Who can best represent Charlestown and the rest of the Second District in Congress?

First debate between US Rep. Seth Magaziner and carpetbagger Vic Mellor shows the contrast between the two candidates

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

Vic Mellor wants to represent YOU. He already represents
the government of Cuba. Screenshot from his registration.

Clang clang clang went the cowbells as supporters of Republican congressional candidate Vic Mellor gathered outside WPRI 12’s studios Friday ahead of his first TV debate with incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner, who had his own posse of fans congregating before his arrival.

Inside was at first quieter, with Magaziner and Mellor shaking hands before and after the taping. While cordiality reigned over their limited offscreen interaction, the televised back-and-forth was decidedly more acrimonious, with each man impugning the other’s character as much as his politics.

“So he wants to abolish ICE,” Mellor, 56, said of Magaziner’s stance on the immigration enforcement agency at one point. “That’s basically what he said there. He just doesn’t have the gonads to say it.”

Magaziner, meanwhile, described his opponent as a fly-by-night opportunist.

Mellor told the US Justice Department he lives in Florida.
He told the Federal Election Commission he lives
in Warwick. One of these two federal filings is a lie. 

“Vic Mellor is treating Rhode Island like a pit stop between Florida and Washington,” the 43 year-old congressman said, a reference to Mellor moving from Florida back to his native state and beginning his congressional campaign within the same month.

“He hasn’t lived here since 1997,” Magaziner noted, and twice said that when Mellor last lived in Rhode Island, “‘Titanic’ was No. 1 at the box office.”

The candidates also clashed over Iran, healthcare and stock trading.

And inevitably they engaged on Mellor’s embrace of the Jan. 6, 2021, march on the U.S. Capitol, a choice which he reiterated Friday came with “no regrets.”

“You know he tried to do a stunt, and that backfired on him,” Mellor said of Magaziner’s Sept. 10 press conference outside the Rhode Island State House, in which Magaziner enlisted police officers who had been harmed in the events of Jan. 6 to make the case that Mellor’s participation that day was repugnant and disqualifying.

“Rhode Islanders don’t care about Jan. 6,” Mellor said, then turned to his opponent, “What they do care about is the riots that happened here in Providence with the socialists, the DSA, and the defund the police movement, which you marched with in solidarity.” Editor's note: WTF? What riots?

Flu season is near – here’s a guide to available vaccines

Be safe - get your shots

Annette Regan, University of California, Los Angeles

The number of people sick with flu is starting to increase across the United States, with health authorities warning that in some western regions of the country, the 2026-27 flu season may be off to an early start.

Health authorities often advise people to get their flu vaccine by the end of October – but as an epidemiologist focusing on vaccines and infectious diseases, I see the uptick in activity as a sign that there’s no time like the present.

Several vaccine options are available, including the new mRNA influenza vaccine, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in August 2026.

Seasonal patterns

It’s too early to say for sure that this year’s flu season will be an early one across the entire U.S. or to predict if it will be particularly severe.

As of Sept. 26, the latest date for which data is available, seasonal influenza activity remains low nationally, and wastewater surveillance still shows very low to low activity in most states.

However, the number of patients with respiratory infections who were testing positive began increasing near the end of September, suggesting that influenza viruses are beginning to circulate more widely.

Columbus’ own writings reveal how tightly religion and conquest (and slavery) were intertwined from the start

His writings also show his delusions of grandeur

Peter C. Mancall, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

A manuscript with the text of the letter Cristopher
Columbus wrote in February 1493, giving his account
of the first voyage to the Americas.
Archivo General de Simancas/Spanish Ministry of
Culture via Wikimedia Commons

Few historic figures are as divisive as Christopher Columbus. For some, in both Spain and the United States, he remains a great hero, an explorer who found a “new world.” 

He is reviled by others who see him as an arrogant conqueror: the first European to enslave Indigenous Americans, and the man who launched ecological destruction in the Western Hemisphere.

As a historian who writes about early encounters between Europeans, Indigenous Americans and Africans in North America, I believe it is important to recapture this period as much as we can from existing documents – including Columbus’ own writings. Those texts reveal the enormous importance the push to spread Christianity played in Europeans’ colonial plans from the start.

In my 2026 book, “Contested Continent: The Struggle for North America, c. 1000-1680,” I describe how Europeans’ religious desires shaped the creation of American colonies that benefited conquerors, at a high cost to those they displaced or enslaved. In the Americas, the linkage of religious purpose and the eager pursuit of glory and wealth began in 1492.

Green Bond Would Add $25 Million to Resilient Rhody Infrastructure Fund

Green Bond important to protect Rhode Island from effects of climate change

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff 

It’s not every day that lingering rain and wind from a rare, offseason nor’easter is an auspicious event.

Last week, just as the last of the weekend storm began to fade, state and local officials gathered inside the Looff Carousel in Crescent Park to launch the campaign for one of November’s ballot questions: the semiannual Green Bond.

The bond, a regular feature on election day in Rhode Island, is the ballot question that asks voters to approve funding for a number of environmental and climate resilience projects. The Sept. 28 event was aimed at encouraging people to vote yes on Question 5 this year.

Local state Rep. Megan Cotter worked hard to get
more funding for the Green Bond

The $55 million bond includes funding for state beaches, parks, and campgrounds; watershed restoration around Narragansett Bay; brownfield remediation; and farmland and open space preservation.

The Green Bond is one of five bond questions on the ballot this year, as voters are being asked to approve $600 million in new borrowing. Other bond questions include funding for capital improvements at the state’s three public higher education institutions; an affordable housing fund; economic development for Quonset Business Park and the I-195 District; and a new State History Center.

The clear winner this year for the Green Bond is climate resilience; $25 million from the bond would go toward the Resilient Rhody Infrastructure Fund administered by the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank (RIIB).

At a September 10 rally, Trump tells his supporters they are morons

Here's what he said: "It's amazing," Trump told his audience. "When you stand up here, it's just like…the love. I could say the stupidest things and you'd clap. 'Oh, I love you so—' It's true."

Comments by Jeff Tiedrich: 

He’s not wrong. I mean, it’s not even a hypothetical. Donny does feed his cultists on a steady diet of the stupidest shit imaginable. He tells them that magnets stop working if they get wet. They clap. He tells them exercise is bad for you. They clap again. He tells them windmills give you noise cancer. They smack their goddamned hands together like meth-tweaked seals.

Climate Action endorsing Sen. Victoria Gu, Senate candidate Sam Wilcox, and state reps. Megan Cotter, Carol McEntee and Kathy Fogarty

URI wildlife researcher Patrick Bailey answers questions about fall’s favorite winged mammal

Rhode Island’s new State Wildlife Action Plan lists all local bats as species of concern

By Kristen Curry 

Rhode Island’s new State Wildlife Action Plan lists all local bats as species of concern, including the hoary bat. (Photo / J.N. Stuart)

Patrick Bailey, a Ph.D. candidate in the Comparative Ecophysiology of Animals Lab at the University of Rhode Island, is drawn to the animals that populate our landscape each fall. He’s studied some of the quintessentially ‘scary’ Halloween animals, including wolves — though not the were- variety — as well as the bats of southern New England.

To be honest, the flying squirrel is my favorite local flying
mammal. This little guy got into our house right after
we moved in back in 2002 and I've seen them multiple
times. I managed to get him out safely. I also like bats.
- Editor Will Collette who also took the photo

Rhode Island’s newly approved State Wildlife Action Plan classifies local bat species such as the silver-haired bat — which favors oak and pine for habitat — of greatest concern. And while Bailey is not glad to see them on the list, he’s glad to see attention being paid to their vulnerability, having worked with bats earlier in his academic career. Bailey says working with bats helped him develop a wildlife skillset and gave him a deep appreciation for the misunderstood mammal.

“I’ve definitely had an appreciation for the ‘misfit’ mammals over the years,” he says. Today, he primarily works with gray wolves in coastal ecosystems.

Bailey fielded questions about New England bats, some of the challenges they face and how we can help them.

How is the local bat population faring in New England?

Bats in New England are facing a variety of threats, which have definitely impacted populations over the last few decades. As with most at-risk species, habitat loss continues to pose a huge problem for them. In Rhode Island, this occurs as a result of residential and commercial development that degrades forested habitats. Bats are also losing many of their maternal roost sites, which have historically included old barns, trees, snags (dead trees), etc. 

Measles outbreaks could leave thousands vulnerable to infectious diseases for years

Longterm damage from measles

Liz Szabo, MA

Measles infections make people miserable for up to two long weeks, commonly causing dangerously high fevers, a painful sensitivity to light and, of course, a tell-tale red rash.

Sufferers who escape without developing pneumonia, brain swelling, or other serious complications may believe the worst is over. 

Yet the measles virus has only gotten started.

The virus also damages the immune system, leaving people vulnerable to other infections for up to five years.

“The rash and the fever, that’s the tip of the iceberg,” Michael J. Mina, MD, PhD, coauthor of two seminal studies in Science on the effect of measles on the immune system, told CIDRAP News. “The majority of the damage being done is under the surface.”

The measles virus hijacks the immune system, using specialized memory cells to make copies of itself before blowing them up, Mina said. By deleting the body’s memory of earlier infections, measles causes a condition called “immune amnesia.”

Without those memory cells, the body essentially forgets how to fight off infections it defeated before. That leaves people newly vulnerable to bacteria and viruses against which they were once protected, either through infection or vaccination.

Donald Trump Jr.’s ex tries to shakedown GOP donor

Business as usual for Trump crime family

Brad Reed for Common Dreams

A former Republican congressional candidate and donor to Donald Trump’s campaign went on the record Thursday to level allegations of corruption against Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Trump-appointed US Ambassador to Greece.

Appearing on ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” Eric Deters said that Guilfoyle offered him access to top officials in the Trump administration if he paid off her $100,000 credit card debt.

“It was all quid pro quo,” Deters said. “She was so desperate for me to send that $100,000, she said, ‘If you do this for me... I will be your ride or die in Trump World.”

Being corrupt seems to be a job requirement

Deters’ claims are backed up by text messages published on Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, which show Guilfoyle begging him to help pay off her American Express bill ahead of her July 2025 confirmation hearing.

In the texts, Guilfoyle gave Deters pointers on how to help her without leaving a paper trail, informing him that the payment “won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express.”

In an interview with the Journal, Deters said that he ultimately didn’t send Guilfoyle the money, as she’d made promises of favors to him in the past without ever delivering.

Among other things, the former Trump donor explained, he once offered to pay Guilfoyle $1 million in exchange for securing him an interview on Tucker Carlson’s show. While Guilfoyle said she could get Carlson to agree to the interview, she was unable to convince him.

“She never came through on anything,” Deters explained.

Can AI agents produce real news reporting in Rhode Island?

A human journalist has some thoughts.

By Philip Eil, Rhode Island Current

She's not real but a creation of artificial intelligence

Since July, a Rhode Island news site has been publishing stories by authors that don’t exist. 

Kelly Lockhart, a housing reporter for Uprise RI, wrote about the widening gap between earnings and housing costs in the Ocean State. Correspondent Adriana Vossari covered the latest votes — on zoning, school procurement, criminal justice for juveniles, and other issues — from the Providence City Council. Debut stories by national politics reporter Ryan MacMahonaghan, labor reporter Eddie Exxe, and other correspondents followed. 

None of them are actual humans. They are, as the site notes, “computing agents — intelligent LLM reporters.” 

They kept up their work with little fanfare until Sept. 17 when Boston Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan reported on Uprise RI’s novel approach to newsgathering in the AI age. 

Other Rhode Island news organizations have tinkered or dabbled with artificial intelligence. The Providence Journal partnered with the AI-powered search engine, Perplexity. The Globe’s RI bureau published an op-ed that included the disclaimer: “The author used generative AI to help draft this commentary.” 

But no outlet, as far as I know, had farmed out entire stories to chatbots before. 

Uprise RI was founded in 2017 by progressive independent journalist Steve Ahlquist and is now owned solely by software developer Greg Brailsford.

Brailsford, who joined Uprise RI in 2020, declined interview requests from the Globe but did tell the paper, via email, that he thought the use of AI personas to report the news would become more common. Uprise RI, he told the Globe, is “a bit ahead of the game.”

This country’s robust freedom of speech gives people wide latitude to speak and publish without prior permission or regulation. But we should discuss big shifts in how our communities are covered. Because journalism is the lifeblood of democracy. And if that process is outsourced to machines — even if, as Uprise RI insists, humans oversee “Editorial standards, judgment calls, and corrections” — that has implications for all of us.  

I was an unpaid contributor to Uprise RI, when Ahlquist ran and edited the site. Alquist left in 2023, and I continue to contribute to his Substack on an unpaid basis. He had nothing to do with this article. I’m writing this as a Rhode Islander, journalist, longtime observer and reporter on local media and someone who frequently gives library talks about media literacy and misinformation. 

First, I want to thank Brailsford and Uprise RI. By going further than any other local outlet in the blending of AI tools with journalism, the site has sparked an important and timely conversation.

In theory, more coverage of local government is a good thing. One of the places hardest hit by the deterioration of local news has been the kind of granular, hyper-local reporting that Uprise RI offers. Go to the site and you’ll find coverage of zoning boards, city councils, and school committees. This is an admirable attempt to fill an existing gap.

But I have thoughts about Uprise RI’s approach.

Transparency, transparency, transparency

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics has a whole quadrant of principles under the heading “BE ACCOUNTABLE AND TRANSPARENT.” This need for transparency in the news-reporting process is even more urgent when non-human technologies are being used.

In Uprise RI’s case, I wish Brailsford had offered an essay at the start of the LLM-reporting endeavor introducing the “reporters,” explaining how the process works and how this serves the public. And, in general, I would love to see the site feature more prominent labeling that the articles are generated by artificial intelligence. Right now, you have to click a “reporter’s” “bio” to see the “Digital LLM Reporter” label. 

One day after the Globe article, Brailsford published a piece, “How a Rhode Island meeting becomes a story,” that explains the site’s process. The site’s “About” page now has a section labeled “Why do our reporters have human names and human faces?” 

I say: Keep going. 

Nothing about using LLMs for reporting is obvious or self-explanatory. I believe prominent labeling and explanation — to an extent not just equal to, but beyond what human-written sites offer — should be a staple of any AI-journalism operation.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Progressive Charlestown has re-published some of the new Uprise content especially on otherwise overlooked local issues and meetings. After I learned that Uprise reporting was all AI-generated and that their "reporters" were not human being but actually AI bots, 

I started to add this tag to their bylines noting that fact: [name] is an AI avatar used by Uprise RI to scan public records and then prepare articles like these. For more on how this is done: How a Rhode Island meeting becomes a story | Uprise RI. 

Since the articles are actually AI summaries of public transcripts, they serve a useful purpose, though like Phil, I remain uncomfortable with the concept. So far, I haven't seen any challenges to the accuracy of these articles or any criticisms of bias. If (or when) such problems arise, we'll review our usage.   - Will Collette

Future members of Trump's cabinet

Yes.

Charlestown's state Senator Victoria Gu debates her LORIB-endorsed opponent

State Senate District 38 Candidate Forum. sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Rhode Island

Steve Ahlquist

State Senator Victoria Gu (left) and Westin Place (right)

The League of Women Voters of Rhode Island sponsored the 2026 State Senate District 38 Candidate Forum featuring incumbent Senator Victoria Gu (Democrat) and challenger Westin Place (Republican) at the Westerly Town Hall on October 8, 2026. District 38 covers Westerly, Charlestown, and South Kingstown.

Matthew Ulricksen, an associate professor of political science at the Community College of Rhode Island, moderated the forum. He contributes to the Rhode Island Current.

Here’s the video: State Senate District 38 Candidate Forum - League of Women Voters of RI

Here’s the transcript, edited for clarity:

Matthew Ulricksen: Opening statements

Victoria Gu: It’s been an honor to represent the most beautiful part of the state. I grew up here, going to the beach and fishing with my dad. In 2023, I pledged to pass the shoreline access bill and, in my first year, negotiated it, built on it with the Shoreline Access Disclosure Law, and passed a bill to protect against reductions in parking near CRMC (Coastal Resources Management Council) rights-of-way to the shore. Because we’re a coastal area, we’re vulnerable to storms and sea-level rise, so I also passed the Act on Coasts and secured $5 million in additional green bond funding, which will run in November and provide resources for states and towns to harden their infrastructure against storms and flooding.

My community is tight-knit, with many generations growing up in South County, and it’s harder right now for young people and seniors to get priced out, so I’ve also been working on housing through accessory dwelling units, also called in-law units. Those permits have roughly doubled annually since we passed my bill in 2024. I’m also working to reform for-profit utilities like Rhode Island Energy, push back against rate increases, and seek greater oversight of the spending they pass on to ratepayers. So there’s a lot to do, and I look forward to discussing these issues.

What Does It Take to Get that Oyster on Your Plate?

Specialized Gear, Hard Work

By Bonnie Phillips / ecoRI News staff

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

Crew members Peter Muhitch, left, and Patrick Mitchell, haul an oyster cage aboard the boat. (Bonnie Phillips/ecoRI News)

Russ Blank bent over the side of his boat and, using a grapple hook, pulled up a heavy rope line attached to an oyster cage, one in a long line of cages floating in the West Passage of Narragansett Bay.

The line barely looked like rope; it was covered with seaweed and other stringy oceanic growth after sitting in the bay for months.

Blank’s two crew members out with him that September day, Peter Muhitch and Patrick Mitchell, used the hook to help wrestle the cage onto the side of the boat, balancing it on the edge between the cage’s two pontoon floats so it sat level. They then unhooked the cage’s closures and, one by one, emptied six mesh bags full of oysters into blue bins lined up on the boat. Empty, the cages weigh about 50 pounds; fully loaded with the bags of oysters and bogged down with algae and other aquatic growth, they can weigh between 200 and 300 pounds.

To harvest the oysters, each cage must be hooked and pulled onto the boat individually and the mesh bags emptied of oysters. The cage is then returned to the bay and the next cage pulled up and emptied, over and over. At this particular location of his Rome Point Oyster Co., Blank has 504 cages to check, empty, and refill during the oyster growing season. Each cage fills four to six blue bins with oysters, and the crew empties 10 to 20 cages a day.

It’s not an easy job.

Nobel Prize committee sticks it to Trump by giving Peace Prize to human rights jurist

Trump seeks to abolish International Criminal Court where Prize winner had served 

Jon Queally

Committee honors person who sought to punish
war crimes, rather than a person who commits them

The international reputation of the Nobel Peace Prize, which has suffered in progressive and human rights circles over recent years, may be on the path to improvement after Friday’s announcement that this year’s award has been given to Navi Pillay, a person of “exceptional courage” who has been at the forefront of accountability efforts for apartheid, prosecuting war crimes, and upholding international law for decades.

In its statement, The Norwegian Nobel Committee said Pillay—who during her career served as a judge on the High Court in South Africa, her native country, and later the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court (ICC)—“has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted.”

Pillay also served for six years as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 2008 to 2014, and more recently chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which generated a 2025 report concluding that the Israeli government had committed genocide in Gaza.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Right after the Peace Prize news, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the US is imposing new sanctions against the International Criminal Court, saying “We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate against us...The United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC.” According to Euronews "The European Union described US sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) as "deeply regrettable" and said it was "ready to take any necessary measures to enable the court to carry out its work'". - Will Collette