That was one of the options discussed Monday night as Town Manager William Sequino briefed the Town Council on some of the things that might be needed to balance this year's budget if the state budget deficit prompts the General Assembly to cut the fourth-quarter motor-vehicle excise tax payments that usually go to cities and towns.

Under the pay-as-you-throw system -- common in Massachusetts towns such as Seekonk, Swansea and Somerset -- residents can use only town-sponsored bags for their trash. The price residents pay for the bags underwrites some or all of the disposal costs.

"The problem is selling it to the community," said Councilman Mark Schwager.

Among the other options: eliminate the school resource officer.

But School Committee Chairwoman Jean Ann W. Guliano said that might not be a wise idea because the presence of an officer on school grounds makes students think twice about causing problems.

The cuts, if needed, would not be restricted to the municipal side. "We do recognize the schools' obligation to make cuts too," said Guliano.

Kidd had been fishing for quahog clams between Rocky Point and Quonset Point when he called a friend on his cell phone around 1:30 p.m. Monday to say his boat was going down and that he needed help.

Coast Guard chief warrant officer James Rousseau, at headquarters in Woods Hole, Mass., said a helicopter crew as well as an 81-foot patrol boat would continue the search throughout the night. At first light Tuesday, the Coast Guard planned to launch another helicopter crew and boat crew to continue the search, assisted by rescue workers from the state Department of Environmental Management and the Kingstown Fire Department.

Winds on the Bay on Monday night were about 20 mph, with 3 foot seas and visibility up to 3 miles. The water temperature was 51 degrees.

"I think Patrick Kennedy is wrong," Moniz, 56, said when asked to comment on Monday at an East Providence shopping plaza. A Catholic from West Greenwich, she added, "If he doesn't want to be Catholic, he should go to another church. The rules of the Catholic Church are, "We don't approve of abortion.' And he doesn't like that."

At St. Francis Chapel in downtown Providence, several members expressed support for Kennedy after receiving Communion.

"I think the bishop should let it go. The Kennedy family does so much good," said Dorothy Boisseau, of Providence. "Jesus welcomed everyone."

Rhode Island Catholics interviewed on Monday had varying reactions to the escalating rift between Tobin and Kennedy that first erupted in October after the congressman criticized the church for opposing health-care reform efforts that would result in taxpayer dollars supporting abortion.

On Friday, Kennedy said that Tobin had instructed him not to take part in Communion because of his abortion stance. But on Sunday, Tobin released excerpts of a 2007 confidential letter he sent Kennedy that he said supports his contention that he simply made a "request" for Kennedy to decline Communion.

One day later, a cold rain fell as a cluster of people gathered for the daily 12:10 p.m. Mass at St. Francis Chapel. Afterward, several said Kennedy should be able to be among them receiving Communion.

John Healey of Providence made the sign of the cross as he talked about Kennedy's history as an Irish Catholic, and said the congressman should be able to receive Communion.

"The Holy Communion is the bread that gives us the strength to fight evil," Healey said.

The Rev. Charles O'Connor, a priest at the Church of St. Mary on Broadway who was attending the St. Francis service, cautioned against using Communion as a punitive measure.

"As a priest, I can understand where [Tobin] is coming from. He's speaking from church teaching," Father O'Connor said. "But this is a controversy that has been going on for a while. I think you have to be careful when you use the denial of Holy Communion to punish someone. That's not the intention of the Eucharist."

The action came despite proprietor Mahmoud Hassan and his wife Rasha having begged the city Board of Licenses to let them stay open.

"Please, I've got four kids," Mahmoud Hassan said to license board members. "This is the only income I've got."

The Federal Hill convenience store was denied renewal of its holiday and food sales licenses because the building in which it is located has no working fire alarm and sprinkler system, which is required by law. The licenses expired in January.

But the fact that it stayed open in defiance of a closure order in June from the license board escaped notice until the police and annoyed neighbors came to City Hall Friday to revisit longstanding complaints about the operation.

City Councilman John J. Lombardi, who represents the ward, and police Lt. Luis San Lucas, commander of police District 4, recited a litany of complaints to the license board varying from Broadway Mart being a hangout for drug addicts, prostitutes and troublemakers to the store illegally selling "loosies."

Stores in poor neighborhoods have been known to break apart packs of cigarettes and in violation of state tax law sell the cigarettes individually to people who cannot afford to buy an entire pack. Assuming a pack costs $8 to $9, the store stands to make a lot more money selling the contents one by one, as loosies, rather than as a whole.

State officials have asked the fledgling party to forfeit a $10,000 donation and its chairman to personally pay another $10,000, according to terms of a deal outlined in a private meeting last week.

Board officials threatened, as an alternative, to have the attorney general's office bring civil or criminal investigations against a host of party officials for violating Rhode Island's finance laws.

"That was a rotten deal any which way you sliced it. And frankly, a deal designed to be rejected," said party chairman Kenneth J. Block, who discussed the details and travel of the case with The Journal Monday afternoon.

The Moderate Party, which was established in August after gathering more than 23,000 signatures, rejected the deal in a private meeting Friday.

"I'm ready to go to war on this," Block said.

Board of Elections Executive Director Robert Kando declined to comment on the case when asked Monday, citing a state law that blocks board officials from discussing investigations before they are finalized.

"We have nothing to say about any meeting that may have occurred," Kando said. "We follow the law religiously."

Block, who personally donated $20,000 to the Moderates for "party building" over one week in September, blasted the deal and looming legal action as being "100 percent politically motivated."

"Instead of sending a warning, and saying, 'Send it back,' what we get is nuclear war against the Moderate Party," said Block, the founder of the party that brought a civil rights lawsuit against the state to win ballot access earlier in the year. The Board of Elections, along with two other state agencies, was ultimately ordered to pay nearly $34,000 in legal fees after losing.

The Board of Election's director of campaign finance, Richard E. Thornton, said that it is illegal for an individual to donate more than $10,000 in one calendar year for party building.

"I pride myself on being impartial," he said. "We're governed by the law, not by politics."

The basic facts of the case, as reported by The Journal earlier this month and detailed in campaign finance reports, are not in dispute.

On Sept. 21, Moderate Party founder and current chairman Block personally donated $10,000 to his organization's state committee. The donation matched the annual individual maximum allowed by state law for party building, which covers expenses related to staffing, rent and utilities, but not individual elections.

On Sept. 26, Block, a Barrington software engineer, wrote another $10,000 check. This time the recipient was the Barrington Moderate Party Town Committee, which had been formed just two days before.

And on Sept. 28, according to state filings, the Barrington committee sent $10,000 -- all but $100 in its bank account -- to the state committee.

Supt. Donna A. Morelle said school officials had discovered the graffiti in the high school last Monday and again Thursday, which forced district officials to evacuate the campus and cancel all after school activities and sports events Thursday to search through the students' lockers.

On Friday 850 of the school's 1,531 enrolled students were absent, confirmed assistant superintendent Susan Carney.

Members of the state Fire Marshal's Office -- and a bomb squad -- had searched the high school Monday and the state fire marshal's office was again called Thursday.Morelle refused to give more information on the nature of the threats last week, saying that parents had already been notified.

This Monday, 9 percent of the student body was absent; ``we're pretty much back to normal,'' said Carney.

Testifying in the Woods' family's negligence suit against the hospital, Vicki Noon said she was working as the charge nurse in the Kent Hospital emergency room the evening Woods came in complaining of a sore throat and vomiting.

After undergoing heart tests and x-rays, Woods --- brother of actor James Woods and a former Warwick mayoral candidate --- had been parked in a hallway because all of the treatment rooms were full. It was in that hallway, near the nurses' station, that he suffered what turned out to be a fatal heart attack.

Noon, who said that her job was like being the air-traffic controller of the emergency room, said though she was in charge of supervising the nurses, it was not her job to know every detail of every case they were handling.

She said the decision on which room to put Woods in, or to leave him in the hallway, was up to the nurse on the case. The doctor treating Woods, Kelli A. Naylor, has previously testified that she ordered Woods be put on a heart monitor. He was not.

Expert witnesses hired by the Woods family have testified that the failure to get Woods on a cardiac monitor was significant; that had he been on one, staff could have had enough warning that they most likely would have been able to resuscitate Woods after his 7:10 p.m. attack.

Mark B. Decof, the lawyer representing the Woods estate, pressed Noon on why she hadn't looked over Woods to see if his case required he displace a patient in one of the rooms with the cardiac monitor.

"I have to rely on the nurses to bring me up to date," she said.

As charge nurse, she said she watched over the overall flow of work. Specific decisions about specific cases were usually resolved by doctors and the nurses assigned to the patients.

"If a doctor tells a nurse [to do something like get a cardiac monitor for a patient] she will often take care of it herself," Noon said, adding she would often be informed after the order was completed.

Noon was scheduled to resume testifying Tuesday morning.

The clammer, whom authorities have not yet named, called a friend about 1:30 p.m. saying that he was having engine trouble and that his 19-foot skiff was in danger of taking on water, said Kurt Blanchard, deputy chief of enforcement for the state Department of Environmental Management.

Search and rescue crews -- including a Coast Guard helicopter -- are concentrating their efforts north of Prudence Island and along the western shore of the Bay near Quonset Point, said Blanchard.

Crews from Warwick, Cranston and North Kingstown marine safety units were also participating in the search along with DEM personnel.

The original version of this story was posted at 4:11 p.m.

"No, not that at all," said Bishop Tobin. "... His fitness for office is nothing that I would ever comment on. I think that's up to the voters to make that decision. But I am concerned about his statements and his reactions to some of these recent events. No, I'm concerned about him and I'm praying for him. As I said before, my door is always open and I hope we can bring a good reconciliation to all this."

Neither Kennedy nor his spokeswoman, Kerrie Bennett, could be reached for comment Monday.

Bishop Tobin characterized Kennedy's behavior during a Monday morning interview on WPRO's John DePetro radio show during discussion of Kennedy's allegation that the bishop two years ago forbade him from receiving Communion.

"This debate with the congressman is really unfortunate," the bishop said on the DePetro show. "I'm praying for him, I wish him well. I need to say honestly I'm very concerned about the congressman's increasingly erratic and unpredictable behavior. I think a lot of us are concerned about that." Bishop Tobin also said he hoped and prayed that Kennedy's "friends and supporters and his staff are giving him the help and the assistance he needs at this time."

The bishop was asked about those statements during an unrelated appearance at La Salle Academy later on Monday.

Asked again about his characterization of Kennedy as "erratic," Bishop Tobin said, "Well again some of the statements he's made have been difficult for me to understand. For example, two weeks ago here in Providence he said wasn't going to talk anymore about his faith or his status in the Church, and then he returns to Washington and gives a major interview about that."

"His statement that was released over the weekend that somehow I'd instructed all the priests to refuse to give him Holy Communion has no basis in truth. Again I'm not in a position to analyze him at all. But I am concerned. I hope he's doing OK. I'm concerned about his personal, and ultimately his spiritual well-being. That's what this is all about."

Kennedy asserted on Friday that the bishop, in a 2007 letter, "instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion."

The bishop said, "If he took it as an instruction, so be it, but it was really a request."

Not so fast, the local teachers union has responded, filing its latest unfair labor practice complaint against the school board.

There are no school districts in Rhode Island where teachers have "pay for performance," although under a contract signed earlier this month, Chariho school officials and the teachers union will be working to implement such a plan in the next fiscal year.

Rhode Island's education commissioner, Deborah A. Gist, also supports pay for performance and says by 2015, all districts will be required to develop a plan to reward the most effective teachers.

But the year-old animosity between East Providence teachers and the School Committee has only increased with the performance-pay plan.

"If there was ever any doubt of the intentions of this School Committee to do the right thing in terms of returning to some measure of stability and sanity in its relationship with its teachers, its latest proposal clearly show otherwise," said Valarie Lawson, the local union president, at the board's Nov. 19 meeting. "As a result, this committee has left the EPEA no alternative but to file yet another unfair labor practice charge because of this action."

Shelters, churches and other nonprofit agencies helped fund the beds, said Noreen Shawcross, chief of the state Office of Housing and Community Development. The state department had earlier agreed to spend money on 58 winter beds, in churches and shelters from Woonsocket to Westerly.

Bishop Thomas Tobin, the Diocese of Providence and United Way of Rhode Island worked with the state to add 30 more beds for men "when it became apparent that there was a shortfall as the cold weather approached," Shawcross said.

Amos House will run the program, and the Red Cross and the Rhode Island Donation Exchange Program will provide mats and blankets.

Winter shelters typically open in November and close in March.

Advocates say the state's shelters are full now, and the situation will only worsen this winter. More people are losing jobs -- and homes and apartments, they say.

Shawcross urged all Rhode Islanders, including faith-based organizations, businesses and the public, to help. Many agencies need food, winter clothing and other basic items, she said.

He then said that he threw the child into her crib, and that her head clipped the side of the crib, making her flip and fall into the crib.

Said Thunberg: "The court believes the state has established that the hands of the defendent, in which Naiomi was left that day, operated as a weapon of murder that extingushed the brief, yet tormented life of baby Naiomi."

Hospital examinations, and later, the autopsy, showed that Naiomi had 17 broken ribs, two large skull fractures and detached retinas. She was taken to the hospital the afternoon of Jan. 27 and died Jan. 30 from her injuries.

Rachin McCoy has been held without bail since his arrest in January. A pretrial date has been set for Jan. 12.

The original version of this story was posted at 1:53 p.m.

REHOBOTH, Mass. -- Lyndsey Medeiros knows she's asking a lot with her craigslist posting seeking money to help pay for cataract surgery for Jerry the Turkey -- particularly this week, as most people are preparing to eat a pretty large turkey meal on Thursday.

Rehoboth animal lover Lyndsey Medeiros is raising money for Jerry the turkey, whose cataracts prevent him from flying and eating independently. Photo courtesy of Lyndsey Medeiros

But she's persevering because she's an animal lover.

"There's a story you see every once in a while that pulls at your heartstrings," she explains. "I just wanted to see what could be done to help him -- if nothing more, to give him a good home so he can live out his days in a comfortable environment, not having to worry about being eaten."

Medeiros and her husband, Jason, run a hobby farm out of their Rehoboth home, with 10 Nigerian dwarf goats whose milk makes cheese for their family. And as a veterinary technician for eight years, Lyndsey spends a lot of time around animals. She's had a menagerie of animals with problems, including a three-legged cat.

Jason enjoys scanning craigslist's farm and garden section, and it was there he came across a post from a woman in Foster with health problems who could no longer care for an ailing turkey. A week ago, the Medeiroses drove to Foster and came home with two turkeys -- 3-year-old Jerry and Penelope, the companion who has been with him since they were small.

A Narragansett turkey, Jerry is a cross between a wild and domestic turkey and could live to be 15, Lyndsey said. The docile animal has quickly become one of the family's pets, even allowing the couple's 17-month-old son, Aidan, to pet him and hug him. He can't fly up to roost in high places as Penelope does because he can't see -- and he needs help eating, Lyndsey says.

Instantly, Lyndsey began seeking care for Jerry.

Her workplace didn't have an avian specialist, so she turned to Ocean State Veterinary Specialists in East Greenwich, where the veterinary ophthalmologist examined Jerry and said his cataracts look operable. The bird will now see the practice's exotic animals specialist, who will help determine if he can undergo surgery, according to Linda Adams, the client liaison at Ocean State.

It could cost between $2,000 and $2,600, Lyndsey said. So far, in less than a week, she has gotten about $250.

Since Lyndsey posted Jerry's story on craigslist sites around the country, angry naysayers have e-mailed to say she's wrong to have taken up the turkey's cause.

"I'm not trying to take food off the tables of people who can't afford it," she replies. "Obviously, feeding your children takes precedence over surgery for a turkey, but there are people out there looking for a place to donate."

Lyndsey asks people to respect the fact that she's trying to save an animal.

"And if this had been a dog or a cat or a horse," she says, "maybe people would think differently."

Terence W. Ashworth, 37, died in a fire that erupted in his Ford truck at the park-and-ride off Boston Neck Road in North Kingstown just before dawn on Nov. 11.

Passers-by had seen the fire and pulled Ashworth out of the truck in an attempt to save his life. But he was pronounced dead at the scene.

The fire's cause was incendiary, said state Fire Marshal Jack Chartier. Ashworth's body, his clothing, and the inside compartment of the truck were "substantially" covered in gasoline, Chartier said.

"We believe the fire was caused by the victim," he said.

The investigators had ruled out any suspicious causes early on. As the state fire marshal's office worked with the North Kingstown police and fire investigators, they also excluded accidental causes, Chartier said.

There were no mechanical problems that could have ignited the fire. They also found no mechanical problems with the truck, Chartier said. Although the cruise-control component had been recalled on this truck model, Chartier said the investigators removed the component and examined it for problems, and found nothing. Samples returned from the Rhode Island crime laboratory showed that gasoline had caused the fire.

The state fire marshal's determination came a week after Ashworth's funeral. "Our condolences go out to the family," Chartier said.

Ashworth had been married 11 years and had two sons, Charles, 6, and Daniel, 4. In an interview two days after his day, Ashworth's wife, Meredith, had remembered his kindness and love for children, his dancing abilities, and his desire to serve his community.

Ashworth was elected to the Narragansett School Committee last year and belonged to its subcommittees on parks and recreation, and health and wellness. Before becoming a private contractor, he'd worked as a director at Ocean Tides, a residential school for at-risk boys in Narragansett.

He was buried at St. Francis Cemetery, in South Kingstown's Peace Dale section, last week.

AAA Southern New England says in its weekly survey Monday that self-serve regular unleaded is averaging $2.669 a gallon, or a one-cent decrease from last week.

The price is also two cents above the national average and 74 cents higher than it was a year ago at this time.

Prices have now dropped four cents overall in the last three weeks.

Check AAA's Web site for the lowest prices.