- Ted, welcome back to the show.

Let's start with some major business news in Rhode Island.

The Boston Business Journal was the first to report that Hasbro is scouting new headquarter locations in Greater Boston.

Hasbro executives acknowledged, "Yes, we are considering this."

But this was something that took a lot of Rhode Island leaders by surprise, - And I'm not quite sure why it did, Michelle, because Hasbro's been seen as, I would say, a flight risk for the better part of the last decade.

If people remember back to when Gina Raimondo was governor, she was very close to Hasbro's CEO at the time, Brian Goldner.

There was a lot of conversation about whether Hasbro would build a new headquarters in Pawtucket, would they potentially move to Providence?

It was very much in the discussion, and Raimondo said over and over, you know, she kept very close to them for this reason, and to say, you know, "Let's figure this out together."

But by the end of 2021, Raimondo was gone to Washington and Goldner sadly had died, he got cancer.

And since then you've had a lot of changes at Hasbro: a new CEO, Chris Cox, they've struggled a bit in the post pandemic environment as people are buying fewer toys, they're trying to do digital gaming, a ton of changes.

And it's not clear to me now, after everything that came out this week, that state officials really prioritized a consistent dialogue with them.

- After the news broke, the Hasbro CEO told employees, "Look, we are considering this.

Nothing is final."

How likely do you think a move to Massachusetts would be at this point?

- It's hard to say.

I wouldn't want to get over my skis about how confident I am in either direction.

I do know some people think this is some sort of play for state tax incentives by Hasbro to get a deal.

That's possible.

But I do also think people should be clear-eyed about the reasons they might wanna go to Greater Boston.

It's obviously a bigger city than Pawtucket.

It's got that kind of tech edge that you don't really have in an industrial place like Pawtucket, which again, kind of reflects how the company sees itself, changing into something with more of a digital presence.

And then also, you know, Hasbro stands for Hassenfeld Brothers.

The Hassenfelds founded it in Rhode Island a century ago.

Well, Alan Hassenfeld, who was the last member of his family to serve on the Hasbro board, left the board earlier this year.

So I think that's another tie to Rhode Island of Hasbro's that's gone now.

- And Cox has said, "If we do relocate, it would be at least 18 months from now."

So we'll be following this story.

But I feel for the people of Pawtucket who lost the PawSox a few years ago and now stand to lose Hasbro.

- Yes, well, you know, we don't wanna get ahead of ourselves that it's certain, if it were to happen, Michelle, it would be another big blow to that city.

- Okay, another story we've been following all year is the crisis surrounding the Washington Bridge.

The state unexpectedly paused demolition of the bridge on September 17th, citing the lawsuit that was filed last month against contractors who were working on the bridge.

The big question for me is, why didn't the state think of this sooner?

- Yes, and I think a lot of people are asking the same question, Michelle.

There has been a tension, or at least a lot of us have thought there's been a tension all through this year between the McKee administration's desire to build a new bridge, build it fast, get it up there, and end the disruption, but also to pursue this litigation against a lot of construction companies.

You see here that the demolition had to pause because needed evidence, they said, from the old bridge, they couldn't keep taking it down.

But you also saw it, no bids came in when they tried to, when they put out the bidding process for a new bridge.

Many people think that was partly 'cause of the message sent to the construction industry by filing this litigation.

You've certainly heard that.

So I think that tension is real, even if state officials don't wanna admit it, - And they are being very tight-lipped about this issue.

What are the big questions that you still have for them?

- Well, I watched all week, as reporters might say, every news outlet in Rhode Island tried to get answers and struggled, frankly.

They are claiming this demolition pause won't last long.

Maybe it'll be over by the time people are watching us here.

But we don't know that.

We still don't know when they're gonna start a new bidding process, when they're gonna have the revised bid documents out for the new bridge.

And we have no idea how much it's going to cost.

I mean, they were talking about maybe close to half a billion dollars, but it could be much more than that, we just don't know.

There's so many things we don't know, even after all these months.

- The through line of this conversation is the unknowns with Hasbro relocating, the unknowns of the demolition, when that's gonna start- - A lot of I don't knows.

- A lot of I don't knows.

Yeah, yeah.

No, fair enough.

Thanks so much, Ted.

Always good to see you.

- Great to be here.