The Supreme Court seemed doubtful about President Trump’s challenge to birthright citizenship in oral arguments. Three Americans and a Canadian astronaut lifted off last night for a trip around the Moon, the first lunar-adjacent mission in over 50 years.In a primetime speech, Trump says US forces will “finish the job” soon in Iran. Here are three takeaways from the address to the nation.

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As Taylor Swift reminds us in “The Last Great American Dynasty” — a song about the mysterious woman who used to own her Rhode Island mansion — “there’s only so far new money goes.”

Keep that in mind if you tune into Bravo at 9 p.m. to watch the premiere of “The Real Housewives of Rhode Island.”

Cranston wealth is most definitely not Newport-Vanderbilt wealth.

I’ve already written about the internal Rhode Island debate about whether it’s good or bad to be featured so prominently on a reality TV show, and my colleague Beth Teitell perfectly captured the self-righteousness/jealousy of Boston never being featured on the show.

But the biggest question in the Ocean State is “just how Rhode Island are these housewives?” So I spent way too much time researching the cast and came up with an entirely subjective rating system (from 1 to 5 coffee milks).

Without further ado:

Alicia Carmody

You can’t get much more Rhode Island than Carmody, who has spent much of her career as a hair stylist and whose partner, William Kitsilis, owns a restaurant called Pizza Mamma in Cranston. Bonus points: Campaign finance records show she donated $750 to current Governor Dan McKee in 2017 when he was still the state’s lieutenant governor.

5/5 ☕🥛

Rosie DiMare

Locals will remember her as Rosie Woods when she worked for both WPRI Channel 12 and WJAR Channel 10, but she actually grew up in Milton, Mass. and graduated from Boston University. She’s married to Rich DiMare, a DJ and singer, and tax records show the couple bought a home in North Kingstown together in 2024.

2.5/5 ☕🥛

Kelsey Swanson

She hits the Rhode Island trifecta in graduating from Cranston High School West, attending URI, and winning a beauty pageant. Swanson won Miss Rhode Island USA in 2017, only a couple of years after Cranston’s Olivia Culpo won Miss Universe. Her love life is a bit of a mystery, although she has been tied to one of the sons of the late Judge Frank Caprio Sr., a reality TV star in his own right.

5/5 ☕🥛

Liz McGraw

McGraw’s official show bio calls her “Rhode Island’s cannabis queen,” but it’s her husband, Gerald McGraw, who actually owns the Slater Compassion Center and is a frequent political donor to everyone from former governor Gina Raimondo to current House Speaker Joe Shekarchi. The couple lives in a mansion on Seaview Avenue in Cranston, which is like the East Side of Providence with a water view.

4.5/5 ☕🥛

Ashley Iaconetti

A frequent flyer on the reality TV scene — she’s been on multiple versions of “The Bachelor” — there seems to be very little Rhode Island about this Virginia native. But her husband, Jared Haibon, was once a bus boy at Chelo’s in Warwick (he’s also a former reality TV star), and the couple was married at Rosecliff in Newport. They own Audrey’s Coffee House in South Kingstown.

3/5 ☕🥛

Rulla Nehme Pontarelli

Pontarelli was an honor roll student in both middle school and high school in Providence, and she attended Classical High School (bonus points because Buddy Cianci spoke at her graduation). She’s married to podiatrist Brian Pontarelli, who faced a misdemeanor charge last year for allegedly placing a tracking device on her car (the charge was dropped).

To add to the Rhode Islandness of it all, Brian Pontarelli’s lawyer was William Murphy, a former speaker of the Rhode Island House.

4.5/5 ☕🥛

Jo-Ellen Tiberi

The Cranston takeover of the Bravo network continues with Tiberi, who also graduated from Cranston High School West and still lives there with her husband, Gary. She was an honor roll student in high school and he was second-team all state in wrestling, according to Providence Journal archives.

4/5 ☕🥛

Dolores Catania

If you don’t think Taylor Swift gets to be a Rhode Islander because she only spends time here every other 4th of July, then Catania might as well face banishment to Mystic, Conn. She’s a “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star who happens to be friends with Liz McGraw.

0/5 ☕🥛

So there you have it — the definitive Rhode Island-ness of each of these new reality stars. The only remaining question is whether I will actually knuckle down and watch the show (I’ve never seen an episode).

As always, the answer is: if the Globe pays me to.

🧩 6 Across: Most optimal | ⛅️ 42° Not hot

What’s the worst that could happen? A growing slice of homeowners fed up with high insurance costs are “going bare,” banking on savings to handle any emergencies.

Never let a trophy tell me how nice I am: Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla thinks Coach of the Year is “a stupid award.” Here’s why he should win it anyway, according to Chris Gasper.

Back away from the iPad: Cambridge schools are considering a ban on “screen time” for kids from pre-K through 2nd grade. If passed, it would be one of the strictest rules in Mass.

This high school pitcher could be MLB-bound: Brody Bumila of Bishop Feehan is a 6′9″ 18-year-old lefty whose heater reaches 101 mph. Don’t be surprised if you see scouts with radar guns in the stands this spring.

‘It’s difficult to play sad music on a banjo’: Ted Landsmark, soon to retire from the Boston Planning and Development Agency, will have more time to devote to his intense love of antique banjos.

But how’s its handwriting? A study of AI “scribe” software, which takes voice dictation for busy doctors, delivered only modest efficiency improvements in a new study involving Mass General-Brigham researchers.

Circle of life: Merrimack Health plans to close its labor and delivery unit in Methuen, one of more than a dozen such closures in the past decade.

Dealmaking time in D.C.: Republican House and Senate leaders say they’re close to a deal that would resume Homeland Security spending. Still to come: Democratic votes and support from Trump.

‘We had very lofty goals in the beginning’: The head of Boston’s World Cup organizing committee broke his silence and acknowledged fund-raising woes.

By Curt Woodward

🌈 You’ve got to know this one thing: Despite Trump’s claims, “YMCA” is not really in the running for the so-called Gay National Anthem. But these songs are.

🥕 That’s what’s up: Our “One Special Thing” recommendation this week is the timeless silliness of Looney Tunes.

🗞 News about news: VTDigger is a nonprofit news success story. But turnover in its top jobs is raising questions about its future.

🚔 Hot pursuit: A van fleeing a high-speed chase by ICE agents crashed in Medway, and the two people inside escaped on foot.

🤖 Not great, Claude: AI leader Anthropic was racing to take down copies of its source code after the digital DNA for Claude Code was accidentally posted online.

⚾️ There’s no crying in baseball: But the Sox are not happy about their 1-5 start.

Thanks for reading Starting Point.

This newsletter was edited by Curt Woodward and Heather Ciras, and produced by Ryan Orlecki.

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Dan McGowan can be reached at dan.mcgowan@globe.com. Follow him @danmcgowan.