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

Trump administration seeks to rescind approval for Revolution Wind

Trump is obsessed

By John Moritz, Rhode Island Current

Turbines can sometimes offer unexpected
benefits

The Trump administration is once again seeking to interrupt the development of Connecticut’s first offshore wind project, Revolution Wind off the Rhode Island coast.

In a federal court filing, attorneys representing the U.S. Department of the Interior sought permission to rescind the agency’s three-year-old approval for the construction of the Revolution Wind project, which is now nearing completion.

The filing was made in a lawsuit filed in 2024 by Green Oceans, an anti-wind energy group, challenging the federal government’s approval of permits for Revolution Wind and its sister project, South Fork Wind.

“The Department of the Interior agrees that remand of its prior approval of the construction and operations plan (“COP”) for the Revolution Wind Project is warranted so that the agency can reevaluate its compliance with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act,” the filing states. “Given that remand, the Court need not reach Plaintiffs’ other claims challenging Interior’s COP approval.”

A spokesperson for the project’s developer, Ørsted, declined to comment on the filing Monday.

The Department of Interior issued a statement Tuesday evening in response to a request for comment.

“The Department of the Interior is complying with a briefing schedule, not announcing a policy change. Our position has remained consistent throughout this administration and this filing should not be misconstrued as a shift in the Department’s approach to offshore wind,” the statement said.

Revolution Wind’s 65th and final turbine was installed in September, and developers say the project is on track to begin producing its full, 704-megawatt output by the end of this year.

The project is located off the coast of Rhode Island, with onshore assembly taking place at the State Pier in New London. The project began supplying power to the New England electric grid in March, and is supported by contracts with utilities in Connecticut and Rhode Island. (South Fork Wind, which was not mentioned in the filing, was completed in 2024).

Fiber is both diet fad and fixture for good health

There is no one‑size‑fits‑all way to increase your intake

Jean Liew, Boston University

The numbers are clear: Americans aren’t getting enough fiber.

Research has consistently shown that high-fiber diets are linked to significant health benefits, including a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer, as well as improved arthritis symptoms.

Despite these benefits, there remains a significant fiber gap in the typical American diet. The recommended daily fiber intake is 25 grams a day for women and 38 grams a day for men. From 2013 to 2018, only 4% of U.S. adults met their recommended adequate intake for dietary fiber. The average fiber intake was about 16 grams a day.

Adding fiber to your diet through eating more fiber-rich foods or by taking fiber supplements has become a viral health trend. At the same time, the 2025 update to the American dietary guidelines appears to downplay fiber’s role in a healthy diet, placing high-fiber whole grains at the bottom as the smallest part of the inverted food pyramid. This can be confusing, because the written guidelines themselves continue to highlight the importance of eating whole grains.

What does the science say about the health benefits of a high-fiber diet? And what steps can you take to incorporate more fiber into your diet? These and similar questions my patients have asked me as a physician-scientist prompted me to look further into the latest research on dietary fiber.

Basics of dietary fiber

Dietary fiber can be found in many sources, and the choices can be overwhelming.

Dietary fiber refers to carbohydrates your body can’t digest. Many whole foods are high in fiber. High-fiber foods include raspberries, avocados, oats and other whole grains, and lentils and other legumes.

Fiber also comes in supplements such as psyllium husk powder, known as the brand Metamucil, which comes from a plant called Plantago ovata. Isolated fibers such as inulin are now increasingly added to foods, including those marketed as high-fiber snack bars, keto-friendly carbs and even soda.

Moreover, not all types of fiber are created equal.

There are many types of fiber, each with different health benefits. McKeown et al./BMJ, CC BY-NC

For example, psyllium is a viscous fiber, meaning it forms a gel when added to water. This gel can contribute to early satiety, meaning you feel fuller after eating. Viscous fiber can help lower cholesterol, improve blood sugar levels and blood pressure, lead to a small amount of weight loss, and make bowel movements more regular.

Other popular types of fiber are fermented, meaning they are eaten and processed by bacteria that live in your gut. These gut bacteria make proteins that can lower inflammation in the body. Inulin is one type of fermented fiber and can be extracted from chicory root and Jerusalem artichokes.

Nutrition experts recommend getting a variety of fiber-rich foods in your diet because of the added benefit of other nutrients in these foods, such as antioxidants.

Probiotics versus fiber

Besides fiber, adding probiotics to your diet may also benefit your gut health.

Probiotics are a category of fermented foods that still contain live microbes when you eat them. These include fermented foods such as sauerkraut, yogurt and kimchi, which are changed by the addition of live microbes, such as bacteria or yeast. Although the terms sound similar, these fermented foods that have “good” bacteria added to them are not the same as the fiber that gets fermented by bacteria already in your gut.

Think of it this way: Fiber provides the material for the gut bacteria to work with. Probiotics provide more “good” gut bacteria to join the community that already exists.

In a 2021 study, researchers examined the gut microbiomes of 36 healthy adults who either ate a diet high in fiber or a diet high in fermented foods. They found that those who ate a high-fiber diet had a gut microbiome that was more active in making the enzymes that break down fiber. That means these microbes got better at using the fiber they were fed to make byproducts helpful for the body.

In contrast, those who ate a diet high in fermented foods had a gut microbiome that was more diverse, meaning they had many different species of bacteria in their guts. They also had lower levels of inflammation. Many chronic conditions can raise levels of inflammation in the body, and exposure to inflammation can put stress on the body, contributing to issues such as cardiovascular disease.

The results of this small study point to the possibility that combining high-fiber and fermented foods in your diet could synergize their health benefits in nourishing the gut microbiome.

How can you get more fiber in your diet?

With so many options available, what’s the best way to increase your fiber intake?

Some barriers to eating enough dietary fiber include cost, accessibility and tolerability. Some high-fiber whole foods, such as berries, can be expensive. Highly fermentable fibers, such as inulin, often cause bloating and discomfort, especially if you aren’t used to eating them. This can be a turnoff for high-fiber drinks and snacks, since they contain so much fiber in a single serving.

There are many ways to increase the amount of fiber you eat on a daily basis. The general recommendation is to do it slowly to allow your body to get used to the higher amount of fiber and to stay hydrated so your body can use the water along with the fiber for optimal bowel health.

Most importantly, try a variety of fiber sources to figure out what’s right for you. Some people will be able to reach the recommended fiber levels by eating whole foods alone; others will add supplements or eat foods with added fiber. There is no one-size-fits-all healthy diet.

Unlocking the full benefits of fiber

More focused research is needed to understand more about the types of fiber that are beneficial to health, in what doses, and in what combinations. But these nutrition studies can be tricky.

My research focuses on finding links between fiber and different diseases in observational data and figuring out how to test them in a clinical trial. For example, one large observational study found an association between higher self-reported intake of whole grains and lower risk of arthritis. But researchers still need to test this connection in clinical trials, which requires deciding the right type and amount of whole grains to recommend, as well as the right length of time to test this diet.

While there have been many small clinical trials on fiber, they have not been big enough, specific enough or broad enough to provide answers that can be put into guidelines for everyone. Adequate funding has been one major hurdle to starting such large, well-designed trials.

At the same time, scientists already know many confirmed benefits of dietary fiber, and the gap lies in educating the public and making changes so that foods high in fiber are affordable and accessible to more people.

Jean Liew, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Boston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.