UPDATED HERE:

Tim Schick, administrator of the Providence Newspaper Guild, says the union fully expects recently announced Belo cutbacks to result in layoffs at the ProJo, "but we don't know where or how many."

With the Guild representing 300 people in Providence, there are 300 variations -- none of them based on special insight into what might actually occur, Schick says -- about what will actually happen.

Tomorrow, at Brown:

2009 Physicians for Human Rights National Student Conference

Health & Human Rights in 2009: Global Problems, Local Solutions

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is proud to host the only health professional and human rights-focused conference in the country. Students, health professionals and human rights activists will meet to discuss the critical health and human rights issues of today.

Kudos + Congrats to Cranston native and former Prov Phoenix intern Sarah Rainone, who's doing some great things in Gotham. Take it away, NY Post:

Oct. 31 - Even though the plot of Sarah Rainone's forthcoming novel, "Love Will Tear Us Apart," focuses on a traditional wedding, this bride's nuptials were anything but the norm.

UPDATE: See the video here.

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Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline maintains that the misbehavior exposed by WPRI-TV's Tim White this week in the city's sewer department is an "aberration."

Cicilline, who made the statement during a taping yesterday of Newsmakers, was asked how he can know this to be the case, if the city didn't previously know about the conduct included in White's two-part series.

This just in, from the Providence Newspaper Guild:

Joint Resolution of the Providence Newspaper Guild Executive Committee and Providence Unit Council

Adopted unanimously Jan. 30, 2009

In recognition of the trying times facing the newspaper industry and the sacrifices A.H. Belo employees have been called upon to make, including in some cases their very jobs, we call on A.H. Belo CEO and president Robert W. Decherd to forgo his recent 140% raise and return his base salary to its 2008 level of a quarter million dollars a year.

In a memo dated today to his colleagues at the A.H. Belo Corporation, chairman Robert Decherd warns of job cuts across the company, "probably . . . in the range of 500 jobs," and among other changes, announces that Belo will no longer provide free parking for its employees in downtown Dallas.

The memo seems to confirm expectations that a second round of layoffs will take place at the Providence Journal after the paper's first-ever economic layoffs last year.

I describe it in this week's Phoenix:

Everywhere one turns these days, there's seemingly more bad news about Rhode Island: the unemployment rate, one of the highest in the nation, tops 10 percent — and the state's running out of unemployment assistance. Mired in persistent budget deficits, gripped by an entrenched political culture, and weakened by a perennial shortage of good jobs, the Ocean State not uncommonly seems incapable of getting out of its own way.

Kudos to Jef and his crew at GC: PVD for a marked increase in posts on their blog, which focuses on, well, making Providence a greater city.

Jef is always all over lax snow and ice removal and other topics of note, like this:

If you had a difficult time navigating the icy streets this morning, imagine trying to do it with a bicycle.

Good news for public radio in RI:

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch announced today that his office has made final approval of the sale of radio station WRNI by the Trustees of Boston University and the WRNI Foundation to Rhode Island Public Radio. Lynch announced his office’s conditional approval of the sale in September 2008.

Thanks to Chris for passing along this (not particularly surprising) story from the Hill:

It does not pay to be a Democrat in Utah or a Republican in Rhode Island, according to a new series of polls released by the Gallup Organization. That is because those states tilt most heavily to the right and left, respectively.

Ed Fitzpatrick is on the mark today in citing a remarkable change in the culture of the Providence Police Department, something I had touched on here. This improvement is a key accomplishment of Providence Mayor David Cicilline's tenure at City Hall.

[T]he Providence Police Department is developing a reputation for professionalism and innovation.

From the DL team:

What a difference a year can make! DL Providence is celebrating it's first anniversary this month, and we've received the best presents of all: a new President, a new administration, a new Congress, and -- in the words of President Obama -- a new way forward.

So stop by the Wild Colonial tomorrow night, raise a pint, and share stories about the Inauguration and hopes for the Obama Presidency.

WJAR's Bill Rappleye has had a few stories on how a friend/campaign contributor of Central Falls Mayor Charles Moreau does all the foreclosure work in that community.

And WPRI's Tim White, via the talk-radio circuit, has been previewing a story set for 6 tonight, about some less-than-diligent public service in Providence's sewer department.

With Obama pressing his case, Politico details a counter-argument:

The language used to make the case for stimulus is stark and gloomy — and, by all measures, pretty accurate. But there is also a caveat attached to every solution proposed: that it simply might not work. Economists on the right and left say there is a chance, perhaps a decent one, that $1 trillion injected into a $14 trillion economy might be too little, too late to turn things around anytime soon.

I yesterday overlooked how John Updike wrote one of my favorite pieces of magazine journalism, a reflection of his versatility and his adoption of New England.

We speak of the New Yorker classic Hub fans bid Kid adieu:

Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg.