Amazon drives up the prices you pay

Coercive Price Fixing

By Philip Mattera, director of the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First for the Dirt Diggers Digest

In its early days, Amazon.com cultivated a reputation for low prices, which helped put a lot of small booksellers out of business. That eventually gave way to a business model based on a wide product selection and speedy delivery. 

Its Prime subscription system was designed to make customers focus on the benefits of free shipping and overlook the fact that the prices of the products were not much of a bargain.

Now the giant e-retailer is facing allegations that it not only abandoned the low-cost approach but actually conspired to raise the prices charged on its own platform as well as those of its competitors.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta brought a price-fixing lawsuit against Amazon in February and has just provided new details of the alleged conspiracy in a motion filed in state court in San Francisco. 

The document claims that when a competing platform is offering a product at a price lower than it is charging, Amazon demands that the supplier intervene to get that price increased: “Vendors, cowed by Amazon’s overwhelming bargaining leverage and fearing punishment, comply—agreeing to raise prices on competitors’ websites (often with the awareness and cooperation of the competing retailer) or to remove products from competing websites altogether. The scheme is neither subtle nor complex. It is price fixing, and it should be immediately enjoined.”

The pressure exerted by Amazon is said to be a part of a system called Can’t Realize a Profit, or CRaP, in which it cuts off orders from suppliers that don’t comply with the company’s demands.

What is notable about the California AG’s motion is that it include details on specific vendors that were said to have gotten caught up in the price fixing. For example, it quotes an email from GlobalOne Pet Products, a producer of premium pet treats, to the big pet supplies website Chewy urging it to coordinate a price increase with Amazon.

In hearings, RFK Jr claims no responsibility for measles spread

Dems tell Bobby Junior to man up

Stephanie Soucheray, MA

AOC is sick of his bullshit

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before two Senate committees on April 22 and distanced himself from record-breaking measles outbreaks in the United States, despite his role as overseeing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one of the many agencies in the HHS umbrella.

His testimony capped off a busy week on Capitol Hill, where he made seven appearances. 

Kennedy was there to discuss the proposed 2027 HHS budget, but after failing to appear in front of lawmakers for many months, during which Kennedy made broad changes to national recommendations for childhood vaccines, appeared shirtless in promotional videos with Kid Rock, and withheld millions of Medicaid funds from “blue” states like Minnesota and California, Kennedy found himself facing questions from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

During his opening statements to both committees, Kennedy focused on nutrition, food dyes, and the chronic disease epidemic, Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) topics that are seen as less controversial than anti-vaccine rhetoric that could punish Republicans during upcoming midterm elections. 

But senators repeatedly pivoted to two issues Kennedy couldn’t shake: the punishing costs of prescription drugs, and the ongoing US measles epidemic. 

‘I have nothing to do with the measles outbreak’

Throughout the Finance Committee meeting, Kennedy said he had nothing to do with large ongoing measles outbreaks across the country, and implied it was rising international rates of the virus seeding outbreaks in the United States. 

Rainmaker

Meet with Charlestown's state Rep. Tina Spears

 

Our next Tea with Tina will be May 2, 2026. 10-12 noon @ Caf Bar in The Venue, 5153 Old Post Road, Charlestown   Tina will be giving an update from the State House. Don't miss it! No RSVP necessary, all are welcome.

If you'd like to donate to Tina's re-eelction campaign, please make personal checks payable to: The Friends of Tina Spears 82 Hillside Drive Charlestown, RI 02813   Or click HERE to contribute online or scan the QR code

Want to volunteer on Tina's re-election campaign? Contact us here. We have lots of fun and we'll keep Tina in the State House!

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Why this NASA climate scientist wants you to stay angry

Fight back against Trump's war on science

Clayton Aldern, Senior Data Reporter

"This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here."

Last month, climate scientist and author Kate Marvel resigned from her position at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, where she had spent more than a decade studying a warming world. In her resignation letter, she cited the Trump administration’s attacks on the field.

“I anticipated that our work would be questioned,” she wrote, “but only because its implications were politically inconvenient. I never expected that science itself would come under attack.”

Marvel joins more than 10,000 professionals with doctoral degrees in the sciences who have left the federal workforce since Donald Trump took office in January 2025: a period that has seen the administration evict the Goddard Institute from its historic home on the Columbia University campus, dissolve the U.S. Global Change Research Program, dismiss the nearly 400 authors of the next National Climate Assessment, and repeal the legal foundation for federal regulation of greenhouse gases.

Grist spoke with Marvel about what she left behind, who fills the vacuum, and why spite might be the most underrated climate emotion.

This nasal spray rewinds the aging brain, restoring memory and reversing inflammation in preclinical models

Great if it works

By Texas A&M University

Edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan

Picture this: your brain is a high-performance engine. Over decades, it doesn't just wear down, it also starts to run hot. Tiny "fires" of inflammation smolder deep within the brain's memory center, creating a persistent brain fog that makes it harder to think, form new memories or even adapt to new environments, all the while increasing the risk to disorders like Alzheimer's disease.

Scientists call this slow burn "neuroinflammaging," and for decades it was thought to be the inevitable price of growing older. Until now.

A landmark study by researchers at Texas A&M University Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine suggests the inflammatory tide responsible for brain aging and brain fog might actually be reversible. And the solution doesn't involve brain surgery, but a simple nasal spray.

Led by Dr. Ashok Shetty, university distinguished professor and associate director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, along with senior research scientists Dr. Madhu Leelavathi Narayana and Dr. Maheedhar Kodali, the team developed a nasal spray that, with just two doses, dramatically reduced brain inflammation, restored the brain's cellular power plants and significantly improved memory.

The most surprising part? It all happened within weeks and lasted for months.

The findings, published in the Journal of Extracellular Vesicles, could reshape the future of neurodegenerative therapies and may even change how scientists think about brain aging itself.

Why Trump can’t just decree changes to voting by mail

Former federal judge explains how Trump’s executive order is ‘a solution looking for a problem’

John E. Jones III, Dickinson College

John Jones knows about voter suppression. Currently the president of Dickinson College, Jones – nominated in 2002 by President George W. Bush and confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate – served for almost two decades as a federal court judge. In that role, Jones presided over a case, filed just prior to the November 2020 presidential election, in which a conservative legal foundation sued Pennsylvania’s top election official, alleging that she had allowed 21,000 dead people to remain on the voter rolls. The group asked Jones to stop those people from voting.

Jones denied the request. “In an election where every vote matters, we will not disenfranchise potentially eligible voters based solely upon the allegations of a private foundation,” he wrote in his memorandum on the case. In this interview with The Conversation politics and legal affairs editor Naomi Schalit, Jones discusses Donald Trump’s March 31, 2026, executive order to wrest control of mail-in voting from states and give it to the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security; how the constitutional design of U.S. voting bars such federal control; and how Trump’s order would disenfranchise voters and is now the subject of lawsuits by voting rights groups and 23 states.

Article 1, Section 4, of the Constitution says, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.” When you saw the executive order by the president, what did you think?

My first thought was, this executive order is dead on arrival. It assumes two problems that really don’t exist.

States are empowered under Article 1, Section 4, of the Constitution to conduct elections and set the time, place and manner of those elections.

The president’s March order asserts that states don’t maintain active and appropriate voter rolls. That’s just not true. State after state takes that very, very seriously, and it’s a principle of federalism that states are given the responsibility for conducting elections. This includes maintaining accurate voter rolls, which, despite the noise to the contrary, states have historically done very well.

The second inaccuracy that undergirds this executive order is that there is rampant fraud in mail-in voting. There is absolutely no evidence to show that that is true.

Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed there is pervasive fraud in mail-in voting, despite a lack of evidence.

We need to take the threat of GOP LG candidate John Loughlin's bad economic policy seriously

He's also aligned with MAGA PACs in Rhode Island pushing for lower taxes for the rich 

Steve Ahlquist

Loughlin at left (facing away from camera) at a League of
RI Businesses PAC event. 
Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current)

In a press release, Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor John Loughlin, “[c]iting hard IRS migration data from Massachusetts and New York,” labeled the proposed 3% surtax on incomes over $1 million as a “proven job-killing, wealth-repelling mistake.” 

Unfortunately, the interpretation of the “hard IRS migration data” that Loughlin cites (without attribution) comes from the wealth lobby in the form of right-wing think tanks, such as Investment News and others. 

It ignores better studies from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities demonstrating that “[s]ince its implementation in 2023, the [Massachusetts] levy has delivered billions of dollars in new funding for transformative investments [like universal free school meals, fare-free buses, and affordable childcare.] The tax has also routinely exceeded initial revenue projections — outpacing expectations by $3 billion over roughly its first three years.”

Trump concludes new trade deal

Two Presidents speak...

Pop-up protest in Westerly on Wednesday

Asphalt is everywhere, but is it bad for our health?

It's the material chosen by the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) for a vanity project

By Joanna Allhands, Arizona State University

Edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan

In Charlestown, we have "Faith's Folly," a lasting monument to the Charlestown Citizens Alliance's hypocrisy and cronyism. Despite opposing asphalt use elsewhere in Charlestown, the CCA allowed tons of asphalt to be used on a bike path pushed by CCA founding member Faith LaBossiere. LaBossiere sold the project to the CCA-controlled Town Council claiming it would only cost $7000 (see below). The actual cost turned out to be $266,927 plus interest on the bond leading to a cost over-run of 4,000%.

If you piled all of Phoenix's pavement into one spot, it would be enough to cover San Francisco four times over. Roads, parking lots, and other paved surfaces blanket a lot of land—an estimated 40% of Arizona's capital city.

From the Power Point presentation shown the Council
by Faith Labossiere.

Pavement absorbs heat during the day and releases it slowly at night via the urban heat island effect, increasing the amount of energy that cities consume.

But for Elham Fini, a senior scientist affiliated with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University, pavement's potential impact on our health deserves as much attention as its carbon or energy footprint.

"To make something truly sustainable," she said, "you cannot ignore the human side of it."

Asphalt fumes can be hard on health

Fini—a faculty member in ASU's School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment—spent years studying why asphalt breaks down so quickly.

Suliman Rashid, a graduate teaching associate in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, moves samples of an asphalt binder made from leftover forest-thinning material. Credit: Joanna Allhands

That work pointed her toward the volatile organic compounds that escape from bitumen, the black, sticky petroleum byproduct that holds asphalt together.

Two studies in the Journal of Hazardous Materials and Science of the Total Environment shed light on how the compounds that give asphalt its trademark scent change after sunset and form ultrafine particles, which can worsen air quality.

These carbon-based vapors are continuously released but become more noticeable on hot, sunny days. They can cause dizziness and difficulty breathing in the short term.

Long-term exposure also can elevate the risk of lung cancer, a major concern for construction workers who regularly breathe these fumes without a respirator.

URI researcher awarded $296,000 USDA grant to study spinach

Gotta fill those spinach pies

Kristen Curry

URI Assistant Professor Camilo Villouta, left, and Ph.D. student Deniz Camli-Saunders are conducting new research growing hydroponic vegetables. (URI Photos / Shalyne Scott)

Plant-based agriculture is changing with the introduction of new engineering, technology, and information tools. Camilo Villouta, an assistant professor in the University of Rhode Island’s Plant Sciences department, not only has a green thumb, but he also brings a sophisticated command of modern tools to his position at the University. Now he’s taking his plant engineer mindset to new research growing hydroponic vegetables.

Backed by a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) award, Villouta has received a competitive food research grant from the department’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to conduct research connected to controlled environment agriculture. The two-year project is already underway and will conclude in 2028.

The rising demand for locally sourced, fresh produce available year-round has led to the rapid growth of controlled environment agriculture in urban areas, including in Providence where growing national producer Gotham Greens opened its only New England location.

Villouta serves as the controlled environment agriculture specialist at URI, focusing on hydroponic and greenhouse production systems.

“My research has always been strongly applied and connected to real-world production systems,” said Villouta. “I work closely with growers to understand and address the challenges they face, particularly in controlled environment agriculture. My approach is to study plant physiology in detail and translate that knowledge into practical solutions that improve production outcomes.”

In Connecticut, Doctors Now Sue Patients Most Over Medical Bills, Surpassing Hospitals

Chasing medical debt

Noam N. Levey and Katy Golvala and Jenna Carlesso, CT Mirror

Many hospital systems in Connecticut have stopped suing their patients over unpaid bills, stung by criticism about the harm caused by aggressive collection tactics.

But physicians, dentists, ambulance companies, and other health care providers are still taking their patients to court, a Connecticut Mirror-KFF Health News investigation of state legal records shows.

Lawsuits by doctors and other nonhospital providers now dominate health care collections in Connecticut, the records show, accounting for more than 80% of cases filed against patients and their families in 2024.

That’s a major reversal from just five years earlier, when hospital system lawsuits made up three-quarters of health-related collection cases in the state’s courts.

The shift is moving medical debt collections into a less regulated realm. Most hospitals, because they are tax-exempt nonprofits, must make financial aid available to low-income patients and follow federal regulations that limit aggressive collection activities. Other medical providers, such as private medical groups, are generally exempt from these rules.

The lawsuits are typically over bills of less than $3,000, but the impact on patients can be devastating. Lawsuits are among the most ruinous byproducts of a health care debt problem that burdens an estimated 100 million people in the U.S.

Lawsuits can lead to garnished wages, liens on homes, and hundreds of dollars of added debt from interest and court fees. They also pile additional financial strains on struggling families, prevent patients from getting needed care, and sap trust in medical providers.

Trump Declares Victory in Iran. Reality Disagrees.

Killing, destruction, trashing the global economy and making life miserable for America is not "winning"

By Mitchell Zimmerman

Did you know that Germany won World War II?

Because so many died in the Soviet Union, the combined Russian and U.S. military deaths in World War II were over twice that of Germany. So Germany won — except for the small matter of the Soviets and the U.S. occupying burned-out Berlin at the end of the war.

Similarly, U.S. forces suffered about one tenth as many combat deaths as the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army in the Vietnam War. So we won. Except for the North Vietnamese overrunning Saigon in 1975 and reunifying the country under Communist rule.

The same upside-down “logic” applies to Donald Trump’s claim that the U.S. has defeated Iran — since our bombs have devastated Iran and since the U.S. has killed many more Iranians than Iranians have killed Americans.

Back in the real world, none of Trump’s war aims has been achieved. Notwithstanding the cost to Iran and its people, Iran is emerging as an even stronger regional power.