“At this point, Trump’s economic policy is starting to look less like governing and more like Publishers Clearing House with a campaign logo.”

Trump promises yet another check, this time a $90 Medicare check

Stephen Prager for Common Dreams

With the midterm elections just weeks away, Donald Trump announced that more than 20 million Medicare Part B beneficiaries will receive a one-time $90 payment this month.

Trump, who declared on Truth Social that his administration would send out “checks,” said the money will come from the $2 billion Medicare Improvement Fund and is expected to appear in seniors’ bank accounts around October 8.

The $90 payment is not even enough to cover half of the standard monthly Medicare Part B premium payment, which is about $202. But Trump described the comparatively small payment as proof that Americans could trust his promise of a much heftier windfall if Republicans prevail in next month’s elections.

“Because I delivered on this very important issue for the American people, they can also rest assured the highly popular $5,000 Trump Dividend will be distributed to every U.S. Citizen if, and when, the Republicans win the Midterm Elections!” Trump said.

Americans have reason to be skeptical that they will ever see such a payout. Although roughly 1 million unsubsidized Affordable Care Act enrollees are currently receiving $500 payments, Trump has on several other occasions floated or promised Americans larger sums of free money that never materialized.

In February 2025, he proposed $5,000 “DOGE dividend” checks for Americans, purportedly funded by savings generated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, but the payments were never authorized by the GOP-controlled Congress.

That November, he promised that most Americans would receive tariff payments of “at least $2,000 a person,” but Congress has still not authorized them nearly a year later.

In Zuckerberg we trust

Tim Walz was right - these people are weird

Westerly Conservation Association Repairing Quonochontaug Sand Trail

Also trying to stop environmental vandalism

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

The Nope's Island Conservation Association says its decreased
off-road drivers on the Quonochontaug Beach by about 90%.
(Rob Smith/ecoRI News)

Longtime users of the Quonochontaug Sand Trail will notice some new changes for this year’s off-season.

The 1.6-mile, off-road trail now contains several pull-off areas, where vehicles can pass one another, and plenty of wood fencing tied together with hemp rope to block further passage onto Quonochontaug Barrier Beach.

Bottom of Form

For the Nope’s Island Conservation Association, the organization that spearheaded the changes and manages almost all of the barrier beach, it’s about protecting the sand dunes and vital bird habitat from washing away due to human misuse.

“We’ve got the bad drivers down about 90%,” Michael Sands, an association member, said on a recent tour of the sand trail’s new biodegradable infrastructure. “The next 10%, that was always going to be the hardest to deter.”

In the decades since Hurricane Carol, much of Quonochontaug’s barrier beach has washed away, blown into the ocean, or blown into Quonochontaug Pond just behind the barrier beach. The eastern section of the beach, about a third of the way down the sand trail, is in the worst shape. That section of the beach is flatter and thinner around the pond, and it has the least amount of dunegrass.

Drivers down the sand trail will notice this year 6-inch wood slats planted in the ground. It’s a form of biomimicry to hold the sand and rebuild the dunes, according to Sands, who said the conservation association took the idea from one of the beaches in Truro on Cape Cod.

Quonochontaug’s barrier beach is one of the state’s most isolated and unique coastal ecosystems. The beach makes a nearly complete barrier between Quonochontaug Pond and the open ocean, not including the breachway connecting the two.

Good news: Your cat probably won't give you Giardia

Really long odds against getting zombie parasite

Sarah Boden

Joey would never hurt you.
Photo by Will Collette

There's a lot of gross stuff that you might get from your cat. But Giardia probably isn't one of them.

Only 1.2% of fecal samples from cats were found to be positive for a form of the microscopic parasite that's potentially harmful to humans, according to a study published this week in PLOS One. 

Stool was collected from 157,616 cats in the United States and Canada. About 6% had any genotype of Giardia duodenalis. However, only about one in five of those positive samples carried genetic assemblages A or B, which can infect a range of host species, including humans. 

In both cats and people, a Giardia infection can be subclinical, or asymptomatic. But it can cause a host of issues in people, including diarrhea, nausea, dehydration, hives, and swollen joints. 

To avoid getting the parasite from your cat, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises regularly cleaning its litterbox and keeping its fur clean of poop. Also, ideally, cats are kept indoors.

Midwest cats most likely to have Giardia

The study found that male cats and cats one-year-old or older that had not been spayed or neutered (intact) were more likely to have any form of Giardia. 

‘Nature-Based’ Solutions Could Save Insurers and Policyholders Billions

Wetlands restoration and wildfire prevention can drive down insurers’ costs and skyrocketing premiums

By Emmett Gartner

Photo by Will Collette

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.

After years trudging through marshes around San Francisco Bay studying conservation practices, coastal ecologist Megan Kelso realized that one of the largest determinants of wetland health may not be an invasive species lurking with her among the sea grasses, but decisions made miles away in the executive suites of insurance companies. 

Wetlands absorb massive volumes of carbon and are vital to combating climate change, Kelso said, and she saw her early field work as the most effective way to keep them healthy.

It wasn’t until she started working alongside Mike Beck, director of University of California Santa Cruz’s coastal resilience program, and was offered a grant to research how insurance can promote similar habitat restoration projects, that she had her “aha” moment. 

“I was thinking, maybe there’s a way to align this huge sector of insurance with nature and conservation in a way that could have a bigger impact than what I was doing before,” Kelso said.

Now her research is the basis of a new study published in the science journal Nature by Kelso and five co-authors that outlines what these “nature-based” insurance policies would look like and how they could benefit both insurance companies and policyholders in the long run.

“It could be tens of billions of dollars going towards nature-based projects that reduce your risk,” Kelso told Inside Climate News. “It’s this big lever that hasn’t really been fully utilized yet.”

Gawdawful candidates are hurting the GOP’s hopes of holding power.

The GOP’s parade of horribles

Paul Waldman

In Rhode Island, our top terrible Republican is
Floridian Vic Mellor. Proud MAGA, part of the
January 6 storming of the US Capitol building and
a REGISTERED AGENT of the Government of Cuba.
Seriously. He's campaigning against US Rep. Seth
Magaziner.

Any list of the worst candidates running for office in 2026 would have to start with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Utterly lacking in charisma, Paxton is a flaccid campaigner with a stunning history of corruption whose greatest professional achievement may be staying out of jail. With just weeks to go before the election, a series of embarrassing stories has dogged him, the latest of which is the emergence of a video of him partying in Dubai with his mistress and a couple of fugitives from American justice.

Paxton only defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary because of President Trump’s support — yet Trump can barely speak his name without saying that Paxton is inarticulate, ugly, and a terrible dresser.

The answer to the obvious question — how could someone as unappealing as Paxton get as far in politics as he has? — lies in the internal dynamics of today’s Republican Party.

But the GOP’s problem goes far beyond Paxton. They are confronting a political emergency in this year’s midterms, and doing it with an absolutely stunning collection of lemons, lunkheads, and losers.

From a risky election to a potential catastrophe

Rhode Islanders protest against Mellor. Photo by Steve Ahlquist

At the start of 2026, the idea that Democrats would have had even the tiniest chance of taking back the Senate in the midterm elections was almost absurd.

Needing a net gain of four seats to take control, Democrats have to defend two seats in states Donald Trump won in 2024 (Michigan and Georgia), plus another five seats Kamala Harris won by single digits. Meanwhile, Republicans have to defend only one seat in a state Harris won (Maine), and one in a state Trump won by double digits.

The opposition party always does well in midterms, but in order to take the Senate, Democrats will have to nearly run the table, winning every close race — an extremely tall order.

Yet today, it appears more likely than not that they will do just that.

FiftyPlusOne puts the odds of a Democratic takeover at 72 percent, while the Cook Political Report rates six Republican-held seats as Toss-Ups and one (North Carolina) as Likely Democratic; just one Democratic-held seat (Michigan) is in the Toss-Up category.

The most important reason Republicans are in this position is, of course, Donald Trump. But in race after race, Republicans would be in a far better position if their candidates weren’t so poor.

Paxton is the most obvious, but it’s happening all over the country. A brief tour:

The countdown begins

Ukraine defends the US from Russian election interference

 And this is how Trump retaliates

And there's a lot of truth to this:

Measles is a grown-up problem, too.

Are you at risk?

Jess Steier, DrPh

On a recent rainy day, my kids and I were running through our list of rainy-day activities when laser tag came up. Then they asked, "Mama, will you play with us?" 

Huh? Laser tag is a kids' activity (or so I thought). I called the place to ask, and it turns out adults are allowed and it's apparently very popular with them. I had no clue, because every laser tag invitation that has ever come through my house had a cartoon on it and a request to RSVP for an 8-year-old’s party. It hadn't occurred to me that it was an option for me.

Measles has a similar problem. Nearly everything the public hears about it involves children, whether it's the childhood schedule, kindergarten vaccination rates, school exclusions, or babies who are too young for their first dose. Much of the media attention on Pennsylvania's outbreak has centered on the two infants who died in August. That attention is warranted, since those deaths are tragic, babies don't typically get their first measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine dose until 12 months, and children under 5 are hospitalized at some of the highest rates of any age-group. 

When children are the only people we picture with measles, though, adults process it the same way I did laser tag, as something that isn't meant for them, and this year's data show otherwise. 

4 in 10 US measles cases this year are in adults

According to CDC's latest data, 38% of confirmed measles cases in 2026 (1,305 of 3,471) are in people 20 and older, up from 29% in 2025. Adults are being hospitalized at a rate of 12%, about the same as children under 5 years (13%) and three times the rate for school-aged kids and teens (4%). They account for 156 of this year's 301 measles hospitalizations, or just over half. In Pennsylvania, the hardest-hit state, the share is even higher. About seven in 10 cases this year are in people 18 and older, and the largest single age-group is 25 to 49. 

Food Safety Finds a Place Among ‘Kitchen-Table’ Political Issues

The political consequences of endangering millions

By Stephanie Armour

The run-up to the midterm elections is turning into a food fight — literally.

The summer was marred by a massive foodborne outbreak that sickened scores of people and the recall of tens of thousands of pounds of imported meat, turning the safety of the U.S. food supply into a topic of national conversation and a political cause.

Late-night talk show hosts joked about symptoms that included explosive diarrhea. As a precaution, chain restaurants such as Chipotle and Taco Bell yanked lettuce, jalapeños, and other suspected products from menus. Some food safety scientists blamed the outbreaks on federal cuts to public health.

These dynamics collectively have raised questions about whether it’s safe to order a salad or burger.

Democrats have come out on the offensive, saying voters worried about the safety of the U.S. food supply should oust Republicans in the midterm elections. The Trump administration has countered by accusing Democrats of scaremongering over food safety to score political points.

The political fracas reflects the toll that large-scale outbreaks have had on the public psyche. Midterm voters have long cared about pocketbook issues such as grocery prices, but the spate of recalls has them worried about whether the food they’re buying is safe to eat — and political leaders are paying attention.

The outbreak linked to cyclospora in lettuce led to almost 20,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of illness from May through August, compared with 1,180 cases during the same span in 2025, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That makes it the largest recorded outbreak of the parasite.

Federal auditors say Trump Illegally Withheld Lifesaving Health Research Funds

US Government Accountability Office finds Trump illegally diverted health research money

Jake Johnson for Common Dreams

An independent federal watchdog concluded on Wednesday that the Trump administration violated the law last year when it refused to spend $78 million that Congress appropriated to support lifesaving healthcare research.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said that the US Department of Health and Human Services, headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., violated the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 by withholding grant funds as the administration worked to gut the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Researchers and advocacy organizations say the grant freeze has derailed key patient safety research.

In response to the GAO’s finding, the congressional Democrats who called for the investigation said that the report “confirms what we have known for over a year: Donald Trump is stealing taxpayers’ dollars that Congress set aside to improve Americans’ health.”

The American mood is turning dark, and Republicans are likely to pay the price at the midterms

How bad with the midterms be for Trump?

Bruce Wolpe, University of Sydney

For the White House, the midterm elections are always agony. They are always a referendum on the president.

On October 12, 2010, I was serving on the Democratic staff of the US House of Representatives. It was just two years after Barack Obama’s historic presidential election victory. His majority in the House was 39 seats. I took a scan of the House races in the upcoming midterm elections. There were at least 86 vulnerable Democratic seats in play. My best estimate, that day, was that we would lose 54 seats, leaving the Democrats at least 15 short of a majority. It was clear all was lost.

In every Democratic office, the staff discussed with their representatives the catastrophe on the horizon. Republicans in the House are having that discussion right now.

Obama was routed with a 64-seat loss in the House that November. But the surprise was the Democrats retained control of the Senate, 53-47 seats, which is exactly what the Republicans hold today.

A replay of that scenario from 16 years ago would be but a modest catastrophe for President Donald Trump. He would still be dominant in Washington, exercising his immense executive power and keeping his hold on the Senate.

But that is not how expert political analysts are seeing the outcome of this election less than a month out from polling day. Charlie Cook, the founder of the Cook Political Report, is one of the most cautious. He projects the Democrats will take at least five to 15 seats and win control of the House. The Senate is more up in the air, where the Democrats need a net gain of at least four seats.

If Trump loses control of the Senate, it means his appointments – judges, cabinet officers, ambassadors – will not pass without Democrat support. All his legislative initiatives would have to be acceptable to Democrats.

The Democrats could also pass bill after bill on key issues such as affordability, inflation, energy prices and health care, and send them to the president’s desk, where Trump would likely veto them. There could be joint House-Senate investigations into Trump’s finances and exercise of power.

And all this activity will set the stage for the 2028 presidential campaign.

They're counting on their base

Truth and honesty