Young farmers; pot changes; NK island for sale; VA cuts; tiny trucks: Top stories this week

Here are some of The Providence Journal’s most-read stories for the week of May 5, supported by your subscriptions.

Here are the week’s top reads on providencejournal.com:

Maggie Cole rises to feed her cows at 6 a.m. each day.

For two hours, she tends to them at her Exeter farm, EMMA Acres – an acronym for Cole and her three older siblings, Elizabeth, Matthew and Alex.

By 8 a.m., she’s at her job as a receptionist at the Rhode Island Farm Bureau, where she puts in enough hours to pull in a paycheck.

Weekends aren’t about putting her feet up – that’s when she moves the cows and mucks the stalls. On a recent Saturday, she was called in to judge a cattle show at the University of Connecticut, eyeing body widths, udders and leg placement.

At 25 years old, Cole is part of a rising tide of young farmers in the state who, despite the challenges of modern farming, are making a go of it.

Farming in RI: Long hours. No time off. Little money. RI’s young farmers have to adapt to survive. Here’s how.

When the 2025 budget submissions came out in early in March, the VA announced it was cutting 10,000 jobs nationwide – while at the same time going to great pains to assure everyone that these cuts would not have an adverse effect on veteran care. That sounded like spin to Veterans Voice columnist Frank Lennon, an attempt to push back against an anticipated negative reaction.

A March 12 Military Times article confirmed that VA leaders plan to trim about 10,000 full-time jobs “… after last year’s hiring focus led to a larger than expected workforce.” The cuts represent about 2% of the 458,000 VA employees nationwide. 

Laura Duke, VA chief financial officer, said the reduction will largely come through attrition – not filling vacant positions – and likely will primarily affect supervisory and support staff. 

Lennon reached out to the Providence VA Medical Center in an attempt to learn more about what impact these cuts were expected to have on local operations. 

Veterans: VA announced it was cutting 10,000 jobs. How will it affect Rhode Island veterans?

Imagine this: You import a mini-truck from Japan after calling the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles and being assured that you’ll be able to register it here.

Several years later, you receive a notice from the DMV: The Japanese mini-truck’s registration has been revoked, and you’ll need to hand over the license plates.

That’s exactly what happened to one of Sen. Louis DiPalma’s constituents, the Middletown Democrat told The Providence Journal. And other Rhode Islanders who’ve owned so-called “kei cars” and “kei trucks” for years have faced the same confounding scenario.

Legislation introduced by DiPalma and Rep. Michelle McGaw, D-Portsmouth, which would grant them a reprieve, cleared its first hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday.

But some mini-truck enthusiasts may be disappointed: The bill would ensure that roughly several dozen people who’ve already registered kei vehicles can keep driving them, but it wouldn’t legalize new ones.

Politics: They’re tiny, cheap and have a cult following. Why doesn’t the DMV want kei trucks on the road?

For the 10 years the Thomas C. Slater Compassion Center has operated, it, like other marijuana dispensaries, has confronted a significant economic challenge: the federal government considers cannabis on par with society’s most dangerous drugs. 

Being classified as a “Schedule 1” substance – in the same category as heroin and LSD – has meant that dispensaries are prohibited from taking ordinary business tax deductions. And most banks have been unwilling to do business with dispensaries, afraid they’ll be charged with illicit drug activity. 

But now the Justice Department is considering reclassifying marijuana as a “Schedule 3” drug, a category shared by less-dangerous drugs like Tylenol with codeine, although marijuana would remain illegal on the federal level. 

A rescheduling would provide dispensaries federal tax relief and affirm to the wider public that the product they sell indeed has medicinal benefits, says Chris Reilly, a Slater spokesman. 

“It’s a great development,” he said. “We’ve known for a while at the Slater center that patients have gotten a medical benefit from the use of cannabis for a whole host of conditions. Now with a move to Schedule 3, the government could allow for actual research to take place to affirm things we’ve known for a long time.”

Marijuana: The feds may reclassify marijuana. That could be a big deal for RI businesses.

NORTH KINGSTOWN – In 1638, two years after being convicted of heresy and banished from Massachusetts, Rhode Island founder Roger Williams found himself the recipient of an unusual gift.

But it came with an ulterior motive that involved a herd of pesky goats that were known for eating every plant in sight.

In 2024, Williams’ gift can be yours, although you’ll have to pay almost a million dollars for it. And it still comes with an ulterior motive, though the specifics of that detail have changed in the last 396 years.

What was this gift given to Roger Williams?

A small island off the coast of North Kingstown, in part of Wickford Harbor.

While Williams got it for free, today’s asking price is $899,000.

Rhode Island: This North Kingstown island helped secure religious liberty in RI. Now, you can buy it.

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