Poison ivy pointers

If only there was a market for poison ivy

Kristen Curry 

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

Nuance

Election years aren’t a great time for 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.

Trump’s View of Everything in the World

Vassals, Mooches, and Thugs (oh my)

Robert Reich

Trump says he directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” military drills with South Korea, citing his “very good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un” — whom he calls “unthreatening and respectful.”

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.

We're not ready

I shudder to think

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

Dreams are not random mental noise. A large study of more than 3,700 dream and waking reports found that what we experience during sleep is shaped by both our personalities and the world around us. Rather than simply replaying daily events, the dreaming brain mixes memories, emotions, imagined possibilities, and familiar settings into vivid new scenarios.

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.

Thank you, Bobby

 

Biden Family Grift vs. Trump Family Grift: Let’s Do the Numbers

It's not even close

Dean Baker in Beat the Press   

Most people recognize that Donald Trump and his kids are stealing from us with both hands every day. But they are not as outraged as they should be because most have the view that everyone does it. While I will never defend the Democrats as paragons of honesty (what the hell are those crypto contributions?), they are not in the same ballpark as Trump and his crew.

Part of the confusion stems from the media’s refusal to ever put big numbers in context. They all know that the vast majority of their audience is not clear on the distinction between millions, billions, and trillions, and have no idea how large the federal budget is, but they refuse to take the ten seconds and ten words that would be needed to give readers a clearer sense of what is at stake.

The other source of confusion is that the Republicans spent four years endlessly hyping the “Biden crime family.” They used Congressional hearings, as well as thousands of appearances on TV news, shows to yell (often literally) about Biden family corruption.

And it’s clear it was not zero. Hunter Biden, while struggling with drug addiction, openly traded on his family name to land a well-paying perch with a Ukrainian energy company. He also managed to sell his artwork, which is not obviously of great value, for $50K a painting.

Joe’s younger brother James also seems to have traded on the family name, but the sums involved appear to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and mostly during the years 2017-2019, when Joe Biden was not even in public office.

It is a bad practice for family members to profit from their ties to a vice-president or president, but there is zero evidence that Joe Biden ever did anything to directly benefit his son or brothers in their business dealings. We can be pretty certain of this fact because Republicans in Congress and the White House, both in Trump’s first term and his current term, have left no stone unturned in trying to show Biden’s corruption. (Trump’s first impeachment was over his effort to extort Ukraine’s president to lie about Biden’s corruption.)

While it is difficult to get clear numbers on the extent of the corruption of Trump and his family in his current term, since they disclose as little as possible, and no one can accept what they do disclose at face value, we can try to put some numbers on it. At the very least, it should be totally clear that Trump’s corruption, by any measure, is in a totally different universe from even the worst imaginable story that can be told about Joe Biden and his family.

The list below is far from exhaustive. We will probably not know all the ways that Trump put money into his and his family’s pockets until long after his presidency, and maybe not even then. But this should be a good start.

FEMA Downsizing Exacerbates Longstanding Problems, Imperils Disaster Response, Federal Watchdog Says

Hope we get lucky and no major storm makes landfall

By Amy Green, Kate Waxman

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 widespread downsizing of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the second Trump administration has exacerbated longstanding workforce challenges there and imperiled its response to disasters, a congressional watchdog warns. 

More than 4,300 employees resigned or were let go from the agency last fiscal year, representing some 17 percent of its workforce, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent nonpartisan federal agency. A hiring freeze also began in January 2025 and was in effect until this past May.

The reductions have resulted in a loss of institutional knowledge and experienced personnel and were not conducted based on any analysis of the workforce or forecasted needs, the report said. Meanwhile FEMA also rescinded its strategic plan, leaving the federal agency with no direction when it comes to workforce planning. 

FEMA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

The GAO raised concerns about the changes at a time when disasters are intensifying and growing more frequent as the global climate warms. For instance, the double-blow of hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024, which affected the Southeast within two weeks of one another, prompted the deployment of some 13,500 FEMA employees, the largest in the agency’s history. The effort included workers from outside the affected region and those who were not fully trained for the situation.

Your move, Canada

Canada considers re-naming its Welland Canal:

 

Need a ride to vote?

In the Sept. 9 Democratic Primary, vote to re-elect Rep. Tina Spears

NEWS FROM THE RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN FOR TINA SPEARS AUGUST 2026 Common Sense. Common Good. Conserving the Ocean State. As your Representative, I’ve worked to protect our coastline, forests, parks, and clean water through smart investments and commonsense policies, ensuring Rhode Island remains a place future generations are proud to call home.   Promises made. Promises kept. Delivered $53 million to protect forests, parks, farmland, clean water, and our coastline. ​Protected public shoreline access and the Charlestown Breachway ​Invested in healthy forests, wildlife habitat, and climate resilience. ​Passed landmark protections against PFAs (“forever chemicals”) to protect drinking water and public health. ​Reduced harmful toxins by banning dangerous rodenticides that threaten wildlife. ​Advanced conservation efforts to preserve open space, forests, and farmland. ​Led the effort to establish a Bottle Bill implementation study to develop solutions that reduce litter, increase recycling, and keep bottles and cans out of our waterways and neighborhoods.   What’s next I will continue supporting practical environmental solutions that protect our communities, strengthen resilience, and preserve the character of Southern Rhode Island. Get your yard sign! Contact Tina at tina@tinaspearsri.com or call Kathleen 401 439 4469 to get yours! If you'd like to donate to Tina's re-eelction campaign, please make personal checks payable to: The Friends of Tina Spears 82 Hillside Drive Charlestown, RI 02813   Or click HERE to contribute online or scan the QR code Want to volunteer on Tina's re-election campaign? Contact us here. We have lots of fun and we'll keep Tina in the State House! Get our latest updates! Add your email... Subscribe State law prohibits the acceptance of any corporate or business checks. Only individuals and RI registered PACs may contribute. RI law requires contributors to note place of employment. Contributions are limited to $2,000 per person per calendar year, and are not tax-deductible. Visit our social accounts tinaspearsri.com