Tuesday, April 22, 2025
From the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee...
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Bunnies for biodiversity
Saving the imperiled New England cottontail rabbit
B y Anna Gray, College of the Environment and Life Sciences
Spring is in the air: the
days are longer, the weather is warmer, and you might be noticing more rabbits
hopping through your backyard. 
Eastern cottontail (left) and near twin New England cottontail
While adorable, the wild ones we see most
frequently in New England are invasive Eastern cottontails, which were
introduced to the area in the 1930s primarily to benefit hunters. The native
species, New England cottontails, are considered vulnerable because of their
decreasing population.
New England’s native cottontail
rabbits are considered vulnerable because of their decreasing population.
Alex Rebelo and Alannah Lee, both animal
science and technology majors, are working on conservation efforts
alongside Justin Richard, assistant professor in the Department of Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary
Science, to ensure more New England cottontails are born and released into
the wild every year to support declining populations and establish new ones.
“Increasing the population of the only cottontail species of cottontail native
to New England is important for biodiversity,” says Rebelo, noting their
importance for a healthy and balanced ecosystem.
Nutrition Expert Reveals the #1 Food Swap To Reduce Stroke Risk
Caution: Potassium may be good for your heart health, but not for your kidneys
By Sam Jones, Tufts University
Your dietary habits are reflected in your bones, gut, heart, blood, and brain.
Over time,
what you eat influences key health indicators like cholesterol, blood pressure,
and blood sugar.
These three markers not only help assess your risk for heart disease, but they also play a major role in determining your risk of stroke.
Strokes, whether caused by a blocked or burst blood vessel in the brain, are
closely linked to diet. The good news: making healthier food choices can
significantly reduce your stroke risk.
Study Commission Recommends R.I. Implement Both Bottle Bill and Extended Producer Responsibility Program
Or perhaps we'll get neither
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
After 18 months of study, more than a dozen
meetings, and hundreds of pieces of testimony, evidence, and presentations,
Rhode Island’s joint study commission on plastic waste released its report,
which revealed, unsurprisingly, that legislation in support of a bottle bill
faces steep opposition..webp)
Ban nips - reduce roadside litter AND drunk driving
The bottle bill is one of those pieces of environmental
legislation that remain stuck in a state of political limbo. Advocates and
pro-bottle bill lawmakers every year lobby heavily for the state to adopt a
bottle deposit system, where consumers can turn in empty plastic bottles and
other containers in exchange for a small refund, but the legislation rarely
escapes committee.
It’s popular with environmental groups and residents who say
they are sick of finding alcohol nips and other plastic waste littering parking
lots, waterways, roadsides, and parks. But the legislation has always been
extremely unpopular with the state’s beverage distributors and liquor stores.
The bottle bill commission, led by Rep. Carol McEntee,
D-South Kingstown, a longstanding sponsor of such legislation, and Sen. Mark
McKenney, D-Warwick, was an attempt to study the issue more thoroughly and
hopefully reach some kind of compromise between bottle bill advocates and
opponents.
Monday, April 21, 2025
What if God tells Donald Trump to go nuclear?
Or - more likely - what if Trump decides he doesn't want the world to outlive him?
.webp)
That’s not in dispute. The only question is how many of us will die too early, when and how.
A doctor friend reminded me recently of the predicted death toll that could result from Trump’s early moves to stop funding health programs in foreign countries.
Many of us have probably forgotten Trump’s attack on USAID and similar programs because there’s so much else going on now. I know I’d put that out of my mind.
But my friend pointed me to a Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times last month that predicted 1,650,000 million people might die annually without continued U.S. funding for HIV prevention and treatment. He noted other outcomes – such as a half-million annual deaths from lack of vaccines.
We know that two children have died in Texas of measles, and both were unvaccinated. We can’t blame Trump for those deaths, but we know that he appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, to oversee public health. Without vaccines, children will die.
We know that the Trump is trying to end programs meant to slow, stall and reverse climate change. Our tortured environment already is producing catastrophic firestorms, tornadoes, blizzards, hurricanes, heat spells and floods. Unchecked, a wounded climate could make the earth unlivable.
The nation’s attention currently is on Trump’s assault on the economy – our own and the world’s – by imposing high tariffs, resulting in stunning shifts in stock and bond markets.
For days, Trump vowed to stay the course until he sort of didn’t, "pausing" most big tariffs hikes, but leaving in place 10 percent tariffs on most countries and boosting China’s levies to 145 percent.
Markets rose joyfully at first. Then they fell. Who knows what they’ll do next Monday morning or on Thursday afternoon, as financial wizards undertake a fool's mission - trying to make sense of what Trump is thinking.
Which brings me to the most serious danger of all –
Trump’s singular ability to activate the United States' nuclear arsenal.
Senate President Dominick Ruggerio has died
Trade union leader, longest serving legislator
By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, the State House’s longest-serving member, died early Monday morning following a battle with cancer, according to a statement from his office. He was 76.
Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current
“It is with deepest sorrow that we announce the passing of Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio earlier this morning,” the statement said. “We are so grateful for the love and support of his friends and colleagues. Throughout his illness, Donny fought valiantly, just as he always had for his constituents and the residents of Rhode Island.”
The North Providence Democrat was hospitalized at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital last week for a bad reaction to his treatment — returning less than five weeks after he was released from the same hospital and rehabilitation center for pneumonia.
House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi said he was “heartbroken,” referring to Ruggerio as his “dear friend” in a statement Monday morning.
“I had enormous respect and admiration for his dedication and leadership,” Shekarchi said. “Even through his illness, we communicated on nearly a daily basis about the important issues facing our state. Donny devoted his life to the people of Rhode Island, which will always be his legacy. This is the end of an era at the State House, where Donny was a true giant for well over four decades, beginning his career in the House in 1981 before moving to the Senate four years later. On behalf of the House of Representatives, we extend our deepest sympathies to his family and his Senate colleagues, and we will miss him greatly.”
Francis − a pope who cared deeply for the poor and opened up the Catholic Church
Steadfast advocate for migrants, stood up to Trump. Requiescat in pace
Prior to becoming pope, he was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, and was the first person from the Americas to be elected to the papacy. He was also the first pope to choose Francis as his name, thus honoring St. Francis of Assisi, a 13th-century mystic whose love for nature and the poor have inspired Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
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| The Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio, ordained for the Jesuits in 1969 at the Theological Faculty of San Miguel. Jesuit General Curia via Getty Images |
Pope Francis chose not to wear the elaborate clothing, like red shoes or silk vestments, associated with other popes. As a scholar of global Catholicism, however, I would argue that the changes Francis brought to the papacy were more than skin deep. He opened the church to the outside world in ways none of his predecessors had done before.
Care for the marginalized
Pope Francis reached out personally to the poor. For example, he turned a Vatican plaza into a refuge for the homeless, whom he called “nobles of the street.”
He washed the feet of migrants and prisoners during the traditional foot-washing ceremony on the Thursday before Easter. In an unprecedented act for a pope, he also washed the feet of non-Christians.
He encouraged a more welcoming attitude toward gay and lesbian Catholics and invited transgender people to meet with him at the Vatican.
On other contentious issues, Francis reaffirmed official Catholic positions. He labeled homosexual behavior a “sin,” although he also stated that it should not be considered a crime. Francis criticized gender theory for “blurring” differences between men and women.
While he maintained the church’s position that all priests should be male, he made far-reaching changes that opened various leadership roles to women. Francis was the first pope to appoint a woman to head an administrative office at the Vatican. Also for the first time, women were included in the 70-member body that selects bishops and the 15-member council that oversees Vatican finances. He appointed an Italian nun, Sister Raffaella Petrini, as President of the Vatican City.
Not shy of controversy
Some of Francis’ positions led to opposition in some Catholic circles.
One such issue was related to Francis’ embrace of religious diversity. Delivering an address at the Seventh Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Kazakhstan in 2022, he said that members of the world’s different religions were “children of the same heaven.”
While in Morocco, he spoke out against conversion as a mission, saying to the Catholic community that they should live “in brotherhood with other faiths.” To some of his critics, however, such statements undermined the unique truth of Christianity.
During his tenure, the pope called for “synodality,” a more democratic approach to decision making. For example, synod meetings in November 2023 included laypeople and women as voting members. But the synod was resisted by some bishops who feared it would lessen the importance of priests as teachers and leaders.
In a significant move that will influence the choosing of his successor, Pope Francis appointed more cardinals from the Global South. But not all Catholic leaders in the Global South followed his lead on doctrine. For example, African bishops publicly criticized Pope Francis’ December 2023 ruling that allowed blessings of individuals in same sex couples.
His most controversial move was limiting the celebration of the Mass in the older form that uses Latin. This reversed a decision made by Benedict XVI that allowed the Latin Mass to be more widely practiced.
Traditionalists argued that the Latin Mass was an important – and beautiful – part of the Catholic tradition. But Francis believed that it had divided Catholics into separate groups who worshiped differently.
This concern for Catholic unity also led him to discipline two American critics of his reforms, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, and Cardinal Raymond Burke. Most significantly, Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Vatican ambassador, or nuncio, to the United States was excommunicated during Francis’ tenure for promoting “schism.”
Recently, Pope Francis also criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to deport migrants. In a letter to US Bishops, he recalled that Jesus, Mary and Joseph had been emigrants and refugees in Egypt. Pope Francis also argued that migrants who enter a country illegally should not be treated as criminals because they are in need and have dignity as human beings.
Writings on ‘the common good’
In his official papal letters, called encyclicals, Francis echoed his public actions by emphasizing the “common good,” or the rights and responsibilities necessary for human flourishing.
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| Pope Francis washes the foot of a man during the foot-washing ritual at a refugee center outside of Rome on March 24, 2016. L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP |
In his next encyclical, Laudato Si’, or “Praise Be to You,” Francis addressed the environmental crisis, including pollution and climate change. He also called attention to unequal distribution of wealth and called for an “integral ecology” that respects both human beings and the environment.
His third encyclical in 2020, Fratelli Tutti, or “Brothers All,” criticized a “throwaway culture” that discards human beings, especially the poor, the unborn and the elderly. In a significant act for the head of the Catholic Church, Francis concluded by speaking of non-Catholics who have inspired him: Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu and Mahatma Gandhi.
In his last encyclical, Dilexit Nos, or “He Loved Us,” he reflected on God’s Love through meditating on the symbol of the Sacred Heart that depicts flames of love coming from Jesus’ wounded heart that was pierced during the crucifixion.
Francis also proclaimed a special “year of mercy” in 2015-16. The pope consistently argued for a culture of mercy that reflects the love of Jesus Christ, calling him “the face of God’s mercy.”
A historic papacy
Francis’ papacy has been historic. He embraced the marginalized in ways that no pope had done before. He not only deepened the Catholic Church’s commitment to the poor in its religious life but also expanded who is included in its decision making.
The pope did have his critics who thought he went too far, too fast. And whether his reforms take root depends on his successor. Among many things, Francis will be remembered for how his pontificate represented a shift in power in the Catholic Church away from Western Europe to the Global South, where the majority of Catholics now live.
Mathew Schmalz, Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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