George Germon and Johanne Killeen, the famed duo behind local culinary landmark Al Forno, are working to create what may be the smallest restaurant in the smallest state.

Workers are toiling in the former New Yorker lunch counter, at 200 Washington Street in downtown Providence, to create a 20-seat Mediterranean-influenced restaurant in the diminutive 450-square-foot space.

From Rhode Island College:

The survey was conducted between April 17-28, 2008 and sampled 400 randomly selected registered voters for a 4.5 percent margin of error. The sample was drawn reflecting voter contribution by geographic region in recent statewide elections.

Gov. Donald Carcieri submitted several cost cutting proposals, which the House of Representatives responded to last week.

To the surprise of no one, the release this week of Grand Theft Auto IV has inspired much media hand-wringing.

Yesterday, AG Patrick Lynch put out the obligatory "consumer advisory" about the pending sale of GTA IV:

“As video games become more realistic and in many cases, more violent, parents must become more vigilant before buying them or letting their children use them,” said Attorney General Patrick C.

In hindsight, it would have been better to have done this some time ago (AP via Halperin)

"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Obama told reporters at a news conference.

After weeks of staying out of the public eye while critics lambasted his sermons, Wright made three public appearances in four days to defend himself.

Labor activist Patrick Crowley, who's been on the warpath lately against Governor Carcieri (Pat, we suspect, would say it's the other way around), sends word of this rally:

Community Activists, Organized Labor and Religious Leaders Will Join In Calling On State Leaders To Promote Economic Justice For All Rhode Islanders

Speaking of Local 121, the Providence restaurant continues to offer some informative events, such as this one on Thursday:

On Thursday, May 1st from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m., Local 121 presents Real Meals from Local Fields. Local 121 brings you into the food security movement, a movement that shows how our food system is connected, how our food grows, how it’s processed, who grows it, what we eat, where it comes from, who goes hungry and why.

It's the last day on the job at the ProJo for executive editor Joel Rawson, who has cast a big shadow there for most of the years going back to the early '70s.

G. Wayne Miller's previous report is here, and mine here.

Rawson was feted with a farewell/final teaching moment last week at Local 121.

Good night and good luck, Joel.

Back in the spring of 2001, I looked at why more people don't use bikes to get around Providence.

WEATHER PERMITTING, [Ray] Alexander pedals the seven miles each weekday from his home in Cranston's Edgewood section to his teaching job at Goodwill Industries of Rhode Island in Wanskuck. With hazards ranging from hostile motorists to piles of accumulated sand and trash in the road, he says, "It's a short commute, but it's not a pleasant one.

While US Senator Jack Reed's disavowals of interest in a Cabinet job may be familiar to readers of this blog, G. Wayne Miller's charasterically lengthy portrait of the senator in the Sunday ProJo made for an excellent read, speaking to his stature and his diligence. It's no wonder that he routinely rates as Rhode Island's most popular elected official.

Robert Manning, RI's GOP National Committeeman, says the varying alliances of himself (with Steve Laffey) and Scott Avedisian (with Linc Chafee) are unrelated to Avedisian's challenge to his position.

Last week, N4N reported that Avedisian and Joe Trillo are challenging Manning for the National Committeman post.

Dan Barry, former ProJo scribe-turned-NY Times reporter-and-acclaimed author, makes another one of his occasional forays back to Rhode Island, offering a sharp column today on Buddy Cianci and his perch at WPRO:

At first, Mr. Cianci says, “I was rather docile on the air,” calling a couple of new buildings ugly, criticizing a tax break.

That's the formulation of Newsweek's cover. It relates to the magazine's piece on the Democrat's "bubba gap."

It is true that the McCain team still expects Obama to be their opponent in November. It is also true that on the electoral maps of many prognosticators, Obama lines up better against McCain than does Clinton.

Yes, the budget stuff is a lot more important, but Trader Joe's will be in the house (this fall), and I'd been meaning to do a related post for some time.

It's been something of a parlor game in Providence to ponder the question of when Trader Joe's might come to the area. Some perceived such a development as an ultimate sign of end-game gentrification, while others who've shopped at the distinctive, reasonably priced grocery store, N4N included, felt like it couldn't arrive soon enough.

The New Republic is griping about a similar Obama-Clinton cover image over at Time:

We don't want to say that this week's cover of Time is a rip-off of our HillarAck cover that came out last month, but--oh, whatever--they totally ripped us off! All the way on down to the cover line, too: "There Can Only Be One" vs.

WLNE's Jim Hummel had the story last night of an officer reassigned to monitoring the metal detector at Providence Police headquarters, reportedly because he was hitting on attractive women during traffic stops. BeloBlog says an internal investigation is under way for an officer accused of improper conduct during MV stops.