Rhode Island
401 Fun: The best things to do in Rhode Island Aug. 9-16 – The Boston Globe
No, I don’t mean the season finale of “House of the Dragon.” (Don’t tell me what happens, I haven’t seen it yet.) I mean your last chance to explore “Dragons & Mythical Creatures” at Roger Williams Park Zoo. Billed as an “immersive experience featuring over 60 life-size animatronic wonders.” Through Aug. 11. Not included with regular zoo admission. $9 ages 2 and up. Under 2 free. 1000 Elmwood Ave., Providence. Details here.
RHODE ISLAND FILM FEST
The 2024 Rhode Island Film Fest runs through Aug. 11 with plenty of options to catch indie features and shorts in some 10 venues throughout Rhode Island. Look for “Lost Nation,” directed by Jay Craven, “Golden Garden Takeout,” directed by Maggie Wong, “Anna Comes Home,” directed by Amber Paulette Suzor, and “WaterFire, Art & Soul of a City…The Story Continues,” from Rhode Island PBS and RocJo Productions, in cooperation with WaterFire, among others films. See a full schedule here.
JAZZ FROM SOUTH AFRICA
Jazz musician NALEDI, who moved from South Africa “to chase music in Boston” with a scholarship to New England Conservatory, performs Aug. 9 as part of Newport Live x Norman Bird Sanctuary Outdoor Summer Series.
NALEDI recently released her EP “BATHO” (meaning “people” in Sesotho), which she calls “a journey of finding belonging in a world that’s always changing, and a celebration of our shared humanity in the fight for social justice. 7 p.m. $35. 583 3rd Beach Road Middletown. Learn more about the artist here. Details here.
DOG FEST
Ummm, I love it. Hop in the car, Fido, because we’re headed to Dog Fest. RI Night Market — an open-air evening and nighttime marketplace presented by Dunkin’ — pops up at Mulligan’s Island Golf & Entertainment Aug. 10, 4-8 p.m, with “Dog Fest RI” (free). Expect a “Blessing of The Dogs,” dog vendors, activities, food trucks, “Kids Zone,” raffles, giveaways, Makers Market, Bounce Houses, Beer Garden, and more. There’s also a ticketed “Wicked Best Martini 2024″ tent, admission from $25, to benefit the Potter League. 1000 New London Ave., Cranston. Tickets and details here. Fest details here and here.
DRINK ALL THE BEER IN RHODE ISLAND
For real. Hop on it, hop-heads: Tickets are limited for the 8th Ocean State Brewers Fest, billed as “the only beer event in Rhode Island that features Rhode Island breweries exclusively.” Taste what your neighbors are brewing, from Apponaug Brewing Company to Origin Beer Project, Phantom Farms Brewing to Tapped Apple Cidery & Winery and dozens more at the Aug. 10 fest from Rhode Island Brewers Guild sponsored by BrewBox. Cheers, Rhody. $65. 21+ 3-6:30 p.m. at Farm Fresh RI, 10 Sims Ave, Providence. Details here.
GOOOOAL!
If the Olympics has you amped, it’s time to see a soccer match up close: Rhode Island’s pro men’s soccer team, Rhode Island FC, takes on Hartford Athletic Aug. 10 at 7:30 p.m. Ticket prices vary. At Beirne Stadium at Bryant University. 1150 Douglas Pike, Smithfield. Details here.
DOMINICAN PARADE & FESTIVAL
The annual Dominican Parade & Festival, presented by Quisqueya En Accion, steps off Aug. 11 at 10 a.m. in Providence at the intersection of Thurbers Avenue and Broad Street, followed by a music fest kicking off at noon at Roger Williams Park Temple to Music. This year’s theme is “Tributo a Nuestra Cultura” (“A Tribute to Our Culture.”) Details here and here.
ALPACA YOGA
The Lazy K Ranch in Foster hosts alpaca yoga Aug. 11, 10-11 a.m. Sorry goats, but alpacas are way cuter. If you see an alpaca smile, you have to smile back. Fact. BYO water, towel and mat. 10 East Killingly Road, Foster. $26. Details here.
WASHINGTON COUNTY FAIR
With a pig obstacle course, a rabbit show, lawnmower racing, a pony pull and more, this week is the annual Washington County Fair, Aug. 14-18. Goals include “to promote our rural heritage… to be a venue for the FFA and 4H [and] to give families an affordable form of wholesome entertainment.” The fair, established in 1967, offers an overwhelming schedule of events jam-packed into four days in Richmond.
A few highlights: live music, antique car show, egg toss, tractor and truck pulls, live stock shows, poultry, sheep, swine and more; oxen pull, line-dancing, goat show, lawnmower races, milking contest, corn hole tournament, arm wrestling, “cow chip bingo” (IYKYK), senior pie-eating contest, jugglers, magicians and much more. Oh, and the food! Stuffed waffles, street tacos, gourmet grilled cheese, clam cakes, oysters, ice cream, apple crisp, shaved steak sandwiches, salted potatoes, barbecue ribs, gyros, corn fritters and more. Adults $12, kids 10 and under free. 78 Richmond Townhouse Road, Route 112, Richmond. Details here.
YES, CHEFS
Rhode Island puts its more than 400 miles of coastline in the spotlight during several food festivals, where fishermen and chefs who specialize in seafood get a boost. Even if you’re not a seafood lover, there are plenty of other festivals to attend to sample plates and try out local beer and wine. Globe Rhode Island’s Alexa Gagosz has put together a list of 13 food festivals that run through the rest of this year, from dining inside one of the Newport mansions with chef Jacques Pépin, to the annual oyster festival, to the Farm Fresh Rhode Island Local Food Fest at Newport’s Castle Hill Inn Aug. 13. The Farm Fresh RI fundraiser “celebrates local growers and food producers — featuring dozens of local farms paired with chefs from some of the top restaurants,” according to billing. Advance tickets only. Rain or shine. Under age 12 free. 4-8 p.m. 590 Ocean Drive. From $25. Tickets and info. for Farm Fresh Rhode Island here.
JUDY COLLINS
The legend plays Newport’s Jane Pickens Theatre Aug. 15 at 7:30 p.m. and Aug. 16 at 8 p.m. Stay tuned for my interview. 49 Touro St. Tickets from $69. Details here.
GREEK FESTIVAL
It’s three days of peace, love and loukoumades. We’re approaching next week’s column-territory here, so I’ll just quickly say that Pawtucket’s Assumption of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church hosts its 97th annual Greek Festival Aug. 16-18. Expect live music, dance performances, authentic Greek food and pastries — thinks Greek rice pudding, Kourambiedes, baklava, Finikia, Koulourakia, Galaktoboureko, loukoumades — kafenio (coffee area), a Greek marketplace, Greek Pride Dance Troupe, vendors, baking demos and more, according to billing. Aug. 16, 5-10 p.m. 97 Walcott St., Pawtucket. Details here and here.
BLACK SHIPS FEST
The Japan-American Society of Rhode Island hosts the 41st Black Ships Fest in Bristol and Newport Aug. 16-18. You’ll learn about the “connection between Rhode Island and Japan” and explore Japanese culture, according to billing. You might try on kimonos, participate in tea ceremonies, learn calligraphy, step aboard the tall ship Aurora, dance to Taiko drumming, browse some 100 artisans, taste treats, see martial arts demos and ikebana flower arrangements, and more. Opening ceremonies Aug. 16 10 a.m. at Rockwell Park, Bristol. Details here.
DATE CHANGE FOR “TED LASSO” STAR
In last week’s column, I mentioned that “Ted Lasso’s” Brett Goldstein was headed to PVD this week. Well, you have more time to get tickets. He’s now coming Aug. 23 for two shows. On Wednesday, PPAC announced that shows were postponed due to Goldstein falling sick.
Whether you had tickets and need a refund, or you realize you now want tickets (from $46) — all details here. 220 Weybosset St., Providence.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: ONGOING FUN …
THE GREAT ELEPHANT MIGRATION: See a herd of some 100 life-size Indian elephant sculptures in Newport, presented by Art&Newport through Sept. 6. The Great Elephant Migration is a global fundraiser to amplify indigenous knowledge and inspire the human race to share space, according to its website. The sculptures were made by a community of 200 indigenous Indian artisans according to their website. Viewing is best along the Cliff Walk, where the 52-elephant display is taking place at Salve Regina University’s McAuley Hall, The Breakers, and Rough Point. Learn more here, here and here.
BLACK HISTORY WALKING TOUR: Until now, the personal narratives and experiences of enslaved individuals in late 18th-century Newport have been largely unknown. Their voices highlight a new tour and exhibit that illuminate “the untold history of early Black Americans” and its widespread, ongoing impact in Rhode Island. Tours Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays at 10 a.m. through Nov. 30. $20 adults; $10 kids 12 and under. Departs from the Pilot House at 13 Bowen’s Wharf, Newport. Details here.
ITALIAN FOOD FEST: Foodies, rev your engines. Federal Hill, Rhody’s own Little Italy, hosts its 5th Al Fresco on the Hill on Saturdays through Aug. 31 from 5 p.m. to midnight. People can stroll the avenue and sample food from local restaurants and shop at retailers set up outside. There will also be live entertainment and artistic performances. Providence. Details here.
I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM: Beat the heat: We mapped a trail of 130 great spots to get ice cream in Rhode Island here. See some highlights here.
Until next week, Rhody: Keep rockin.’
Rhode Island
RI Lottery Mega Millions, Numbers Midday winning numbers for March 6, 2026
The Rhode Island Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at March 6, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Mega Millions numbers from March 6 drawing
08-19-26-38-42, Mega Ball: 24
Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Numbers numbers from March 6 drawing
Midday: 8-6-2-3
Evening: 1-8-7-4
Check Numbers payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Wild Money numbers from March 6 drawing
02-08-16-26-32, Extra: 24
Check Wild Money payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from March 6 drawing
04-10-29-48-50, Bonus: 03
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize
- Prizes less than $600 can be claimed at any Rhode Island Lottery Retailer. Prizes of $600 and above must be claimed at Lottery Headquarters, 1425 Pontiac Ave., Cranston, Rhode Island 02920.
- Mega Millions and Powerball jackpot winners can decide on cash or annuity payment within 60 days after becoming entitled to the prize. The annuitized prize shall be paid in 30 graduated annual installments.
- Winners of the Millionaire for Life top prize of $1,000,000 a year for life and second prize of $100,000 a year for life can decide to collect the prize for a minimum of 20 years or take a lump sum cash payment.
When are the Rhode Island Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 10:59 p.m. ET on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 11:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky for Life: 10:30 p.m. ET daily.
- Millionaire for Life: 11:15 p.m. ET daily.
- Numbers (Midday): 1:30 p.m. ET daily.
- Numbers (Evening): 7:29 p.m. ET daily.
- Wild Money: 7:29 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Rhode Island editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Rhode Island
For survivors, Rhode Island clergy abuse report brings vindication and renewed demands
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The sound of the school nurse’s office door opening. Light reflecting off a stained-glass window. Tearful outbursts and fear of getting on the school bus.
For many survivors of clergy abuse, memories like these linger for decades.
A report released this week by the Rhode Island attorney general detailed decades of abuse inside the state’s Catholic Diocese of Providence, identifying 75 clergy members who sexually abused more than 300 children since 1950. The investigation drew on thousands of church records and years of interviews with victims and witnesses. Officials said the true number of victims is likely much higher.
But survivors say the numbers capture only part of the story. Behind each case, they say, are childhood fragments that resurface years later — along with the long struggle to understand what happened.
Many survivors spent decades searching for answers and pressing authorities to investigate. Now some are speaking publicly about what they endured and what they hope will come next: broader support for survivors, help from the church to pay for therapy and counseling, and accountability from Catholic leaders.
From survivor to advocate
“I can still hear the click of the hardware in that metal door opening to this very day,” said Dr. Herbert “Hub” Brennan, an internal medicine doctor who lives and works in his hometown of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, where he grew up in a devoutly Catholic family.
Brennan was sexually abused in elementary school by the Rev. Brendan Smyth, an Irish priest who arrived in the community in the 1960s. Brennan was an altar server at Our Lady of Mercy Parish when the abuse began in the church sacristy.
Dr. Herbert “Hub” Brennan, a clergy abuse survivor, displays a 1995 newspaper showing a headline that reads “Diocese has no complaints about jailed priest” at his internal medicine office in East Greenwich, R.I., Thursday, March 5, 2026. Credit: AP/Leah Willingham
Brennan says a nun would pull him from class and send him to wait in the principal’s office until Smyth arrived and led him into the nurse’s room.
“They say that rape is one of the few crimes where the victim feels the shame,” Brennan said. “But the shame is enormous. And then the secrecy that follows to hide that shame gets in the way of healing.”
Brennan confronted it years later when a newspaper arrived on his doorstep in 1995. The headline about Smyth’s arrest in Ireland read: “Diocese has no complaints against jailed priest.”
Smyth was later convicted of assaulting children at least 100 times over four decades.
Dr. Herbert “Hub” Brennan, a clergy abuse survivor, shows at a 1995 newspaper article about the arrest of the Rev. Brendan Smyth while at his internal medicine office in East Greenwich, R.I., Thursday, March 5, 2026. Credit: AP/Leah Willingham
When Brennan later tried to discuss the abuse with a parish priest, he said he was assured there had been no complaints, only to learn later the priest had been Smyth’s roommate.
The revelation pushed Brennan to seek accountability. He later worked with attorney Mitchell Garabedian and settled in Massachusetts Superior Court.
“I needed to make sure that others knew exactly what was going on in this diocese — if it happened to others, who was responsible and how they were hiding it,” Brennan said.
The report released this week felt like a culmination of that effort, he said: “That allowed me to switch from survivor-victim to advocate.”
Breaking the ‘wall of secrecy’
For Claude Leboeuf, amber light streaming through stained-glass windows still triggers painful memories.
Leboeuf, who was abused by a priest as a child in neighboring Massachusetts and now advocates for victims in Rhode Island, called the report an important step toward dismantling what he calls the church’s “wall of secrecy.”
Leboeuf said his memories resurfaced only a few years ago, prompting him to pursue legal action and speak publicly about what happened to him.
“There’s a need to do something for these people — something real: money, tuition, therapy,” he said. “The effects are real; they last a long, long time.”
In a video statement, Bishop of Providence Bruce Lewandowski said the report describes a “tragic history” of abuse that caused lasting harm to victims and their families. He said he felt “extreme sadness” and “intense shame” while reading it and apologized to survivors for church leaders’ past failures to protect children. Lewandowski said the diocese has since implemented safeguards aimed at responding quickly to allegations and preventing abuse.
Leboeuf rejects that framing.
“It’s not old history. It’s justice denied for more than 60 years for some people,” he said. “These are people who brought their complaints to the diocese as kids in the 1960s, and they were ignored, ridiculed, even punished.”
Fighting to be believed
Ann Hagan Webb remembers the dread she felt before the school bus arrived each morning. Webb was only a kindergartner when her parish priest began sexually abusing her at school in Rhode Island.
The abuse took place between 1957 and 1965, during which Webb — who was abused from the age of 5 to 12 — remembers tearful outbursts before school, sometimes needing to be pulled onto the bus.
It wasn’t until decades later, at 40, that Webb turned to therapy to help process the memories. But when she was ready to report the abuse, Webb was met with hostility.
Initially, she asked only for compensation to cover her therapy bills. Still, she was met with skepticism, with leaders at the Diocese of Providence demanding her medical records and questioning the veracity of her claims.
Webb turned to advocacy, becoming known as a force for survivors of clergy abuse. In 2019, she helped convince the Rhode Island Legislature to enact legislation dubbed “Annie’s Law,” which allows child sexual abusers to be held civilly accountable to victims.
The advocacy has been exhausting, Webb said, and she still faces stigma when speaking publicly. Her abuse is often overlooked, she says, because many assume clergy abuse affected only boys.
“For 32 years, the diocese has called me not credible. I can’t tell you what that feels like,” Webb said.
The release of the attorney general’s investigation has renewed her hope that change and justice are still on the horizon.
“It feels like vindication,” she said.
“I hope the public demands their church be different,” she added.
A long-coming reckoning
The Rhode Island investigation comes at a time when examining possible clergy abuse is no longer unusual.
The shift is a far cry from 2002, when The Boston Globe exposed the Boston Archdiocese’s practice of moving abusive priests between parishes without warning parents or police, prompting investigations around the world.
That reckoning took decades longer in Rhode Island. With one of the highest Catholic populations per capita in the country — nearly 40% — the Diocese of Providence maintained secrecy around clergy abuse even as accusations and lawsuits surfaced over the years.
Attorney Tim Conlon, who has long represented sex abuse victims in Rhode Island, said that when he first filed suits against the Diocese of Providence, many people were unwilling to believe such allegations could be true in their own parishes. At one point in the late 1990s, he said, even his mother questioned whether he was doing the right thing.
State law has also made it difficult for victims to seek justice, Conlon said, citing strict limits on civil suits against institutions like the Catholic Church and narrow statutes of limitations for second-degree sexual assault.
“Clearly there’s a call for reform,” Conlon said. “The magnitude of the need is well documented.”
Rhode Island
RI Lottery Numbers Midday, Numbers Evening winning numbers for March 5, 2026
The Rhode Island Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at March 5, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Numbers numbers from March 5 drawing
Midday: 8-6-6-2
Evening: 8-1-9-8
Check Numbers payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Wild Money numbers from March 5 drawing
03-08-09-14-30, Extra: 31
Check Wild Money payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from March 5 drawing
17-20-23-30-33, Bonus: 05
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize
- Prizes less than $600 can be claimed at any Rhode Island Lottery Retailer. Prizes of $600 and above must be claimed at Lottery Headquarters, 1425 Pontiac Ave., Cranston, Rhode Island 02920.
- Mega Millions and Powerball jackpot winners can decide on cash or annuity payment within 60 days after becoming entitled to the prize. The annuitized prize shall be paid in 30 graduated annual installments.
- Winners of the Millionaire for Life top prize of $1,000,000 a year for life and second prize of $100,000 a year for life can decide to collect the prize for a minimum of 20 years or take a lump sum cash payment.
When are the Rhode Island Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 10:59 p.m. ET on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 11:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky for Life: 10:30 p.m. ET daily.
- Millionaire for Life: 11:15 p.m. ET daily.
- Numbers (Midday): 1:30 p.m. ET daily.
- Numbers (Evening): 7:29 p.m. ET daily.
- Wild Money: 7:29 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Rhode Island editor. You can send feedback using this form.
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