Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Trump signs "moral" deal with tech bros over artificial intelligence, and misspells "United States"
Since there is no such place as the "Unites States," does that mean the deal is void?
But what do you expect when Trump tries his hand at AI and gets THIS....
URI Theatre’s season lineup includes long-awaited return of ‘Cabaret,’ ‘Proof,’ ‘Charlotte’s Web’
URI THEATRE SEASON PREVIEW
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| The URI Theatre Department will produce a mix of Broadway classics, including “Cabaret” in December, and the children’s classic “Charlotte’s Web” in April during the 2026-27 academic year. Pictured is the cast of URI’s 2026 production of “Ride the Cyclone. (URI photo/Seth Jacobson) |
This season, the University of Rhode Island’s Theatre Department will take audiences on a journey through the trials and tribulations of a brilliant mathematician’s family, a nightclub in 1930s Berlin, the French Revolution, and an enchantingly unique friendship between a young pig and a spider.
All the while, student actors, designers, directors and
stage managers will bring their creativity to the URI Fine Arts Center’s
various stages to both delight the public and also develop the necessary skills
to thrive in the performing arts realm.
“Proof” and “Cabaret,” will premiere in the J Studio and
Robert E. Will Theatre, respectively, this fall at the Fine Arts Center, 150
Upper College Road, on the Kingston Campus. In the spring, “The
Revolutionists” and “Charlotte’s Web” will be staged under the bright stage
lights.
The season commences Oct. 16 with “Proof” by David
Auburn, directed by URI alum and Providence College professor of theatre Jimmy
Calitri ’01—with URI theatre student Princess Johnson serving as student
assistant director. Calitri returns to URI to lead “Proof” after previously directing
“Guys and Dolls” and “Little Shop of Horrors” on campus a few years ago.
Trout season starts Friday
Hooked on Autumn: 25 Waterways to be Stocked with Trout
- Alton
Pond, Richmond
- Barber
Pond, South Kingstown
- Blackstone
River, Lincoln
- Browning
Mill Pond, Exeter
- Carbuncle
Pond, Coventry
- Carolina
Trout Pond, Richmond
- Cronan
Landing, Richmond
- Eight
Rod Farm Pond, Tiverton
- Grantville
to Rt. 95, Hopkinton
- Hope
Valley Fishing Area, Hopkinton
- Kings
Factory Bridge, Charlestown
- Lower
Shannock, Charlestown
- Meadow
Brook Pond, Richmond
- Rt.
165 Check Station to Wyoming Dam, Exeter, Hopkinton
- Onley
Pond, Lincoln Woods State Park, Lincoln
- Round
Top Ponds, Burrillville.
- Shippee
Sawmill Pond, Foster
- Silver
Spring Lake, North Kingstown
- Spring
Grove Pond, Glocester
- Stafford
Pond, Tiverton
- Upper
Pawtuxet, (Hope), Scituate
- Upper
Melville (Thurston Gray Pond)
- Willet
Pond, East Providence
- Woodville,
Richmond, Hopkinton
Regular stocking updates will be available on DEM's Division of Fish and Wildlife's (DFW)
Facebook Page and www.dem.ri.gov/troutwaters.
See freshwater fisheries updates and FAQs at www.dem.ri.gov/fishing.
Big Tech’s Plans for AI Are Bringing Nuclear Power Back to New England
No Nukes campaign must be revitalized
.webp)
Nuclear Power is Green? This is Corporate Marketing Hype.
Don’t Believe it.
How did this happen? We can start by taking a look at what’s
been happening in New England, especially Massachusetts, which offers a good
case study. In that bluest of blue states, Gov. Maura Healey is eager to bring
nuclear power back despite a 1982 voter referendum—now law—that prohibits it.
She’s not alone. In March 2026, a group of New England Governors—mostly
Democrats—directed their state energy agencies to explore advanced nuclear
energy technologies while also continuing to support the region’s existing
nuclear resources.
The press release from Gov. Healey’s office described nuclear power as a “pillar of New England’s
electric system.” The statement also eagerly encouraged the development of
public-private partnerships. Unfortunately, this widely endorsed bipartisan
concept has now become the working model for corporate exploitation of public
resources and is a key latter-day building block of continuing deregulation.
The press release gushed with enthusiasm for nuclear power, noting that “by
ensuring both the continued operation of our existing nuclear fleet and setting
our region on a path to explore next generation resources, including advanced
nuclear energy technologies, the New England states will continue our
leadership in grid modernization and energy innovation as we jointly work to
meet the region’s current and future energy needs.”
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Trump Stupidity and Recklessness vs Superintelligence
Doubles down in his UN General Assembly speech
Axel Fersen and Klaus Moegling in Common Dreams
Guardrails? You could put up guardrails, this and that. But
there are many negative forces bringing up things that would never happen (PBS/AP, September 13, 2026). That was the entire answer,
and it also sums up his entire agenda. The rest of the world had just begun to
fear.
After all, the question didn’t come out of nowhere. Twenty-four hours earlier, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, had published a long essay in which he called on his own industry to slow down. His company would grant independent auditors permanent access to its systems, on par with that of its own employees, and he asked the competition to follow suit (Amodei, September 12, 2026).
Sam Altman of OpenAI agreed within an hour. Elon Musk, who has been
at odds with both of them for years, simply wrote: “Dario is right” (SiliconANGLE). 
Agreed: We DO need a smart President.
Anyone in mind?
A few days earlier, Anthropic researcher
Jacob Coxon had resigned, stating that the labs were racing toward a
superintelligence that would continue to evolve and improve independently of
humans, thereby gambling with all our lives (TechCrunch). The three most powerful men in the industry
and a defector—all in the same week, all with the same message: Nothing like
this had ever happened before.
Trump’s response on Monday was an escalation. The only control AI needed, he said, was a strong, smart president with a high IQ—and America had one. There was a “SICK conspiracy” against AI and data centers, and the only one rejoicing over it was China.
Vice President JD Vance called it a
Trojan horse when companies pleaded with the government to regulate them (AP, September 14, 2026). You have to let that sink in for a
moment: The creators of a technology are asking
for oversight, and the government suspects a conspiracy behind it.
Oct. 6: Candidates' Forum Charlestown Town Council
When
Tuesday, October 6 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Add to Calendar
Where
The fate of the Endangered Species Act rests on 2 simple words
Whales, eagles...Trump doesn't care
Sachi Kitajima Mulkey & Kate Yoder
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| Is this the origin of Trump's hatred for wild animals? |
The Endangered Species Act has stood as a pillar of conservation in the United States since 1973, bringing animals like bald eagles, manatees, and humpback whales back from the brink of extinction.
But now, the Trump administration has taken its boldest step yet in an effort to strip legal protections for endangered species. Starting this week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that it now considers it legal to kill a federally protected animal, as long as it wasn’t on purpose.
The directive comes after another recent revision to these legal protections went into effect this week, saying that damaging an animal’s habitat is no longer considered “harming” it. The two changes in combination take the teeth out of the Endangered Species Act and pave the way for industries to log, mine, pollute, or travel through areas without regard for what lives there.
The fate of the country’s rarest creatures could come down to the meaning of two seemingly simple words: “harm” and “take.” In this case, “take” refers to killing an animal.
“A vessel that inadvertently strikes a whale has not taken it, because the vessel’s course was not set against the whale,” said the memo, signed by Brian Nesvik, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service. “Felling a tree is not a take of the bats roosting in it unless the tree was felled for the purpose of killing or capturing them.”
Legal experts say this is an unprecedentedly narrow view of what these words mean in the Endangered Species Act, and that the moves are sure to be challenged in court. Almost two dozen states recently sued the Trump administration over changes to the law, and more lawsuits from environmental groups are expected to come. And if history is any indicator, the agency could soon find itself on the losing side of an old argument — one that’s been heard in courts before.
Unhealthy Western diet linked to faster cognitive decline in people with genetic risk of Alzheimer's
Partial explanation for Trump's behavior issues
Edited by Sadie Harley,
reviewed by Robert
Egan
The study, Dietary patterns and cognitive decline in older adults:
Findings from the Western Australia Memory Study, appears in
the journal Nutrients.
As the world grapples with the growing public health
challenge of dementia, there has been increasing academic interest in
identifying lifestyle factors that may help maintain people's brain health as
they age.
"Diet is particularly interesting because it is often
easily modifiable, but people may not respond to dietary patterns in the same
way," said lead author Dr. Carolina Blagojevic Castro, from Murdoch
University's Center for Healthy Aging.
"In this study we investigated whether the types of
food people regularly eat are associated with how their thinking abilities
change as they get older," Blagojevic Castro said.
Tracking diet, genes and cognition
Using data from the Western Australia Memory Study (WAMS),
the research team followed 185 older adults from Perth for more than seven
years and examined whether unhealthy and healthier dietary patterns were
associated with changes in different areas of their cognition, while also
considering individuals' genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease.
None of the participants had diagnosed dementia when they
entered the study, but they were tested for genetic susceptibility factors such
as the apolipoprotein
E (APOE) variant, the strongest common genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's
disease.
Throughout the study, participants completed a series of
cognitive tests to assess their attention, memory, executive function,
language, recognition memory and general cognitive ability.
The effect appeared in carriers
"Our main finding was that among people carrying the
APOE ε4 allele, greater adherence to a Western dietary pattern was associated
with a faster decline in attention over time," Blagojevic Castro said.
"One of the most interesting findings was that the
association with cognitive decline was not seen across the whole group but
emerged specifically among APOE ε4 carriers."
"We did not find significant associations between the
healthier prudent dietary pattern and cognitive decline, or between the Western
dietary pattern and cognitive decline among people who did not carry APOE
ε4."
"What we eat may be one part of a much larger picture
of healthy brain aging," she said.
Caution before dietary advice
"Our findings highlight why research into individual
differences is important—approaches to protecting brain health may ultimately
need to consider both lifestyle and biological factors rather than assuming
that one approach will work equally well for everyone."
"However, our study is observational, so further
research is needed before these findings can be translated into specific
dietary recommendations based on genetic risk."
Publication details
Carolina Blagojevic Castro et al, Dietary Patterns and
Cognitive Decline in Older Adults: Findings from the Western Australia Memory
Study, Nutrients (2026). DOI: 10.3390/nu18162592
“You Have a Strong and Steadfast Friend,” RFK Jr. Tells Anti-Vaxxers
Kennedy’s remark comes as measles cases in the US are at their highest levels seen in decades.
By Chris Walker
On September 17, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), gave a keynote speech to an anti-vaccine group he once led.
Kennedy — a noted anti-vaxxer who has consistently peddled dangerous disinformation to the public — appeared at a conference held by Children’s Health Defense. During his speech, he sought to assure concerned members of the group that he was still allied with them, despite downplaying his controversial views while trying to get confirmed to his post last year.
“Let me be clear. You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House,” Kennedy said in his speech.
Kennedy asked those gathered before him to be patient with his efforts, ambiguously stating that “we are doing this one day at a time.”
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| HHS Replaces Childhood Vaccination Schedule With List Of Recommended Animal Bites - The Onion |
In the same breath, he called for the audience to “care about children who are dying or suffering or being injured by vaccine injuries,” a highly exaggerated anti-vax talking point.
According to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there have been 3,471 confirmed cases of measles identified across the U.S. since January 1 of this year. That number already exceeds the number of cases counted in 2025, and is a 12-fold increase over the 285 cases counted in 2024.
The CDC website does not yet include a count of the total number of deaths. However, other state health agencies have recorded at least four deaths from measles in 2026, the highest number seen since 1992.
Experts agree that higher rates of measles are due largely to anti-vax sentiment becoming more mainstream. The virus requires a higher threshold than most to keep it from spreading.
Monday, September 28, 2026
Canada considers what to do if Trump orders an invasion
Canada must consider even unlikely threats — including an American invasion
Andrea Charron, University of Manitoba
Prime Minister Mark Carney says he has considered the possibility of American military action against Canada, and that the Canadian Armed Forces had examined potential responses.
Such a scenario remains extraordinarily unlikely, but that’s precisely why it belongs in contingency planning. Serious governments do not dismiss low-probability, high-consequence risks simply because they appear remote.
The first responsibility of the prime minister of Canada, as head of government, is to protect Canadians. That responsibility requires preparing not only for the most likely threats, but also for the unlikely scenarios that could have profound consequences for the country.
In intelligence and security circles, these possibilities are sometimes described using a “swan” metaphor. Preparing for likely events, or “white swans,” is routine.
Equally important, however, is considering “black swan” events: highly improbable developments that fall outside normal expectations but could have disruptive and far-reaching effects.
Why plan for black swan events?
A future threat to Canada may have little resemblance to a hypothetical attack by the United States, yet the lessons learned from examining an unexpected attack could inform responses to other contingencies, including missile, cyber or hybrid threats that exploit North America’s geography.
Second, Canada has a long history of planning for unlikely but consequential scenarios. During the period between the First and Second World Wars, Canadian military planners developed Defense Scheme No. 1, which considered the possibility of conflict with the U.S.
American planners, for their part, developed War Plan Red — a scheme to invade Canada in the event of a war with the United Kingdom.
Neither expected war, but both recognized the importance of understanding strategic options. During the Second World War, the United States-Canada Basic Defense Plan (referenced as the Black Plan) was penned by Canada to respond to a scenario should Germany defeat the U.K., leaving Canada and the U.S. vulnerable to the Axis powers.
Upcoming Charlestown Democrats events
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