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The coastal city of Newport, Rhode Island, known as the sailing capital of the world, offers sailing, restaurants, shopping, museums, Gilded Age mansions, and plenty of history.
Earlier this year, Newport was named among the most welcoming places in the U.S. by Booking.com and among the 10 best small coastal towns in America by USA Today.
Visiting Newport on a budget? Ahead, discover three low-cost ways of having fun in the seaside city.
The Newport Historical Society’s Museum of Newport History is where visitors can learn about the city’s rich maritime history and architecture.
While visiting the museum, guests can see photographs, paintings, furniture, colonial silver, and more from the collections of the Newport Historical Society. It is open daily and there is a $5 suggested donation for admission. Check out the museum’s current exhibitions.
The society also hosts various walking tours of the city, which meet outside of the museum. Tours include a Colonial Newport Lantern Tour, George Washington’s Footsteps Tour, Point Neighborhood Tour, and more. The latter features the largest collection of colonial homes in the U.S.
Tickets for tours must be purchased online in advance and cost $20 for adults ($15 for society members and active duty and retired military members) and $10 for kids age 5 to 12.
Enjoy sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean and gorgeous century-old Gilded Age mansions while strolling the iconic and historic Cliff Walk, a 3.5-mile free scenic walk along the coast.
The path was designated as a National Recreation Trail in 1975, the first in New England. It is open from sunrise to sunset and visitors can scan 16 QR code trail markers that provide information about the mansions as well as geographic and geological features of the path. There are benches for resting and seasonal public restrooms are available.
Visitors should note that detours are in place on the Cliff Walk between Narragansett Avenue and Webster Street “for the foreseeable future” due to structural damage to a section of the path, according to the city. Parking costs $2 per hour and more information is available here.
Fort Adams, named after President John Adams, was active in five major wars — the Mexican American War, American Civil War, Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II — but never saw combat.
The site became Fort Adams State Park in 1965 and was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1976. There is free parking and visitors can enjoy the grounds, Fort Adams Beach, and Fort Adams Bay Walk, a 2.25-mile walk around the park. Guests can bring their own food for a picnic or purchase sandwiches, drinks, and snacks from the on-site 1824 Coffee Post.
The park offers live music during the summer. The 2025 Music at the Fort concert series is a family-friendly community event hosted by the Fort Adams Trust, and this year’s concerts are on Aug. 20 & 27 and Sept. 3. Attendance is free and a $25 suggested donation is encouraged.
Visitors can go on self-guided or guided tours of the fort.
For the self-guided tours, guests can download the app and experience the fort’s scenic overlook with spectacular views of Newport Harbor and Narragansett Bay, restored casemates, and the 6.5-acre parade field. The cost is $16 for adults ($12 for seniors, college students, and military) and $8 for kids age 5-16. Children age 4 and under are free. A special family rate of $50 includes two adults and up to four kids. The guided tours are more expensive and include the quarters where officers and their families lived as well as the underground tunnels.
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Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce initially had their sights set on a marvelous coastal wedding, multiple sources exclusively tell Us Weekly.
“Taylor and Travis really wanted their wedding in Rhode Island, and June 13 was the date, but security wouldn’t have worked because it could get out of hand with that kind of scale of an event,” an insider says.
Though everything was initially being planned in Rhode Island — where Swift, 36, has a mansion in the lavish Watch Hill neighborhood of Westerly — the insider notes the pop star had booked multiple venues from coast to coast on different dates.
According to the source, “Ocean House [in Westerly] was planned at one point, and then plans changed to New York.”
The insider, meanwhile, tells Us that Swift’s security “had to assess all the venues to see what made sense.”
“Rhode Island wasn’t great because the nature of the access and the perimeters were too difficult to secure,” the source explains. “So the main issue with Rhode Island ended up being security.”
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Getty Images
“Everything was being planned in Rhode Island,” added a source. “And so many people wanted to come that plans had to change because it became bigger.”
Swift and Kelce, 36, are now rumored to be tying the knot at Madison Square Garden in New York City over the July 4 holiday weekend. While the exact location and date of the nuptials have not yet been confirmed, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani appeared to hint at the wedding taking place in the city during a June 15 press conference earlier this month.
“I am fully confident in the work of the NYPD, as well as our state partners, in delivering that safe experience,” he told reporters. “We are the biggest city in the country. We are used to big events, and we are incredibly excited for the [World Cup]. We know it coincides with the Knicks’ [NBA] Finals run. We know it coincides with July 4, America 250, Taylor Swift’s wedding — all happening at the same time — and we are so excited to welcome the world here.”
Additionally, a permit was filed with NYC in June, the mayor’s spokesperson Dora Pekec confirmed to Us after The New York Times reported on a permit to close the streets surrounding MSG from July 2 to midday July 4 for an event on July 3.
City sources also confirmed to Us that the Street Activity Permit Office (SAPO), which issues the permits, is in touch with the NYPD regarding a possible influx of street and pedestrian traffic.
Though Swift and Kelce’s Rhode Island wedding plans fell through, the “I Knew It, I Knew You” singer’s Watch Hill mansion had an uptick in action last week when security was spotted swarming the area. A group of unidentified women were reportedly seen on the balcony wearing matching robes — three in black and one in white — sparking speculation about a bachelorette party.
A woman who appeared to be Swift’s childhood friend Abigail Anderson Berard was also seen on the property with her 2-year-old son.
Meanwhile, Travis celebrated what was perceived as his bachelor party in Los Angeles and San Diego. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end and his brother, Jason Kelce, as well as Travis’ teammate Patrick Mahomes and others, were spotted at a Chris Lake concert, a Dave Chappelle comedy show, a night out at the members-only Bird Street Club and more.
Swift and Kelce began dating in the summer of 2023 and got engaged in August 2025.
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Rhode Island Energy is currently installing advanced smart meters for all electricity customers. Clean energy and environmental advocates have championed advanced metering for decades because the systems enable incentives for conservation, solar integration and energy storage. The primary vehicle for realizing these benefits is Time-Varying Rates (TVR).
Unlike legacy meters, advanced meters track when electricity is used, not just how much is used. TVR encourages customers to shift heavy usage, like running a clothes dryer or charging an electric vehicle, to off-peak overnight hours when wholesale power is cheap and cleaner. This flattens the grid’s peak demand, brings down wholesale energy costs for everyone and reduces our reliance on polluting “peaker” power plants.
The Rhode Island Public Utility Commission (PUC) is charged with balancing the interests of utility customers with value to utility shareholders. It sets the formulas by which the utility is compensated.
The primary means the utility is compensated is based on a Return on Equity invested (ROE) that is predetermined by the PUC and currently set at 9.275%. Rhode Island Energy’s capital investments are funded through roughly 51% equity (shareholder capital) and 49% debt. For every $100 million the utility spends on infrastructure, about $51 million is financed via equity, allowing shareholders to collect an annual pre-tax profit of 9.275% on that portion, or roughly $4.73 million. The more the utility spends, the more their shareholders earn.
At a cost of over $188 million for the new meters, Rhode Island Energy shareholders will collect nearly $9 million a year in profit for 20 years from the equity portion of that investment alone, while also saving money on labor by eliminating the need for truck based drive-by meter readers.
But advanced metering was supposed to benefit ratepayers as well as the utility. Though the meter expenditures were approved by the PUC in 2023 and the meters installations are expected to be completed by the end of this year, it is expected to take until at least 18 months after the meter rollout is completed to implement the billing system infrastructure needed to enable Time-Varying Rates.
The upgrades that deliver more profit to the utility bottom line was fast tracked, while the investment needed to implement the primary benefits to ratepayers is being slow walked. Why weren’t the software upgrades and hardware deployment run in parallel?
Right now, the PUC is weighing a huge general rate case (Docket No. 25-45-GE). Rhode Island Energy has proposed aggressively hiking its profit margin, seeking to raise its ROE from 9.275% to 10.75% and expand its equity share from 51% to 57%.
In their 2022 advanced metering filing, Rhode Island Energy suggested the new infrastructure would yield $729 million in benefits over 20 years. So far, the utility is seeing plenty of that benefit on its bottom line, while ratepayers have mostly seen higher costs. The PUC should reject the utility’s requested rate increases, preserve the current rate structure, and insist that Time-Varying Rates be fully operational before any further rate changes are considered.
Fred Unger is a retired energy project developer and clean energy advocate based in Providence.
With wildfires becoming more frequent in Rhode Island, the state’s stockpile of specialty hoses to battle these blazes is being stretched thin.
Target 12 investigator Tim White got a firsthand look at the condition of the critical firefighting tools in Rhode Island and learned what’s being done to repair or replace them.
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