Saturday, May 4, 2024
Even hands-free, phones and their apps cause dangerously distracted driving
Stay alive when you drive
Shannon Roberts, UMass Amherst
 |
| Car infotainment systems are getting ever more sophisticated. AP Photo/Ryan Sun |
But don’t become complacent either. Using your cellphone in hands-free mode while driving is not a perfectly safe activity, despite the impression you might be getting from laws, marketing messages and the behavior of people around you.
Fatal crashes caused by driver distraction have not gone down significantly over time: Distraction caused 14% of fatal crashes in 2017 and 13% of fatal crashes in 2021.
Given that these numbers are calculated based on police-reported crashes, many experts believe the actual number of crashes caused by driver distraction is much higher. For example, real-world crash data from teens indicates that 58% of their crashes are due to driver distraction.
I am a human factors engineer who studies how drivers interact with technology. I see a gap between what people are told and what people should do when it comes to using your cellphone behind the wheel.
Unlocking Brain Health Through the Science of Nutrition
Med diet still among the best
By THE GERONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF
AMERICA
“Insights & Implications in Gerontology: The Vital Role of Nutrition in Brain Health,” a new publication from the Gerontological Society of America, explores nutritional choices that have been shown to improve cognition and decrease the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in older adults.
Consumption of a healthful diet is a behavioral strategy
that can help to prevent the development of dementia as people age, the
publication says. It also reports on the roles of vitamins and minerals in
nutrition and brain function and focuses on how to implement person-centered
conversations about the impact of diet and nutrition on overall wellness,
including brain health.
College administrators are falling into a tried and true trap laid by the right
Deja vu all over again
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, University of New Orleans
 |
| A student is arrested during a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the University of Texas at Austin on April 24, 2024. Brandon Bell/Getty Images |
We’ve been here before. In my book “Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America,” I detail how, throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, conservative activists led a counterattack against campus antiwar and civil rights demonstrators by demanding action from college presidents and police.
They made a number of familiar claims about student protesters: They were at once coddled elitists, out-of-state agitators and violent communists who sowed discord to destroy America. Conservatives claimed that the protests interfered with the course of university activities and that administrators had a duty to guarantee daily operations paid for by tuition.
Back then, college presidents routinely caved to the demands of conservative legislators, angry taxpayers and other wellsprings of anticommunist outrage against students striking for peace and civil rights.
Today, university leaders are twisting themselves in knots to appease angry donors and legislators. But when Columbia University President Minouche Shafik called in the NYPD to quell protests, she was met with a firm rebuke from the American Association of University Professors.
If the past is any indication, the road ahead won’t be any easier for college presidents like Shafik.
Friday, May 3, 2024
Clearing the air: wind farms more land efficient than previously thought
Wind power is a source of energy that is both affordable and renewable.
McGill University
However, decision-makers have been reluctant to invest in
wind energy due to a perception that wind farms require a lot of land compared
to electric power plants driven by fossil fuels. Research led by McGill
University and based on the assessment of the land-use of close to 320 wind
farms in the U.S. (the largest study of its kind) paints a very different
picture.
Misplaced preconceptions about the land use of gas-fueled
electricity
.webp)
However, the wind power
infrastructure (such as the turbines and roads) typically only uses 5 per cent
of the entire farmland – the rest is often used for other purposes, such as
agriculture.
The research also shows that if wind turbines are sited
in areas with existing roads and infrastructure, such as on agricultural land,
they can be approximately seven times more efficient, in terms of energy
produced per square metre of land directly impacted by the infrastructure, than
projects that are developed from scratch.
“The land use of wind farms has often been viewed as among the predominant challenges to wind development,” explains Sarah Jordaan, an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at McGill and the senior author on the study.
“But, by
quantifying the land area used by nearly 16,000 wind turbines in the western
U.S., we found that gas-fired generation offers no real benefits in terms of
lesser land use when the infrastructures, including all the wells, pipelines,
and roads associated with the natural gas supply chain, are considered.”
DEM Announces Start of the 2024 RI Grown Farmer's Market Season
Get Fresh, Buy Local
Starting this weekend, consumers can shop the RI Grown Farmers Market at Goddard Memorial State Park, held every Friday from 9 AM – 1 PM, or the RI Grown Farmers Market at Fishermen’s Memorial State Park, held every Sunday from 8:30 AM to 12 PM, for locally grown and fresh food.
The hours for Fishermen’s Memorial have changed, so consumers and vendors should plan accordingly. Markets at Goddard Park remain the same as previous years.
For the first few weeks, the RI Grown Farmer’s Markets will primarily offer bedding plants, hanging plants, cut flowers, RI Seafood, early vegetable crops, honey, and maple syrup. As traditional local summer crops become available, additional vendors will be attending. Consumers should keep a lookout for the RI Grown label, which certifies that a product was grown right here in the Ocean State.
Noncompete Clauses Cost Workers $300 Billion a Year
Can the Biden Administration really curb them?
By DEAN
BAKER
These clauses are part of tens of millions of employment contracts and
limit workers’ ability to quit their current employer and find jobs elsewhere.
That, in turn, suppresses wages.
Since announcing its plan to adopt rules on noncompete clauses last year the FTC has received more than 26,000 comments.
Noncompete clauses were originally only included in contracts for highly paid workers. For example, lawyers at a large firm might be limited in their ability to leave and take their clients with them. But noncompete contracts have become much more widespread in recent decades.
They
often prevent lower-paid workers, such as barbers or beauticians, from starting
their own business or working for a competitor. In one famous case, a
fast-food chain actually limited the ability of their
employees to get jobs elsewhere.
The effect of noncompete clauses is to reduce the wages
of workers affected by them.
The direct impact on workers subject to clauses could
be as much as 15 percent, and the impact on all
workers’ pay could be over 8.0 percent. In short, they are a big deal in
determining wages and the distribution of income.
Thursday, May 2, 2024
The Lasting Impact of Exposure to Gun Violence
Forever changed
By Rod McCullom
According to police reports, four gunmen drove to the alley behind the building and went through the adjoining vacant lot, killing Johnson and injuring four others. The mass shooting happened just across the street from where Pierre had seen his older brother Paris Johnson shot and left paralyzed in 2017. Paris died three years later.
Since 2020, gun violence has overtaken motor vehicle crashes to become the leading cause of death for children and adolescents aged 1 to 19 in the United States — a change mainly driven by homicides.
Young Black men and teenagers like the Johnsons, who live in urban areas that experience high rates of poverty, unemployment, and violent crime are the hardest hit demographic. In fact, the CDC reports that gun homicides are the leading cause of death for African American boys and young men aged 15 to 24.
According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence — a nonprofit public interest law and advocacy organization co-founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords — more Black males aged 15- to 24-years-old “died in gun homicides than from unintentional injuries, suicide, heart disease, Covid-19, cancer, non-firearm homicides, diabetes, congenital abnormalities, and chronic respiratory diseases, police shootings, cerebrovascular diseases, anemias, sepsis, influenza and pneumonia, and HIV combined.”
Despite the staggering numbers of injuries and deaths, the long-term effects of exposure to firearm violence — whether witnessing a shooting, living near the scene of gun violence, or having a friend or relative become a shooting victim — has long been understudied, researchers say.
One of the reasons is that a federal rule prevented the CDC from using funds to “advocate or promote gun control,” effectively halting research on gun violence for more than 20 years, from 1996 to 2019. With that funding now turned back on, there is an emerging research pipeline that focuses on the long-term effects of exposure to gun violence on adolescents, young adults, and adults.
Are tomorrow’s engineers ready to face AI’s ethical challenges?
More complicated than most think
Elana Goldenkoff, University of Michigan and Erin A. Cech, University of Michigan
 |
| Finding ethics’ place in the engineering curriculum. PeopleImages/iStock via Getty Images Plus |
These incidents are not just glitches, but examples of more fundamental problems. As artificial intelligence and machine learning tools become more integrated into daily life, ethical considerations are growing, from privacy issues and race and gender biases in coding to the spread of misinformation.
The general public depends on software engineers and computer scientists to ensure these technologies are created in a safe and ethical manner. As a sociologist and doctoral candidate interested in science, technology, engineering and math education, we are currently researching how engineers in many different fields learn and understand their responsibilities to the public.
Yet our recent research, as well as that of other scholars, points to a troubling reality: The next generation of engineers often seem unprepared to grapple with the social implications of their work. What’s more, some appear apathetic about the moral dilemmas their careers may bring – just as advances in AI intensify such dilemmas.
This Unusual Superfood Is Good for the Climate and Incredibly High in Protein
What's for dinner?
By FRAN MOLLOY, MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY
“In terms of food and protein conversion ratios, pythons
outperform all mainstream agricultural species studied to
date,” Dr. Natusch says.
“We found pythons grew rapidly to reach ‘slaughter
weight’ within their first year after hatching.”
Snake meat is white and very high in protein, Dr. Natusch
says.
Rhode Islanders rate of flu vaccination is falling
Shot fatigue? Really?
Flu's toll in the US so far this year: 24,000 dead, 33 million sick, 370,000 hospitalized
By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
Either way, fewer Rhode Island adults rolled up their sleeves for a flu shot this year, though the state remains a national leader in its influenza vaccination rate, Rhode Island Department of Health Deputy Director Seema Dixit told state lawmakers during a budget presentation Tuesday night.
Just over one-third of Rhode Island adults ages 20 and older got a flu shot during the 2023-2024 season, which began in mid-September, according to RIDOH data. By comparison, 64% of Rhode Island adults got flu shots during both the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 seasons, according to data with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That’s higher than the national rate, which ranged from 37.1% in the 2017-2018 season to a peak of 50.2% during the 2020-2021 flu season.
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Vaccination Efforts Saved Over 154 Million Lives
Let's save even more
GENEVA (Precision Vaccinations News)
A study published by The Lancet has
revealed that global immunization efforts have saved an estimated 154 million
lives over the past 50 years.
Photo credit: Heather Hazzan, SELF (CC BY)
Most lives saved were those of infants,
with 101 million lives saved.
The study, led by the World Health
Organization (WHO), found that vaccination against 14 diseases has reduced
infant deaths by 40% globally.
The 14 diseases that the study found
immunization to be effective against include diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae
type B, hepatitis B, Japanese encephalitis, meningitis A, pertussis, invasive
pneumococcal disease, polio, rotavirus, rubella, tetanus, tuberculosis, and
yellow fever.
The measles vaccination significantly
reduced infant mortality, accounting for 60% of the lives saved due to
immunization.
"Vaccines are among the most
potent inventions in history, making once-feared diseases preventable,"
said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a press release on April 24, 2024.
"Thanks to vaccines, smallpox has been
eradicated, polio is on the brink, and with the more recent development of
vaccines against diseases like malaria and cervical cancer, we are pushing back
the frontiers of disease. With continued research, investment, and
collaboration, we can save millions more lives today and in the next
50 years."
On the other hand, you have these idiots
"The study found that for each life
saved through immunization, an average of 66 years of total health were
gained—10.2 billion full health years gained over the five decades.
As a result of vaccination against polio,
more than 20 million people can walk today who would otherwise have been
paralyzed, and the world is on the verge of eradicating polio, once and for
all.
These gains in childhood survival highlight
the importance of protecting immunization progress in every country and
accelerating efforts to reach the 67 million children who missed out on
one or more vaccines during the pandemic.
Additionally, the WHO, UNICEF, Gavi, and
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) are unveiling the "Humanly
Possible" campaign during the annual World Immunization Week 2024.
The worldwide communication campaign calls
on world leaders to advocate for, support, and fund vaccines and the
immunization programs that deliver these lifesaving products.
"It is inspiring to see what has been
made possible over the last fifty years, thanks to the tireless efforts of
governments, global partners, and health workers to make them more accessible
to more people," said Dr. Chris Eias, president of Global Development at
the BMGF.
"We cannot let this incredible
progress falter. By continuing to invest in immunization, we can ensure that
every child – and every person – has the chance to live a healthy and
productive life."
Those who hoped for police to come in to crack heads will be disappointed to learn...
Brown has made a deal
Brown President Christina H. Paxson shared details
on the agreement in an April 30 campus
message.
“The devastation and loss of life in the Middle East has prompted many to call for meaningful change, while also raising real issues about how best to accomplish this,” Paxson wrote.
“Brown has always prided
itself on resolving differences through dialog, debate and listening to each
other. I cannot condone the encampment, which was in violation of University
policies. Also, I have been concerned about the escalation in inflammatory
rhetoric that we have seen recently, and the increase in tensions at campuses
across the country. I appreciate the sincere efforts on the part of our
students to take steps to prevent further escalation.”
Students agreed to end the encampment and refrain from
further actions that would violate Brown’s conduct code through the end of the
academic year, which includes Commencement and Reunion Weekend.
The University agreed that five students will be invited to meet with five members of the Corporation of Brown University in May to present their arguments to divest Brown’s endowment from “companies enabling and profiting from the genocide in Gaza.”
In addition, Paxson will ask
the Advisory
Committee on University Resources Management to provide a
recommendation on the matter of divestment by Sept. 30, and this will be
brought to the Corporation for a vote at its October 2024 meeting.
Another provision of the agreement relates to the
application of Brown’s conduct code to students involved in the encampment. The
establishment of tents and other related activities have violated a range of
policies, and while Brown will continue to follow its conduct processes related
to unauthorized activities, University leaders agreed that ending the
encampment will be viewed favorably in disciplinary proceedings.
The agreement also makes clear that reports of bias,
harassment or discrimination received during the encampment will continue to be
investigated. In addition, if the University receives new information about any
conduct violations related to or following the encampment, students won’t be
exempt from conduct proceedings for those violations.
The full letter from Paxson to the campus community is included below.
Free Freshwater Fishing Weekend May 4-5
Angling For A Deal
DEM invites Rhode Islanders and visitors alike to fish in the state’s freshwaters on both days for all species of freshwater fish without a fishing license, which normally costs $21 for residents and $38 for nonresidents, or a trout conservation stamp, which normally costs $5.50 – but both are not required during Free Fishing Weekend. A complete list of stocked waters can be found here.
Established in 1995, the program provides an opportunity to encourage people to
experience freshwater fishing as a new outdoor experience and highlight some of
state’s premier freshwater fishing areas. Free Fishing Weekend does not apply
to saltwater fishing or saltwater licenses.
Freshwater fishing regulations on size/creel (possession) limits still apply on May 4 and May 5. The daily creel and possession limit for trout is five from April 13, 2024, through November 30, 2024, and two from December 1, 2024, through February 28, 2025.
People treated by female doctors tend to have better health outcomes
Experts say female doctors tend to spend more time with their patients.
The study adds to a growing body of research that
patients consistently do better when they are under the care of a female
physician.
Experts say male physicians should consider the findings
of the study and reflect on how they might improve their own practice.
People treated by female physicians have lower rates of
mortality and readmission than those treated by male physicians.
That’s according to research published in the
journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
In their study, researchers reported that there was a
clinically significant difference in outcomes for people depending on the
gender of their treating physician.
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Donald Trump’s “Catch and Kill” Colluders at the U.S. Supreme Court
There’s a reason the right-wing justices are eager to support Trump’s senseless arguments on presidential immunity.
MITCHELL ZIMMERMAN
in Common
Dreams
When
the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Donald Trump’s presidential immunity
defense, I, an experienced lawyer and devout follower of legal developments,
believed that the court had only accepted the case in order to buy time for
Trump.
I
was sure the right-wing justices—having ensured that the election overthrow
prosecution would not go to trial until after November—would ultimately reject
Trump’s outlandish claim that a president can commit crimes with impunity.
Wrong. At the oral argument of the case, the conservatives quietly embraced the notion that a president could face no criminal penalties even for ordering the assassination of a political rival or directing the military to stage a coup.
They were unfazed by an argument that our president needed to enjoy the immunity of a king although the Constitution says not one word about immunity.
And, in a mind-numbing reversal of reality, Justice Alito argued that
presidential immunity was required so presidents could “leave office
peacefully” and to avoid a cycle of events that “destabilizes the functioning
of our country as a democracy.”
Could
the right-wing justices have failed to notice that the petitioner in this very
case, Donald Trump, did not seek to “go off into peaceful retirement”? That
instead he launched a vicious campaign of lies to reverse the election, based
on election-fraud allegations found to be groundless in 60 cases?
Could
they have forgotten that “the functioning of our country as a democracy” had in
fact been “destabilized”—by the petitioner before their court, Donald
Trump—when he wrongly persuaded tens of millions of followers that they had
been cheated, and when the mob he had summoned to Washington invaded the
Capitol to halt the peaceful transfer of power?
Why Do Humans Blink So Much?
New Research Challenges Traditional Views
By UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
.webp)
Given that blinks prevent an image of the
external scene from forming on the retina, it’s a peculiar quirk of evolution
that we spend so much time in this seemingly vulnerable state—especially
considering that eye blinks occur more frequently than necessary just to keep
our eyes well lubricated.
So why is blinking important?
Researchers from the University of Rochester
investigated the curious case of blinking and found that eye blinks aren’t just
a mechanism to keep our eyes moist; blinks also play an important role in
allowing our brains to process visual information. The researchers published
their findings in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.
How old do you think you are?
New Insights Into When “Old Age” Begins
By AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL
ASSOCIATION
.webp)
“Life expectancy has increased, which might
contribute to a later perceived onset of old age. Also, some aspects of health
have improved over time, so that people of a certain age who were regarded as
old in the past may no longer be considered old nowadays,” said study author
Markus Wettstein, PhD, of Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.
However, the study, which was published April 22 in the journal Psychology and Aging,
also found evidence that the trend of later perceived old age has slowed in the
past two decades.
Climate change will increase value of residential rooftop solar panels across US, study shows
Besides lower electricity costs, an added bonus
The
study defines the value of solar, or VOS, as household-level financial benefits
from electricity bill savings plus revenues from selling excess electricity to
the grid—minus the initial installation costs.
For
many U.S. households, increased earnings from residential rooftop solar could
total up to hundreds of dollars annually by the end of the century, say the
authors of the study, which was published April 19 in the journal Nature
Climate Change.
Monday, April 29, 2024
Chariho and Dunn’s Corner Elementary win federal awards for green practices
Rhode Island schools rank 1st in New England
|
 Since 2007, Rhode Island has taken a two-fold
approach to ensure PreK-12 students learn in schools that are safe, clean and
increasingly environment-friendly: regulations that ensure uniformity and
equity in school construction, and compliance with Northeast Collaborative
for High Performance Schools Protocol (NECHPS) requirements to ensure
projects are built green. As a result, Rhode Island public schools built or renovated over the
last 15 years use at least 30% less energy and 20% less water than buildings
designed to code and have diverted at least 50% of construction waste from
landfills. “Congratulations to the Chariho, Cranston, Providence, and Westerly school communities on this incredible achievement. We are thrilled to see the transformation of Rhode Island schools across our state and are committed to creating more environmentally friendly learning spaces,” said Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green. “Environmental awareness and literacy are
key to a successful learning environment, and the National Green Ribbon
School recognition serves as a reminder that our state is making an impact on
improving real-world learning. Congratulations to all those involved in
helping our schools achieve this.” Dunn’s Corners Elementary School, Westerly Dunn’s Corners Elementary School has focused on environmental preservation and education since the COVID-19 pandemic. The school has implemented initiatives including waste management through recycling and composting, as well as gardening and reducing energy use and costs. The school has replaced all water fountains with water bottle refill stations, while promoting the amount of water bottles that have been saved through this initiative. The school has also replaced lighting features throughout the building
with LED sensor lights that are energy efficient and last up to 25 times
longer than incandescent bulbs. Cleaning materials have also been shifted to
microfiber cloths and reusable spray bottles in the wake of the
pandemic. |
URI Master Gardeners to hold spring plant sale Saturday, May 4, on Kingston Campus
Get there early for the primo stuff
 |
| URI Master Gardeners will hold their spring plant sale Saturday morning, May 4, on the University’s Kingston Campus. The plant sale is open to the public. (URI Photos / Cooperative Extension) |
Got tomatoes? Broccoli?
How about some peppers? On Saturday, May 4, the University of Rhode Island
Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardener Program will hold its annual spring plant sale, open to the public, from 9
a.m. to 12 p.m. in the Kingston Campus’ botanical gardens on Greenhouse Road,
Kingston campus.
The plant sale will feature annuals, perennials, herbs, and vegetable seedlings — including the 2024 Plant of the Year, Gourmet Orange Bell Pepper — grown by URI Master Gardener propagation volunteers in URI’s East Farm greenhouses.
This annual sale supports educational services offered
through the URI Master Gardener Program throughout the year, including the
gardening and environmental hotline, gardening information and soil testing
exhibits, and ongoing educational workshops.
This year’s plant sale will feature annuals, perennials,
herbs, and vegetable seedlings, including the 2024 Plant of the Year, Gourmet
Orange Bell Pepper, all grown by URI Master Gardener volunteers in URI
greenhouses. Master Gardeners will be on hand to field gardening questions,
too.
Thousands of plants will be available for purchase by
credit card or cash. URI Master Gardeners will also be there to answer lawn and
garden questions.
The hidden risk of letting AI decide – losing the skills to choose for ourselves
Another reason to worry about AI
Joe Árvai, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.webp)
But behind the calls for a pause on the development of AI is a suite of more tangible social ills. Among them are the risks AI poses to people’s privacy and dignity and the inevitable fact that, because the algorithms under AI’s hood are programmed by humans, it is just as biased and discriminatory as many of us.
Throw in the lack of transparency about how AI is designed, and by whom, and it’s easy to understand why so much time these days is devoted to debating its risks as much as its potential.
But my own research as a psychologist who studies how people make decisions leads me to believe that all these risks are overshadowed by an even more corrupting, though largely invisible, threat. That is, AI is mere keystrokes away from making people even less disciplined and skilled when it comes to thoughtful decisions.
Sunday, April 28, 2024
The Chariho school construction bond
Why I am voting “Yes”
By Will Collette
As
taxpayers and voters, we are often asked to pay for things we don’t use, don’t
need or don’t like. Though I may not agree with every item, I have no problem
with this concept. Mutual aid is the foundation of a civil society, meaning we
all have a duty to support the common good.
I
don’t understand people who quibble about the costs of education given how much
education gives back, or stated conversely, how much it costs us as a
community if we fail to provide a solid and complete education for all.
Town
Council member Scott Bill Hirst (R) and his band of Hopkinton MAGAs are
campaigning hard against the school bond. They already convinced Hopkinton to
vote down the Chariho budget, though the yes votes from Richmond and
Charlestown were more than enough to approve the budget. The odious Clay
Johnson and Richmond MAGAs are also against the bond, as is the right-wing RI Center for
Freedom & Prosperity
That
Hopkinton Republicans and these other MAGAnuts want to block this bond so badly
is reason enough on its own for me to vote yes, but there’s much more than
that.
By
providing greater educational opportunities, we increase people’s earning
capacity, reduce crime and poverty and improve productivity. Is there a
down-side? Well, to MAGA Republicans, yes there is: an educated public is less
likely to buy their bullshit.
Critics
have grumbled about the cost of $150 million to build three schools and predict
there will be cost over-runs. They dismiss the $112 million in estimated state
funding saying that’s still our own money, but ignoring how the state cost-share spreads
the cost out over the much larger statewide base.
I
worked for the building trades for 10 years before I retired. One of my
responsibilities was to review bidding on public construction projects. In
2005, the going rate for building a public school in Rhode Island was $60
million.
I
am amazed at Chariho’s $50 million per school price tag compared to 20 years
ago. Since 2005, schools must meet improved standards for digital learning, fire
prevention, prevention of environmental hazards, isolation of communicable
diseases like COVID and of course protection for the kids from the shameful
plague of school shootings.
It’s
not just age and disrepair driving the need being this bond issue, it’s new
needs that were never envisioned when Chariho built the schools slated for
replacement. We can’t afford to skimp on health and safety or the critical need
to keep up with advances in technology.
Teaching
young children in the best possible setting prepares them for success in high
school, college or trade school and for careers beyond. The small bump in
property taxes is a very worthy gamble.
Vote
YES on May 7 or by mail-in ballot.
McKee releases his lame, sketchy "plan" to boost Rhode Islanders' incomes
He promised a "plan" but issued a "plan for a plan," if that
By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
The many questions that followed were met with one answer: Wait 100 days. The plan is coming.
A day before the 100-day mark, McKee delivered. Sort of.
The three-page memo announced on X on Thursday and added to the state’s long-term planning website, Rhode Island 2030, is more of a plan for a plan.
Or, in the words of Laura Hart, “a framework.”
“It’s not the plan itself because if we created a full plan and imposed it on people, we didn’t think that would work,” Hart, a spokesperson for McKee’s office, said in an interview on Friday.
Instead, the “Rhode to Prosperity” document proposes a series of summer outreach sessions with business and education leaders to gather feedback and hone details on the personal income goal.
The document is rife with buzzwords popular in the workforce development world: stressing the need for “viable pathways to higher-wage jobs” and the role of “experiential learning” that relies on traditional educational programs and “employer-aligned models.”
East Coast Mussel Shells Are Becoming More Porous in Warming Waters
Another delectable under siege from warming waters
American Museum of Natural History
The study, which analyzed modern mussel
shells in comparison to specimens in the Museum’s historic collection,
was published today in the
journal PLOS ONE.
“Mussels are important on so many levels: they provide habitats on reefs, they filter water, they protect coasts during storms, and they are important commercially as well—I love mussels and I know many other people do, too,” said Leanne Melbourne, a Kathryn W. Davis postdoctoral fellow in the Museum’s Master of Arts in Teaching program and the lead author on the study.
“Human-caused environmental changes are
threatening the ability of mussels and other mollusks to form their shells, and
we need to better understand what risks will come from this in the
future.”
Pell Center poll shows most American support traditional democratic values
Good news: Most Americans are NOT Christian nationalists
By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
The results published through Pell Center’s democracy-focused research project, Nationhood Lab, are part of a larger initiative launched in March that aims to better understand the historic and evolving sense of American nationalism beginning with the Declaration of Independence.
More than 1,500 voters nationwide interviewed from March 28 to April 2 were asked about their views on founding democratic values, along with their demographic details such as gender, political affiliation, race, religion, and age.
Among the most surprising findings: Twice as many survey takers favor a national narrative rooted in civic ideals of equality rather than one based in their ancestral or religious identity.
Saturday, April 27, 2024
GOP Confirms 2025 Tax Plan If Trump Wins: More Giveaways to the Rich
Not surprisingly, tax breaks for the rich are 2024 GOP mainstay
BRETT WILKINS for Common Dreams
The GOP-controlled House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on "expanding the success" of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)—widely derided by opponents as the "GOP Tax Scam."
Republican committee members couched a policy that the Center for Popular
Democracy said "delivered big benefits to the rich and corporations but
nearly none for working families" as "relief to help hardworking
American families."
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