...Provoked an international incident:
Here are other world leaders "begging" Trump for a photo
Sunday, June 21, 2026
Scientists say house cats could help unlock new cancer treatments for humans
Another argument for kitties
University of Guelph
The research, published in Science, is the first
large-scale effort to genetically profile cancers in cats. Researchers believe
the findings could improve understanding of cancer in both animals and humans
while also creating a valuable open resource for future feline cancer studies.
Cancer is one of the leading causes of disease and death in
cats, yet scientists have historically known very little about the genetic
changes driving these illnesses.
"Despite domestic cats being common pets, there was
very little known about the genetics of cancer in these animals," said Dr.
Geoffrey Wood, a professor of pathobiology at the University of Guelph and
co-senior author of the study, "until now."
Cat Tumors Show Strong Genetic Similarities to Human
Cancers
Researchers analyzed tumor samples from nearly 500 domestic
cats collected across five countries. The team investigated the genetic
mutations involved in cancer development and discovered many of the same
cancer-driving genes seen in human and dog cancers.
Among the most important findings were mutations linked to
aggressive mammary cancers in cats.
The gene most frequently altered in feline mammary tumors
was FBXW7, with mutations appearing in more than half of the tumors studied.
In human breast cancer, mutations in FBXW7 are associated
with poorer outcomes, closely matching what researchers observed in cats.
Scientists also identified similarities between feline and
human cancers affecting the blood, bones, lungs, skin, gastrointestinal tract,
and central nervous system.
Because cats often share the same environments as their
owners, researchers believe some cancer risks could stem from common
environmental exposures.
We Were Wrong About Fasting, Massive Study Finds
Interesting new way to look at fasting
By David Nield
But is an impact on cognitive performance really an
inevitable part of the fasting experience?
According to a huge, recently published review, it's not
always the case.
Based on an analysis of 63 scientific articles representing
71 independent studies, and covering a total of 3,484 participants, the review
found that there was no meaningful difference in cognitive performance between
people who were fasting and people who were having
regular meals.
It's a comprehensive counter to the idea that moderate,
short-term restrictions on eating will deplete mental reserves in healthy
people, an idea found everywhere from snack adverts ("you're
not you when you're hungry") to the mantra that breakfast is the most
important meal of the day.
The researchers behind the analysis – psychologist Christoph
Bamberg from Paris Lodron University in Austria, and cognitive neuroscientist
David Moreau from the University of Auckland in New Zealand – don't want people
who could benefit from fasting to be put off by worrying that it'll lead to
foggy thinking.
"For most healthy adults, the findings offer
reassurance," Moreau
explained in a commentary for The Conversation.
"You can explore intermittent fasting or other fasting
protocols without worrying that your mental sharpness will vanish."
RI’s New Budget Considered a Win for Older Adults
Funds services, including Meals on Wheels, that were cut by Trump
By Herb Weiss, contributing writer, aging issues
From RINewsToday |
Rhode Island News, Updated Daily
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According to House Communications Director Larry Berman, the
House floor debate began at 3:35 p.m. on Friday, June 5, and lasted 3 hours and
45 minutes. House lawmakers offered 16 amendments, and 10 were approved
(none of these targeted aging programs and services). At 7:20 p.m., the budget
passed on a vote of 65 to 10, with 64 Democrats and one independent voting in
favor, while all 10 Republicans opposed it.
Greg Paré, Senate Communications Director notes: “On Tuesday, June 9, 2026, the upper chamber debated the House proposal for two hours and 17 minutes, beginning at 4:20 p.m. and concluding at 6:37 p.m. Senators considered 12 amendments, but none were approved. The Fiscal Year 2027 budget passed 32-6 without changes. Senators Samuel W. Bell (D-Dist. 5, Providence) and Leonidas “Lou” Raptakis (D-Dist. 33, East Greenwich and West Greenwich) joined the four Republican Senators in opposing passage of the budget proposal.”
Three days later, Gov. Dan McKee signed the
393-page Rhode Island General Assembly Fiscal year 2027 budget proposal at
10:30 a.m. at Children’s Friend in Providence.
While much of the attention surrounding the Fiscal Year 2027
budget focused on programs and services, lawmakers also approved several
significant policy changes and revenue measures. Chief among them is a new tax
on annual income exceeding $1 million. The phased-in surtax is expected to
generate approximately $142 million annually when fully implemented, providing
additional revenue to help support state services and offset potential
reductions in federal funding.
The state’s budget also creates an independent Office of
Inspector General to strengthen government accountability and oversight. In
addition, the Rhode Island General Assembly approved increased funding for
hospitals, behavioral health and home-care providers, child welfare programs,
public transit, and higher education, while authorizing an audit of the Rhode
Island Department of Transportation.
Saturday, June 20, 2026
RI General Assembly session produced mixed results on the environment
McKee's effort to slash green energy funding rebuffed
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
It was a roller-coaster ride for environmental advocates, who spent most of the session playing defense. Gov. Dan McKee had proposed rolling back the renewable energy standard and slashing solar financing programs and energy efficiency initiatives as part of an affordability agenda to reduce electric and gas bills by any means necessary.
McKee wasn’t the only politician in New England proposing
cuts to such programs. Lawmakers in the Massachusetts House passed a bill in
February cutting $1 billion from their energy efficiency
programs, more commonly known as Mass Save.
But ultimately, in the version of the Rhode Island budget
signed into law by McKee on June 12, most of Rhode Island’s climate programs
will remain intact. The only changes will be to virtual net metering, which
will introduce a voluntary opt-in rate, and reduce the total cap of future
solar projects eligible for the program to just 175 megawatts.
Environmental advocates also notched another set of small
wins in the budget: the director of the state Department of Transportation was
removed as chair of the board of directors for the Rhode Island Public Transit
Authority, and lawmakers allocated the embattled transit agency with enough
funds to close its deficit.
Here’s some of what else lived, died or stalled:
First the big news: building decarbonization lives,
from a certain point of view.
Previous sessions saw lawmakers attempt to pass a single
bill that would require buildings in Rhode Island to track, benchmark, and
reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. That single bill always died in
committee, so this year advocates tried a more traditional tack, the
tried-and-true General Assembly two-step.
They spun off the more unpopular elements of building
benchmarking — the emission mandates — from the main bill that pushes large
buildings owners to start tracking emissions. Advocates acknowledged just
starting a benchmarking program for all buildings in the state would require
years of lead time to draw up regulations and spur adoption.
The two-step worked, and lawmakers passed H7813/S2260 in concurrence Thursday night. Starting in 2028,
property owners with buildings larger than 50,000 square feet will have to
track and report their emissions for the previous year. Buildings larger than
25,000 square feet start tracking in 2030.
Trump gave the NO-BID contract to his own personal pool guy and this is what we got...
Here's the guy who got the contract:
The scent of supper
Can mosquitoes learn to love DEET?
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But research published
yesterday in the Journal of Experimental Biology suggests that
mosquitoes may learn to associate the smell of DEET with dinner—and start
gravitating toward it instead of away from it. The findings challenge long-held
assumptions about how DEET works and what mosquitoes may be capable of
learning.
Training changed how mosquitoes react to DEET
For the study, researchers from the University of Tours in
France and Virginia Tech examined whether female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes,
the species that spreads dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and chikungunya, could
learn to associate DEET with a food reward.
The team used a form of Pavlovian conditioning in which
mosquitoes feed on warm blood through an artificial membrane. Twenty seconds
into their meal, the researchers released DEET into the feeding enclosure—a
process they repeated three more times before exposing the mosquitos to DEET
but no food reward.
When the trained mosquitos caught a whiff of DEET alone, more than 60% of them tried to feed again, displaying what researchers termed a “biting attempt response” (BAR). That’s compared with roughly 20% of untrained mosquitoes who performed BAR when exposed to DEET alone.
In another experiment, mosquitoes were given a choice
between two human hands. One hand was treated with DEET, and one was untreated.
All of the untrained mosquitoes avoided the DEET-treated hand. Trained
mosquitoes, however, were significantly more likely to orient toward the
treated hand.
McKee signs charter school moratorium bills, reversing his career-long commitment
Gov flip-flops on what used to be his signature issue
By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current
 |
| Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current |
“The circumstances have changed,” McKee told reporters Thursday.
Back in 2021, McKee suggested he’d veto a similar, albeit unsuccessful, piece of legislation. Part of the bedrock in the governor’s political brand had been his push for the creation of mayoral academies — a special kind of public charter school — during his time as the mayor of Cumberland in the late 2000s.
“I haven’t backed off, like, say, ‘Oh, let’s put charters out of business.’ I haven’t said that,” McKee told reporters after an unrelated afternoon appearance at a Law Day essay contest award ceremony for high schoolers at Rhode Island Supreme Court. “I said, ‘Let’s support the charters.’ And I’ve done that more than once.”
But much has changed in the five years since McKee took office, he told reporters.
BREAKING NEWS from Ted Nesi, WPRI:
NO endorsement for McKee from RI Democratic
Party. Highly unusual for an incumbent.
Those circumstances include enrollment declines in public schools — about 10,000 students in all, in the time he’s been governor, McKee said — and a pressing need to reassess how the state funds education via a formula for determining state aid to local school districts.
Trump finds new way to hurt immigrants and their families
The ICE-ification of Financial Regulation: steal their savings, especially the money they planned to send to their families at home
by Philip
Mattera, director of the Corporate
Research Project of Good Jobs First for the
Now the Trump Administration is starting to enlist banks in
a more questionable form of information gathering involving the immigration
status of their customers. For months, there have been reports that the
administration is planning to require banks to determine whether customers are
U.S. citizens.
That has not yet happened, but a recent executive
order from the White House takes a step in that direction by advising
banks to “be attentive to the credit risks posed by the extension of mortgage
and auto loans, credit cards, and other consumer credit to the inadmissible and
removable alien population.” The order calls on the Treasury Department
and financial regulators such as the Fed and the FDIC to develop changes to the
Bank Secrecy Act to address this supposed risk.
This sounds like a prelude to more explicit rules that would
bar banks from doing business with undocumented immigrants.
Friday, June 19, 2026
A masterclass in incompetence at home and abroad
Stupid at all levels in all things great or small
Last week my neighbors brought me an envelope with a “MAGA priorities survey” enclosed. A solicitation for money disguised as a survey, it opened with a four-page cover letter from Trump.
The survey drills down on ‘Biden’s sky-high mortgage rates,’ and ‘reckless spending binge’ even though we’re now 1.5 years into Trump 2.0.
It blames Biden for ‘today’s affordability squeeze,’ despite Trump’s economically
unhinged tariffs and $94
billion war in Iran. Trump, who still thinks exporters
pay tariffs, single handedly turbo-charged the
price of energy, and tanked consumer confidence at the same time, all while
demanding that Americans disbelieve their lyin’ eyes.
Trump’s cover letter begins, “Dear America First Patriot, I
put THREE LIVE POSTAGE STAMPS (all caps) on the enclosed Rush Return Envelope
because I had to get your immediate attention… And because I need you to
respond to me right away!” Four pages later, Trump urges True Patriots to make
a True Patriotic donation of $2,026…. Or even just $47, by rushing back
the MAGA survey using the enclosed TRIPLE-STAMPED Rush Return Envelope TODAY. (Combining
all caps with bold, a triple-dog-dare-you maneuver
that conveys urgency.)
The kicker is that the “triple stamped rush envelope” was
the pre-marked, pre-paid, “No postage necessary if mailed in the United States”
kind. Adding extra postage stamps to a prepaid postage envelope, according to
the USPS, means
Trump just wasted money (USPS bold, not mine). Trump, in one
mailing, spent extra on an agency he accuses of waste,
demonstrated his fiscal illiteracy, and declared his donors stupid. Another
masterclass in Trump’s trifecta
of incompetence.
Monday Charlestown Town Council meeting loaded with big issues
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Coal pollution is cutting solar power output, study finds
Will Trump look for ways to use coal to kill wind turbines?
University of Oxford
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| Trump's 2-for-1 obsession: promote coal, kill green energy |
The new study mapped and assessed more than 140,000 solar PV installations worldwide using satellite data.
By combining this with atmospheric data on air pollution, the researchers calculated how much sunlight is lost and how this reduces electricity generation. They found that aerosols - tiny particles suspended in the air - reduced global solar electricity output by 5.8% in 2023. This is equivalent to 111 terawatt-hours (TWh) of lost energy – the amount generated by 18 medium-sized coal-fired power plants.
Crucially, these losses represent a significant and often overlooked constraint on the clean energy transition.
MAHA’s Treatments for Autism: Camel’s Milk, Stem Cell Injections — And Spelling Therapy
Kennedy turning health science inside out
“All nonspeakers above the age of 5 should be given the opportunity,” typed Bonker, who is 28 and cannot talk. Her mother, Virginia Breen, held a wireless keyboard for her. They sat on a hotel patio before an April 27 meeting with a senior aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“We are misunderstood and underestimated,” Bonker typed, occasionally humming or lightly groaning as she considered where to place a slender forefinger on the keyboard.
Assisted spelling is used to help nonverbal people communicate by pointing to letters on boards or using keyboards with physical help from another person.
Supporters say assisted spelling has improved the lives of thousands of people with autism, such as Bonker, and they have powerful allies. Kennedy appointed Bonker and another autistic “speller,” as they call themselves, to a 20-member autism panel made up largely of parents with children whose autism they attribute to vaccinations.
At the reconfigured panel’s first public session on April 28, three other members said their nonspeaking adult children were learning to communicate through spelling. The panel issued a resolution with language from Bonker stating that “robust” communications programs are essential for autistic people. Bonker has urged the Department of Health and Human Services to support training in assisted spelling for those who want it.
But leading professional groups for autism science, as well as those representing psychologists and speech pathologists, point to research showing that these methods — premised on the idea that people with autism have the normal range of cognitive powers but are imprisoned in malfunctioning bodies — are flawed or fraudulent.
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