“Your $1,000 assistance check is ready,” one text says. Another claims, “Government assistance initiatives are available to all U.S. citizens right now.”

Don’t believe them.

With some glitches and hiccups, both South Kingstown and Narragansett have turned to technology to keep essential functions of government going and at the same time try to provide transparency and public participation.

The Rhode Island Blood Center is calling on healthy donors to help strengthen the state’s supply by making an appointment to donate at one of six donor centers, including one in Narragansett.

With Rhode Island’s coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing capacity now expanded, all Rhode Islanders who have symptoms of COVID-19 are encouraged to call a healthcare provider to get scheduled for a test, state health officials announced Thursday. They also said "it is critical that pe…

State parks and beaches will have new visitor restrictions starting Friday, and Narragansett and South Kingstown have already made moves to further reduce public gatherings that could promote the spread of the coronavirus.

The University of Rhode Island this week started using part of its sprawling parking lots to provide space for appointment-only testing for the COVID-19 virus.

Gov. Gina Raimondo said Tuesday that she is closing all state parks and beaches to prevent people from crowding them during the coronavirus pandemic.

Towns were heading into the busiest part of budget season just before the coronavirus put a halt to public gatherings such as meetings and hearings.

That hasn’t stopped municipalities like South Kingstown and Narragansett from continuing with work on spending plans for the next fiscal year, but officials are now waiting to see if they can get a better picture of how much of a beating the economy will take and the effects locally.

Lou Senerchia always looks forward to the seasonal migration back to his warm-weather home in Rhode Island, and the Florida snowbird wasn’t about to let a little quarantine spoil the springtime ritual.

“Whatever’s gotta get done is going to get done,” said Senerchia, a surgical mask dangling from his neck after his flight landed at T.F. Green Airport. “It’s always good to be home.”

Anne Salvadore, 93, lives in Narragansett, and is a practicing Catholic who raised eight children and has followed in her mother’s tradition of attending daily Mass.

With South County in recent days having one person testing positive for the coronavirus - and the potential for more ahead, the possibility of the virus spreading here has arrived and local government leaders are mobilizing to take action before it gets worse.

The public town meeting has been a core component of civic life in New England for almost 400 years.

But the steadily-turning gears of government were suddenly slowed this week with the arrival of measures designed to limit the spread of coronavirus, and South Kingstown and Narragansett haven’t been spared.

Children and their parents adjusted to a new reality this week, as schools closed in North and South Kingstown and Narragansett, along with the rest of the state, in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The University of Rhode Island has taken the unprecedented step of canceling face-to-face graduate and undergraduate classes at all of its campuses and initiating a remote learning program, at least through April 3.