☕ Moon Missions & Route 4 Explosions

Friday, April 10, 2026 | Edition #24

GOOD MORNING, WARWICK. Four astronauts orbited the moon, broke a 56-year-old distance record, and are splashing down off the California coast tonight at 8:07 PM. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen launched April 1 on the Artemis II mission, flew within 4,067 miles of the lunar surface, and are coming home. Meanwhile, Route 4 is going to be closed ten minutes every morning for two months so someone can blow up a rock. The human species contains multitudes.

Happy Friday!

⏱️Sunset Time: 7:22PM

🌔 Moon Phase: Last Quarter

⛽ Avg. Gas Price: $4.00 (per Gas Tracker). Up more than $1.00 per gallon from this day last year.

💧 Chance of Rain: 0% - Live it up.

🚀 Tonight at 8:07 PM Eastern, the Artemis II crew splashes down in the Pacific off San Diego. Worth the watch.

🔒 CCRI's Knight Campus on East Avenue went into lockdown for nearly four hours on Tuesday after a report of a suspicious person near the school's Commonwealth Avenue tree line, with an object resembling a firearm sticking out of a backpack. Warwick Police, Rhode Island State Police, and CCRI Campus Police responded with K-9 units and drones. They found an abandoned backpack in the woods containing an airsoft gun and a black pellet rifle. The person of interest was never found, though police said they know who he is and don't believe he posed any threat to the public. CCRI canceled classes for the rest of the day. Toll Gate High and Winman Middle went into brief restricted movement as a precaution before resuming normal operations.

Credit to everyone who followed lockdown protocol and kept their cool. Worth noting: this is the second CCRI-area incident in two years, and last year's after-action review flagged real communication gaps. Something to watch going forward. Full details here: WPRI.

🏈 The playing fields promised alongside Warwick's new Pilgrim and Toll Gate High Schools may not be coming. School Committee member David Testa, who chairs the construction oversight committee, was direct about it: "We know we're not going to have enough to have the fields as promised." The project is an estimated $13 to $18 million short, partly due to budget overruns and the unexpected cost of removing contaminated soil at the Pilgrim site. The schools themselves are still on track for a 2027 completion. The fields are not.

Mayor Picozzi has proposed expanding Mickey Stevens Sports Complex on Sandy Lane as an alternative, with a conceptual plan for artificial turf fields, tennis, and pickleball courts clocking in at around $25 million. The site, alongside the lovely DPW dump, comes with its own remediation complications. The plan has support in some corners and skeptics in others. What's clear is that the fields voters were promised four years ago are no longer a given. Schools included. Fields sold separately. Full story at the Warwick Beacon.

🚒 The Warwick Fire Department officially unveiled its new Emergency Operations Center this week, moving from a 70-year-old Sandy Lane facility that was prone to flooding, leaks, and equipment so outdated that replacement parts are no longer being manufactured. The new EOC is housed at Potowomut Station 10, funded by a $530,437 federal grant secured by U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner and roughly $170,000 in city matching funds. It features three fully equipped workstations with live feeds from RIDOT traffic cameras and Department of Environmental Management cameras, and it handles about 55 emergency calls per day.

Fire Chief Peter McMichael says the department will go live with new technology in the coming weeks after performance testing. The old Sandy Lane facility will be repurposed rather than abandoned. Warwick handles roughly 105 combined emergency and commercial calls daily. Good time for an upgrade. Full story at the Warwick Beacon.

🎵 The noise complaint heard 'round Pawtuxet Village is now a Rhode Island Supreme Court case. Singer Vanessa Carlton and her husband John McCauley, of the band Deer Tick, took the owners of an adjacent Post Road property to court a year and a half ago, claiming the noise from the neighboring lot made their home unlivable. They won the first round: a Superior Court judge issued an injunction in November 2024 ordering the property owners to stop noise exceeding city limits.

The property owners appealed all the way to the state's highest court, which heard the case last week in North Smithfield as part of a civics program. Carlton's attorney offered a vivid description of the situation: "Turn on a leaf blower in your kitchen and tell me how you like it." The neighbors say they've done nothing wrong. A zoning board disagreed last November. The Supreme Court will issue its decision at a later date. Only in Warwick does a "Thousand Miles" musician end up fighting a noise case before the state supreme court. Full story here: NBC 10.

Friday–Sunday, April 10–12 | 🏠 RI Home Show | Link | Southern New England's biggest home show runs through Sunday at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence. Over 200 contractors and exhibitors, plus a craft beer tasting area, flower show, food makers marketplace, and a new Health Expo. Tickets are $10 to $12. If you've been staring at the same kitchen since 2018 and calling it "character," this weekend is your intervention.

Saturday, April 11 | 🐾 Bark & Boogie | Link | The Potter League for Animals is hosting a spring gala at the Newport Marriott Grand Ballroom, 6 to 9:30 PM. Cocktails, food, live music, and dancing, with proceeds supporting more than 13,000 animals a year. Tickets are $125 at barkandboogie.org. Dress up and do something good.

Saturday, April 11 | 🎥 Video Making Workshop | Link | Learn the basics of video production with instructor Peter Glass at the Warwick Public Library, 1–4 PM.

Sunday, April 12 | 🤼 PROCMANIA 8: Live Pro Wrestling | Link | They're putting an 18-foot wrestling ring inside Proclamation Ale Company. Bell-time is 2 PM, food is from Dee's Deli, all ages welcome. Advance tickets are $15, day-of are $20. Still not a drill.

Saturday, May 2 | 🥊 Women's Boxing Class | DM to Register | Destinee and her boxing coach are running an all-levels class on May 2. Beginner friendly, advanced options available, drop-in is $20 to $30. DM @dezzyfitness on Instagram to lock in your spot.

Saturday, May 2 | 🫁 3rd Annual Breath of Hope RI 5K | Link | Breath of Hope RI funds research for a rare lung disease that a Warwick-area child named Landon was diagnosed with at age 4. He's now in second grade playing soccer. The 5K is at 10:30 AM at Goddard Memorial State Park. Run, walk, or donate.

🧠 Where in Warwick? Where was this photo taken?

Answer below.

Obstreperous (ob-STREP-er-us) Adjective. Noisy, unruly, and stubbornly resistant to being quieted down. From the Latin obstreperus, meaning "to make a racket against." As in, your neighbor's lot that resulted in a Rhode Island Supreme Court case was, by every legal definition, obstreperous. The irony: the word sounds a little like what it means. You already know an obstreperous person. You've definitely lived next to one.

Thanks to Rob G. for submitting today’s word of the day. You can submit one yourself, here. I’ll be sure to include it in the next edition!

✅Where in Warwick Reveal: Oakland Beach

That's Oakland Beach Avenue, and the sign says it all: Gus's Restaurant, which operated on that spot from 1924 to 1984. Over the next three decades the building cycled through more names than a procrastinator cycles through excuses, including Beachcombers, Cove Bar and Grill, Tijuana Yacht Club, Club Tropics, Kahuna's on the Beach, Midway Bar & Grill, Captain Seaweed's, and Marley's on the Beach. Since 2014 it's been Iggy's Boardwalk. The names changed. The fried dough didn't. Some things are sacred.

A few of you asked what I use to run this. It's called Beehiiv. Clean, simple, and so far zero catastrophic failures, which is more than I can say for the Warwick school construction budget. Interested in starting your own newsletter? Here’s a discount link to get started.

That's it for today. Now get off your phone and go touch some grass.

Thanks for reading!