The Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union will ask a judge in U.S. District Court, Providence, to issue a restraining order.

The ACLU said it filed the suit on behalf of Thomas K. Jones of West Warwick, who last month lost the District 27 House Republican primary to Ericka J. Atwell. The suit contends the ordinance violates Jones' freedom of speech protections and that town officials have applied it against him in a discriminatory way.

The Journal reported the disagreement concerns a number of 4-by-8-foot signs Jones put up that bore a message opposing the $150-million water park and resort planned for the West Warwick Business Park. Jones said he removed a number of signs from yards of supporters who said they received letters threatening them with fines for violating the sign ordinance.

Jones argued the letters resulted from the signs' content, not size. But town officials have denied that.

The letters said the ordinance allows for no more than one political sign being posted on a residential lot and that it can measure no larger than 8 square feet. A violation can lead to a $500 fine.

Pichardo has been named vice chairman of the National Conference of State Legislatures' Human Services and Welfare Committee. As a result of the appointment, Pichardo took part in an "officer training" at the NCSL Denver office earlier in the month.

While the state has yet to receive a final invoice, the trip cost taxpayers at least $788.

The flight was $470, while the hotel cost $159 per night; Pichardo stayed two nights, according to Senate spokesman Greg Pare.

During the officer training, Pichardo met with several committee members. As a result of their work, the committee will focus on drafting new policies on poverty, including early childhood education and "financial policies that support working families' efforts to move out of poverty and aging services," according to a statement issued by the Senate.

"I am excited to come together with colleagues from other states in working to draft policies that will positively impact people both locally and nationally," Pichardo said in a statement. "The important work of this committee goes hand-in-hand with the commission that I co-chair on building income and assets for working families in Rhode Island."

The NCSL is a bipartisan organization that serves the legislators and their staffs across the country.

"We want every woman to know how important her vote is," said Marcia Coné-Tighe, executive director of the Women's Fund. "We know Rhode Island women care deeply about issues that affect their communities and their families. By voting, women can make their voices heard."

The public service announcement features 38 Rhode Island girls age 2 to 16 reminding women that voting makes a difference to issues that matter to them, from health care to the economy.

"If you don't vote, how will politicians know what needs to be fixed?" the ads ask.

Along with TV and radio, the Women's Fund of RI is reaching out to women with a poster campaign that asks and answers the question "Why Not Vote?" Women can read and get copies of the poster at locations around the state, including libraries, community centers, and neighborhood stores. The posters list eight reasons women often give for not voting, then provides counter arguments.

"The issue the state has is when the funds will become available, not the value of the state's investment," said Caprio in a statement issued by his office.

At this point, "we have money to cover the state's [current] operating needs through the next pay period,'' said Caprio's deputy chief of staff Xaykham Khamsyvoravong said.

The background: Rhode Island invested $62 million in a $7 billion government-insured, but privately held "Reserve U.S. Government Fund.'' Investors are entitled to redemption within seven days.

On Sept. 22, however, the SEC issued an order permitting the fund to postpone payment of shares that had been submitted for redemption after one of the member funds (and not the one in which Rhode Island had its money) started trading below the money-fund industry's $1-a-share standard.

According to the treasurer's office, the SEC order "temporarily placed the redemption timeline in limbo to permit the Reserve Fund to liquidate that fund in an orderly manner as market conditions allow.''

The SEC has not set a liquidation timeline yet and they are overseeing the liquidation of the fund.

Working in concert with an unofficial state "financial SWAT team,'' Caprio is moving on two fronts. He has asked the Reserve Management Co. to return the assets so the state's traders can try to market them on their own, a move that would require SEC approval. He is also seeking additional government backing for the money. According to the statement issued by his office:

"On Monday, after weeks of negotiation by phone, [Caprio] traveled to New York to speak directly with Reserve Management Co. Founder and Chairman Bruce R. Bent about the state's need to access the $62 million in Rhode Island money held with the fund.''

After consulting with the state's trading desk, consultants at Russell Investments and money managers Brown Brothers Harriman, "Caprio determined that the State and its money managers would be capable of selling, at no loss to the state, the securities currently held by the Reserve,'' according to his office.

"At the request of Caprio and other institutional investors, Bent has agreed to request permission from the SEC to transfer securities, equal in value to the state's investment, directly to the state. The move allows the state to then liquidate those funds using its own trading desk and money managers, allowing immediate access to the cash.''

"The liquidity crisis in the financial markets has temporarily suspended our access to these government-backed investments, but we are taking all necessary steps to insure a full recovery as soon as possible,'' Caprio said today after briefing the governor and key lawmakers. "I have full faith in the guarantee of the U.S. government and in our ability to receive full value for these funds," he said.

Gov. Carcieri has only one event on his public schedule Friday: a 2 p.m. interview with ABC World News Tonight.

In response to an inquiry, his spokeswoman Amy Kempe said an ABC film crew was headed to Rhode Island to interview Carcieri and others as part of an effort to visit "50 states in 50 days'' to talk about the national elections and economy and "their impact on every corner in America.''

Kempe was unsure when the Rhode island segment might air, but said it might be as early as the middle of next week.

Since the end of the primary season this spring, neither presidential candidate has visited the Ocean State.

"Just a couple of states to our north, the campaigns are showering unprecedented attention on New Hampshire's electorate," Sen. Daniel Connors, D-Cumberland, said in a statement. "...a vote in Rhode Island should be worth as much as a vote in a swing state. In a democracy like ours, every vote should be equal."

According to figures from FairVote Rhode Island, last week alone, Obama and McCain spent a combined $514,000 on television ads in New Hampshire. During the same period, no money was spent on ads in Rhode Island.

Rep. Donald Lally Jr., D-Narragansett, said the state deserves more attention -- and more respect -- on a national stage.

This spring, Lally and Connors sponsored legislation that would have allowed Rhode Island, with four electoral votes, to join a national compact of states that commit their electoral delegates to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of who carries each state. The measure would kick in only if states representing a majority of the nation's 538 electoral votes decide to make the same change.

The bill passed the General Assembly, but was vetoed by Governor Carcieri.

"This isn't the John McCain or Barack Obama's fault," said Matt Sledge, director of FairVote Rhode Island. "This is the result of perverse incentives the current Electoral College system creates to ignore the majority of American voters."

James W. Head III, a planetary geologist who joined the Brown faculty in 1973, will be among four noted scientists on hand Oct. 14 at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia to talk about how space exploration triggered advances in the study of this planet's origins.

Since the Soviets stunned the world in 1957 with the successful launch of the satellite Sputnik, NASA has sent manned and unmanned spacecraft to explore the moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, comets, the asteroid belt, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and many planetary satellites, Head has noted. "Together," Head said in a Brown news release, "the results of this exploration have unveiled stunning planetary vistas and revealed the missing chapters of Earth history."

Head figures in history as one of the scientists recruited to work on NASA's Apollo Lunar Exploration Program during the years of preparation for astronaut Neil Armstrong's arrival on the moon in what he called a ``giant step for mankind.'' Among other jobs, Head helped NASA to select the lunar landing sites. Today his research focuses on processes that form and modify planetary surfaces.

She's helping kick off this year's "Operation Holiday Cheer" Wednesday morning at the Rhode Island National Guard Command Readiness Center on New London Avenue in Cranston.

The effort helps collect money and donations for care packages for Rhode Island soldiers stationed overseas. Roberts will gather at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow with a host of corporate sponsors -- including the Boston Celtics and New England Patriots -- to kick off this year's charity drive.

Former Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty started the program in 2003. His successor, Roberts, has continued the tradition. Last year she loaned eight staff members to collect donations and assemble packages.

They sent out beef jerky, chewing gum, ramen soup, coffee, newspapers, Del's lemonade mix, and New England Patriots' yearbooks, among other items.

The organizers hope to reach 300 National Guard troops. They're also asking families with loved ones on active duty or in the reserves to pass along their their names and APO addresses so they can be included as well.

PROVIDENCE -- The Rhode Island Ethics Commission says there is probable cause to go to trial for an ethics complaint against Woonsocket Mayor Susan Menard that alleges she violated the ethics code by leasing four motorcycles for the Woonsocket Police Department from her son-in-law's business.

The commission's investigative report concluded that Menard had a conflict of interest, used public office to obtain financial gain, and entered into a contract without public notice or subsequent public disclosure.

The commission met today to discuss the matter in executive session and later announced its 6-to-0 decision to go forward with adjudication in a trial-like hearing.

Menard's lawyer, Glen Whitehead, refuted claims that Menard had directed anyone to enter into the contract or that there had been financial gain. Whitehead said there was public disclosure of the motorcycle deal and that the lease of the motorcycles was paid for with federal money.

The complaint, filed by retired city police officer Edward Roy, says the mayor bragged on a local radio station about the deal with her son-in-law being good for the city because of the extras thrown in. The March 3 complaint stated Menard leased the motorcycles for $10,000 from Paramount Harley Davidson of Framingham, Mass., and that one of the owners is her son-in-law, James Pilavin.

The state's Workers Compensation Court got a new judge today with the swearing in by Governor Carcieri of Robert M. Ferrieri.

Carcieri assured the legislators and judges and courthouse staff assembled in the State House rotunda that "there is no truth to the rumor'' that he chose Ferrieri because both of their names end in the letters "ieri.''

Ferrieri's law partner, Frank Lombardi, also drew hearty laughs when he told the crowd that before calling on the governor to administer the oath of office, he was going to "take one last shot at preventing this from happening.''

''Forget all the bootstrap stories,'' he told the chief judge of the court. "I need him more than you.''

Among his arguments: "Rob loves his family too much. It will take away from his time as judge...Rob triple books appointments with clients which can cause a potential back log on the WCC calendar.''

In a more serious moment, he said: "Governor, you could not have made a better choice.'' And Ferrieri assured those gathered that he "will never ever forget where I came from.''

Following a time-honored path to the bench in Rhode Island, Ferrieri graduated from LaSalle Academy and Providence College before earning his law degree from Suffolk Law School in 1985.

He had been a partner in the law firm Lombardi & Ferrieri, PC, concentrating in workers compensation, real estate closings and personal injury. From 1986 to 2001, he was an associate with John N. Calvino Law Associates, again concentrating in workers compensation and personal injury. Previously, he worked in the law office of John Andrew Thompson.

Ferrieri resides in Johnston with his wife, Paula, and their two children, Nicholas and Lindsay.

Providence Mayor David Cicilline's sister, Roberta Cicilline-DiMezza, started work at the State House today in her new job working for the General Assembly, which is out of session.

In a brief telephone interview she said that she had been hired as an "administrative assistant to six legislators'' from West Warwick, Glocester and Coventry. House spokesman Larry Berman said she will be paid approximately $34,000.

Her name last surfaced as a line item in one of her brother's fundraising reports. The report indicated that she had been paid $5,900 by the mayor's election committee for bookkeeping services.

The Massachusetts Democrat, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the GOP is appealing to its base by blaming the country's mortgage foreclosure problem on efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act.

He said that blame is misplaced, because loans under the act are issued by regulated institutions, while far more foreclosures were triggered by high-cost loans made by unregulated entities.

"They get to take things out on poor people," Frank said at a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston. "Let's be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn't hurt them either, from their standpoint. This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people."

Frank also dismissed charges the Democrats failed on their own or blocked Republican efforts to rein in the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The federal government recently took control of both entities.

House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio called Frank's remarks "a lame, desperate attempt to divert Americans' attention away from the Democratic party's obstruction of reforms that would have reined in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and helped our nation avoid this economic crisis."

"Congressman Frank should retract his ridiculous statements and start taking responsibility for the role he and other top Democrats played in putting Main Street Americans in this mess," Boehner said.

Frank said Republicans controlled Congress for 12 years and passed no regulation, while Democrats passed a Bush administration Fannie and Freddie regulation package since gaining control of the House and Senate in January 1997.

"If I could have stopped a Republican bill during the Bush years, I would have started with the war in Iraq. Then I would have gone to the Patriot Act. Then I would have gone on to the hundreds of millions in tax cuts," said Frank, to applause from the audience.

The longtime congressman is being challenged this fall by both Republican and independent candidates. He has been criticized in his liberal district, which wends its way from Newton to New Bedford, for being one of the leaders of congressional efforts last week to win approval of a $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan.

He was greeted at the Colonnade Hotel by a group of protesters who argued the money would be better spent on community problems. They chanted, "Money for the people, not for the banks."

One of the protestors, Nan Genger, said, "You keep the money in our schools and communities; that's how you stimulate the economy."

Frank dismissed the criticism, saying the bailout package was aimed at restoring the country's credit markets, which affect everything from home and auto loans to the state's ability to issue bonds for cash to pay its bills.

"As far as Wall Street is concerned, here's the deal: Some of them behaved badly. You know what? They have so much money that they're going to live well no matter what we do," Frank said. "This is to help people from being laid off in automobile sales room because you don't get the credit to buy cars on cash, to help small businesses to get their inventory. When credit gets choked off, it's the middle-income people who get hurt. The guys on Wall Street, if they never earned another nickel, would live better than they have any right to live."

-- The Associated Press

Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee and Ted Widmer, a one-time speechwriter for President Clinton, now director of the John Carter Brown Library, will address that subject at a joint discussion at the Providence Athenaeum next Tuesday, Oct. 14. The topic: American foreign policy in a new administration: what can we expect?

The discussion will center on America's place in the world as the 2008 presidential debate draws to a close. Chafee, now a visiting fellow at Brown's Watson Institute, will sign copies of his book: Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President and Widmer will sign copies of his book: Ark of the Liberties: American and the World.

The Athenaeum event will take place at 7 p.m. at 251 Benefit St. It is free and open to the public.

The tally today left Pinga with 998 votes to Alves' 981.

The board has finished counting ballots in the state Supreme Court-ordered recount of Warwick's Senate District 31 Democratic primary between Erin Lynch and David Bennett, declaring Lynch the winner by 10 votes.

According to the official tally, Lynch received 859 votes to Bennett's 849.

Earlier, Board of Elections staff went through eight boxes -- about 2,400 ballots -- and found two missing mail ballots in the Lynch-Bennett recount.

Before lunch, the board had completed the voting machine counts, reviewed provisional and mail ballots, and found two mail ballots to be missing.

Lynch was attending this morning's recount. Angel Taveras, a lawyer for Bennett is also there.

On primary night last month, Alves, the influential chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, lost by 17 votes.

Bennett, candidate for the District 31 seat to be vacated after four decades by John C. Revens, lost by 10 votes.

The board has already recounted both races once before. The recounts upheld the original results, although the vote totals were different. Both of the apparent losing candidates appealed to the state Supreme Court, asking for new primaries.

Both court orders require recounting all provisional, mail and regular ballots cast. And the court ordered the state Board of Elections to examine any ballots rejected by the optical scanning machines to determine which candidate, if any, the voters intended to choose but failed to mark correctly.

-- With reports from Journal staff writer Talia Buford

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Reps. Patrick J. Kennedy and James R. Langevin, both Rhode Island Democrats, joined a 263-171 House majority this afternoon that passed the bill to rescue the financial markets and expressed hope that the legislation will soon begin to calm the economy.

"The overall bill was designed to bring stability to our financial system and particularly to the credit markets" that many Rhode Island businesses and citizens rely upon, Langevin said minutes after House members applauded the majority vote that sent the rescue package to president Bush for his signature.

"If this would have been just a bailout for Wall Street, I would have been the first one to vote no," said Langevin.

Kennedy said he has heard worrisome anecdotes from constituents in recent days "with everything from investors not being able to invest in businesses -- which means that jobs can't be created -- to kids who may not be able to go to school because they cannot get student loans for college."

In the long term, Kennedy and Langevin both said that the rescue package will prevent financial difficulties for municipalities and states, which also rely on the flow of credit.

While stressing that Rhode Island has encountered no such problems, Langevin said reports about debt retirement deadlines facing the state of California have served as a warning to officials elsewhere.

For Kennedy, there was a dose of personal satisfaction in this afternoon's House action.

Attached to the financial rescue package was his signature legislation to improve medical insurance coverage for the mentally ill.

"So we made history today not only in saving our financial system but also in passing mental health parity for millions of Americans," Langevin said in praise of his fellow Rhode Island Democrat.

Asked whether he was relieved by the passage of complex rescue package produced after almost two weeks of marathon negotiations in debating sessions, Kennedy replied, "There is no relief. People are losing their homes. They are losing their jobs."

Kennedy said the repair of the economy may take a long time. Now that the rescue package has passed, "Hopefully, this will help mitigate the downturn in the economy and alleviate some of the people's pain."