Saturday, August 8, 2026
Who stole the URI research camera at Charlestown Beach?
Charlestown Beach Camera Stolen, Town Says. It's not a Flock camera
Adriana
Vossari, RI & Local Government News
Charlestown loses a public feed of beach and water
conditions that also supported coastal research, and the town has not said what
replacement will cost or who pays.
A public beach camera installed on Charlestown Town Beach
was stolen on Thursday, the town reported in an official statement that went
well beyond the usual language of a municipal theft notice.
The camera was a live-feed unit installed for the University
of Rhode Island's Ocean-CREST project, short for Oceanfront Observatory for
Coastal Resilience, Engineering, Science & Technology. It fed a public view
of beach and water conditions and supported coastal research and education. It
replaced an earlier camera that was destroyed when its mounting pole snapped
during a severe storm, according to the town.
The town's notice, headlined "Newly Installed Public Beach Camera Stolen in Disgraceful Act Against the Community," said officials were "outraged." It described the theft as not a harmless prank but "a selfish, destructive, and criminal act that deprived the public of a resource funded, installed, and maintained for everyone's benefit."
The statement added that whoever took the camera "did not
steal from an anonymous government agency," but from "Charlestown residents,
beachgoers, students, educators, coastal researchers, and every member of the
public."
Much of the statement is devoted not to the theft itself but
to a rumor. The town said claims had circulated that the equipment was a Flock
camera — an automated license plate reader — and called those claims
"completely false" and evidence of "a basic failure to
understand, or even verify, what had actually been installed." A
"minimal amount of effort," the statement said, would have confirmed
the camera's purpose was public viewing and coastal education, "not
vehicle tracking or law enforcement surveillance."
The town did not say who spread those claims, how widely they circulated, or whether they had anything to do with the theft. The motive remains unknown, and the town has not said whether police have identified a suspect.
Two different kinds of camera
The distinction the town is drawing matters, because Rhode
Island has spent the summer arguing about surveillance cameras.
Flock Safety devices photograph passing vehicles and store
the images in a searchable database, typically for about a month. They read
license plates. The Charlestown camera was a fixed-view CR63-E with a built-in
LTE modem, an internal battery, 4K resolution and the option of solar or
hard-wired power, according to reporting by The Westerly Sun on the project's
approval. Because the camera cannot pan or tilt, town and university officials
told the council that beachgoers would not face privacy concerns.
The installation was approved in public. Rhode Island Sea Grant coastal resilience specialist Casey Tremper and URI associate professor of ocean engineering Reza Hashemi presented the re-installation request to the Charlestown Town Council in November, and the council voted to allow it, with activities coordinated through the town administrator.
URI covered the
equipment; the town handled installation. The feed was made publicly accessible
through the Web Camera Coastal Observation System, and the town maintains a live beach camera page.
A hostile season for cameras
The theft landed at the peak of a statewide backlash against license plate readers. The South Kingstown Town Council voted unanimously on July 27 to cancel its Flock Safety contract and remove the cameras. Narragansett's council did the same on Aug. 3.
The ACLU of Rhode Island, which
has campaigned against the technology, counts
at least 295 Flock cameras in the state and notes the exact figure is
unknown because some police departments have been difficult to get information
from.
Those objections are about warrantless records of drivers'
movements — a debate with no bearing on a fixed camera pointed at the surf. But
the sequence is close enough in time that the town's statement reads as an
attempt to break the association, sharply.
What the notice does not address is cost. The town has not
disclosed what the stolen camera was worth, who pays to replace it, or what
security measures might protect a third unit. It also has not said whether a
replacement is planned.
Scientists Link Heavy TV Watching to Brain Changes Decades Later
Heavy television viewing in middle age was linked to a troubling brain signature more than 20 years later.
By Margaret Crable, University of Southern California
The findings, published in Alzheimer’s and
Dementia: Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, challenge the idea that
all sitting affects the brain in the same way. Time spent watching television
was associated with poorer brain health decades later, while sitting at work
showed a very different pattern.
“For years we’ve focused on how much people sit. Our
findings suggest we should also pay attention to what they’re doing while
they’re sitting,” says David Raichlen, professor of biological sciences and
anthropology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and
Sciences, and a senior author of the study.
What MRI Scans Revealed Decades Later
Researchers followed about 1,700 adults who joined the
Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study between 1987 and 1989.
Participants were 53 years old on average when they reported how often they
watched television during leisure time and how much of their workday they spent
seated.
More than 20 years later, MRI scans revealed notable
differences between the brains of frequent viewers and those who said they
watched television “never” or “seldom.”
People who reported watching television “very often” had
less volume in several brain regions, including areas tied to memory and early
Alzheimer’s disease. They also had smaller frontal and occipital lobes, which
support planning, attention, decision-making, and visual processing.
The scans also showed more white matter hyperintensities.
These bright spots on MRI can reflect damage to the brain’s small blood vessels
and are commonly associated with aging, stroke risk, cognitive decline, and
dementia.
Marco Rubio uses AI to make the US look stupid
US State Department map used at international AIDS conference mislabeled every African nations
Isn't geography something the State Department should know?
Jessica Corbett for Common Dreams
Those were just some of the responses to Thursday reporting on a US Department of State map presented at
a global conference in Brazil that
mislabeled every African country it included.
“Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the
AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, which shows the errant map displayed
halfway during a presentation about the State Department’s new health agreements,” the news agency reported.
“A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included in
the presentation contained an artificial
intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI
tools,” the outlet noted. “The
company said it was investigating the report.”
Friday, August 7, 2026
RI's Flock Divide: Cameras that read your license plate and store it in a database
Another battle of privacy versus technology
Rocco Caravaggio, Civil Rights & Law Enforcement
 |
| Location of Flock cameras in South County. Source: DeFlock.org |
Rhode Island has at least 239 to 295 license-plate reading cameras operating with no state law governing who can search the data, how long it is kept, or who it can be shared with — meaning your vehicle's movements across a 37-mile-wide state are logged under rules each police department writes for itself.
Twenty-two of them are already watching.
And while that network fills in, the towns are pulling theirs out.
On Monday night the Narragansett Town Council voted unanimously to terminate its Flock contract — the second South County community to do so in eight days, following South Kingstown's unanimous vote on July 27 to cancel its own agreement and rip out the half-dozen automated license plate reader cameras already standing in town. South Kingstown's deal ran $30,300 a year for seven cameras, signed last July but not effectively live until the first pole-mounted unit went up in February.
Little Compton's council rejected
an installation request on June 4. Warren and Portsmouth turned down the state
police outright when troopers came asking to put cameras on their streets, and
both council presidents said the reason was residents' privacy — Portsmouth's
Keith Hamilton and Warren's Joseph DePasquale each pointed to constituent
objections rather than any dispute about whether the technology works.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Charlestown debated similar issues leading up to the October 2015 activation of two red-light cameras (at East and West Beach Roads). The privacy argument is certainly valid but so is the public interest in busting drivers who run through red lights. After all, we drive on public roads with state-issued licenses and registrations. Do we have the right of privacy to break the law and endanger other drivers? Flock cameras have far broader uses and there are no uniform standards regulating their use. - Will Collette
Birding hobby may boost your mental health and build community
Flocking together
Jennifer G. Andrews, Morehouse College
 |
| Birding is a good way to practice mindfulness, psychologists report. Jennifer Andrews |
Hearing “just go outside” might sound like trivial advice, but researchers have been investigating a new, unconventional strategy to boost mental health: Seeking the company of wild birds.
You’ve probably heard them singing or noticed them flitting through the canopy, but if you’re not deliberately paying attention to their presence, they can fade into the background. A growing body of research suggests that keeping a watchful eye or attentive ear out for birds can help people from all walks of life feel more calm, present and refreshed.
Birding, the practice of observing birds in their natural habitat and also known as bird-watching, has experienced a renaissance in recent years. Birding exploded in popularity during the pandemic, and you may have even seen it popping up on your social media feeds. Newcomers to the practice discovered something seasoned birders have always known: Simply paying attention to birds can be surprisingly rewarding.
There is a wealth of data demonstrating that spending time in nature leads to health improvements. For example, reviews of scientific research have cited consistent evidence for nature’s important role in supporting health and well-being.
An increasing body of research, which my colleagues and I reviewed in 2024, also suggests that interactions with birds may play an especially important role in well-being. Encounters with birds may improve mood, reduce stress, restore attention, strengthen social connections and even encourage people to care more about the environment.
URI Studying Jonah Crabs to Learn about Offshore Wind Turbines’ Effect on Underwater Ecosystems
Boost to local fishing?
By Joshua Geaughan / ecoRI News contributor
Since the first offshore wind project
was developed in Rhode Island in 2016, University of Rhode Island researchers
have been attempting to understand their impacts on local marine ecosystems.
That work is continuing with first-year URI Ph.D. student Emmanuel Oyewole’s
study of the artificial reefs that are often found at the base of turbines.
Jonah crabs are being studied in Rhode Island waters
as part of a project examining the effect of offshore
wind turbines on underwater ecosystems.
(Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission)
It’s been established through research surrounding offshore wind that the base of turbines serves as a foundation for algae and coral, which acts as a base for a booming ecosystem.
In an attempt to find the cause of this blossoming of
aquatic activity, Oyewole is studying the movement and dietary habits of one
special creature found at the base of offshore wind turbines: Jonah crabs. He’s
working with his academic advisor, Kelton McMahon, an associate professor of
oceanography.
Trump wants to run scientific research like his family business.
The new "science golden age" looks suspiciously like a grift
Or at least that’s the vision emerging from a new 123-page “Report
to the President” from Michael Kratsios, the Director of the White House Office
of Science and Technology Policy.
In a normal administration, you could probably skip over
learning about a science policy document — but this is no normal
administration, and this is no normal science policy document. Instead, it’s
Trump’s attempt to end the actual golden age of science that was kicked off in
1945 with the publication of '“The
Endless Frontier” by Vannevar Bush.
Kratsios’s report is supposed to be the successor to Bush’s,
and even apes the format, but this isn’t really a document about science
policy. It’s one about ending science research as we know it in favor of
shoveling cash at big tech companies.
While it might be temping to wave this away as an
aspirational policy document, Trump has already begun to shift
billions in research funds to AI projects and has taken
a hatchet to science funding across the board. He’s teed up the shift
Kratsios proposes here, and since neither Congress nor the Supreme Court seem
inclined to stop him from doing whatever he wants with taxpayer money, it isn’t
doomering or hyperbole to say we are staring down the barrel of a world where
the only “science” the government intends to support is for-profit tech and
defense advancements.
Thursday, August 6, 2026
Elon Musk’s Fortune Comes From Not Paying Taxes
So why does he complain all the time?
By Stephen Land, Bob Lord
Then SpaceX stock tanked, rallied, then tanked again. But
the most important thing about Musk’s wealth isn’t whether it stays above the
13-figure threshold — it’s that 94 percent of it comes from
not having to pay taxes on unrealized gains.
That’s right: Musk’s fortune effectively comes from not
paying taxes.
It’s no exaggeration to say that trillionaires (Musk likely won’t be the last) are creatures of the tax code.
They ought to be called
“taxillionaires.” If it weren’t for laws that permit the wealthy to endlessly
defer paying taxes by keeping their gains unrealized, there would be no
trillionaires — and many fewer billionaires.
According to Musk’s own account, when he sold his stake in
Paypal in 2002, he netted
$180 million, invested it all in SpaceX and Tesla, and borrowed to pay his
living expenses. To get from $180 million to a trillion today implies annual
returns of over 40 percent (returns that would be considered impossible for
ordinary investors).
Allowing these returns to compound untaxed supercharges
growth.
Musk paid some taxes along the way, when he exercised stock
options or sold some Tesla shares, but any taxes he paid are insignificant
compared to his wealth. By contrast, for most working Americans earning a good
salary, total state and federal taxes are significant — typically around 40
percent.
Trump proposes end to rule requiring companies to disclose climate costs to shareholders
SEC Proposes to Scrap Climate Disclosure Rules
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In
March 2024, the SEC approved rules that mandated public companies to disclose
climate-related matters, including greenhouse gas emissions. The Commission
stayed the rule due to litigation. A year later, the SEC voted to stop
defending the rules.
The
SEC claims the rules “exceed the scope” of its statutory
authority. The agency labels the climate disclosure rules as unnecessary,
costly for public companies, and at odds with its policy objectives. However,
Tom Zimpleman, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, characterizes the SEC’s
proposal as “shirking its responsibility to protect investors.” He points out
that “climate risk is financial risk.”
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