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Monday, August 31, 2026
Join your friends and neighbors in re-electing Rep. Tina Spears
Workers call for boycott of Starbucks
Help works get a fair contract from Starbucks
Int'l Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations. IUF
More than 12,000 baristas have organized with Starbucks
Workers United, winning more than 700 union elections nationwide, adding more
workers to their ranks each consecutive month for nearly five
straight years.
Starbucks is the second largest fast-food company in the
world, and they have the resources to settle a first contract. It would take
less than one day’s sales to settle a fair and reasonable contract that meets
baristas’ demands. Instead, the company chooses to be the biggest U.S. labor
law violator in modern history and stonewalls and stalls progress in
negotiations.
Starbucks’ flagrant disregard for labor law isn’t just an
attack on their own workers, it’s an attack on all working people. When union
baristas—backed by a coalition of allies—prove that they can take on the
biggest bosses and win despite rampant union busting, it will put all employers
on notice about the power of the labor movement.
That’s why Starbucks baristas are calling on labor
unions, federations and other allies to support the boycott, including
through:
- Not
purchasing Starbucks products for offices, meetings, or events, and to
blacklist Starbucks from catering and sponsorships.
- Publicly
amplifying the boycott, and encouraging members to do the same.
- And
demanding that Starbucks settles a fair contract with union baristas.
The Supreme Court’s Mail Voting Ruling Is Manufactured Chaos
Here’s what you should know.
Michael Waldman, Brennan Center for Justice
Here’s news you can use: That effort is failing so far. For
every move, there’s a countermove from voting rights groups,
local and state governments, and more. In November, we should be able to have
elections that are free, fair, and secure. But it will take a lot of work
between now and then.
We saw that for sure when the Supreme Court made
headlines and sowed confusion, but it did not change much. Here’s what you
should know.
Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order to upend
mail voting. That is the way 1 in 3 Americans vote. Trump purported to order
the US Postal
Service to refuse to deliver lawfully cast ballots unless the voter is
on a list—which doesn’t exist yet—created by each state and sent to the post
office for checking against mail ballots. It’s absurd. And, no surprise, it’s illegal.
Trump’s executive order is not in effect. Mail voting
continues as before. There have been no changes to the Postal Service
practices. BUT that is subject to change, possibly quick and abrupt.
Sunday, August 30, 2026
Neronha urges state regulators to reject proposed health insurance premium hikes
The cost of health insurance is too damn high
By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current
.webp)
After a July administrative hearing by the state’s Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner (OHIC), Neronha’s office formally submitted a brief objecting to Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island’s (NHP) request for a rate increase of 22.4%.
Premium increase requests are submitted annually by insurers, and this year they were submitted to the commissioner’s office on May 18. The agency then reviews the submissions and can accept, modify or reject them, with the final approved rates expected to arrive in September. Rate hike requests trigger a formal, public, administrative hearing if they exceed 10%.
So the health insurance commissioner’s office held a hearing for Neighborhood Health Plan but not for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island, which requested a 9.8% increase. The AG instead submitted public comments encouraging the office to reject Blue Cross Blue Shield’s proposed rates.
Collectively, the two insurers cover more than 50,000 Rhode Islanders who purchase their individual plans through the state’s health insurance marketplace.
Herbicide, Tree Cutting Underway at East Beach
Plan seeks to make the beach more open, sandier and bird friendly
Adriana Vossari, RI & Local Government
.JPG) |
| Photo by Will Collette |
Crews began applying targeted herbicide to invasive plants
at East Beach in Charlestown on August 25, the latest phase of a multi-year
habitat restoration project on the Ninigret Barrier Beach, according to the
Rhode Island State Parks project page. The beach,
campground and permitted sand trail remain open, though visitors are told to
follow posted signs and stay on designated trails and in parking areas.
The Town of Charlestown has posted its own notice pointing
residents to the work, which is led by the Rhode Island Department of
Environmental Management with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the
nonprofit Save The Bay. The town's page describes the effort as restoring dune
and salt-marsh habitat, removing invasive plants and restoring natural tidal
creeks.
For beachgoers, the practical effect is visual as much as
anything: portions of the barrier beach that were shaded by pine stands are now
open and sandy, and crews and equipment may be working in posted areas.
Poison ivy pointers
If only there was a market for poison ivy
 |
| Knowing how to identify poison ivy can help you avoid it. (URI Photos / M. Peach) |
Michelle Peach has a lot of personal and professional experience spending time outdoors, navigating diverse landscapes in and around Rhode Island. A clinical associate professor in the University of Rhode Island’s Department of Natural Resources Science, her work in the Ocean State brings the Wakefield resident into a range of local settings, from the woods to coastal communities. She also recently completed a 50-hikes-in-a-year challenge and spent an extra lot of time exploring natural areas in Rhode Island in that time.
As the coordinator of URI’s Master of Environmental Science
and Management program, Peach works with graduate students gaining and applying
their professional skills to solve contemporary environmental challenges.
With so much work outdoors, both professionally and personally, Peach shares some tips to contend with one challenge the outdoors can present throughout the year.
Whether outdoors in summer, hiking in fall, or working in
one’s yard in the spring, Peach’s top tips to avoiding poison ivy when outdoors
are: stay on trails when hiking; know how to identify poison ivy so you can
avoid it; and wear long pants and close-toed shoes when needed.
CVS doesn’t deserve all the blame for the opioid crisis.
But can we be honest about its role?
By Philip Eil, Rhode Island Current
Election years aren’t a great time for nuance. 
Nuance
I’ve been reminded of this as Gov. Dan McKee and Democratic challenger Helena Buonanno Foulkes head down the home stretch of their bitter gubernatorial primary rematch.
In particular, I’m concerned with how their arguments about the opioid epidemic — a “modern plague” that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, a complex ongoing public health crisis, the basis for some of the most complex litigation in American history — have veered into black and white territory.
If you listened to McKee — who has hammered Foulkes via websites, TV ads, social media posts, campaign statements, and debate remarks for her alleged ties to the crisis as a former CVS executive — you might think that CVS was solely responsible for the opioid epidemic.
This clearly isn’t true.
A long list of people, parties, or organizations share some responsibility for this crisis, including pharmaceutical companies, medical distributors, doctors, pharmacists, regulators, and insurance companies. Investigative reporting has pointed the finger at others: judges, consulting firms, the American Medical Association. We did not get into this mess because of any one company.
Meanwhile, when she’s not sharing her familiar talking points, Foulkes has strongly implied that sharp criticism of CVS is economically dangerous for the state. In the WPRO debate, she said Cumberland voters she met while door-to-door campaigning told her it was terrible what McKee was “doing to CVS.” Many of them work at the company, and don’t like it at all, she said.
She returned to this theme in their WJAR showdown. After mentioning that CVS and its 7,000 Rhode Island-based employees didn’t appreciate McKee’s attacks, she went further, citing a July statement from the executive director of Partnership for Rhode Island, a consortium of local businesses. “The 50 largest companies business leaders in this state wrote a letter to you, asking you to stop criticizing CVS,” she said. “You are going to drive them out of the state.”
Foulkes is not alone.
In June, Boston Globe columnist Dan McGowan argued McKee was “jeopardizing part of Rhode Island’s economic future” by his campaign’s “sustained attack” on CVS. Describing the Woonsocket-based giant as “one of the state’s most important corporate anchors,” McGowan suggested McKee ought to drop out of the race. In July, Providence Journal columnist Mark Patinkin called McKee’s attacks on CVS “cynical and self-serving” and described his criticism as a “dangerous game…of angering our biggest corporation.”
As someone who has reported on the opioid crisis for years, I am compelled to correct the record. Because while CVS may not be the only party responsible for the opioid epidemic, its role should not be ignored or dismissed.
Saturday, August 29, 2026
Trump’s View of Everything in the World
Vassals, Mooches, and Thugs (oh my)
Kim Jong Un is unthreatening and respectful? Hello?
Trump also says he’s miffed at South Korea for refusing to
help the United States in its conflict against Iran — a conflict that was
initiated entirely by Trump alone and is over 4,000 miles away from South
Korea.
Wha?
Many are bewildered by how badly Trump treats America’s
traditional allies and friends, like South Korea, and how nicely he treats
traditional enemies and dictators, like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
But there’s no reason for bewilderment. All you need do is
get into Trump’s transactional lizard brain to see that, for him, the world
contains only three kinds of nations or people: vassals, mooches, and thugs.
Your dreams aren’t random. Your brain is rewriting reality
Dreams may be the brain’s nightly remix of personality, memory, emotion, and real-world experience.
IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca
.webp)
Why do some dreams feel so vivid that they seem almost real,
while others unfold as confusing fragments that are difficult to remember or
understand? New research suggests the answer may depend on a combination of
personality, sleep quality, mental habits, and major events unfolding in the
outside world.
A study led by researchers at the IMT School for Advanced
Studies Lucca found that dreams are not simply random collections of images and
thoughts. Instead, they appear to be shaped by both individual differences and
shared experiences, including major social disruptions such as the COVID-19
pandemic.