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Rhode Island Republicans introduce legislation to wipe out renewable energy programs

The Rhode Island GOP's anti-green agenda

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

There’s a debate in the General Assembly this year on how best to tackle electricity prices.

It’s no secret energy prices in Rhode Island have been high for years; state officials have little power over the price of natural gas used to run power plants and heat homes.

But a conservative faction within the General Assembly has been arguing that it’s time to roll back the state’s climate and renewable energy programs, which are funded via charges collected every month on residents’ electricity bills.

House Minority Leader Rep. Michael Chippendale, R-Foster, has introduced a package of legislation designed to eliminate many of the state-mandated charges on utility bills to deliver relief to ratepayers. He denied the legislation was meant to end renewable energy programs in Rhode Island.

“Each of these may have been created with good intentions,” Chippendale said during a House Corporation Committee bill hearing Thursday. “But each and every legislator in this building is hearing from our constituents that they cannot afford to pay their increasing electricity bills with good intentions. It requires money, and a lot of it.”

Smith Hill Republicans aren’t the only elected officials backing rollbacks to renewable energy and climate programs. Gov. Dan McKee proposed rollbacks to the programs as part of his budget, although the most optimistic savings Rhode Island households can expect is $15 a month, according to estimates from the state Office of Management and Budget.

McKee proposed capping the state’s energy efficiency programs to $75 million per year, capping net metering program costs, and pushing back the deadlines for Renewable Energy Standard requirements out to 2050. The governor in his budget announcement said it would save ratepayers $1 billion over five years.

Here’s a breakdown of rollback legislation:

H7139 would require all changes to the Renewable Energy Growth Program (sometimes referred to as RE Growth) be approved by the General Assembly, instead of the Public Utilities Commission.

H7174 would repeal the energy efficiency charge, which funds the program that allows Rhode Island Energy to offer rebates, free weatherization services, and other initiatives that help ratepayers use less energy, in its entirety.

H7176 would repeal the Renewable Energy Growth Program entirely.

H7177 would end the net metering program, used to finance solar arrays, and prohibit any state subsidies for consumer heat pump purchases.

H7523 would place a five-year moratorium on the Renewable Energy Growth and energy efficiency program charges.

Influencers promoting prescription drugs on social media pose public health risks

Don't listen to medical advice from internet idiots

By Sanjukta Mondal, Medical Xpress

Edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan

In today's world, attention is increasingly focused on social media and its influencers, a shift reflected in the industry's rapid growth and a global market projected to surpass $32 billion. The marketing teams of pharmaceutical companies regularly partner with influencers who are guaranteed to grab the attention of hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions, to promote their medications—even prescription drugs. Researchers in a JAMA Network Open study warn that such advertisements might put public health at risk.

The researchers conducted a systematic scoping review, sifting through existing studies on influencers promoting prescription drugs to pinpoint the risks, evaluate current regulations, and explore how this fast-growing trend can be better managed.

They uncovered a worrying pattern. Influencer promotions carried a high risk of misinformation, as many shared health advice beyond their expertise, often exaggerating a drug's benefits while leaving out important side effects.

There's little people can do to prevent this, as current regulations, such as those from the FDA and FTC, are often vague and difficult to enforce on social media. On top of that, these promotions are written in so cleverly that they blur the line between a genuine personal story and a paid advertisement, making it hard for a regular person to tell the difference.

Demoralized CDC Workforce Reels From Year of Firings, Funding Cuts, and a Shooting

Once the world's greatest public health agency, gutted by Trump, Musk and Bobby Jr.

Jess Mador, WABE 

On the coffee table at her home in Atlanta, Sarah Boim has a pile of documents from her old job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are printouts of her employment records.

Boim lost her job in the first big wave of CDC firings — more than 1,000 people were suddenly let go last February.

“This is the termination letter. I also printed off my performance review from 2024,” she said. “I knew I wouldn’t have access to it, and everything was so chaotic that I needed proof of what was happening.”

Boim worked in the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, handling communications about radon, substances known as forever chemicals, lead poisoning, and other health threats.

Rereading her termination letter, she still can’t believe what it says.

“The agency finds you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge, and skills do not fit the agency’s current needs, and your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment at the agency,” the emailed letter reads.

“And that floored me,” Boim said, “because my performance was rated outstanding, and I even got a raise. It was just deeply insulting. So I was more upset than I think I was prepared to be.”

The Trump administration later brought back some of the workers who were fired in the first round, but it has also cut more staff and funding.

The CDC has been without a permanent director for more than six months. Recently the Trump administration made Jay Bhattacharya the CDC’s interim director, while he also runs the National Institutes of Health.

The leadership uncertainty comes amid a year of disruption and dismissals at the Atlanta-based institution, from which more than 3,000 public health workers are now gone. That includes staffers the Trump administration terminated and workers who accepted early retirement.

Ripple effects of the turmoil are still hitting the Atlanta region.

By the end of 2025, the CDC had lost roughly a quarter of its workforce.

Legal problems could block Stefan Pryor's return to Rhode Island government

Secretary in name only?

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

Since August, Stefan Pryor has spearheaded the state’s economic development strategy, including distribution of millions of dollars in incentives for businesses, researchers and recent college graduates.

But the Rhode Island Senate has not yet confirmed Pryor as state commerce secretary, more than seven months after Gov. Dan McKee’s nomination. And questions linger over the legality of Pryor’s authority to act without legislative approval, including by the Senate’s own legal counsel.

“We don’t believe the statutory authority exists,” Greg Paré, a spokesperson for Senate President Valarie Lawson, said in an interview Wednesday. 

John Marion, executive director for Common Cause Rhode Island, a nonpartisan watchdog group, voiced similar doubts during an initial confirmation hearing for Pryor before the Senate Committee on Commerce Tuesday night.

“Many department directors can serve on an interim basis, but commerce is not one of them,” Marion told the panel. 

Marion referenced the state statute empowering the governor to fill cabinet-level vacancies on an interim basis until Senate confirmation. It lists 11 director roles as eligible for interim appointments, but not commerce secretary. And, it expressly prohibits anyone beyond the 11 named department directors from taking on the job on an interim basis. 

The law doesn’t lay out consequences for interim directors who take the job before Senate confirmation. In Pryor’s case, the Senate is expected to give its blessing next week following the commerce committee’s vote Tuesday to advance the nomination.

Paré said the initial confirmation hearing was delayed due to scheduling issues, noting the commerce committee has only met once before this year, on March 10. 

Concerns over Pryor’s ability to serve in the $238,597-a-year job before Senate confirmation surfaced in August, as first reported by Providence Business News. McKee’s office insisted, and still does, that the appointment was legitimate, pointing to past precedent and the governor’s constitutional authority.

Changed his mind for some reason

April 18: Fishing Moon Festival

What can dogs tell us about how robots can locate objects?

Gestures may be as important as words

Brown University

Whether in the kitchen or on a workshop floor, robot assistants that can fetch items for people could be extremely useful. Now, a team of Brown University researchers has developed a way of making robots better at figuring out exactly which items a user might want them to retrieve.

The new approach enables robots to use inputs from both human language and gesture as they reason about how to locate and retrieve target objects. In a study that will be presented on Tuesday, March 17, during the International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction in Edinburgh, Scotland, the researchers show that the approach had an 89% success rate in finding the correct object in complex environments, outperforming other object retrieval approaches.

“Searching for things requires a robot to navigate large environments,” said Ivy He, a graduate student at Brown and the study’s lead author. “With current technology, robots are pretty good at identifying objects, but when the environment is cluttered, things are moving around or things are hidden by other objects, that makes things much more difficult. So this work is about using both language and gesture to help in that search task.”

The research makes use of an approach to robot planning called a POMDP (partially observable Markov decision process), a mathematical framework that allows a robot to reason under uncertainty. In the real world, robots rarely have a perfect understanding of the world. Different types of objects can look similar. There may be more than one of a particular object in a room. Items might be partially or completely hidden from view.

New vaccine against Lyme disease seeking approval. Will Bobby Jr. give it?

Lyme disease vaccine shows over 70% efficacy in phase 3 trial

Not perfect but good enough

Laine Bergeson

An experimental six-strain Lyme vaccine has demonstrated more than 70% efficacy in preventing Lyme disease in people aged five years and older, according to a statement yesterday from Pfizer. 

Despite falling short of its primary statistical goal in a phase 3 randomized controlled clinical trial, in part because fewer than expected Lyme disease cases were reported during the study period, the vaccine showed about 70% to 73% efficacy in preventing confirmed Lyme disease after a four-dose series. In a secondary analysis, the vaccine did meet the statistical goal. 

The vaccine, being developed by Pfizer and Valneva, was studied at sites in areas of high Lyme disease incidence in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Pfizer said the reduction in infections is “clinically meaningful” and indicated that the companies will submit the vaccine for regulatory approval. If approved, it would be the first Lyme vaccine available for humans in more than two decades.

Trump once again votes by mail in Florida election even though he claims mail voting is cheating

It makes sense though when you remember Trump IS a cheater

Julia Conley

Donald Trump has been escalating his push for the US Senate to pass sweeping legislation that would ban universal mail-in voting, spreading misinformation about mailed ballots, and slamming the system as “cheating”—but amid his efforts, he found time recently to cast his own ballot by mail for the latest time in Florida’s special legislative election.

Voter records in Palm Beach County showed Trump cast his ballot by mail before early voting ended Sunday in state House and Senate races in Florida.

It’s at least the second time that the president has voted by mail in Florida; he did so in 2020 as well.

“I can vote by mail,” he told reporters at the time. “I’m allowed to.”

That same year, he aggressively promoted the baseless notion that voting by mail—a system long used in states run by both Republicans and Democrats, including Utah and Washington—would lead to election fraud.

Numerous US courts found no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election, in which more voters relied on voting by mail due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The third, and largest "No Kings" protest draws thousands to the Rhode Island State House

Huge turn-outs at events throughout Rhode Island

Steve Ahlquist

 

The third “No Kings” protest in Providence brought thousands of people to the Rhode Island State House on Saturday as part of a “nationwide day of action to say, clearly and collectively: No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings.” The event, which ran from 1 to 4 pm, was co-emceed by Sajo Jefferson and Aiyah Josiah-Faeduwor.

The event started with some music by the Raging Grannies.

Here’s the video: No Kings PVD - March 28, 2026

Asa Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, gave what he hoped would be more than just a simple land acknowledgement:

“I was asked to go deeper than just acknowledging the land, so I want to share the history of the United States, this pattern of violence and control over people along certain power dynamics, racial, or religious lines. It was something new to these lands. To ground you, this region we live in has been inhabited by some of my ancestors for around 12,000 or 13,000 years, after the recession of the glacier in the last ice age.

“Over these last 12 or 13,000 years, the people that lived here had been building long-term community responsibility and trusting spiritual bonds to all the other living things that are here - the plants, animals, fungi, and even the stones. Things we learn from and support in what we do every day. In King Philip’s War and the Pequot War in Connecticut, the people witnessed some of the most brutal violence. The colonizers introduced a new level of violence that had not been conceived of as possible.

How other countries deal with child rape

 

Trump brags about his MAGA billionaires buying the news media and stifling opposition

Trump claims victory in his war on the First Amendment

Legislation Would Fold CRMC into DEM, Remaking Controversial Executive Council Into an Advisory Board

One way to deal with a dysfunctional agency

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

Mergers and acquisitions isn’t usually a process that applies to the public sector, but under proposed legislation this year it is something that could happen with the state’s environmental agencies.

Rhode Island government splits environmental management and protection into two separate agencies. Broadly, the Department of Environmental Management handles much of the state’s interior, oversees air and water permits, and oversees the state’s food production.

The Coastal Resources Management Council has jurisdiction over developments within 200 feet of Rhode Island’s coastline and 3 miles out to sea, an area that covers all of Narragansett Bay and most of Block Island Sound.

New legislation (H7996/S3082) proposes to merge the two entities, with CRMC — as the smaller of the two agencies — becoming a bureau within DEM. CRMC’s director would become a deputy director within DEM, and the politically appointed board that oversees the coastal agency would be transformed into an advisory body with little decision-making power.

For advocates of the legislation, the bills kill two birds with one stone. The controversial 10-member CRMC board is nerfed, and the state’s two environmental agencies receive a synergistic boost by joining forces. CRMC’s executive director would go from a position confirmed by the Senate to one hired by DEM.