Rhode Islanders report challenges with cost of living, access to affordable housing and nutritious food

Why Rhode Islanders are unhappy

Brown University

Rhode Islanders continue to face considerable challenges related to cost of living, affordable housing and access to nutritious food, and they are increasingly concerned about health care access.

Those are among the key findings from the seventh R.I. Life Index, an annual statewide survey on well-being created by leaders at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Rhode Island and the Brown University School of Public Health.

The survey captured how Rhode Islanders perceived their well-being in 2025 and added to a growing set of data the index has been collecting since before the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the results released on Wednesday, Feb. 4, there was virtually no improvement in 2025 in persistently low scores for how Rhode Islanders perceive their health and well-being.

The overall score stood at 57 on a scale of 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more positive perceptions. That’s unchanged from the previous year but down six points since 2021 and stuck at the lowest level since the index began collecting data.

McKee goes all in on fossil fuels with executive order [possibly] delaying renewable energy and plastic industry CEOs standing behind him

Looks like he's written off the Green vote

Steve Ahlquist

Update: Acadia Center, Climate Action RI, Clean Water Action & Green Energy Consumers Alliance respond:

“Governor McKee continues to pin the blame of escalating energy prices on the very tools that serve to protect Rhode Island ratepayers from volatile supply costs and rising delivery costs,” said Emily Koo, Rhode Island Program Director for Acadia Center. “It is a glaring omission to report the costs of clean energy while ignoring all of the cost savings, one of the primary reasons for undertaking the energy transition in the first place. I would be surprised if the local businesses featured at tomorrow/today’s event have not themselves leveraged energy efficiency and solar to lower their energy usage and stabilize their energy supply costs – these are best practices, and they benefit all ratepayers.”

Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee is responding to the climate denialism and dangerous energy policies of the Trump Administration not by pushing back against fossil fuels and championing renewable energy, but by embracing the logic coming out of D.C. and advancing policies that undermine Rhode Island’s historic 2021 Act on Climate legislation.

Rhode Islanders received a preview of Governor McKee’s new direction (which is not, truthfully, all that new) in his FY2027 Budget proposal. As Acadia Center [pointed out in a recent press release:

“At a moment when federal clean energy support is eroding, Rhode Island should be doubling down on the tools still firmly within the state’s control. Instead, Governor McKee’s FY 2027 budget sadly mirrors the short-sighted policies of the Trump Administration, cutting renewables and energy efficiency and delivering what would be a major blow to Rhode Island’s clean energy economy.”

Read Acadia Center’s analysis here: Acadia Center responds to severe clean energy rollbacks in Governor McKee’s proposed FY2027 budget

Make big bucks with no education

Attention, Karma fans

Release more Epstein files

How much game time is too much?

Study reveals how many hours of video games per week might be too many

By Samuel Jeremic, Curtin University

edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Andrew Zinin

Playing video games for more than 10 hours a week could have a significant impact on young people's diet, sleep and body weight, according to a new Curtin University-led study published in Nutrition.

Researchers surveyed 317 students from five Australian universities with a median age of 20 years old.

They split participants into three groups depending on the self-reported amount of time spent playing video games, from "low gamers" (0–5 hours per week) to "moderate gamers" (5–10 hours) and "high gamers" (10+ hours per week).

The team found while low and moderate gamers reported similar health outcomes, results worsened dramatically once a young person's gaming exceeded 10 hours a week.

Professor Mario Siervo, from the Curtin School of Population Health, said the findings suggested excessive gaming was the key issue, rather than gaming itself.

"What stood out was students gaming up to 10 hours a week all looked very similar in terms of diet, sleep and body weight," Professor Siervo said.

"The real differences emerged in those gaming more than 10 hours a week, who showed clear divergence from the rest of the sample."

The study found a decline in diet quality once gaming exceeded 10 hours per week, with a greater prevalence of obesity in the high gamers group, compared to the low and moderate gamers.

Trump's NIH Grant Disruptions Slow Down Breast Cancer Research

With amazing new cancer cures and vaccines on the horizon, now is not the time to cut funding

Martha Bebinger, WBUR 

Inside a cancer research laboratory on the campus of Harvard Medical School, two dozen small jars with pink plastic lids sat on a metal counter. Inside these humble-looking jars is the core of Joan Brugge’s current multiyear research project.

Brugge lifted up one of the jars and gazed at it with reverence. Each jar holds samples of breast tissue donated by patients after they underwent a tissue biopsy or breast surgery — samples that may reveal a new way to prevent breast cancer.

Brugge and her research team have analyzed the cell structure of more than 100 samples.

Using high-powered microscopes and complex computer algorithms, they diagram each stage in the development of breast cancer: from the first sign of cell mutation to the formation of tiny clusters, well before they are large enough to be considered tumors.

He often wears pink ties but not pink ribbons

Their quest is to prevent breast cancer, a disease that afflicts roughly 1 in 8 U.S. women over their lifetimes, as well as some men. Their ultimate goal is to relieve the pain, suffering, and risk of death that accompany this disease. And their painstaking work, unspooling across six years of a seven-year, $7 million federal grant, has yielded results.

In late 2024, Brugge and her colleagues identified specific cells in breast tissue that contain the genetic seeds of breast tumors.

And they discovered that these “seed cells” are surprisingly common. In fact, they are present in the normal, healthy tissue of every breast sample her lab has examined, Brugge said, including samples from patients who haven’t had breast cancer but have had surgery for other reasons, such as breast reduction or a biopsy that proved benign.

The next research challenge for Brugge’s lab is clear: Find ways to detect, isolate, and terminate the mutant cells before they can spread and form tumors.

Rightwing think tank issues shocking report showing immigrants delivered $14.5 trillion surplus to US economy over last 30 years

“MAGA’s claim that immigrants are a drain on government budgets? It’s a lie.”

Jon Queally

A groundbreaking new report released Tuesday details how immigrants in the United States over the last three decades have contributed a massive surplus to the nation’s economy, resulting in a total of more than $14 trillion over that period due to the fact that immigrant families generate significantly more benefits to fiscal health than they take away in the form of benefits received or downside costs.

The white paper by the libertarian free-marketeers at the Cato Institute, not a left-leaning outfit, builds on an existing model developed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to create a first-of-its kind analyses to determine “how immigrants, both legal and illegal, and their children affect government budgets” in a cumulative manner.

Looking at 30 years of data, the 95-page report—titled “Immigrants’ Recent Effects on Government Budgets: 1994-2023”—discovered that immigrants overall “generated a fiscal surplus of about $14.5 trillion” over those years. In part, the NASEM-Cato model shows:

• Every year from 1994 to 2023, immigrants have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits.
• Immigrants generated nearly $10.6 trillion more in federal, state, and local taxes than they induced in total government spending.
• Accounting for savings on interest payments on the national debt, immigrants saved $14.5 trillion in debt over this 30-year period.
• Immigrants cut US budget deficits by about a third from 1994 to 2023, and fiscal savings grew to $878 billion in 2023.

For what it's worth, Trump caught taking ANOTHER huge bribe from Middle East potentate

Breathtaking corruption is Trump's business as usual

By Brad Reed for Common Dreams

A bombshell January 31 report from the Wall Street Journal revealed that a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family secretly backed a massive $500 million investment into the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture months before the Trump administration gave the United Arab Emirates access to highly sensitive artificial intelligence chip technology.

According to the Journal’s sources, lieutenants of Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan signed a deal in early 2025 to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, the startup founded by members of the Trump family and the family of Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Documents reviewed by the Journal showed that the buyers in the deal agreed to “pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities,” while “at least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with” the Witkoff family.

Weeks after green lighting the investment into the Trump crypto venture, Tahnoon met directly with Donald Trump and Witkoff in the White House, where he reportedly expressed interest in working with the US on AI-related technology.

Two months after this, the Journal noted, “the administration committed to give the tiny Gulf monarchy access to around 500,000 of the most advanced AI chips a year—enough to build one of the world’s biggest AI data center clusters.”

Pedophile protectors

Cross' Mills Library hosts Valentine concert on Feb. 13

 

Valentine’s Day Concert: The HeartThrobs

The HeartThrobs – Joe Parillo on piano, Ian Reyes on Bass, Doc Wood on guitar and vocal, and introducing Paula Claire on vocals – will be presenting songs of love both old and new, the familiar and the unfamiliar, from the worlds of folk music and jazz.

At the library on Feb 13, 2026, 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

 Cross’ Mills Public Library, 4417 Old Post Rd, Charlestown, RI 02813-0909

Thank you, Senator Gu!

This week Senator Victoria Gu presented library director Sarah Ornstein with a Senate Legislative Grant in the amount of $1000, to be used to expand Cross’ Mills Library’s ebook collection.

Trump deportation push puts families of the elderly in a deep bind

The Ever-Shrinking Eldercare Workforce

By Cynthia Lien

Javier Erazo remembers lying beside his 93-year-old mother, her small frame helpless as she fell into the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease. He was exhausted from struggling daily to piece together a rotation of paid workers and family caregivers as his mother’s illness spiraled in unexpected ways. “She became more challenging, more confused,” he recalled. But placing her in a nursing home never crossed his mind.

“I will take care of her to the very end,” he had vowed.

During this time, I was Erazo’s mother’s geriatrician. Through the eyes and voices of caregivers for people with dementia, I have learned the value of consistent, quality care at every stage of the illness. In reality, however, finding such care can be arduous.

For increasing numbers of Americans, caring for their aging parents themselves could become their only option. A tsunami of frail elders is surging ahead just as the primary supply of direct care workers — many of them low-paid, untrained, and undocumented immigrants — is being depleted by political and economic forces.

“We have this level of need that’s coming, that we do not have the workforce or the systems to meet,” said Nicole Jorwic, chief program officer at Caring Across Generations, a national advocacy group that supports the rights of caregivers and care workers. “As a society, it’s the back-burner issue, but we’re running out of time.”

The final wave of baby boomers is approaching 65 and the number of people living with dementia in the U.S. will balloon from nearly 7 million in 2025 to 14 million over the next 35 years. Adults newly diagnosed with dementia are projected to reach 1 million per year by 2060, nearly twice the rate in 2020.

This rapid growth in older adults, chronically ill and care dependent, is poised to push America’s long-term care system to a critical tipping point. Already, before the surge, there were not enough workers to care for the aging population — even if those like Erazo had wished to lean on them.

Why aren't more older adults getting flu or COVID-19 shots?

Why NOT take simple, safe steps to save your life?

It's not too late to get your flu and COVID shots, and RSV as well

By University of Michigan

Edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Andrew Zinin

National Poll on Healthy Aging data from adults age 50 and over who replied to a poll in late December 2025 and early January 2026 saying that they had not received a flu vaccination in the last six months and/or had not received a COVID-19 vaccination in the last year, showing the main reason why they had not done so. Credit: Emily Smith—University of Michigan

This winter's brutal flu season isn't over, and COVID-19 cases have risen recently too. But a new poll taken in recent weeks shows that vaccination against both viruses lags among people 50 and over, and the national survey reveals key reasons why.

In all, the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging shows, 42% of people over 50 haven't gotten either flu or COVID-19 vaccines in the past six months, though 29% have gotten both and 27% have gotten just the updated flu shot.

The poll also asked about COVID-19 vaccination since it became available in 2021: 49% of people over 50 said it's been more than a year since their last dose, and 15% said they've never received it.

The leading reason people over 50 gave for not getting updated vaccines?

They didn't think they needed them.

In all, 28% of people over 50 who didn't get a flu vaccine in the past six months, and 29% of those who didn't get a COVID-19 vaccine in the past year or ever, gave this as the main reason.

That's despite clear evidence showing that staying up to date on both vaccines reduces the risk of serious illness and death in older adults, whose immune systems need regular "reminders" with updated vaccines tailored to recent mutations in the viruses.

Coming in second among reasons for not getting vaccinated recently were worries about the vaccines' side effects (19% for flu and 27% for COVID-19), followed by a belief that the vaccines aren't effective (18% and 19%, respectively).

Far fewer (10% for flu and 6% for COVID-19, respectively) said they just didn't think of it. A few (4% and 3%) wanted to wait, and from 1% to 4% cited time, cost, insurance, availability, or eligibility concerns.

TrumpRx Denounced as Corrupt Scheme to Line Pockets of Big Pharma—and Don Jr.

Not many but Don Junior likely to benefit

Jake Johnson

This is its actual logo. Always classy!

Donald Trump on February 5 launched a website, branded with his name, in a purported effort to help patients buy prescription drugs at lower prices.

But experts, watchdog groups, and Democratic lawmakers said TrumpRx will likely do little for consumers—or for the broader goal of bringing down exorbitant medicine costs—while further enriching Big Pharma and potentially lining the pockets of his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.

TrumpRx.gov, launched in partnership with pharmaceutical giants, points users to direct-to-patient sales platforms hosted by drug companies to facilitate the purchase of an extremely limited selection of medications. For example, TrumpRx’s listing for Farxiga links users to AstraZeneca Direct, where patients can pay out of pocket for the type 2 diabetes medication.

Donald Trump Jr. is on the board of BlinkRx, a prescription drug platform that stands to benefit from the Trump administration’s promotion of direct-to-patient medicine sales. In December, the president’s son reportedly met with top drug company executives and administration officials responsible for regulating the pharmaceutical industry—a gathering hosted by BlinkRx.

Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement Thursday that TrumpRx “not only threatens patients’ health, safety, and privacy, but also likely includes kickback schemes designed to enrich President Trump, his family, and their friends.”

As Insurance Prices Rise, Families Puzzle Over Options

Slaves to health care costs

Lynn Arditi 

New York-based performer Cynthia Freeman, 61, has been trying to figure out how to keep the Affordable Care Act health plan that she and her husband depend on.

“If we didn’t have health issues, I’d just go back to where I was in my 40s and not have health insurance,” she said, “but we’re not in that position now.”

Freeman and her husband, Brad Lawrence, are freelancers who work in storytelling and podcasting.

In October, Lawrence, 52, got very sick, very fast.

“I knew I was in trouble,” he said. “I went into the emergency room, and I walked over to the desk, and I said, ‘Hi, I’ve gained 25 pounds in five days and I’m having trouble breathing and my chest hurts.’ And they stopped blinking.”

Doctors diagnosed him with kidney disease, and he was hospitalized for four days.

Now Lawrence has to take medication with an average cost without insurance of $760 a month.

In January, the cost of the couple’s current “silver” plan rose nearly 75%, to $801 a month.

To bring in extra cash, Freeman has picked up a part-time bartending gig.

Millions of middle-class Americans who have ACA health plans are facing soaring premium payments in 2026, without help from the enhanced subsidies that Congress failed to renew. Some are contemplating big life changes to deal with new rates that kicked in on Jan. 1.

It often falls to women to figure out a family’s insurance puzzle.

Women generally use more health care than men, in part because of their need for reproductive services, according to Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler, a professor at Brown University’s School of Public Health.

Women also tend to be the medical decision-makers for the family, she said, especially for the children.

Stephen Miller for President

She was right

Rhode Island House Considers Hit List for Invasive Plants

Removing alien invaders

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

Is it time for Rhode Island to ban the sale of invasive plants?

It’s one of the bills under consideration this month as the General Assembly’s annual session gets underway.

Members of the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee heard legislation (H7071) introduced by Rep. Jennifer Boylan, D-Barrington, that bans a list of nonnative invasive plants from being imported, sold, or distributed in Rhode Island.

“We’re only one of four states without a prohibited plant sale list,” Boylan told the committee. “We’re the only state in New England without such a list.”

Invasive plant species are a growing problem in Rhode Island. A plant is considered invasive if it was introduced into a region it’s not known to be native, can reproduce and spread without human effort, and actively causes harm to native species.

Invasives, whether on land or in waterbodies, typically grow much faster than their native counterparts and crowd out natives. Unlike native species, which have native predators, invasives typically have nothing to keep them from spreading.

These invaders also have knock-on effects toward animals and insects. Native milkweed plants are the primary food source for monarch butterflies in the Northeast, but black swallow-wort, an invasive species, can be mistaken by the insects as milkweed. Butterfly larvae can’t mature due to a toxin on the swallow-wort, preventing them from becoming fully grown monarchs.

American College of Physicians condemns CDC rollback on surveillance of infectious disease

Leaves hospitals and doctors to "fly blind"

By American College of Physicians

Edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan

An audit of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) public databases found that nearly half of routinely updated federal health surveillance systems had stopped or delayed updates in 2025, raising concerns that gaps in data, particularly on vaccinations and respiratory diseases, could undermine clinical guidance, public health policy, and public trust.

The findings are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers from Vanderbilt University, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Boston University School of Law aimed to identify which CDC databases had unexplained pauses in updates and evaluate how common such pauses were among frequently updated CDC databases.

They reviewed the CDC's public data catalog in October 2025, examining more than 1,300 listed databases and focusing on those that had previously been updated at least monthly.

Using each database's stated update schedule, they classified whether updates were current or paused. Of the 82 databases that met inclusion criteria, 46% had halted updates, most for more than six months. The majority of paused databases tracked vaccination-related information, while others covered respiratory diseases and drug overdose deaths.

Winter storms don’t have to be deadly

Winter is not over - be prepared for the next big storm

Brett Robertson, University of South Carolina

A powerful winter storm that left hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. without power for days in freezing temperatures in late January 2026 has been linked to more than 80 deaths, and the cold weather is forecast to continue into February. Several East Coast states are also facing a new winter storm, forecast to bring several inches of snow the weekend of Jan. 31.

The causes of the deaths and injuries have varied. Some people died from exposure to cold inside their homes. Others fell outside or suffered heart attacks while shoveling snow. Three young brothers died after falling through ice on a Texas pond. Dozens of children were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning from improperly used generators or heaters.

These tragedies and others share a common theme: Winter storms pose multiple dangers at once, and people often underestimate how quickly conditions can become life-threatening.

I’m the associate director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina, where we work on ways to improve emergency preparedness and response. Here is what people need to know to reduce their risk of injury during severe winter weather.

Prepare before the storm arrives

Preparation makes the biggest difference when temperatures drop, and services fail. Many winter storm injuries happen after power outages knock out heat, lighting or medical equipment.

Start by assembling a basic emergency kit. The Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends having water, food that does not require cooking, a flashlight, a battery-powered radio, extra batteries and a first-aid kit, at minimum.

In addition to these basics, a winter emergency kit should have plenty of warm clothes and snacks to provide energy to produce body heat. National Institute of Aging

In wintertime, you’ll also need warm clothing, blankets, hats and gloves. When you go out, even in a vehicle, make sure you dress for the weather. Keep a blanket in the car in case you get stranded, as hundreds of people did for hours overnight on a Mississippi highway on Jan. 27 in freezing, snowy weather.

Portable phone chargers matter more than many people realize. During emergencies, phones become lifelines for updates, help and contact with family. Keep devices charged ahead of the storm and conserve battery power once the storm begins.

If anyone in your home depends on electrically powered medical equipment, make a plan now. Know where you can go if the power goes out for an extended period. Contact your utility provider in advance to ask about outage planning, including whether they offer priority restoration or guidance for customers who rely on powered medical equipment.

Racist Trump Denounced for Sharing Vile Video Depicting Obamas as Monkeys

Trump is truly FUBAR

Brad Reed

A screenshot of the video Trump shared

Donald Trump, a documented racist, drew swift condemnation on Friday night after he posted a video on his Truth Social account depicting former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as monkeys.

As reported by The Guardian, the racist depiction of the Obamas was part of a longer video that featured “false and disproven claims that ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped steal the 2020 presidential election” from Trump.

The outrage over the post was immediate, even as Trump’s racism is well known and documented over many years.

“The most foundational racist idea is likening Black people to apes,” said Howard University historian Ibram X. Kendi in a social media post. “Since humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor, racist ideas cast white people as the most evolved people and the furthest away on the evolutionary scale from apes. Racist ideas cast Black people as the least evolved people and the closest on the evolutionary scale to apes. Almost all racist ideas build on this foundational one expressed by Trump.”

He must be stopped

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The question that must be answered. Now.

URI researchers launching local stone wall study

Natural Resources Science faculty hope to examine the environmental legacy of New England’s iconic stone walls

Kristen Curry 

An iconic New England landscape feature is now the subject of focus for URI researchers, launching a study of local stone walls. (URI Photo / Amy Mayer)

This year’s snowy winter makes New England’s iconic stone walls look even more picturesque. The sturdy markers dot our local landscape, a backdrop to yards, property lines, photos and views. But what else do they do?

Photo by Will Collette

Kathleen Carroll and Shelby Rinehart in the University of Rhode Island’s Department of Natural Resources Science are asking that question and have launched a project examining the effects of stone walls on biodiversity and ecosystem processes across New England to better understand their biological importance. They hope to solicit public interest, support and participation for this effort.

“Growing up, stone walls were all around me,” says Rinehart, a new assistant professor of watershed ecology at URI, who grew up in rural Connecticut. Rinehart runs URI’s Watershed Bio(diversity)-Funk(tion) Lab, which studies how plant and animal biodiversity can support local efforts to conserve, manage, and restore important ecosystems, like salt marshes.

New postdoctoral researcher Jamie Bucholz is working with him on this new project, looking to understand the ecosystem of stone walls. Bucholz will use what she learns about stone walls to better understand the genetic biodiversity of the species that call them home. 

New to New England, she is beginning her work by examining stone walls found across the region by utilizing RIGIS environmental data provided by URI’s Jason Parent and Elliot Vosburgh ’18 ’24. The pair created a rich data set, the Rhode Island Stone Wall Mapping Project, showing where all of Rhode Island’s stone walls exist.

Foulkes blasts McKee over Rhode Island bridge safety

From “cooking the books” to threats from Alviti

Campaign Blasts McKee Administration for Removing Bridges from Safety Reporting

Providence, RI — In response to WPRI reporting that the McKee administration cooked the books by removing more than 700 state bridges from the list to try to claim it met its safety and inspection goals, Helena Buonanno Foulkes issued the following statement:

“The McKee Administration has a pattern of putting politics over competence, and this is just the latest example,” said Helena. “You can’t cook the books and then gaslight the people of Rhode Island; Governor McKee has failed Rhode Islanders, and his dishonesty only makes it worse.

Foulkes Campaign Not Worried About “Hearing Forcefully” From Resigned McKee Admin Transportation Director

Providence, RI — Yesterday, after announcing his resignation and cooking the books to make it look like he met RIDOT’s bridge safety goal, RIDOT Director Peter Alviti posted a bizarre “open letter” on the taxpayer-funded RIDOT website. After claiming over and over again that he wasn’t fired, he ended the letter stating: “And if anyone lies or misrepresents the facts for personal gain, they will be hearing forcefully from me."

In reply, Foulkes campaign communications director Angelika Pellegrino released the following statement:

“Empty threats aside, Mr. Alviti should know there is no need to misrepresent any facts to point out that Dan McKee caused months of delay when he bungled the bid process to repair the Washington Bridge, that Director Alviti couldn’t remember the name of the safety inspector in his own agency when under oath last fall, and that Rhode Islanders have to sit in traffic daily—and will have to do so for years to come—because of the McKee Administration’s failures. ”

Most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy linked to concerns that can be overcome, study suggests

Vaccines work, are safe and can save your life

Why not protect yourself against preventable disease?

By Lancet

Edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan

Most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is rooted in concerns that can be addressed and effectively reduced over time, according to a new study following more than 1.1 million people in England between January 2021 and March 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic, published in The Lancet.

The study, led by researchers from Imperial College London, found that of the participants initially hesitant about getting a COVID-19 vaccine, 65% went on to get vaccinated at least once.

The findings offer a novel perspective on the main types of vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their potential to be reversed may help inform the targeting and messaging for future roll-outs of novel vaccines.

While vaccine hesitancy is not a new phenomenon, with WHO naming vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 global health threats in 2019, reduced uptake of various vaccines, including childhood vaccinations against measles and pertussis (whooping cough), remains a major public health concern.

COVID-19 vaccination roll-out began in the UK on 8th December 2020, with a phased strategy that prioritized vaccines on the basis of age and clinical need.

"We wanted to look at COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in more depth to identify groups with more persistent forms of hesitancy and their main concerns. Understanding these drivers is critical to address vaccine uptake and better control disease spread," explained lead author Professor Marc Chadeau-Hyam from Imperial College London, UK.

Civilians Should Not Have to ‘Stand between the Powers of this World and the Most Vulnerable’

Trump says law doesn't apply to him - “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Dr. Bandy X. Lee

It was the irony of ironies when the most critical voices of conscience of our time—mental health experts warning against a mental health pandemic—were silenced in the name of “ethics”. 

This is what happened to us at the height of our influence, when we were consulted by over fifty U.S. Congress members, who told us they were depending on us to “educate the public medically,” so that they could “intervene politically.” 

Even White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly turned out to have used our book as an “owner’s manual”—applying its principles, when nothing else worked, to stop an erratic president from waging nuclear war on North Korea!

The tremendous momentum was artificially halted when American Psychiatric Association (APA) aggressively intervened, citing its own guild rule that exclusively protects public figures—which no other mental health association or licensing board duplicates—as being more important than the public’s health, the nation’s security, or the species’ survival. 

It was nonsensical, but the public swallowed it, since it was coming from an authoritative organization. But it was later revealed that the APA distorted its own “rule” and embarked on a disinformation campaign, so as to protect its federal funding—and, for Jeffrey Lieberman who spearheaded it, his personal federal funds (and fame).

We warned in real time that such cowardice would be calamitous, permitting mental impairments in an influential figure to magnify and transmogrify, until they would become unstoppable.

Columnist David Brooks wrote recently:

Last week Minneapolis’s police chief, Brian O’Hara, said the thing he fears most is the “moment where it all explodes.” I share his worry…. it’s pretty clear that we’re headed toward some kind of crackup…. the unraveling of Trump’s mind is the primary one.

Melania: The true story

Citizens Bank protest in Westerly on Saturday

Donald wants us to move on...nothing to see here

Especially not this...

Or this:

Or this...

Not this either, although he doesn't really care, does he?

Bonus photo: Maybe the focus should be on keeping Junior away from guns. Next, he'll have the muzzle pointed in the wrong direction.

Israel bans Doctors Without Borders from Gaza because of refusal to provide staff list

Renowned medical aid agency explains why

MSF statement on sharing staff information and humanitarian operations in Palestine

Following many months of unsuccessful engagement with Israeli authorities, and in the absence of securing assurances to ensure the safety of our staff or the independent management of our operations, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has concluded that it will not share a list of its Palestinian and international staff with Israeli authorities in the current circumstances.

In March 2025, Israeli authorities announced that organizations seeking registration would be required to provide personal information about their staff. From the outset, MSF raised serious concerns about this request in a context where medical and humanitarian workers have been intimidated, arbitrarily detained, and attacked. Since October 2023, 1,700 health staff have been killed, as well as 15 MSF colleagues. On 30 December, Israeli authorities announced that MSF's previous registration had lapsed and was therefore expected to cease operations within 60 days.

In an effort to explore every possible option – however limited – to continue providing critical medical care, MSF informed Israeli authorities on 23 January that, as an exceptional measure, MSF would be prepared to share a defined list of Palestinian and international staff names, subject to clear parameters, with our staff safety at its core. This position was defined following consultation with our Palestinian colleagues and with the clear understanding no staff information would be shared without the express agreement of individuals concerned. 

However, despite repeated efforts, it became evident in recent days that we were unable to build engagement with Israeli authorities on the concrete assurances required. 

Saved by your nose

Where the common cold is stopped before it starts

By Cell Press

Whether you catch a cold may hinge on how fast your nasal cells react, not how aggressive the virus is. A rapid antiviral response can shut down rhinovirus early, while a slower one allows infection, inflammation, and classic cold symptoms to take hold. Credit: Shutterstock

When rhinovirus, the leading cause of the common cold, infects the lining of the nose, cells in the nasal passages immediately begin working together to defend against it. These cells activate a broad range of antiviral responses designed to limit infection. In a study published today (January 19) in the Cell Press journal Cell Press Blue, researchers show that this coordinated cellular defense plays a major role in whether a person gets sick at all and how severe their symptoms become. The findings suggest that the body’s reaction to rhinovirus, rather than the virus alone, is often what determines the outcome of infection.

“As the number one cause of common colds and a major cause of breathing problems in people with asthma and other chronic lung conditions, rhinoviruses are very important in human health,” says senior author Ellen Foxman of Yale School of Medicine. “This research allowed us to peer into the human nasal lining and see what is happening during rhinovirus infections at both the cellular and molecular levels.”

ACLU of Rhode Island moves to block Trump demand for private voter information

DOJ's position on Rhode Island’s entire non-public voter file "an affront to the rule of law"

SteveAhlquist.news 

From an ACLU of Rhode Island press release:

In a brief filed today in federal court, the American Civil Liberties Union blasted the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) position that it is entitled to Rhode Island’s entire non-public voter file – including not only names and addresses, but full dates of birth and driver’s license numbers and/or social security number information – by calling the DOJ’s arguments “an affront to the rule of law, the role of the judiciary, and the intelligence and rights of the American public.”

In December, the ACLU and ACLU of Rhode Island, representing Common Cause and individual voters, intervened in this DOJ-filed lawsuit that is demanding that Secretary of State Gregg Amore turn over this sensitive, non-public information contained in the Rhode Island state voter file.

The government has argued that the purpose of the demand for these records is to “ascertain Rhode Island’s compliance with the [voter] list maintenance requirements” of federal voting laws, but the ACLU brief states that the DOJ has never explained exactly how access to this information – and particularly access to the personal, non-public portions of the voter data – would assist the agency in doing that. Instead, the ACLU brief argues:

Stunningly, the United States never once denies what extensive public reporting and judicially noticeable documents make plain: that its true purpose in seeking state voter files is to build an unprecedented national voter file through novel, error-prone, DOGE-inspired forms of data-matching and then to use this tool to identify ostensibly ineligible voters and challenge their right to vote.