American shame

Is Donald Trump ever going to acknowledge the massive loss of life in Puerto Rico?

By Hayley Miller

These paper towels are SUPER absorbent

It’s been nearly 11 months since Hurricane Maria terrorized Puerto Rico, decimating the island’s farmlands, power grid and homes ― and likely claiming hundreds and hundreds of lives in its wake.

Independent investigations conducted separately by The New York Times, Penn State University and Harvard University estimated Maria’s death toll could be in the thousands.

The official death count has remained at 64, though Puerto Rican officials quietly conceded this week in a report to Congress that over 1,427 deaths may be directly or indirectly linked to the historic storm.

In the months since Maria, President Donald Trump has been remarkably silent about Puerto Rico’s struggle to recover. Trump, a notoriously prolific tweeter, hasn’t mentioned the hurricane on social media since November, and he hasn’t visited Puerto Rico since October.

The only time Trump publicly addressed the death toll was during his only post-Maria visit to the island, in which he suggested Puerto Ricans were lucky Maria wasn’t a “real catastrophe” like Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which left over 1,800 dead.

It's the economy, stupid!

August 25 - Community Resource Fair

Join us on Saturday, August 25th! Come meet over 10+ community agencies to learn more about the services they offer! Visit all of our Community Partners & receive FREE LED light bulbs! 

Community Resource Fair will be from 10am-2pm at the South County Habitat for Humanity Operations Center - 1555 Shannock Rd., Charlestown RI! 

Meet the Community Partners:

URI to host open house at its three farms in Kingston, Aug. 25

Event highlights research, education on animals, gardening, crops, more

Todd McLeish

Donkeys, Sheep, and pigs will be on display at URI's Peckham Farm
during the University's Farm Open House on Aug. 25. Photo by Nora Lewis.

The University of Rhode Island’s Cooperative Extension will host an open house at its three farms in Kingston, providing visitors with an opportunity to learn about its research and education efforts related to farm animals, gardening, crops and many other topics. 

The free event runs from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 25.

“We’ve got interesting things happening on all of our farms, and we’re eager to showcase them to the public,” said Deborah Sheely, associate director of URI Cooperative Extension and associate dean of the URI College of the Environment and Life Sciences. 

“We’re fortunate to have the farms near campus and look forward to letting the public get a peek at the research, teaching and outreach that goes on there.”

The three farms – Peckham Farm on Route 138 across from the URI athletic complex, East Farm on Route 108, and the Agronomy Farm (also called the Gardner Crops Research Station) on Plains Road – will each offer children’s activities, educational displays, tours and more.

Happy 83rd Birthday, Social Security

Live long and prosper

By Michele Evermore

On August 14, 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law one of the most effective federal programs in our nation’s history.

For the better part of a century, Social Security has successfully prevented tens of millions of seniors, people with disabilities, and their dependents and survivors from falling into poverty.

This program remains a vital core benefit, with a solid track record of keeping misfortune and income loss from becoming a disaster for millions of Americans.

Social Security is on track to pay full benefits until 2034; and if rational, progressive measures are taken to ensure the program’s adequate funding before then, it will continue to do so thereafter. And we shouldn’t wait.

Now is the time to strengthen Social Security, secure its long-term stability, and expand its benefits in ways that address the inequities that still exist both inside and outside the program.

First breakfast, then the treadmill

Eating breakfast burns more carbs during exercise and accelerates metabolism for next meal

University of Bath

Eating breakfast before exercise may "prime" the body to burn carbohydrates during exercise and more rapidly digest food after working out, University of Bath researchers have found.

Scientists from the University's Department for Health, working with colleagues at the universities of Birmingham, Newcastle and Stirling, were studying the effect of eating breakfast versus fasting overnight before an hour's cycling. In a control test breakfast was followed by three hours' rest. 

The volunteers ate a breakfast of porridge made with milk two hours before exercise.

Post exercise or rest, the researchers tested the blood glucose levels and muscle glycogen levels of the 12 healthy male volunteers who took part.

They discovered that eating breakfast increased the rate at which the body burned carbohydrates during exercise, as well as increasing the rate the body digested and metabolised food eaten after exercise too.

McKee doesn’t keep promise on dirty money

Regunberg blasts McKee over unkept promise to return tainted campaign contributions

UpriseRI

“Dan McKee misled Rhode Island voters. Not only did McKee accept thousands from a man whose OxyContin empire is responsible for the destruction of countless lives in our state, but when caught, he pledged to return the money within weeks – and he has not.

“Apparently this was a pledge he had no intention of following through on. This deception is an insult to all Rhode Islanders, and it’s particularly offensive to all the families whose lives have been touched by the opioid crisis.

“I repeat my call once more: Dan McKee, it does not take months to pick a charity. Prove you know the difference between right and wrong and donate these corrupt contributions today.” 
- Aaron Regunberg, Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor

Campaign finance reports filed Wednesday by McKee show that he has not fulfilled his promise to donate thousands of dollars in tainted campaign contributions from Jonathan Sackler of Purdue Pharmaceuticals.

Sackler, who made his fortune from the manufacture of OxyContin – a key driver of the state’s opioid crisis – has contributed multiple times to McKee. In 2014, Sackler contributed $20,000 to a Super PAC supporting Dan McKee’s campaign. In subsequent years Sackler and his wife gave McKee an additional $4,000 in direct campaign contributions.

Her plan: "Trust me"

Gov. Raimondo's Second-Term Energy Plan Lacks Specifics About Mitigating Climate Change

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo pledges to beef up her environmental initiatives if she’s elected to a second term.

During an Aug. 7 press event at the downtown Providence headquarters of Deepwater Wind, Raimondo spoke about growing jobs and manufacturing in the offshore wind industry. But she also promised to “pursue” binding and enforceable reductions in carbon emissions.

Raimondo’s Vision for Rhode Island’s Clean Energy Future doesn’t offer specifics on emission targets or how they will be imposed.

ecoRI News wasn’t invited to the press event, but in a story by Rhode Island Public Radio, Raimondo said the state’s use of renewable energy was less than 5 percent when she took office and is on its way to 40 percent by 2020.

Raimondo’s media team was unable to provide a full explanation of the numbers, but achieving 40 percent will likely be wiped out if the nearly 1,000-megawatt fossil-fuel power plant proposed for Burrillville is built by its target date of 2022.

VIDEO with 30 years of Trump racist remarks

 To watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkBBNU8c-xU

Is Donald Trump racist?

What happened to the shearwaters?

Seabird Die-Off Remains Mystery Year Later

By TODD McLEISH/ecoRI News contributor

Aboard the University of Rhode Island research ship Endeavor during the first days of August, seabirds were abundant in the waters between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard. 

The birds weren’t the focus of the trip — it was about providing local teachers with an opportunity to get hands-on science experience through the Rhode Island Teacher-At-Sea Program — but the birds couldn’t be ignored. They were constantly in view.

Most were shearwaters, long-winged birds that skim the surface of the waves as they search for marine organisms on which to feed. 

Last year at this time, however, many were unexpectedly dying and washing up on beaches throughout southern New England and Long Island, N.Y.

The population appears to be healthy this year, but scientists haven’t yet figured out the cause of last year’s die-off.

Poisoning for profit

Civil court victory, but shouldn’t there be criminal charges?

By Jill Richardson

The first thing I heard about glyphosate — the active ingredient in the popular weed killer Roundup — was that it was non-toxic. Whatever you wanted to say about other pesticides, many of which are poisonous to humans, glyphosate was safe.

It’s not controversial to claim that some pesticides are toxic to humans. After all, they were created to kill plants, insects, and other living things. Some pesticides are so reliably toxic that people have used them to commit suicide. Others may cause cancer or other diseases if you’re exposed to them over time.

But glyphosate? There was nothing to say against it. It did its job, killing any plant it came into contact with, and then it broke down into harmless byproducts quickly. That was it.

A new court ruling calls this understanding of glyphosate’s “safety” into question.

Did you see this on Channel 10?

Acting EPA head spreads misinformation on fuel efficiency standards in ‘must run’ Sinclair segment
By Mark Hand

EDITOR’S NOTE: WJAR, Channel 10 TV, is owned by Sinclair Broadcast and is one of the station’s required to run false and misleading propaganda features such as the one described in this article. This has spawned a local boycott movement, Turn Off 10, featured in UpriseRI. CLICK HERE for more.  – Will Collette

Acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler, in one of his first television interviews, championed the Trump administration’s widely criticized efforts to roll back Obama-era auto fuel efficiency and emissions standards.

In an interview with the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group, Wheeler said the EPA believes that freezing auto standards for five years “will save over 1,000 lives a year.” 

The acting administrator also claimed the American consumer will save $500 billion over the course of the regulation.

Recent research, however, has found that strengthening auto fuel efficiency and emissions standards can actually improve road safety and save lives, media watchdog group Media Matters for America noted.

There will be blood

How Putin Is Controlling His ‘Useful Idiot’ Trump and the Republican Party

By Thomas Clay 

Three days after the election, I said that the election was a Coup D’etat, and I am more certain than ever that that’s what it was. It was orchestrated by that genius Vladimir Putin.

To know the player, you have to know the man. 

Putin has been extremely upset since the fall of the Soviet Union. 

That is the slight America made against his nationalistic ethos. He’s been seething since the fall of the Berlin wall; and that filled him with the most terrible resolve.

Imagine if you can, how we would feel as a nation if communism had won and we had been as shattered as the former Soviet Union was. We might be a tad angry with Putin as well, along with their allies. Russia, of course, has no allies except other despotic regimes who only subjugate their people.

If we know anything about Putin, it is this: he wants to make Russia the power it once was, and he desperately wants to punish anyone he thinks destroyed the USSR.

"Only the best people"