WJAR-TV's Larry Estepa, a 30-year veteran of the news business and a familiar face in Rhode Island, is leaving to take a job in Atlanta.

The veteran reporter and anchor at Channel 10, who was feted with a going-away party this week, will work his last shifts over the weekend. Estepa has the day off and couldn't be reached for comment.

Craftland, the annual celebration of locally made holiday gifts, opens with a party this evening:

Craftland celebrates all kinds of sparkly handmade objects and the sparkly people who make them. A seasonal retail boutique located in Providence, RI, the store is open each year in December and sells handmade goods by artists and crafters from around the country.

Steve Peoples reports today:

The state will spend more than $60 million on a new Training School that will open in the spring. Taxpayers will be paying off the related debt for the next 18 years.

But there are indications that the facility may be overcrowded the day it opens.

In 2003, I reported on the debate over the future of the new Training School.

Following growing gripes about this week's CNN-YouTube debate, Dan Kennedy has some good thoughts:

Following Wednesday night's CNN/YouTube debate, it was revealed that retired general Keith Kerr, a gay man who asked the candidates a pointed question about why they oppose letting openly gay men and lesbians from serving in the military, was a prominent supporter of Hillary Clinton's.

The effort to curb medical malpractice liability in Rhode Island -- a cause backed by Governor Carcieri -- certainly wasn't helped by revelations this week about the latest wrong-site medical error at Rhode Island Hospital. According to our federal government, in fact, medical errors kill more than 40,000 people a year.

Tucked near the end of Greg Smith's story yesterday on Providence's new approach to funding a roving police patrol on heavy nightlife nights was this interesting info:

Assuming the roving detail works out, city officials and business people expect that it will be a precursor to serious consideration of a very controversial idea: later closing times for bars and nightclubs.

Offering proof positive that politics makes strange bedfellows, the December 12 visit to Rhode Island by leading conservative strategist Grover Norquist -- a benefit for the Ocean State Policy Research Institute -- is slated to take place at the Cuban Revolution in Olneyville! Holy black bean soup!

Maybe this (tickets run from $50 to $250 for a meet-and-greet) makes a little sense.

Like P&J and their peers at Brown, Rhode Island College students really like Obama.

But as Steven Stark writes this week in the Phoenix, Hillary will be tough to beat if she claims New Hampshire.

Clinton currently holds about a 20-point lead in most national polls, which should give her some security.

Speaking of the local TV market, industry publication TV Newsday has a report on what it sees as an increasingly competitive landscape in the Providence area. The story is registration required, but N4N will make most of it available for the benefit of my dear readers, along with my standard disclosure (I'm an unpaid weekly guest on WPRI/WNAC-TV's Newsmakers):

Via Beloblog:

ABC 6 WLNE today announced Allison Alexander, who most recently anchored morning and noon newscasts at the Cleveland CBS affiliate, as the new anchor for the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts.

Her appointment takes effect Jan. 1.

Stephen Doerr, ABC 6 vice president and general manager, said in a statement that Alexander "is one of the brightest, most talented journalists working in local media."

Kudos and congrats to the ProJo's Cynthia Needham, who has landed the State House assignment vacated when Elizabeth Gudrais decamped for Harvard Magazine.

Needham, a graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, is an experienced scribe at the ProJo, having taken on a variety of assignments since covering the Blackstone Valley earlier in her tenure.

In response to yesterday's statement from the ACLU, the gov's office released this announcement:

Governor Donald L. Carcieri’s office today issued the following statement affirming that the Rhode Island Department of Human Services (DHS) is fully in compliance with all applicable federal and state laws and with a 1997 consent agreement requiring that the state make available language interpretation services for those seeking welfare and other benefits.

AS220, the nonprofit arts bastion, doubled its downtown footprint with its Dreyfus Hotel project. If everything goes according to plan, AS220 will again double its presence when it pursues a project in the Washington Street property (once home to the Providence Phoenix) anchored by the former Cogens Printing operation.

Two longtime Belo Corporation executives have been named to head the newspaper group recently spun-off by the Dallas-based outfit (h/t Romenesko):

Robert W. Decherd, Belo's chairman and chief executive, will assume the role of chairman, president and CEO of the newspaper company, as previously announced. He will also serve as nonexecutive chairman of Belo, the television company.

-- The CNN-YouTube format was terrific, with a broad array of strong and pointed questions. Anderson Cooper did a stellar job in moderating and in keeping the candidates on point.

-- Yet anyone watching the first 25 minutes or so would have been led to believe that immigration is the most important issue facing the country.