Rhode Island needs to pass bills to codify the Voting Right Act into RI law

We are at Code Red for Democracy

On May 21st, 2026, the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act Campaign (RI VRA) hosted a lobby day at the State House to promote the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act (H8334/S3143) and its ten amendments. As group leaders in the campaign, and after experiencing actions and lobbying by over 100 people for the passage of the bill, we invite you to join the urgent Code Red for Democracy call.

As community leaders, we are calling on the Rhode Island General Assembly to pass the RI VRA and all 10 amendments before the session ends in June. There is extreme urgency.

Voting rights are being attacked across the country, both at the state and federal levels. The recent United States Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais gutted the federal Voting Rights Act. Action needs to be taken now. Rhode Islanders cannot afford to have their voting rights put at risk. The way to do this is to pass the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act and its ten amendments before the session ends, and implement the bill immediately upon passage.

“Standing inside the Rhode Island State House alongside Common Cause, The Womxn Project, the RI Coalition of Black Women, The Women’s Fund, Clean Water Action, and members of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta and Zeta Phi Beta sororities, lobbying for the codification of the Voting Rights Act into Rhode Island law, was a surreal and sobering moment — because sixty-one years ago, my grandparents already fought and won this battle,” says Shahidah Ali, the Political Action Committee Chair of the RI Coalition of Black Women.

Yet here we are again.

Judgment of history

Trump posts on social media about himself

Insight into the mind of Donald provided by Donald himself...

Ticks already sending more people to the ER in RI

Rhode Island has a tick expert in its own backyard.

RINewsToday News Team

Tick season is not waiting for summer.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says emergency room visits for tick bites are running higher than normal in many parts of the country. In all U.S. regions except the South Central United States, weekly rates of ER visits for tick bites are the highest for this time of year since 2017.

For Rhode Island, the warning is especially relevant. The state remains a high-risk area for Lyme disease and other tickborne illnesses, with cases typically rising during the warmer months. The Rhode Island Department of Health says most Lyme disease cases are reported during the summer, with a peak in July. Washington County consistently has the highest Lyme disease rate in Rhode Island, with a 2024 rate of 723 cases per 100,000 people.

And Rhode Island has one of the country’s best-known tick resources in its own backyard: the University of Rhode Island’s TickEncounter Resource Center.

Led by Dr. Thomas Mather — URI’s “TickGuy” and one of the nation’s foremost tick experts — TickEncounter provides practical, plain-language guidance on tick identification, tick-bite prevention, and what to do after finding a tick. URI’s TickEncounter site also includes tools and videos to help people understand which ticks are active and how to reduce the risk of tickborne disease.

Mather has long emphasized that conditions matter. Ticks do not like dry weather, while damp, shady, leafy areas create more favorable tick habitat. In a URI summer-prevention update, he said Rhode Islanders can often judge tick risk by looking at yard conditions, including whether lawns and surrounding areas are dry or damp.

Ticks are not the only warm-weather pest concern. The National Pest Management Association is also warning that ticks, mosquitoes, ants and stinging insects become increasingly active as summer approaches. Mosquitoes can breed in small amounts of standing water and may transmit illnesses such as West Nile virus and Zika virus. Stinging insects are also a seasonal risk, especially for people with allergies.

The advice is simple, but important: act early, before pest activity peaks.

What to do now

7,000 Local Food Benefit Cards Available for Eligible Seniors

No home delivery anymore due to Trump allowing funding to lapse

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s (DEM) Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) will distribute nearly 7,000 benefit cards to eligible seniors to purchase fresh, RI Grown fruit and vegetables, as well as local honey. The SFMNP benefit cards preloaded with $50 will be distributed from more than fifty senior centers and locations throughout the state starting June 1, 2026, and are valid through November 30. 

Eligible seniors can apply to participate in the SFMNP through their local senior center or other applicable nutrition program, with sign-up locations listed on the SFMNP webpage at www.dem.ri.gov/sfmnp.

The SFMNP helps eligible seniors access fresh, locally grown food, supports Rhode Island farmers, and keeps food assistance dollars in the state. DEM works closely with the Rhode Island Office of Healthy Aging (OHA) to identify communities in need and ensure an equitable distribution across the state. Due to the end of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, there will be no deliveries of produce boxes to homebound seniors this season. 

To provide RI SFMNP benefit access for homebound eligible participants, DEM encourages eligible homebound individuals to complete the application found on the SFMNP webpage and indicate a selected proxy. The proxy can take the completed application to a SFMNP Distribution Location to obtain a SFMNP benefit card and then shop for produce on the participant’s behalf.

Pope Leo XIV compares AI to the Industrial Revolution – as new alternatives to big AI firms take shape

A very different Pope

Nathan Schneider, University of Colorado Boulder

With the release of his encyclical letter Magnifica Humanitas on May 25, 2026, Pope Leo XIV has signaled that he wants the church to respond to artificial intelligence much as a predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, responded to upheavals during the Industrial Revolution over a century ago.

Since the first act of his papacy – choosing his name – the current pope has repeatedly invoked the earlier Leo’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. 

That document, which waded into the political and economic debates of the time, denounced the excesses of the Gilded Age and pointed toward a more just social order. 

Now, Leo XIV has used his first major statement to the world to present a new Rerum Novarum for the age of AI.

Rerum Novarum was more than just a theological text. It helped reshape economic policy around the rights of workers, serving as a spiritual foundation for European social democracy and the 1930s New Deal programs that still undergird economic life for working Americans today. It also spurred a movement of entrepreneurs to transform the economic system from within.

Understanding its influence is key to seeing the potential of Leo XIV’s encyclical.

Revenue for Rhode Islanders Coalition urge General Assembly to tax the rich

They can afford it and it's the right thing to do

Steve Ahlquist

As the Rhode Island House releases the FY2027 state budget, the Revenue for Rhode Islanders Coalition and more than 50 statewide organizations and businesses¹ are calling on legislative leaders to meet this moment with courage and urgency by including meaningful revenue solutions — including the top one percent surtax proposal — in the final budget. On Thursday, they held a rally outside the Rhode Island State House and then went inside to lobby in both chambers.

“We are here to demand that lawmakers tax the rich,” said emcee Alisha Pina, director of Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty. “We are here today because we know Rhode Island needs more revenue. We are here today because most of us are not thriving; we are struggling paycheck to paycheck. We know that tax fairness and more revenue from the 1% will bring in more money that we all need. Rhode Island can take care of itself, and we do that by doing it together. We know that federal cuts will be on the order of $400 million for fiscal year 2028, so the money found a few weeks ago is not enough. What we need is tax fairness, and tax fairness means taxing the top 1% to bring in more money for all of us and to address the inequities we see every day in education, housing, and healthcare.

“We need money for childcare, the unhoused, RIPTA, and healthcare. Every session, we tell our legislators the same thing: It is your moral obligation to help all of us, not just some of us. To think that the budget that’s going to be announced tomorrow may not include any millionaires or 1% tax ... It’s not fair, logical, or good for Rhode Island. We’re here to demand what we need. Listen to your taxpayers. We’re the ones who elect you, and yet you make decisions that are against what we want. That’s why we’re here today.”

“In April 1978, martyr and Saint Óscar Romero wrote, ‘A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed -- what gospel is that?’² The original column was written for an archdiocesan newspaper in response to secular attacks from the Salvadorian oligarchy, corrupt and fraudulent leadership supported by the U.S. government,” said Jeremy Langill, Executive Minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches. “Romero had been accused of being a communist, but like many inspired by liberation theology and the reality that the gospels compelled action, he continued to insist that his care and support for the rights of the poor were a matter of faith.

“But Saint Romero is not the only leader who understood the Christian call to action. Karl Barth, arguably the most preeminent Protestant theologian of the 20th century, wrote that the churches have injured the cause of the gospel by the way they have identified the gospel with the badly planned and ineptly guided cause of the West. Bart, too, was responding to claims that he was a crypto-communist because of his consistent critique of the attempt to identify Christian faith post World War II with the economic and political systems of the United States. His commentary was theological. It was grounded in the gospel. It could not be assimilated into market forces that prioritized profits over people.

“Friends, a marginal tax rate on the top 1% is, to speak simply, a no-brainer. It’s a no-brainer because it does not even get close to addressing the deep structural inequities that drive our dystopian and immoral economic reality. It merely addresses a symptom, the excessive accumulation of wealth by a handful of people. As a minister of the gospel of Christ, I already know what Jesus thinks about wealth. The gospels go straight to the heart of the matter: ‘The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.’ (Matthew 20:16) It is a teaching that comes just after the parable of the workers in the vineyard, where the manager paid every employee equally, regardless of the number of hours they worked.

Great new plan

Surrender!

Senate approves Sen. Gu’s shoreline access education bill

Local fake fire districts who block beach access also need "educating" 

The Senate today approved legislation from Sen. Victoria Gu to educate tenants and short-term rental guests about public shoreline access rights.

“This bill expands upon the work we’ve done to codify shoreline access and educate buyers of shoreline property about the public’s right to access the shore,” said Senator Gu (D-Dist. 38, Westerly, Charlestown, South Kingstown). 

“While a lot of people in Rhode Island are aware of the public’s right to access the shoreline, people coming in from other states to rent or book a short-term rental aren’t necessarily aware of them. This is an important consumer protection and education measure to ensure that people renting ocean front real estate understand the public’s right to access the shoreline.”

Senator Gu sponsored a new law in 2024 that requires similar disclosure to buyers of shoreline property. This bill (2026-S 2734A) would extend this disclosure to tenants of shoreline properties, requiring landlords to provide renters with written shoreline access disclosure before the start of tenancy.

The disclosure would include the public’s rights and privileges to the shore up to 10 feet above the recognizable high tide line, requires the landlord to disclose any known rights of way to the tenant and advise the tenant to contact CRMC to find out if any public rights of way or permits are tied to the property.

Health alert for Worden Pond

RIDOH and DEM Recommend Avoiding Contact with Worden Pond

The Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) and Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) are advising people to avoid contact with Worden Pond in South Kingstown due to harmful algae blooms (HABs).

All recreation, including swimming, fishing, boating and kayaking, is high risk to health and recommended to be avoided at this location. 

This HAB is caused by blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, which are naturally present in bodies of water. HABs can produce toxins which can be harmful to humans and animals. 

Toxins and/or high cell counts have been detected by the RIDOH State Health Laboratory from water samples collected by DEM at several locations.

Use caution in all areas of Worden Pond as HABs can move locations in ponds and lakes. People should not drink untreated water or eat fish from affected waterbodies. Pet owners should not allow pets to drink or swim in this water. This advisory recommendation remains in effect until further notice.

Skin contact with water containing blue-green algae can cause irritation of the skin, nose, eyes, and throat. Symptoms from ingestion of water can include stomachache, diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea. Less common symptoms can include dizziness, headache, fever, liver damage, and nervous system damage. 

Young children and pets are at higher risk for health effects associated with HABs because they are more likely to swallow water when they are in or around bodies of water. People who have had contact with these ponds and experience those symptoms should contact their healthcare provider.

If you or your pet come into contact with an algal bloom (HAB):

They’re Called ‘Super Pollutants’—And Trump’s EPA Wants to Expose You to More of Them

Remember the cancer-causing "Ozone Hole?" Trump wants to bring it back. 

Brett Wilkins for Common Dreams

In a reversal of his past position and what critics are calling yet another betrayal of his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign pledge, US President Donald Trump announced Thursday that his administration is loosening limits on so-called “super pollutant” hydrofluorocarbons used in air conditioners and refrigerators at the expense of the environment and climate.

Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin spun the move as a measure that will “save American families and businesses more than $2.4 billion” by revising “costly overreaching restrictions” imposed during the Biden administration “limiting the type of refrigerants American businesses and families can use.”

“Today, the Trump EPA is fulfilling President Trump’s promise to lower costs and is fixing every problem we can under the authority Congress gave us,” Zeldin said. “Our actions allow businesses to choose the refrigeration systems that work best for them, saving them billions of dollars. This will be felt directly by American families in lower grocery prices.”

Grocery prices have continued to rise during Trump’s second term, driven by the administration’s erratic trade wars and actual war on Iran. Critics of Thursday’s move argue that it will do little to reduce consumer costs, while increasing pollution and health risks for American families.

RFK Jr. brought chaos to US health system

HHS is in chaos and his MAHA movement looks like a spent force.

Noah Berlatsky

Last week, Trump’s Food and Drug Administration just about tore itself apart in a paroxysm of confusion and chaos.

First, Commissioner Dr. Martin Makary resigned. He was replaced by Kyle Diamantis, a crony of Donald Trump Jr. who has no medical qualifications. Makary was soon followed to the exit by administrator Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, an anti-vax crank aligned with the rolling public health disaster that is Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The turmoil at the FDA is a sign of the administration’s deeply unserious and incoherent approach to public health. That is not, obviously, something to celebrate.

Trump’s catastrophically inadequate response to covid helped kill 1.2 million people in the US. In his second term he seems determined to ensure that the US is even more unprepared to face any and every public health crisis than it was in 2020.

At the same time, the instability at US public health agencies underlines the precarity of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, with all its snake-oil, fatphobia, and eugenic woo woo. MAHA never had a solid constituency on the right, and its support appears to have eroded further the longer the nation has stared into Kennedy’s beady, fanatic eyes.

Look what he's done to the White House...Ultimate Fighting cage being erected on White House lawn

South County Rising calendar of PRIDE events