Why did Melania hold a news conference denying any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?

Some theories

Robert Reich

Trump’s rule for “flooding the zone” has been straightforward: Whenever the subject that everyone’s talking about becomes too uncomfortable for him — he changes it.

Too much Jeffrey Epstein? Send federal agents to Minnesota to brutalize American citizens. Too much brutality by federal agents? Fire the head of Department of Homeland Security and start a war with Iran. War goes badly? (Well, we’ll soon find out.)

So, why did Melania Trump hold a news conference? Standing at a lectern in the Grand Foyer of the White House, the first lady labeled as “lies” unspecified allegations linking her to Epstein, and said they “need to end today.”

“The false smears about me from mean-spirited and politically motivated individuals and entities looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb politically must stop.”

But who’s even been thinking about Melania and her potential relationship with Epstein or Maxwell in the midst of Melania’s husband’s threat to obliterate 90 million Iranians? 

Who cares about Melania and Maxwell when the price of gas is through the roof? Why would anyone be interested in such “unspecified allegations” when Iran still possesses 970 pounds of highly-enriched uranium and now has more motive than ever to turn it into nuclear weapons?

Besides, there hasn’t been the faintest whiff of scandal about the relationship between Melania and Maxwell, let alone Epstein.

Back in January (which seems years ago), the Justice Department released an email Melania sent to Maxwell. But the email got little attention. It was part of millions of pages of correspondence released about the Department’s investigation into the disgraced financier. Also, the correspondence took place in 2002, more than two years before Melania became Trump’s third wife.

A 2002 email from Melania Trump to Ghislaine
Maxwell was released in the Jeffrey Epstein files
on Friday, January 30, 2026. (Justice Department)

There’s not even a smoking gun in her email. Melania merely expressed friendliness toward Maxwell and says she can’t wait to visit her in Palm Beach.

Melania also refers to a “nice story about JE” in New York magazine — presumably the 2002 story in which Donald Trump indicated he knew about his former pal’s penchant for young girls. It was in that story that Trump boasted:

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Granted, this quote suggests Trump was on to Epstein’s proclivities and may have even shared them. But the quote is old news. It’s been circulating ever since Trump was first discovered to be cavorting with Epstein.

Why, then, did Melania hold today’s news conference?

I can think of three possible reasons:

ICE babies

Sen. Whitehouse translates "TrumpSpeak"

Loony-in-Chief declares HE will block the Strait of Hormuz. World wonders "WTF?"

Iran: I'm blockading the Strait of Hormuz .... US: no, I'm blockading the Strait of Hormuz

Fire prevention controlled burns planned for woodlands around Charlestown

DEM Resuming Prescribed Burns

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) Forest Fire Program plans to conduct low-severity prescribed burns on state lands in Exeter, West Greenwich, Coventry, Richmond, Glocester, Jamestown, and South Kingstown. Weather permitting, the first prescribed burns of 2026 will begin this week. Prescribed (planned) burns depend on weather and wind conditions and are typically announced a day in advance. Prescribed burns help maintain healthy habitats and reduce hazardous fuels, protecting communities from extreme wildfires.

DEM will provide additional public notice through social media, website updates, and flyers to nearby landowners once a burn window has been identified. A burn window occurs when fuel, moisture, and weather conditions align to safely meet management goals, including fuel reduction, habitat improvement, and ecological restoration.

DEM burn managers are targeting parcels at Durfee Hill Management Area in Glocester, Arcadia Management Area in Exeter, Nicholas Farm Management Area in Coventry, Big River Management Area in West Greenwich, Dutch Island in Jamestown, Carolina Management Area in Richmond, and Great Swamp Management Area in South Kingstown.

URI pharmacy professor part of major federal microplastics effort

One of the few health and environmental programs Trump hasn't killed. Yet.

Patrick Luce 

University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy and George and Anne Ryan Institute of Neuroscience Assistant Professor Jaime Ross is taking her extensive research into the scourge of microplastics to the nation’s capital after being invited to join a nationwide $144 million program “to create the definitive toolbox for measuring, researching, and removing microplastics and nanoplastics in the human body.”

Ross received an invitation to attend the historic announcement of STOMP: Systematic Targeting Of MicroPlastics, revealed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services and Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C.. The STOMP program, led by program managers Ileana Hancu and Shannon Greene, aims to find a way to measure microplastics in human organs, understand which plastics affect the body negatively, and seek methods to remove the contaminants. The program aims to protect people from plastic contamination and help lower the potential downstream costs that microplastic-related disease could otherwise impose on the nation’s health care system.

“Microplastics are in every organ we look at—in ourselves and in our children. But we don’t know which ones are harmful or how to remove them,” said Alicia Jackson, director of HHS’ Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). “Nobody wants unknown particles accumulating in their body. The field is working in the dark. STOMP is turning on the lights.”

Ross has been shining the light on the extensive dangers of microplastics for the last five years. She has found that the microscopic plastic particles infiltrate all systems of the body, including breaching the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from harmful substances as small as viruses and bacteria. In a subsequent study, published in the journal Environmental Research Communications, Ross’ team has found the accumulation of micro- and nanoplastics in the brain leads to cognitive decline, and can trigger Alzheimer’s-like behavior in test mice.

“It was riveting to receive an invitation to attend the monumental event, ‘Confronting Microplastics,’ and discuss the STOMP initiative with policymakers and other leading scientists in the field,” Ross said. 

Ken Block is running for governor again. This time as an independent.

Yeah, just what Rhode Island needs. Right.

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

A Barrington software engineer who searched for voter fraud on behalf of the Trump campaign — and found none — is making his third attempt to run for the governor’s office.

This time, Ken Block is running as an independent candidate.

“My flavor of politics doesn’t align well with either political party,” Block, 60, said in a phone interview. “Political parties by definition imply a healthy dose of partisanship — I am a problem solver, a manager, and the problems that Rhode Island suffers from aren’t problems that partisanship can address.”

Block unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2010 as the Moderate Party’s candidate — a party he founded. He finished fourth with 6.5 % of the vote in the general election. He ran again as a Republican in 2014, losing the GOP primary to then-Cranston Mayor Allan Fung by 10 percentage points.

He announced his campaign in a post on X last Thursday.

Trump's military threatens Pope Leo for demanding peace

Will Trump launches air strikes against the Vatican?

Julia Conley

Pope Leo, the first American to be named the head of the worldwide Catholic Church, has spoken out against Donald Trump’s policies frequently this year as the US has invaded Venezuela and Iran and threatened Cuba’s 10 million people with an oil blockade that has crippled the island’s economy and healthcare system—and according to new reports, his criticism has followed a warning from a Pentagon official who demanded the Vatican take the “side” of the White House in foreign disputes.

The Free Press originally reported this week that after the pope’s “State of the World” address on January 9, US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby called Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s US diplomatic representative, to Washington.

Colby told Pierre that the US “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world.”

“The Catholic Church had better take its side,” he said, according to The Free Press.

Another Pentagon official alluded to the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy ordered an attack on Pope Boniface VIII and forced seven successive popes to relocate from Rome to Avignon in France.

What it's all about

DOGE idiots under oath

URI studying health of local saltmarshes

Nature Conservancy award supports URI research on salt marsh health

By Anna Gray

Rhode Island’s salt marshes protect coastlines and provide critical habitat, but many are increasingly threatened by sea level rise and other environmental pressures; shown: Quonochontaug Marsh, Charlestown. (Photos courtesy Madison Geraci)

Rhode Island’s salt marshes protect coastlines and provide critical habitat, but many are increasingly threatened by sea level rise and other environmental pressures. Madison Geraci, a Ph.D. student in evolution and marine biology at the University of Rhode Island, is studying organisms hidden within marsh sediments to better understand how these ecosystems respond to stress and restoration efforts.

Her work recently received a student award from the Nature Conservancy that will help expand an innovative approach to monitoring marsh health across Rhode Island.

URI Ph.D. student Madison Geraci (shown at
Quonochontaug) recently received a Nature Conservancy
award to study how local salt marshes respond
to restoration and environmental change.

At the center of Geraci’s research are foraminifera, microscopic single-celled organisms that scientists increasingly recognize as powerful environmental indicators of marsh health.

“They’re like a canary in the coal mine,” she said. “They’re really sensitive to salinity, sea level rise, coastal acidification, and pollution, and they can tell us a lot about marshes’ overall health.”

Traditional monitoring often focuses on marsh vegetation, but microbial communities may reveal ecological stress much earlier.

The Nature Conservancy funding will help pay for the genetic sequencing needed to identify microbial communities. “Sequencing can be expensive, so the award allows us to do this work on a broader scale,” she said.

After collecting sediment samples from marshes across the state, Geraci and her collaborators use a method called metabarcoding—a type of DNA sequencing—to identify organisms living in the samples. “We’re using a tool called metabarcoding to take a sediment sample, extract it, and then tag all the different forams that might be there and determine their overall diversity,” she said.

Wood River Health kicks off 50th anniversary celebration

Major source of health care for Charlestown 

House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi Accepts Health
Center Champion Award. From L to R: Rep Megan Cotter;
Rep Tina Spears; Alison Croke; House Speaker K. Joseph
Shekarchi; Rep Samuel Azzinaro

On Friday, March 20, 2026, Wood River Health kicked off its 50th Anniversary by hosting an Anniversary Founders Day & Awards Ceremony at the Ocean House. The event brought together an inspiring assembly of community leaders and advocates to mark a major milestone: providing high‑quality, compassionate and affordable health care in the community for 50 years.

 

President and CEO Alison L. Croke opened the program by reflecting on the significance of the day and providing an overview of the origin of federally qualified health centers. With roots in the civil rights movement and the War on Poverty, there are now about 1,400 community health centers delivering care to more than 33 million people throughout the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories. Wood River Health is one of eight federally qualified health centers in the state, which serve one out of every five Rhode Islanders. 

Croke shared that since its founding in 1976, Wood River Health has grown from a modest clinic on Mechanic Street into a multi-site health center providing primary care, dental care, behavioral health and vital support services to 12,000 patients. She recognized the health center’s ongoing commitment to addressing health care access barriers including transportation, food insecurity and housing instability. Croke expressed gratitude to the dedicated board members, staff, providers and community partners who have worked diligently to forward the organization’s mission.

NO AUTHORITY

Court tells Trump he does not own the White House

Robert Reich

U.S. district judge Richard Leon blocked Trump from proceeding with construction of his $400 million ballroom on the site of the White House’s demolished East Wing. This has halted, at least for now, one of Trump’s most visible efforts to reshape the symbolic center of the federal government’s executive branch.

In a 35-page opinion, Judge Leon — an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush — wrote that Trump likely did not have the authority to make changes to the White House that could endure for generations, without consulting Congress.

This marks, by my calculation, the 89th time since the start of Trump’s second term that a federal judge has ruled that he cannot simply do whatever he wants; his actions must be authorized by Congress.

Focus for a moment on the word authorized. It’s from the Latin auctoritas and auctor — to originate, the originator.

In our system of government, a president is not the originator of power. Power comes from the people. And among the three branches of government, the people are most clearly represented by Congress. This was the founders’ design in the Constitution, which is why the very first article enumerates Congress’s powers.

The decision by Judge Leon puts the ballroom project on hold while the lawsuit continues. When a federal judge grants a preliminary injunction, it means that the judge views it likely that plaintiffs (in this case, the National Trust for Historic Preservation) will prevail on the merits of the case, and that allowing whatever is going on to continue (in this case, construction of Trump’s enormous 90,000-square-foot ballroom) will cause the plaintiffs irreparable harm.

In December, the National Trust sued Trump after he razed the East Wing (originally constructed in 1902 and expanded during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency) to make way for what Trump says will be the “finest” ballroom in the country.

As designed, that ballroom is larger than the Executive Residence and the West Wing combined. If constructed, it would be the dominant edifice of the White House — symbolically shifting its focus from where the president works and lives to where a president might lavishly entertain, as in a king’s throne room.

On Rhode Island healthcare and taxing the rich with Senator Meghan Kallman and the EPI's Nina Harrison

The budget is a moral document

Steve Ahlquist

The Rhody Civics Club held an event at the Buttonwoods Brewery on Thursday to hear from the Economic Progress Institute’s policy director, Nina Harrison, and State Senator Meghan Kallman (Democrat, District 15, Pawtucket, Providence) about the state of Rhode Island’s healthcare system.

The discussion was about the catastrophic impact HR1 (Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill) will have on low- and middle-income Rhode Islanders, and the massive impacts of federal cuts to Medicaid, health insurance premiums, and food assistance. It wasn’t all doom and gloom. Senator Kallman and Nina Harrison have presented bills currently before the Rhode Island General Assembly that could help mitigate the impending catastrophe.

Nina Harrison

I’m the policy director at the Economic Progress Institute. The Economic Progress Institute is a nonprofit that does policy research and advocacy in Rhode Island. We try to get laws passed that benefit low- and modest-income Rhode Islanders, improve racial equity in the state, and give people a chance at economic opportunity. I am also the co-chair of the Protect Our Healthcare Coalition, which I co-lead with Shamus Durac from RIPIN, a huge resource in the state that advocates for children with disabilities.

I’m told that you all basically know how things work at the State House, that people like Senator Kallman are there in the evenings, at committee hearings, hearing testimony on bills. I’m often there giving testimony and saying, “Please pass this bill, or please don’t pass this other bill.”

I’m going to start by talking about what happened over the summer, which some of you may have heard Trump talking about: one big, beautiful bill, which is not beautiful, especially for Rhode Islanders, that essentially cut more than a trillion dollars in funding for Medicaid and SNAP over 10 years. And they did that to pay for tax breaks for the richest people in America. Because of the tax break Trump made permanent over the summer, the highest-income earners are getting an average tax break of $58, 000 this year.

We’re losing healthcare and food assistance, but the highest income earners are getting a $58, 000 a piece tax break this year.

What does that mean for Rhode Island? It means that unless the state takes action, 53, 000 people will lose healthcare. That’s not my stat; that’s a statistic from the state itself. About 33,000 people are expected to lose Medicaid coverage. Medicaid is for people who are low-income, typically 138% or less of the federal poverty line, which is already too low.

We have a major situation