Wednesday, October 7, 2026
RI Ballot Question 1 would support healthcare, workforce training in Rhode Island’s high-demand fields
Higher education bond would fund programs at URI, RIC and CCRI
The University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island are partnering on efforts related to Question 1, a higher education bond measure on the November ballot. The measure would provide funding for training and workforce development in healthcare, the skilled trades, and other high-demand fields.
A new Integrated Health Building at URI will expand modern
health education and clinical training, strengthening the pipeline of
professionals who care for Rhode Islanders and their families. Healthcare
careers are among the fastest-growing occupations, as well as the state’s
largest employment sectors.
A recent
poll showed that 49% of respondents believe that Rhode Island isn’t
spending enough money on improving and protecting healthcare in the state, with
62% indicating that healthcare should be a top priority for elected leaders.
Trump and RFK Jr.’s Gutting of CDC ‘Should Terrify Everyone,’ Advocates Say
“This is not normal”
Jake Johnson for Common Dreams
“The grim state of affairs at the Trump CDC should terrify
everyone,” Brad Woodhouse, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Care,
said in a statement on Monday in response to reporting by The New York Times, which shows how Health and
Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy
Jr. and other administration officials have made the CDC “a skeleton of the
powerhouse it was.”
The Times noted that, as of May 2026, the CDC had 30% fewer
employees than it did before the Trump
administration initiated mass layoffs at the agency and across the federal
government last year.
There is also a leadership vacuum at the agency, according
to the Times, which reported that “only one of the 11 center directors from March 2025 remains at the agency” and “most of the
other centers are being run by acting directors, some of whom were elevated
from jobs one or two levels below.” The current CDC director is Dr. Erica
Schwartz, who “has made no public statements about the importance of childhood vaccines or corrected
misinformation from her boss, Mr. Kennedy,” the Times observed, even as
recorded measles cases reach levels not seen in decades.
‘ICE Is Everywhere’: Investigation Reveals More Arrests Than Ever, With Quieter Tactics
Citizen or not, ICE will grab you
Brett Wilkins for Common Dreams
The British newspaper examined what it called the
increasingly “invisibilized” immigration dragnet reaching into workplaces,
airports, traffic stops, convenience stores, and communities far from the
US-Mexico border, declaring “ICE is everywhere.”
“Before, [ICE] were storming around, making a lot of noise,”
Gracie Willis, a rapid-response attorney with the National Immigration Project,
told The Guardian. “Now, they are moving more quietly.”
“More quietly” does not mean fewer arrests. In fact, The
Guardian reported that ICE apprehended nearly 50,000 people in July, a record
high. The agency has also more than doubled its workforce this year to more
than 22,000 officers and staff after Congress provided the Department of
Homeland Security with $75 billion in additional funding.
As of September 15, ICE had also signed more than 2,500
agreements allowing state and local law enforcement agencies to participate in
federal immigration enforcement.
“The detentions are happening in a flash—we’re talking,
like, 90 seconds from the time ICE shows up to that person being driven away,”
Willis said. “And often they are moving very quietly, with very soft feet.”
The shift in tactics came after the administration’s highly
publicized operations provoked intense opposition, especially following a
series of fatal shootings, including of American citizens.
Tuesday, October 6, 2026
The final month before Charlestown town elections - early voting starts next week
Lowkey campaigns, but stark contrasts and high stakes
By Will Collette
 |
| This is the endorsed slate of Charlestown Residents United town office candidates |
Early and mail-in voting starts on October 14 for the
November 3 General Election. This year’s perennial struggle between
Charlestown’s former rulers, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA), and the
current majority faction, Charlestown Residents United (CRU) has been pretty low-key
compared to prior elections. Fewer yard signs, fewer mailers, less fireworks.
That’s because Charlestown’s new CRU leadership for the past
four years has brought more competent, responsible government after 10 years of
CCA chaos. Gone are the CCA’s mismanagement, secrecy and paranoia. The
craziness has been turned down to a mere background buzz. Not surprisingly, the
CCA
has failed to come up with a full slate of candidates for town office for
the first time in memory.
When Charlestown Residents United ousted the CCA’s Town
Council majority in 2022, they did so after the CCA demonstrated it could not
properly manage the town’s finances. The highest visibility evidence was a
“misplaced” $3 million that for almost two years was somehow lost in the Byzantine system
the CCA created. That's the “$3 million Oopsie” that no one in the CCA would accept
responsibility for causing.
It didn’t help the CCA’s cause that they used that money,
and more, to finance questionable land deals. And, completely missing the
Watergate lesson that “it’s the cover-up that gets you,” the CCA tried to
prevent the public from knowing what they did by having their lapdog Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz use every trick in the book to keep the records out of public view.
The CCA learned you can’t screw up the money and stay in
office. The CRU by sharp contrast, resolved
the financial mess the CCA created to the point where a detailed report by the
Rhode Island Auditor General showed how the new CRU majority improved
Charlestown’s fiscal systems:
The four years of Council control by Charlestown Residents United have been largely drama-free. Under the CCA, Charlestown seemed to be continuously assailed by “threats,” often imaginary, that supposedly only the CCA could handle.
Under the CRU, it seems the only chronic emergencies are
weather related – drought, wildfires, sea level rise and severe storms – and
this council has shown its ability to proactively handle these problems.
 |
| Here's a typical example of how CCA's flunky Stankiewicz responded to open records requests. He actually made you PAY to get records like this. |
The CRU replaced Stanky with highly respected former Charlestown Police Chief Jeffrey Allen who has managed the town’s business
without rancor or controversy.
 |
| The CCA first took total control of the Town Council in 2010. Tax rate = $7.48. Under the CCA, it rose steadily to a 2016 peak of $10.21. When the CCA was booted in 2022, the rate was $8.17. Under the CRU, the rate has dropped to the current $5.05. The CCA's claims about the tax rate are untrue. Source: Charlestown Tax Assessor. |
But if you look at the actual numbers, under the CCA, tax rates went up every year as did the actual tax Charlestown property owners paid.
Under Charlestown Residents United, the much-touted tax rate went down
dramatically due to the sharp rise in property values.
The CCA, and especially its leader Ruth Platner who also has run the Charlestown Planning Commission, has continually tried to convince Charlestown voters that we are on the brink of environmental disaster.
Again, says the CCA, only the CCA can save the town. This year’s theme has been “local control.”
That’s Platner’s code for the threat that “people from Providence” might
diminish her long-held sole control of what gets built in Charlestown.
To put it bluntly, Platner equates “local control” with
control by her.
 |
| Charlestown property taxes are affected mostly by market swings. Source: GoLocal |
In the November 3 General Election, Charlestown voters could
quite easily vote Platner off the Commission – she and her minions face a
strong challenge from the CRU slate for Planning. With four seats on the
ballot, obviously Platner needs to finish in the top four. Plus she needs to
get her slate elected to maintain her majority. Otherwise, she can no longer
tell any of her minions who get more votes than her to step aside so she can
continue her reign as Planning Commissar.
I’d love to see Charlestown voters send Ruth Platner into
retirement once and for all.
I also hope that with another term for the Charlestown
Residents United Town Council majority, we can see the resolution of some
unfinished business. These include:
Homestead Tax Credit. The CRU majority succeeded in getting the General Assembly to authorize Charlestown to change its tax code to
grant yearlong residents a break on their property taxes as other RI shoreline
communities do. The CCA long opposed the Homestead tax break, arguing that this
would somehow be “unfair” to nonresident homeowners, who coincidentally
finance much of the CCA’s political activity. A CRU majority needs to write the
ordinance to enact this long overdue tax relief.
Tax Fake Fire Districts fairly. Many coastal towns have
homeowner associations (HOAs) who have found a legal loophole to style
themselves as “Fire Districts” even though they have no ability to fight fires.
Charlestown has two: Shady Harbor and Quonnie. Between them, they own millions of dollars in prime shoreline real estate yet pay little or no property tax,
shifting those taxes on to the rest of us. These two neighborhoods are solid
CCA territory so naturally they were protected while the CCA ran the town. A
CRU majority needs to end the privileged tax treatment enjoyed by fake fire
districts and tax their property as they would any other HOA.
Adopt prudent Bad Actor policies and practices. Charlestown
buys goods and services from a variety of businesses and also awards lucrative
permits and licenses to a variety of others. It does so without any policies to
judge whether those businesses are honest and ethical. The CCA’s Town
Administrator Mark Stankiewicz actually granted the notorious Mob-connected Copar Quarry a business license to operate a quarry right off Route 91 on the
bank of the Pawcatuck River. The CCA spent thousands of your tax dollars to fight the Dollar Store’s effort to site a store in the Cross Mills village
district. These and other questionable businesses would have been blocked if
Charlestown had enacted a policy that barred doing business with companies or
individuals with bad track records. We can set our own criteria so long as they
are reasonable and fairly applied. We can stop doing business with crooks. A CRU majority should make sure Charlestown does not do business with criminals.
Tax breaks for volunteer firefighters. The
Charlestown Fire District is currently in another drive to recruit more
volunteer firefighters. This is a regular problem when we ask people to step up
for the hard and dangerous work of protecting people’s lives and property. I am
in awe of those who do this and think they should be rewarded. One
straightforward way to do that is to give them a generous tax break on the property or auto tax. We can work with the Fire Districts on a fair formula for
earning the tax cut (i.e. length of service, response to turn-out calls, etc.)
but let’s do it, both out of gratitude and to help with recruitment. A CRU majority needs to act.
All of these ideas have been kicking around a while. During
the decade of CCA reign, they were all non-starters. The CRU majority has now
had enough time to study these issues and, if they receive a continuing mandate from the
voters on November 3, they should act posthaste.
More REM sleep linked to lower risk of 83 diseases
Large study shows benefits of deep sleep
PLOS
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Sleep quantity and quality is a priority of China’s National
Health Commission and a focus in China more broadly. The most recent 2026 China
Sleep Health White Paper finds that while the average surveyed Chinese person
sleeps 6.97 hours per night, 23 percent sleep less than 6 hours per night. The
same report notes that only 26 percent of respondents reported a consistent
sleep schedule, and that disturbances to sleep have increased over time.
Understanding how sleep patterns are linked to disease risk is therefore of
great relevance to Chinese citizens.
There remains limited understanding of how sleep stages and
other real-world sleep patterns relate to health outcomes. In part, that is
because self-reported sleep measures often show poor correlation with objective
assessments, making it difficult to capture real-world sleep patterns.
In the new study, researchers analyzed data from 95,559 UK
Biobank participants who wore wrist accelerometers for seven consecutive days
and nights. The researchers used a deep-learning algorithm to calculate sleep
stages (REM, deep, and light sleep), total sleep duration, wakefulness after
sleep onset, and night-to-night sleep irregularity. Participants were followed
for a median of 8.9 years, and health records were available to test for
associations with more than 1,000 disease outcomes.
Millions take calcium and vitamin D for bone health. A major review finds little benefit
Lower expectations
BMJ Group
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Falls are a major health concern as people age. Nearly one
in three adults aged 65 and older falls each year, and those falls can lead to
fractures, chronic pain, loss of independence, reduced quality of life, and in
some cases a move into residential care. Finding effective ways to prevent
falls and fractures is therefore an important public health goal.
Longstanding Questions About Bone Supplements
Calcium and vitamin D have long been associated with bone
health. Calcium is a major structural component of bone, while vitamin D helps
the body absorb calcium and supports normal bone metabolism.
Even so, previous evidence reviews have generally found that
taking calcium or vitamin D alone does not reduce fracture risk. Results have
been less consistent when the two are taken together, and researchers have also
remained uncertain about whether vitamin D can meaningfully reduce falls.
Despite those unanswered questions, vitamin D supplements
(with or without calcium) are still commonly recommended by clinicians,
guidelines, and regulatory agencies for bone health. Prescriptions have also
risen substantially in recent years.
Wood Pawcatuck Watershed Association gets $350,000 state grant
DEM Awards Over $2M in Climate Resilience Grants
.webp)
The grants will fund eight projects to restore and improve the climate resilience of local communities, infrastructure, and coastal habitats. The CRF is funded through 2024 Green Bond.
“Rhode Island continues to face increasing challenges from more frequent and intense weather events from climate change. In 2026, we experienced record snowfall in February, drought conditions throughout the Spring, and then higher than average rainfalls in July. Additionally, NOAA declared this July as the hottest July on record in our country. Our state’s communities face significant stresses and diverse risks from rising seas to severe storm events, flooding, and erosion,” said DEM Director Terry Gray.
“These grants provide vital support for projects that strengthen the
resilience of our communities, underscoring the importance of the
voter-approved Green Bonds that make them possible. We urge Rhode Island voters
to approve the 2026 Green Bond
in November.”
Monday, October 5, 2026
Groundwater must be part of development planning
Critical issue in communities without public drinking water
By Rep. Megan L. Cotter
There is also no understating the importance of ensuring
that every home, new or existing, has access to a consistent supply of the
clean, healthy water its inhabitants need.
Water capacity is readily available for areas served by
public water systems. But in rural communities that rely on private wells, like
those in my district, how do we know the impact new development will have on
groundwater? And how do we plan and manage this critical resource as we develop
the housing we desperately need?
These are the questions I seek to answer with the new study
commission I am chairing in the House. I sponsored the legislation to create
the water supply planning commission because water capacity must be part of any
serious conversation about housing growth.
Housing development and water supply planning shouldn't be
framed as opposing goals. Rhode Island needs more housing, and all Rhode
Islanders need safe drinking water. The underlying goal of our bipartisan
commission — which includes experts and stakeholders from housing development,
state and municipal decisionmakers and managers of water resources — is to
connect these objectives and set our state on the path toward succeeding at
both.
Arrowhead Dental's annual free treatment day coming October 17
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Tylenol during pregnancy not linked to autism, ADHD, major review finds
Bobby Junior, wrong again
“A widely debated question deserves more than headlines—it
deserves robust evidence,” first author Hoda Tayebi Hillali, DDS, MSc, of the
University of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain, said in a press release from Wiley, publisher
of the journal that posted the study. “Our findings show that the apparent
association between prenatal paracetamol [acetaminophen] exposure and autism or
ADHD weakens as methodological quality improves, challenging the interpretation
of a causal link and supporting evidence-based decisions during
pregnancy.”
Magnesium supplements: what you need to know about each different type
Behind the buzz
Indeed, magnesium is an essential mineral involved in hundreds of processes in the body. It helps muscles and nerves work properly, supports energy production and contributes to the maintenance of strong bones and teeth.
Magnesium is also important for maintaining a healthy heart rhythm, regulating blood pressure and blood sugar levels. Many people don’t get enough from their diet, so supplements can be useful in some situations.
But when you look closely at the research, there’s little evidence to suggest that any one type of magnesium supplement has unique benefits over another.
Magnesium glycinate
One of the most talked about types of magnesium is magnesium glycinate, often promoted as the best option for sleep. This form combines magnesium with glycine, an amino acid that may improve sleep on its own.
While some research does show that magnesium may improve sleep, these trials do not show that glycinate is any better than other forms. Glycinate’s main advantage is that it’s gentle on the stomach and well absorbed, which may make it easier for some people to tolerate.
Magnesium L-threonate
Another form that attracts a lot of attention is magnesium L-threonate. It’s suggested it can improve memory and focus.
These claims appear to come from early animal studies which suggested that L-threonate may increase magnesium levels in the brain more effectively than other forms. In these studies, which were conducted in rats, supplementation enhanced several types of memory and increased the number and function of connections between brain cells in the hippocampus – a key region involved in learning and memory.
Human evidence remains relatively limited. One study did demonstrate that in people who took 2g of L-threonate daily for six weeks, the supplement was associated with improvements in several areas of thinking and memory – including working memory, memory of past events, reaction speed and overall mental performance.
But as the supplement was only compared against a placebo, the results cannot tell us whether L-threonate is more effective than other magnesium supplements when it comes to brain function.
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