URI pharmacy professor part of major federal microplastics effort

One of the few health and environmental programs Trump hasn't killed. Yet.

Patrick Luce 

University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy and George and Anne Ryan Institute of Neuroscience Assistant Professor Jaime Ross is taking her extensive research into the scourge of microplastics to the nation’s capital after being invited to join a nationwide $144 million program “to create the definitive toolbox for measuring, researching, and removing microplastics and nanoplastics in the human body.”

Ross received an invitation to attend the historic announcement of STOMP: Systematic Targeting Of MicroPlastics, revealed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services and Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C.. The STOMP program, led by program managers Ileana Hancu and Shannon Greene, aims to find a way to measure microplastics in human organs, understand which plastics affect the body negatively, and seek methods to remove the contaminants. The program aims to protect people from plastic contamination and help lower the potential downstream costs that microplastic-related disease could otherwise impose on the nation’s health care system.

“Microplastics are in every organ we look at—in ourselves and in our children. But we don’t know which ones are harmful or how to remove them,” said Alicia Jackson, director of HHS’ Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). “Nobody wants unknown particles accumulating in their body. The field is working in the dark. STOMP is turning on the lights.”

Ross has been shining the light on the extensive dangers of microplastics for the last five years. She has found that the microscopic plastic particles infiltrate all systems of the body, including breaching the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from harmful substances as small as viruses and bacteria. In a subsequent study, published in the journal Environmental Research Communications, Ross’ team has found the accumulation of micro- and nanoplastics in the brain leads to cognitive decline, and can trigger Alzheimer’s-like behavior in test mice.

“It was riveting to receive an invitation to attend the monumental event, ‘Confronting Microplastics,’ and discuss the STOMP initiative with policymakers and other leading scientists in the field,” Ross said. 

Ken Block is running for governor again. This time as an independent.

Yeah, just what Rhode Island needs. Right.

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

A Barrington software engineer who searched for voter fraud on behalf of the Trump campaign — and found none — is making his third attempt to run for the governor’s office.

This time, Ken Block is running as an independent candidate.

“My flavor of politics doesn’t align well with either political party,” Block, 60, said in a phone interview. “Political parties by definition imply a healthy dose of partisanship — I am a problem solver, a manager, and the problems that Rhode Island suffers from aren’t problems that partisanship can address.”

Block unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2010 as the Moderate Party’s candidate — a party he founded. He finished fourth with 6.5 % of the vote in the general election. He ran again as a Republican in 2014, losing the GOP primary to then-Cranston Mayor Allan Fung by 10 percentage points.

He announced his campaign in a post on X last Thursday.

Trump's military threatens Pope Leo for demanding peace

Will Trump launches air strikes against the Vatican?

Julia Conley

Pope Leo, the first American to be named the head of the worldwide Catholic Church, has spoken out against Donald Trump’s policies frequently this year as the US has invaded Venezuela and Iran and threatened Cuba’s 10 million people with an oil blockade that has crippled the island’s economy and healthcare system—and according to new reports, his criticism has followed a warning from a Pentagon official who demanded the Vatican take the “side” of the White House in foreign disputes.

The Free Press originally reported this week that after the pope’s “State of the World” address on January 9, US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby called Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s US diplomatic representative, to Washington.

Colby told Pierre that the US “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world.”

“The Catholic Church had better take its side,” he said, according to The Free Press.

Another Pentagon official alluded to the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy ordered an attack on Pope Boniface VIII and forced seven successive popes to relocate from Rome to Avignon in France.

What it's all about

DOGE idiots under oath

URI studying health of local saltmarshes

Nature Conservancy award supports URI research on salt marsh health

By Anna Gray

Rhode Island’s salt marshes protect coastlines and provide critical habitat, but many are increasingly threatened by sea level rise and other environmental pressures; shown: Quonochontaug Marsh, Charlestown. (Photos courtesy Madison Geraci)

Rhode Island’s salt marshes protect coastlines and provide critical habitat, but many are increasingly threatened by sea level rise and other environmental pressures. Madison Geraci, a Ph.D. student in evolution and marine biology at the University of Rhode Island, is studying organisms hidden within marsh sediments to better understand how these ecosystems respond to stress and restoration efforts.

Her work recently received a student award from the Nature Conservancy that will help expand an innovative approach to monitoring marsh health across Rhode Island.

URI Ph.D. student Madison Geraci (shown at
Quonochontaug) recently received a Nature Conservancy
award to study how local salt marshes respond
to restoration and environmental change.

At the center of Geraci’s research are foraminifera, microscopic single-celled organisms that scientists increasingly recognize as powerful environmental indicators of marsh health.

“They’re like a canary in the coal mine,” she said. “They’re really sensitive to salinity, sea level rise, coastal acidification, and pollution, and they can tell us a lot about marshes’ overall health.”

Traditional monitoring often focuses on marsh vegetation, but microbial communities may reveal ecological stress much earlier.

The Nature Conservancy funding will help pay for the genetic sequencing needed to identify microbial communities. “Sequencing can be expensive, so the award allows us to do this work on a broader scale,” she said.

After collecting sediment samples from marshes across the state, Geraci and her collaborators use a method called metabarcoding—a type of DNA sequencing—to identify organisms living in the samples. “We’re using a tool called metabarcoding to take a sediment sample, extract it, and then tag all the different forams that might be there and determine their overall diversity,” she said.

Wood River Health kicks off 50th anniversary celebration

Major source of health care for Charlestown 

House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi Accepts Health
Center Champion Award. From L to R: Rep Megan Cotter;
Rep Tina Spears; Alison Croke; House Speaker K. Joseph
Shekarchi; Rep Samuel Azzinaro

On Friday, March 20, 2026, Wood River Health kicked off its 50th Anniversary by hosting an Anniversary Founders Day & Awards Ceremony at the Ocean House. The event brought together an inspiring assembly of community leaders and advocates to mark a major milestone: providing high‑quality, compassionate and affordable health care in the community for 50 years.

 

President and CEO Alison L. Croke opened the program by reflecting on the significance of the day and providing an overview of the origin of federally qualified health centers. With roots in the civil rights movement and the War on Poverty, there are now about 1,400 community health centers delivering care to more than 33 million people throughout the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories. Wood River Health is one of eight federally qualified health centers in the state, which serve one out of every five Rhode Islanders. 

Croke shared that since its founding in 1976, Wood River Health has grown from a modest clinic on Mechanic Street into a multi-site health center providing primary care, dental care, behavioral health and vital support services to 12,000 patients. She recognized the health center’s ongoing commitment to addressing health care access barriers including transportation, food insecurity and housing instability. Croke expressed gratitude to the dedicated board members, staff, providers and community partners who have worked diligently to forward the organization’s mission.

NO AUTHORITY

Court tells Trump he does not own the White House

Robert Reich

U.S. district judge Richard Leon blocked Trump from proceeding with construction of his $400 million ballroom on the site of the White House’s demolished East Wing. This has halted, at least for now, one of Trump’s most visible efforts to reshape the symbolic center of the federal government’s executive branch.

In a 35-page opinion, Judge Leon — an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush — wrote that Trump likely did not have the authority to make changes to the White House that could endure for generations, without consulting Congress.

This marks, by my calculation, the 89th time since the start of Trump’s second term that a federal judge has ruled that he cannot simply do whatever he wants; his actions must be authorized by Congress.

Focus for a moment on the word authorized. It’s from the Latin auctoritas and auctor — to originate, the originator.

In our system of government, a president is not the originator of power. Power comes from the people. And among the three branches of government, the people are most clearly represented by Congress. This was the founders’ design in the Constitution, which is why the very first article enumerates Congress’s powers.

The decision by Judge Leon puts the ballroom project on hold while the lawsuit continues. When a federal judge grants a preliminary injunction, it means that the judge views it likely that plaintiffs (in this case, the National Trust for Historic Preservation) will prevail on the merits of the case, and that allowing whatever is going on to continue (in this case, construction of Trump’s enormous 90,000-square-foot ballroom) will cause the plaintiffs irreparable harm.

In December, the National Trust sued Trump after he razed the East Wing (originally constructed in 1902 and expanded during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency) to make way for what Trump says will be the “finest” ballroom in the country.

As designed, that ballroom is larger than the Executive Residence and the West Wing combined. If constructed, it would be the dominant edifice of the White House — symbolically shifting its focus from where the president works and lives to where a president might lavishly entertain, as in a king’s throne room.

On Rhode Island healthcare and taxing the rich with Senator Meghan Kallman and the EPI's Nina Harrison

The budget is a moral document

Steve Ahlquist

The Rhody Civics Club held an event at the Buttonwoods Brewery on Thursday to hear from the Economic Progress Institute’s policy director, Nina Harrison, and State Senator Meghan Kallman (Democrat, District 15, Pawtucket, Providence) about the state of Rhode Island’s healthcare system.

The discussion was about the catastrophic impact HR1 (Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill) will have on low- and middle-income Rhode Islanders, and the massive impacts of federal cuts to Medicaid, health insurance premiums, and food assistance. It wasn’t all doom and gloom. Senator Kallman and Nina Harrison have presented bills currently before the Rhode Island General Assembly that could help mitigate the impending catastrophe.

Nina Harrison

I’m the policy director at the Economic Progress Institute. The Economic Progress Institute is a nonprofit that does policy research and advocacy in Rhode Island. We try to get laws passed that benefit low- and modest-income Rhode Islanders, improve racial equity in the state, and give people a chance at economic opportunity. I am also the co-chair of the Protect Our Healthcare Coalition, which I co-lead with Shamus Durac from RIPIN, a huge resource in the state that advocates for children with disabilities.

I’m told that you all basically know how things work at the State House, that people like Senator Kallman are there in the evenings, at committee hearings, hearing testimony on bills. I’m often there giving testimony and saying, “Please pass this bill, or please don’t pass this other bill.”

I’m going to start by talking about what happened over the summer, which some of you may have heard Trump talking about: one big, beautiful bill, which is not beautiful, especially for Rhode Islanders, that essentially cut more than a trillion dollars in funding for Medicaid and SNAP over 10 years. And they did that to pay for tax breaks for the richest people in America. Because of the tax break Trump made permanent over the summer, the highest-income earners are getting an average tax break of $58, 000 this year.

We’re losing healthcare and food assistance, but the highest income earners are getting a $58, 000 a piece tax break this year.

What does that mean for Rhode Island? It means that unless the state takes action, 53, 000 people will lose healthcare. That’s not my stat; that’s a statistic from the state itself. About 33,000 people are expected to lose Medicaid coverage. Medicaid is for people who are low-income, typically 138% or less of the federal poverty line, which is already too low.

We have a major situation

Rhode Island record confirmed

Former Rep. Donna Walsh to be honored by the League of Women Voters tomorrow

2026 Community Impact Award recognizes her decades of service to South County

By Will Collette

My good friend Donna Walsh will receive a lifetime honor from the League of Women Voters of South County tomorrow at the League's Annual Tea Fundraiser from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 11. The event will be held at the Peace Dale Congregational Church Fellowship Hall, 261 Columbia St., in Wakefield.

When Cathy and I returned to Rhode Island in 2001 to live in Charlestown, Donna became one of our first friends and remains so these 25 years later. We were proud supporters of her as she ably represented House District 36 which includes all of Charlestown. I worked on her campaigns and during each legislative session as a volunteer researcher.

During that time, Donna became a legislative leader and one of the most stalwart defenders of the environment. But whether it was getting major legislation passed, constituent service or getting grants for local charities, Donna Walsh got the job done through hard work with people in the district and with integrity and determination.

Before her decade representing Charlestown in the General Assembly, she also served as state Senator and member of the Charlestown Town Council. She is fondly remembered by many in the area as “Mrs. Walsh” for her 38 years as a teacher at Chariho.

Though she no longer holds elected office, Donna now serves on the boards of numerous local non-profit charities such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul where she serves as President.

Congratulations, Donna!

Warming Waters in the Gulf of Maine May Affect the Future of Lobsters

Save our lobster rolls!

By Nicole Williams

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Curt Brown spent his childhood harvesting lobsters along the coast of Maine. As an adult, he went on to earn a Master of Science from the University of Maine, observing the very waters where he spent years fishing for the crustaceans.  

With a rapidly changing climate, many researchers worry that Maine’s lobsters will eventually move north to colder waters. Brown isn’t so sure, though, seeing all of the forces affecting the ecosystem as highly complex. His studies in marine biology and policy, along with his continued work as a lobsterman, have helped him understand that the lobster industry depends upon various factors, some beyond man’s control. 

Last year, the state of Maine’s lobster fisheries harvested 78.8 million pounds of lobsters, and according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), commercial harvesters earned $619 million. 

Synonymous with the New England state, lobsters have a documented history in Maine that dates back to 1605. Recent studies, though, show that climate change and a shift in currents are warming up the local waters. In a now well-quoted 2015 study led by Andrew Pershing, researchers found that the surface temperature of the Gulf of Maine is warming 99 percent faster than the rest of the ocean. 

Some say this could lead to lobsters moving north to Canadian waters in search of colder temperatures and many wonder what the future of Maine’s fishery will look like.

Brown feels like the rate of warming has been sensationalized as a headline since the Pershing’s study came out, and sees the issues facing lobsters more nuanced and complex. 

An October study funded by NOAA National Sea Grant’s American Lobster Initiative looks at the effects that multiple stressors, not just warming waters, have on lobster embryos and their future life cycles. 

In the study, “Effects of multiple stressors on embryos and emerging larvae of the American lobster,” researchers look at how the combination of warming waters and ocean acidification affect egg-bearing lobsters and the development and physiology of their embryos in the hopes of getting a more accurate picture of what the future of Maine’s lobster fishery may look like as the effects of human-caused climate change increase.

What do you do when you can't trust the government?

The haze of contradictions and confusion is a feature, not a bug.

Lisa Needham

We’re more than a month into Donald Trump’s increasingly disastrous Iran war, and we have no idea what’s really going on.

In part, that’s because Trump is now nothing but a creature of pure id surrounded by enablers, running the country like an enormous out-of-control toddler. But it’s also because the administration is not at all interested in providing the American people with objective, reliable information.

That erasure of truth leaves us unmoored.

Trump’s increasing instability was always going to lead to chaotic, contradictory statements about the war, blurting out whatever ideas have taken hold in the nest of spiders inside his head.

These constant reversals about what he plans to do next aren’t always random or delusional, but the sheer volume of Trumpian proclamations that seem divorced from reality does a terrific job of obscuring when something is deliberate.

That was the case at least until earlier this week, when Trump decided to use the Iran war to engage in a little light market manipulation. Well, some pretty hefty market manipulation, actually.

Follow the money

Trump spent last weekend frothing at the mouth with threats to bomb Iran’s power plants unless it opened the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. Sure, attacking a country’s civilian energy infrastructure can be considered a literal war crime, but that sort of threat is really par for the course for Trump these days.

After ratcheting up his rhetoric all weekend, Trump abruptly reversed course Monday morning around 7:05 a.m., posting on Truth Social that the United States and Iran “have had, over the last two days, very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East,” According to Trump, the “tenor and tone of these in depth, detailed, and constructive conversations which will continue throughout the week” led him to postpone any strikes against power plants for five days. (Tellingly, Trump was unable to specify which if any Iranian officials were parties to these alleged negotiations.)

So while Trump was publicly telling Iran that he was prepared to do war crimes to get them to yield, the administration was also somehow simultaneously engaged in “good and productive conversations” with Iran about ending the war. Even in the shambolic world of the Trump administration, it seemed unlikely both of these things were true. But Trump contradicts himself so often that we’ve become accustomed to disregarding it as nothing but background noise, conveying nothing meaningful. It’s not worth trying to separate fact from fiction when it might all be fiction.

But it turns out that Iran wasn’t the audience for Trump’s bluster nor his improbable change of heart and newfound commitment to seeking peace. In fact, he wasn’t talking to Iran at all. He was talking to the markets, though it appears he did so only after tipping off some lucky duckies about what he was planning to do.

Because really, how else do you explain that about 15 minutes before Trump’s surprise announcement of how hunky dory talks were going, there was a sharp increase in purchases of stock market and oil futures? There was no discernible reason for these sudden jumps occurring at 6:50 am, normally a fairly sleepy time for premarket trading. But when Trump’s 7:05 am announcement about all those productive conversations predictably drove oil prices down, and stocks rebounded, those 6:50 am traders made bank. In just a few moments, those anonymous and fortunate folks made roughly $580 million.

Did Trump or one of his minions tip off some oil traders? Sure looks like it! Is this the first time Trump has used the war to move financial markets? Probably not! On March 9, while markets were still open, he offered the hopeful assessment that the war was “very complete, pretty much,” which juiced the markets. After the markets closed higher, though, Trump returned to doom and gloom, saying that “we’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough.”

Gov. McKee, Statehouse MAGAs At War With Renewable Energy

Rightwing attacks on our best solution to our energy crisis

By Frank Carini / ecoRI News columnist

An illegal war started by a Monster caused the price of gasoline and other fossil fuels to explode. The human-caused climate crisis, fueled by the burning of said fossil fuels, is both frying and flooding great swaths of the planet and changing the ocean’s chemical composition.

But have no fear, Gov. Dan McKee and MAGA asshats are here.

To address this dual-threat emergency — war and the climate crisis, not gasoline prices — the underwater governor and the MAGA faction within the General Assembly believe blowing up Rhode Island’s support for renewable energy and retreating on the state’s climate initiatives are solutions.

Elections certainly do have consequences. We’ll be paying for them for generations.

House Minority Leader Rep. Michael Chippendale, MAGA-Foster, recently introduced a package of legislation designed to eliminate many of the state-mandated charges on utility bills that fund renewable energy and climate programs. He denied the legislation was meant to end renewable energy programs in Rhode Island, but it would essentially do just that.

His five irresponsible bills would: require all changes to the Renewable Energy Growth Program be approved by the General Assembly, instead of the Public Utilities Commission (the corporate-friendly PUC apparently isn’t corporate enough) or just eliminate the program altogether; terminate the energy efficiency charge, which funds the program that allows Rhode Island Energy to offer rebates, free weatherization services, and other initiatives that help ratepayers use less energy; end the net metering program used to finance solar arrays and prohibit any state subsidies for consumer heat pump purchases; and place a five-year moratorium on the Renewable Energy Growth and energy efficiency program charges.