broke out of the ACI. Hand your kid a snow tube, point toward the hill, and tell them you’ll circle back around 4 p.m.
🛷 East Providence
The Gordon School
Readers insist this hill feels like it was engineered in a lab for optimal childhood joy.
❄️ Newport
Morton Park
Yes, Fort Adams gets the glory (and the wind), but Morton Park is a great pick for younger kids who want more fun and fewer extreme-sports vibes.
🛷 North Providence
Stephen Olney Park
A solid neighborhood hill – and located across from Fatima Hospital, which we think provides “reassuring planning.”
❄️ Providence
Roger Williams Park — Temple to Music
The city has no shortage of sledding options, but if you’re seeking joyful, mildly chaotic winter energy, this is your scene.
🛷 South Kingstown
Wakefield Elementary School
A true all-ages hill – beginners, daredevils, and parents who said “just one run” 12 runs ago.
❄️ Westerly
Wilcox Park Taylor Swift probably prefers Aspen, but someone needs to show Travis Kelce that Rhode Island knows how to sled.
🤔 So you think you're a Rhode Islander...
What is the coldest day on record in Rhode Island?
(Answer at the bottom.)
Do you have the perfect question for Rhode Map readers? Don't forget to send the answer, too. Send me an email today.
The Globe in Rhode Island
⚓ Taxing the rich is quickly becoming the focus of Rhode Island’s 2026 legislative session, with the governor proposing a millionaires tax, business groups pushing back, and progressive legislators pushing to go further. Read more.
⚓ How a Vermont tattoo shop is celebrating the state and revolutionizing the craft – with the help of a RISD graduate. Read more.
⚓ In an opinion piece, former Brown University School of Public Health dean Ashish K. Jha writes, "The real question facing the country is no longer how to pay for an expensive health care system. It is why we continue to tolerate one that is so unnecessarily expensive — and what we are finally willing to do about it." Read more.
⚓ Bob Abelman writes that “Suffs” delivers an entertaining story without ever diminishing the seriousness of the subject or skipping over the darker aspects of the US Suffrage Movement. Read more.
⚓ A man who was allegedly attacked by four juveniles between the ages of 11 and 12 earlier this week in Providence has died, authorities said on Friday. Read more.
⚓ This week's Ocean State Innovators Q&A is with University of Rhode Island assistant professor Che-Wei Chang, who is studying how plants can blunt coastal erosion. Email us with suggestions for this weekly interview. Read more.
You can check out all of our coverage at Globe.com/RI
Also in the Globe
⚓Maine leaders are speaking out more sharply against the federal immigration sweep in their state, including angry criticism of its targets and tactics delivered during a large Saturday rally held hours after another US citizen had been shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis. Read more.
⚓ Obamacare premiums have skyrocketed, and New England is feeling the crunch. Read more.
⚓ The Patriots' wondrous, improbable season is not yet over. The team has come all the way back from back-to-back 4-13 seasons and will play the Seahawks in Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, Calif., on Feb. 8. Read more.
On Feb. 9, 1934, the temperature in Rhode Island fell to -17°F.
RHODE ISLAND REPORT PODCAST Ed Fitzpatrick talks to US District Court Chief Judge John McConnell about life in the judiciary with President Trump in the White House. Listen to all of our podcasts here.
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