Today in Charlestown: extreme heat, unhealthy air. Worst in coming tomorrow

 Be careful out there!

Gina Raimondo and Eric Holcomb Launch RAISE US, Uniting the Nation’s Leading Employers and Bipartisan Governors Behind American Workers

Gina's going to save us from AI, so she says

News release from RAISE US

She's always been a corporatist

Gina Raimondo, the 40th U.S. Secretary of Commerce and 75th Governor of Rhode Island, and Eric Holcomb, the 51st Governor of Indiana, today launched RAISE US, a nonpartisan national organization that will partner with governors, employers, workers, and training organizations to help the American workforce make a successful transition to an AI economy. RAISE US will design and pilot new corporate incentives to retrain and redeploy workers, new approaches to support people through job transitions, and new training models tied to changing employer demand. The organization will leverage private and philanthropic capital to scale what’s most effective and measure success by whether workers land and keep good jobs. RAISE US launches with more than two dozen of America’s largest companies and philanthropies behind it and with initial state partnerships in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, and Utah.

“I believe AI will create new jobs and industries over time, but the transition could be disruptive, and it’s already underway. We shouldn’t fearmonger, but we can’t pretend our training and worker support systems are ready either.”

The Mounting Humiliations of D. J. Trump

They're making him even more erratic and dangerous

Robert Reich

Nothing makes Trump angrier than being humiliated. Humiliation involves public shame, which Trump’s malignant narcissism cannot abide.

But Trump is facing humiliation after humiliation. They’re causing him to lose his mind even faster than before.

The Iranian regime knows this, which is why it’s publicly humiliating Trump by contradicting everything he says about making progress on the peace talks.

Yesterday, Iran went further. It refuted Trump’s claim that Iran did not control the Strait of Hormuz, and that the strait was again open to shipping, by striking a container ship passing through the strait. Oil prices immediately jumped.

Meanwhile, American judges are humiliating Trump by ordering his name off the Kennedy Center, requiring that the center remain open, pausing work on his billionaire ballroom, threatening to stop his Arch de Trump, ending his slush fund, and vacating charges that Trump’s Justice [sic] Department has brought against Trump’s enemies.

Performing artists are humiliating him by pulling out of his so-called “Great American State Fair” on the National Mall because they don’t want any part in what’s become a Trump rally.

Congressional Republicans are humiliating him by rejecting his demands that they enact the “SAVE” Act (which would make it harder for millions of people to vote), pass his next reconciliation package, and blow up the Senate filibuster.

Four Senate Republicans even crossed party lines to back a war powers resolution directing Trump to halt military operations against Iran or seek congressional authorization to continue. 

Their support delivered a bipartisan rebuke to Trump’s handling of the war. (After lobbying by Trump, the Senate reversed its stance and rejected the resolution in a late-night vote.)

Turning 80 is itself a humiliation for Trump. Even if the media weren’t harping on it, his body is continuously reminding him that he’s the oldest president ever elected. 

Not to mention increasing calls from Democrats to invoke the 25th Amendment in light of Trump’s erratic behavior — including his feud with the pope, his doomsday threats on Truth Social, and his posting of an AI photo of himself as Jesus.

But the very worst type of humiliation for Trump is ridicule — as first became apparent in 2011 when Obama skewered him at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner by producing his birth certificate and saying Trump could “now get back to focusing on important issues like did we fake the moon landing?”

The audience roared. Trump fumed.

Trump can’t take ridicule — which is why he tried to get ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel and gloated when CBS got rid of Stephen Colbert.

Yet late-night comedians are now having a field day with Trump’s algae-infested Reflecting Pool. Some are calling it the Strait of Warm Ooze.

The pile-up of humiliations is causing Trump to lash out at anyone and everyone, including his recent explosion at NBC correspondent Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Wednesday’s reported shouting match with Republican Senator Bill Cassidy during a closed-door lunch at the Capitol. The lunch came just after Trump dropped a bombshell by canceling plans to sign a bipartisan landmark housing affordability bill until he gets his way on the SAVE Act.

I’m tempted to enjoy the Trump humiliations. But I think it also important to note that as they mount, Trump is becoming even more erratic and dangerous. So beware.

How we got here

Elon Musk becomes the world's first trillionaire

Did Larry Ellison (above left) play a Klingon in the original Star Trek?

Trump Supreme Court hands German chemical company a huge win

License to kill

By Anika Jane Beamer

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

A Supreme Court ruling issued Thursday limits Americans’ ability to sue pesticide makers over alleged health harms from their products.

The 7-2 decision overturned a 2023 Missouri circuit court ruling that required agrochemical company Monsanto to pay John Durnell of St. Louis $1.25 million in compensatory damages for failing to warn customers of the cancer-causing potential of its popular weedkiller, Roundup.

Durnell said he used the glyphosate-based herbicide for twenty years before developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Glyphosate-based weedkillers make up the bulk of all agricultural pesticide use in the U.S., with farmers and ranchers spraying over 250 million pounds of the chemical across farmland each year. An extensive body of research suggests improper glyphosate use could be linked to endocrine disruption, metabolic disorders, neurological effects and several cancers. Even after application, the chemical may leach into waterways or drift over residential areas.

And it’s not just glyphosate. Nearly all conventional weedkillers, derived from fossil fuels and petroleum byproducts, are believed to present multiple health hazards.

The highly anticipated ruling not only overturns the lower court’s decision, it also sets a legal precedent that all but seals the fate of hundreds of similar lawsuits being fought in courtrooms across the country.

The decision also represents a huge victory and financial windfall for Monsanto and its parent chemical company, Bayer, which has spent billions of dollars fighting legal claims linking Roundup to cancer since acquiring Monsanto in 2018.

In a majority opinion delivered by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court wrote that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) prohibits states from imposing labeling requirements “in addition to or different from” the labels required by the Environmental Protection Agency.

President Lawson, Rep. Cotter bill to establish limits on grocery self-checkouts signed

Thank you, Megan!

Bill sponsors Senate President Valarie J. Lawson and Rep. Megan L. Cotter were joined by Governor Dan McKee for a ceremonial signing establishing limits on the use of self-checkout lanes at grocery stores in Rhode Island.

The legislation (2026-S 2342B, 2026-H 7290A) requires grocery stores with self-checkouts to have a minimum of one staffed checkout for every three self-checkouts operating, with at least one of the self-checkout stations meeting the accessibility standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

It also requires that grocery store employees be relieved of all other duties, including operating a manual checkout station, while monitoring self-checkout stations.

President Lawson and Representative Cotter said they introduced the bill out of concern for those who work as cashiers, and for customers who struggle with frustrating self-checkout experiences, particularly elderly customers.

Charlestown weather hazards: higher heat warning, bad air

Be careful out there!

Discarding George Washington's example for MAGA policy comes with consequences

Flu virus doesn't care about religion or politics

Katrine L. Wallace, University of Illinois Chicago

Amid a worsening flu outbreak at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy are once again requiring new recruits to get vaccinated against the influenza virus, according to ABC News. The move comes two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rescinded the U.S. military’s mandate that they do so.

As of June 23, 2026, at least 222 recruits on the base have fallen ill and four have reportedly been hospitalized.

In his April 21 announcement making the flu vaccine optional, Hegseth cited medical autonomy and religious freedom, describing the vaccination requirement as “overly broad and not rational,” telling troops that “your body, your faith and your convictions are not negotiable.”

The flu shot requirement that Hegseth ended had been in place since 1945, with one brief pause in 1949. It was part of a tradition of military vaccine mandates nearly as old as the United States itself.

As an epidemiologist who studies vaccine-preventable diseases, I found the end of the flu mandate striking less for its immediate impact than for what it signals. For most of American history, military commanders took for granted that infectious disease could cost them a war, which is why vaccination was considered a matter of military readiness rather than personal choice.

The Lackland outbreak is evidence that the underlying epidemiology has not changed – only the political climate surrounding public health.

A tradition that started with George Washington

The first American military vaccine mandate predates the Constitution. In the winter of 1777, Gen. George Washington ordered the mass inoculation of the Continental Army against smallpox.

His decision wasn’t ideological – it was strategic. The year before, a smallpox outbreak had torn through American troops outside Quebec, contributing to the collapse of the northern campaign. John Adams famously wrote to his wife, Abigail, that smallpox was killing 10 soldiers for every one felled in battle.

New Trump plan would put healthcare decisions in the hands of Trump political appointees

Politics Should Never Decide Who Gets Care

Teri Mills and Donna A. Gaffney for Common Dreams   

As a nurse educator and a psychiatric-mental health nurse, we have built our careers on evidence-based practice, ethics, and compassion when caring for patients. Politics never entered the picture. Our responsibility has always been to provide care guided by science, professional standards, and the individual needs of our patients, not political ideology or partisan priorities. That is why the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed rule, Docket OMB-2026-0034, which would hand healthcare funding decisions to political appointees, stops us cold.

At first glance, this proposal may sound administrative or technical. In reality, it would fundamentally alter how federally funded healthcare, nursing education, behavioral health programs, and scientific research are approved, monitored, and terminated. Under rule §200.340, any grant can be ended at any point if it no longer aligns with the priorities of the administration. That is not oversight. It is political control.

For nurses, the consequences would not be abstract. They would be immediate, personal, and dangerous for the patients we care for.

Trump prepares for July 4

Trump social media posts tell us a lot about what's going on in his head...

Like this:

When he really should be posting this:

Or this:

McKee issues drought watch, urges Rhode Islanders to conserve water

Guess he'll need to cancel more anti-climate change programs

By Nolan Page, Rhode Island Current

Gov. Dan McKee announced Rhode Island’s first drought watch since 2002.

At the advice of the state’s Drought Steering Committee, McKee upgraded last month’s initial drought advisory to the second of four monitoring stages because of continuing low levels of precipitation, groundwater and stream flow. The committee will meet again in mid-July to reassess drought conditions. Should they remain of concern, two more progressive declarations would follow: a warning, then an emergency.

A statewide drought advisory was announced May 28. Under Rhode Island’s drought plan, the drought watch remains in effect until the state sees six months of normal precipitation and two months of normal groundwater levels.

McKee said residents are “strongly encouraged” to take conservation measures as water demand peaks during the summer, according to the press release. Recommendations included fixing leaky plumbing, hand watering plants and being conscientious about the water used during showers and laundry.

Rob Megnia, a meteorologist and hydrologist at the National Weather Service in Norton, Massachusetts, said the warning doesn’t necessarily signal the worst drought conditions Rhode Island has seen since 2002.

“We’ve had worse ones than we’ve had now,” Megnia said, who recalled memorable drought conditions in 2020 and 2022. “Since the 2022 one, it hasn’t been as significant.”

The most recent statewide drought declaration available on the Drought Steering Committee’s website came as an advisory in 2007. EDITOR'S NOTE: I found nothing on that website link.

Be careful, Charlestown: heat wave!

Most likely accompanied by bad air, fire risk

By Will Collette

For several days, the National Weather Service has been warning of a heat dome effect that will cover much of the northeastern US over the Fourth of July weekend.

It's coming, starting tomorrow, and according to this morning's extended forecast, it will extend through and beyond the 4th without a break at least until Monday. Heat index numbers will likely be alarming.

Usually, with heat like this, our air quality drops due to auto-driven ground level ozone as well as particulate pollution. This morning's forecast shows that air quality tomorrow and Wednesday will be, at best, "moderate," though that could change to "unhealthy."

I predict a high level of summer people this weekend, drawn to Charlestown by our beaches so be especially careful on the roads since, as most residents know, these people can be crazy.

With little rain in the forecast, expect an elevated wildfire risk. According to Gov. McKee, Rhode Island is in a state of drought. Add campfire, outdoor cookouts and illegal fireworks. 

Thank you in advance to our local fire fighters for protecting us. 

Show them some respect and consideration by NOT using illegal fireworks and being extra careful if you are cooking outside.

Besides bad air, be careful of heat stroke and exhaustion. Stay hydrated. 

The UV index will probably be very high, too.

Enjoy the 4th! Just be careful out there.

Will Trump succeed at blocking you from voting by mail?

The Executive Order to Restrict Vote by Mail: Trump is still trying to suppress your vote

Joyce Vance

Republican voters regularly use mail-in voting. Nearly one in five registered Republicans vote by mail. Trump himself uses it. But in his role as president, he has an almost pathological dislike for the practice. One in four Democrats votes by mail.

Data on who votes by mail suggests that many Americans like it and have confidence in it. For instance, States United reports that 40% of voters who are 65 and over vote by mail. And in 2024, 905,343 members of the military and Americans living abroad voted by mail.

Trump has defended casting his own ballots by mail, saying he did it “because I’m president” and “I had a lot of different things” to do. But when others do it, there is cheating. In essence, the attacks on voting by mail have become a convenient, if false, vehicle for keeping the voter fraud narrative Trump loves to push on the front burner.

Trump has been trying to end Americans’ ability to vote by mail. His most recent effort, after several failed ones, started with a new executive order he signed on March 31 of this year: “ENSURING CITIZENSHIP VERIFICATION AND INTEGRITY IN FEDERAL ELECTIONS.” It’s a plot to transfer control over who gets to vote from the states, who have that authority under the Constitution, to the federal government, which does not.

We discussed the EO here when it came out. At the time, I wrote, “The point emerges early on. This is not an EO about ensuring election integrity. It’s an effort to let politicians, namely this president, influence election outcomes instead of letting voter elect their chosen representatives.” The Postal Service responded by promulgating new rules requiring states to turn over their voter rolls to the administration. A failure to comply with that rule would cost states the ability to mail ballots to their voters, because only people appearing on official Trump-approved voter rolls generated after vetting the state rolls will be eligible to have ballots mailed to them. If states don’t turn over their lists, no mail ballots.

It would have been unimaginable for the Carter, Clinton, Obama or Biden administrations to restrict voting like this. Even for the Reagan or Bush administrations. The federal government is going to prevent states from using the U.S. Mail to send out ballots, unless the states let the federal government decide who is eligible to vote—under rules set by each state. It’s rank voter suppression, removing decision making authority from the states and vesting it in the Trump administration, which has repeatedly demonstrated its interest in winning, even if that means keeping Democrats from voting or refusing to count their votes when they do.