Second Powassan case of 2026 confirmed

RI health officials urge precautions to reduce tick exposure

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

Rhode Island health officials confirmed Thursday the state’s second case of Powassan virus, a rare tickborne illness that can cause fatal encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain.

A Newport County man in his 70s tested positive for the virus after experiencing symptoms in late July, the Rhode Island Department of Health confirmed. State health officials did not divulge his current condition or whether the man was hospitalized.

The man is the Ocean State’s 10th documented case of Powassan since the virus was first reported in the state in 2016 and follows another case reported in June, when a Providence County man in his 60s went to the hospital after first experiencing symptoms in May. The Providence County man spent time in the hospital but was recovering at home when RIDOH shared the case details with the public on June 26.

Before this year, the last two reports of Powassan in Rhode Island were in 2024. A Washington County woman in her 80s died after developing neurological symptoms related to Powassan disease in 2023.

Powassan is a viral infection much rarer than that more well-known tickborne illness, Lyme disease, which is bacterial. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received around 89,000 reported cases of Lyme in 2023. RIDOH data cites 2,563 cases of Lyme in Rhode Island in 2024.

There were 76 documented Powassan cases nationwide in 2025 — a record-breaking high. Twenty-seven occurred in New England, and from 2016 through 2025, there were about 397 reported nationwide.

In the Northeast, the virus is carried by Ixodes scapularis, also known as the deer or blacklegged tick.

Florida MAGA guy turns down debate with Republican primary opponent

Mellor declines RI GOP debate with Skoly in CD2 primary

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

Republican Vic Mellor is shown at a State House event
in support of Second Amendment rights in May 2026.
(Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)

Republican 2nd Congressional District candidates Vic Mellor and Dr. Stephen Skoly have separately given TV and radio interviews in recent weeks, but they have yet to appear together on the same stage.

And it doesn’t look like they will before the Sept. 9 primary.

Mellor declined an invitation to participate in a party-led debate against his GOP-endorsed rival, Rhode Island GOP Chair Allyn Meyers confirmed Monday.

Both candidates were invited on Aug. 4 to participate in a debate. Skoly promptly responded, accepting the invitation, but Mellor’s staff held off and promised they would respond soon, Meyers said.

Dr. Stephen Skoly has the endorsement of
the Rhode Island Republican Party and the desire
to debate his opponent. (Contributed photo)

On Monday, shortly before he received confirmation that Mellor would not participate, Skoly separately issued a public challenge calling for a debate on Aug. 14, or at least before early voting begins Aug. 20.

“Given Mr. Mellor’s decision not to participate, an August 14 debate between the two candidates is no longer feasible,” Meyers wrote via email Monday.

It’s not every election two Rhode Island Republicans run for the same seat, but this year there are two GOP primaries: one in the 2nd Congressional District, and another in the gubernatorial race. The purpose of hosting a debate was straightforward, Meyers said.

“If we are serious about building a professional, independent state party, we must develop our own platforms for Republican candidates to communicate directly with Republican voters rather than relying exclusively on traditional media organizations to frame our primary contests.”

Republicans make up only 16% of the 366,603 registered voters in Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District. Democrats account for 30% while most voters are unaffiliated.

Trump Has Quietly Throttled an Agency Devoted to the Safety of American Healthcare

More foolish, dangerous cuts

By Arthur Allen

The Trump administration has effectively shut down most of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s activities, closing the spigot on federal funding estimated to have saved thousands of lives and billions of dollars over the past 27 years by improving medical practice.

In a July 15 letter, the small Department of Health and Human Services agency known as AHRQ told researchers it was halting at least 104 grants, many aimed at improving patient safety. Although Congress appropriated $345 million for AHRQ for this fiscal year, the agency has spent less than $15 million on grants and hasn’t issued a new one in over a year, according to a review of federal records. About 75% of agency staffers have been fired or quit since Donald Trump took office last year, according to HHS.

Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have sought to slash the federal government’s investment in biomedical research, terminating grants and forcing scientists out of agencies across the health department. The gutting of AHRQ strikes some of the administration’s critics as particularly shortsighted, though, because of the agency’s noncontroversial focus on patient safety and its overall alignment with Trump and Kennedy’s “Make American Healthy Again” campaign against chronic illness.

Let's celebrate the 2-month anniversary by going out and buying some $2 gallon gas!

Sen. Whitehouse blasts Trump for killing yet another vital research program

Do right by your kitty

Indoor moves prove easier than expected for most cats and owners

By University of Adelaide

Edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Andrew Zinin

Moving a pet cat from an outdoor lifestyle to living indoors is easier than many owners expect, according to new research that could help improve feline welfare, protect wildlife and ease concerns about keeping cats contained.

Australian and New Zealand researchers surveyed 87 cat owners, revealing that most who transitioned their pets to indoor living reported the change was ultimately worthwhile, with the benefits to both cats and owners outweighing the challenges.

The study, published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science, found that while owners initially worried about their cat's happiness and behavior, more than two-thirds said the process was easier than expected.

Lead author Dr. Julia Henning, from Adelaide University's School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, said the findings challenge the perception that cats cannot adapt to an indoor lifestyle.

"Many people worry that keeping a cat indoors will be stressful for their cat, but our findings suggest that the transition was often easier than expected," Henning said.

Fructose might undo chemo in ovarian cancer patients

A common sugar may help cancer cells break free and spread

The Wistar Institute

A study from The Wistar Institute has identified a surprising connection between fructose, a widely consumed dietary sugar, and the spread of an aggressive type of ovarian cancer. The findings, published in Nature Aging, suggest that cancer cells that remain after chemotherapy can communicate with nearby tumor cells and make them more likely to spread.

The researchers found that fructose serves as one of the chemical messages released by these treatment-surviving cells. The discovery reveals a previously unknown way that cancer cells left behind after therapy may contribute to metastasis.

"Some cancer cells that survive chemotherapy aren't dividing anymore, but they're still biologically active," said Aidan Cole, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Katherine Aird, Ph.D., at The Wistar Institute and first author on the study. "Instead, they continue to release molecules that send signals to nearby cells. Our study is among the first to show that a nutrient -- in this case, fructose -- can act as one of those signals."

What Is the Trump Administration Doing With Foreign Aid Money?

Instead of fighting famine and disease, Trump wants to investigate imaginary crimes against white South Africans

By Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Sharon Lerner for ProPublica

No longer a Trump priority. Photo: Doctors Without Borders

Since he returned to office, Donald Trump’s administration has upended foreign aid. It’s labeled well-established, long-running programs as “not aligned with American interests” and slashed their budgets. 

Still, the billions of taxpayer dollars Congress has allocated for foreign aid programs must be spent; lawmakers have insisted the government continue to fund humanitarian aid, global health and pro-democracy causes around the world. With most of the old programs now gone, however, we wanted to know: What is the Trump administration doing with that money now?

Trump's present priority for foreign aid to Africa

Recently, we published our investigation that found one answer to that question in a little-known bureau of the State Department that has dramatically transformed under Trump. 

For decades, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, known as DRL, has supported human rights in some of the most oppressive countries in the world. Now, our reporting found, it’s planning to direct funds to controversial groups supporting right-wing causes in Europe and elsewhere. 

Our full story lays out some of the groups the government has considered funding, which include a British free-speech organization that has fought against bans on “gay conversion therapy” and a British American think tank created this year to focus on “existential threats to Britain, to America, and to our shared Judeo-Christian civilization.” (Administration officials dropped that grant after significant pushback from Congress.) 

One proposed grant particularly caught our attention: Trump administration officials suggested funding research on crime against minority populations in South Africa. 

Trump’s Anti-Clean Energy Policies Set to Cost US Consumers $650 Billion by 2040

You pay for Trump's love of coal

Brett Wilkins for Common Dreams

The Trump administration’s rollback of clean energy policies will cost American consumers $650 billion in additional energy bills by 2040, according to an analysis published Wednesday by a nonpartisan think tank.

Energy Innovation, a San Francisco-based energy and climate policy think tank, said in its report that “federal policy changes since January 2025 will increase energy prices, slow economic growth and job creation, increase air pollution and healthcare costs, and worsen grid reliability.”

The analysis examines seven major policy shifts during the second term of President Donald Trump, who—for the third time—ran on an aggressively pro-fossil fuel and anti-clean energy platform:

• Passage of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA);
• The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) reconsideration and repeal of Clean Air Act Greenhouse Gas Standards, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and Clean Water Act Effluent Limitations Guidelines for electric power plants;
• EPA’s repeal of the endangerment finding and federal tailpipe emissions standards;
• Passage of Congressional Review Act resolutions overturning approvals for state-level tailpipe emissions standards;
• Actions to limit renewable energy development—especially onshore and offshore wind plants—including limitations on issuance of new permits;
• Department of Energy cancellations of hydrogen hub funding and easing of 45V tax credit qualification for natural gas-based hydrogen; and
• EPA’s cancellation of the $7 billion Solar for All grant program.

According to the analysis, “Households will pay an additional $650 billion for energy—an average of $460 per household in 2035 and $490 in 2040.”

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Trump killed the National Nature Assessment but volunteer scientists finished it anyway

The government canceled this nature study. Scientists kept going anyway.

By Neha Pathak, Yale Climate Connections

Most of us sense it without being told why: A walk in the woods or an hour in the park leaves us calmer, clearer, and restored. Increasingly, modern science agrees. A growing body of evidence links time in nature to better physical and mental health – and a major new effort is working to document exactly what that evidence shows.

That effort is called the Nature Record, and its survival is a story in itself. It began as the National Nature Assessment, a federal undertaking modeled on the long-running National Climate Assessment and mandated by a Biden-era executive order. 

Roughly 180 scientists volunteered to develop about a dozen chapters. The project had reached an early public-comment draft when the Trump administration canceled it. 

Rather than abandon the work, the authors decided to finish it independently under a new name, with foundation funding and National Academy of Sciences review. The report is now under revision, with the final release slated for December 2026.* 

Howard Frumkin, a physician-epidemiologist and a professor emeritus at the University of Washington, led the assessment’s chapter on human health. Yale Climate Connections spoke with him about how the report survived, what the science says about nature’s health benefits, why those benefits aren’t shared equally, and what it all means for communities and the healthcare system.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Avoid explosive diarrhea - buy local

 From the Rhode Island Health Department:

Other Taylor Farms products to watch for:

And, of course, Taylor paid off Trump:

Mathematicians prove perfectly fair elections are impossible

Prediction: Trump will use this as the pretext to cancel the 2026 elections

University of Cambridge

Mathematicians have concluded that a perfectly fair election system is impossible in a specific mathematical sense. 

No voting method can always ensure that local victories produce local seats, national seat totals accurately reflect overall vote shares, and the size of parliament remains fixed.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen examined proportional representation and first-past-the-post systems. 

Their analysis found that every method for electing a national legislature involves compromises, usually among local representation, national proportionality, and the total number of parliamentary seats.

What YOU pay for Trump's corruption

On top of his self-dealing, taxpayers are spending billions on his vanity projects.

Justin Glawe and Ava Shook

Trump keeps giving Musk contracts. He'll
probably tell DOD to buy these pieces of junk

On the same day his company won a $1.6 billion contract with the US military, Elon Musk’s political action committee announced it would spend $100 million to help Republicans win the November midterms.

In previous eras of American politics, such a development might have caused even some Republicans to question whether the billion dollar taxpayer payout to Musk’s SpaceX and the surge of campaign cash to help their party win an election was a quid pro quo. In the waning years of the Trump era, however, it was simply a Wednesday.

Musk needs government money to keep his company afloat. Donald Trump needs Republicans to win in November so they can retain power in Congress and stop Democrats from impeaching him. This is the very simple anatomy of how government operates under Trump: give him money and he will help you. Don’t give him money and he will harm you.

The nation’s largest companies are dumping cash into Trump’s various political action committees and helping to fund his ever-increasing portfolio of renovation projects in and around Washington DC. In return, those companies are benefitting from massive government contracts, favorable policy decisions from the Trump administration and the federal agencies it controls, and even Trump’s public pumping of stocks that he himself is invested in.

The line from giving Trump money to receiving favorable treatment from his administration is straight and short, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“If a company encounters an issue with the federal government that comes to Trump’s attention, he will want to know how much money the company gave, according to a person familiar with the matter,” the Journal reported on July 30.

The private sector money flowing into Trump’s vanity projects is also costing taxpayers. His ballroom is funded by hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars as well as private donations. In this way, we’re all forced to fund Trump’s corruption.

A Public Notice-American Doom analysis shows that Trump is spending nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars to fund his many renovation projects. Meanwhile, Trump and his family’s digital currency companies have raked in more than $2.25 billion during Trump’s second term, including as much as $600 million from foreign interests, according to Democrats. 

Trump’s foreign licensing business has also exploded, bringing in $61 million last year alone. Another $50 billion in taxpayer dollars has gone to government contractors who are helping to fund Trump’s ballroom, Sen. Chris Murphy said last month when he took to the Senate floor to detail Trump administration corruption.

But the true cost to taxpayers for Trump’s construction projects — as well as the historic profiting off his presidency — are likely much higher than is currently known.

The values of mining deals tied to Trump family companies in Kazakhstan and North Carolina could be massive, if not entirely known.

Taxpayers are helping to fund a mining operation in North Carolina benefitting a company tied to Donald Trump Jr., thanks to a $1.4 billion loan and contract with the Defense Department. Companies tied to Trump’s sons are also benefitting from roughly $1.6 billion in loans for a Kazakh mining operation that the sons of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are also profiting from.