URI Theatre’s 2025-26 seasons blends classic and contemporary stories

First show ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ starts October 17

By Paige Monopoli

University of Rhode Island Theatre’s eight-show production of the musical “Guys and Dolls,” with Max Hunter, right, as Nicely-Nicely Johnson, closed last season with a bang. URI Theatre’s new season begins Oct. 17 with “Pride and Prejudice.”(URI Photos/Jessie Dufault)

This season in the University of Rhode Island’s Theatre Department, audiences will get a chance to visit Georgian-era England, a Las Vegas bus stop, the realistic and unsettling mind of Harold Pinter, a magical Shakespearean forest, and theme park purgatory. Any combination of these destinations feels only possible in a dream state. 

The rich variety of performances gives the swath of talent in the department the ability to flex their muscles; student actors, stage managers, designers, and directors have the opportunity to build their skillset, face challenges, and harness their craft in both classic and contemporary text. 

“Pride and Prejudice” and “Two by Two” (student one acts), will premiere in J Studio in the Fine Arts Center, 150 Upper College Road, during the fall semester. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Ride the Cyclone” will be held in the Robert E. Will Theatre in the spring. 

The season will begin on Oct. 17 with “Pride and Prejudice” by Kate Hamill, directed by guest artist Sophia Blum, who is originally from Providence, Rhode Island. The classic story by Jane Austen explores social expectations, self-awareness, and love through the Bennet sisters navigating love and marriage in 19th-century England. Hamill’s adaptation creates a unique opportunity to step into some classical aspects of performance while juxtaposed with contemporary text. 

“Kate Hamill’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ takes Austen’s story to another level of fun-loving silliness. In this production, we will be implementing aspects of clowning into our rehearsal process to honor the magnificent sense of play found throughout Hamill’s text,” said Blum.

How long can one RSV shot protect seniors?

Study shows surprising two-year shield

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

One shot of an RSV vaccine protects adults ages 60 or older from RSV-associated hospitalization and critical illness during two consecutive RSV seasons, according to a study published in JAMA on August 30 by the IVY Network research group.

RSV causes substantial seasonal illness during fall and winter in the U.S., with an estimated 100,000-150,000 hospitalizations and 4,000-8,000 deaths occurring annually among adults 60 or older.

The results reinforce the recommendations for RSV vaccines in older adults and lay the groundwork for understanding how long a single dose of the vaccine may be effective, according to Wesley Self, MD, MPH, principal investigator for the IVY Network and Senior Vice President for Clinical Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

"These results clearly demonstrate that the RSV vaccines prevent hospitalizations and critical illness due to RSV infection among older Americans," Self said. "It is exciting to see the public health benefits of this new vaccination program."

Pollution, toxic chemicals, and plastics drive millions of heart-related deaths, major review finds

Plastics can break your heart

Pamela Ferdinand 

Theoretically, a complete phaseout of fossil fuels could prevent up to 82% of all avoidable deaths from human-caused air pollution, the review found. (Credit: European Society of Cardiology)

Global analysis shows the “profound impact” of pollution and other environmental hazards on cardiovascular health

Cardiovascular disease—the world’s leading cause of death—is increasingly driven by polluted air, toxic chemicals, plastics, noise, and extreme temperatures, according to a sweeping new review in Cardiovascular Research that calls for stricter environmental regulations to protect public health.

Heart attacks, strokes, arrhythmias, and heart failure killed more than 20 million people in 2021, accounting for nearly one-third of all global deaths. The new analysis by a team of international scientists found increasing evidence that hazardous exposures are a major culprit in millions of these deaths worldwide each year, especially among vulnerable populations. 

Air pollution, the most significant environmental risk, contributes to approximately 8.3 million deaths annually, with more than half due to cardiovascular disease (CVD), while two million people lost their lives in 2019 due to chemical exposures from contaminated soil and water.

While these drivers may appear unrelated, they are all forms of pollution—particularly from industry-produced toxins. Chemicals used in pesticides and phthalates in plastics, for instance, have been linked to heart damage and increased cardiovascular disease risk.

Meanwhile, fine particulate matter (PM_2.5)—particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, primarily from fossil fuel emissions—can worsen and contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease. Tiny particles can enter the lungs and bloodstream, causing cell damage, blood vessel injury, and atherosclerosis (narrowing and hardening of arteries), all of which contribute to a higher risk of blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes.

Theoretically, a complete phaseout of fossil fuels could prevent up to 82% of all avoidable deaths from human-caused air pollution, the researchers found.

World's worst wind NIMBY seeks to destroy wind industry using gross misinformation

Why wind farms attract so much misinformation and conspiracy theory

Marc Hudson, University of Sussex

When Donald Trump recently claimed, during what was supposed to be a press conference about an EU trade deal, that wind turbines were a “con job” that “drive whales loco”, kill birds and even people, he wasn’t just repeating old myths. He was tapping into a global pattern of conspiracy theories around renewable energy – particularly wind farms. (Trump calls them “windmills” – a climate denier trope.)

Like 19th century fears that telephones would spread diseases, wind farm conspiracy theories reflect deeper anxieties about change. They combine distrust of government, nostalgia for the fossil fuel era, and a resistance to confronting the complexities of the modern world.

And research shows that, once these fears are embedded in someone’s worldview, no amount of fact checking is likely to shift them.

A short history of resistance to renewables

Although we’ve known about climate change from carbon dioxide as probable and relatively imminent since at least the 1950s, early arguments for renewables tended to be seen more as a way of breaking the stranglehold of large fossil-fuel companies.

The idea that fossil companies would delay access to renewable energy was nicely illustrated in a classic episode of The Simpsons when Mr. Burns builds a tower to blot out the sun over Springfield, forcing people to buy his nuclear power.

Back in the real world, similar dynamics were at play. In 2004, Australian prime minister John Howard gathered fossil fuel CEOs help him slow the growth of renewables, under the auspices of a Low Emissions Technology Advisory Group.

Meanwhile, advocates of renewables – especially wind – often found it difficult to build public support for wind, in part because the existing power providers (mines, oil fields, nuclear) tend to be out of sight and out of mind.

Public opposition has also been fed by health scares, such as “wind turbine syndrome”. Labelled a “non-disease” and non-existent by medical experts, it continued to circulate for years.

Donald's One Big Beautiful science experiment

Yeah, he probably would be. Or at least an ambassador

Trump Is Accusing Foes With Multiple Mortgages of Fraud. Records Show 3 of His Cabinet Members Have Them.

Plus, convicted fraudster Trump submitted phony documents misrepresenting the value of his properties 

By Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski for ProPublica

The Trump administration has vowed to go after anyone who got lower mortgage rates by claiming more than one primary residence on their loan papers.

Donald Trump has used it as a justification to target political foes, including a governor on the Federal Reserve Board, a Democratic U.S. senator and a state attorney general.

Real estate experts say claiming primary residences on different mortgages at the same time is often legal and rarely prosecuted.

But if administration officials continue the campaign, mortgage records show there’s another place they could look: Trump’s own Cabinet.

Underscoring how common the practice is, ProPublica found that at least three of Trump’s Cabinet members call multiple homes their primary residences on mortgages. We discovered the loans while examining financial disclosure forms, county real estate records and publicly available mortgage data provided by Hunterbrook Media.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer entered into two primary-residence mortgages in quick succession, including for a second home near a country club in Arizona, where she’s known to vacation. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has primary-residence mortgages in New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, has one primary-residence mortgage in Long Island and another in Washington, D.C., according to loan records.

In a flurry of interviews and rapid-fire posts on X, Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, has led the charge in accusing Trump opponents of mortgage fraud. “If somebody is claiming two primary residences, that is not appropriate, and we will refer it for criminal investigation,” Pulte said last month.

A political donor to the president and heir to a housing company fortune, Pulte’s posts online tease big developments and criminal referrals, drawing reposts from Trump himself and promises of swift consequences. “Fraud will not be tolerated in President Trump’s housing market,” Pulte has warned.

Real estate experts told ProPublica that, in its bid to wrest control of the historically independent Fed and go after political enemies, the Trump administration has mischaracterized mortgage rules. Its justification for launching criminal investigations, they said, could also apply to the Trump Cabinet members.

Flu vaccines show benefits for the heart in new studies

Flu vax linked to heart health

Stephanie Soucheray, MA

Three new studies show high-dose flu vaccines carry a lower risk of myocarditis and cardiovascular events, and flu vaccination offers protection against acute heart failure when administered to hospitalized patients. 

Although the protective effects may be small, the first two studies describe high-dose vaccines outperforming standard seasonal influenza vaccines in older adults. 

Currently, high-dose vaccines are recommended for use in adults 65 years and older, and they contain roughly four times the antigen—the part of the vaccine that produces antibodies against influenza virus—as standard-dose flu vaccines.

Myocarditis risk lower with high-dose vaccine

In the first study, based on findings from the Pragmatic Randomized Trial to Evaluate the Effectiveness of High-Dose Influenza Vaccines (DANFLU-2 trial) in JAMA Network Open, the risk of myocarditis or pericarditis, or inflammation of the cardiac muscle or membrane around it, was lower in people receiving the high-dose inactivated flu vaccine than in those getting a standard-dose vaccine.

Influenza is a known risk factor for developing myocarditis or pericarditis, and this large Danish study looked at the prevalence of the inflammatory condition across three flu seasons, from 2022 to 2025. Of 332,438 participants randomized, 331,143 did not have a history of myocarditis or pericarditis.

Dozens of Scientists Call Trump's Energy Dept.'s Climate Report ‘Fundamentally Incorrect’

Calling b.s. on Trump's phony climate denial "science"

By Jake Bolster

Image: Billy Burton

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.

More than 85 climate scientists declared the Department of Energy’s new climate report unfit for policymaking in a comprehensive review released Tuesday. The DOE’s report cherry-picked evidence, lacked peer-reviewed studies to support its questioning of the detrimental effects of climate change in the U.S. and is “fundamentally incorrect,” the authors concluded. 

Scientists have accurately modeled and predicted the volume and impact of excess CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere since the 1970s, when Exxon workers first began measuring the impacts of their product on the planet’s atmosphere. Since then, climate science has matured into a crucial tool to help humans gauge how a warming planet may affect everything from weather and crops to the economy and mental health. 

“This report makes a mockery of science. It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm waving, anecdotes, and confirmation bias,” said Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, in a statement accompanying the review. 

“This report makes it clear DOE has no interest in engaging with the scientific community.”

Tom Sgouros on getting organized in the Time of Trump

History's call to action

Tom Sgouros

I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to concentrate these days, while what seems to be the ashes of my nation’s ideals settle around my ankles as I read the news. From the words in the U.S. Constitution to the words on the Statue of Liberty, so much of the text of our nation seems to be rejected by people who have the effrontery to call me and my friends unpatriotic. It’s infuriating but also enervating, in no small part because it’s so hard to see what might be the most constructive way to push back.

But it turns out that lots of people have felt the same way in the past, and lots of them found ways to act nonetheless. This is why I so enjoyed Erik Loomis’s new book, “Organizing America: Stories of Americans Who Fought for Justice.” It’s easy to remember the famous Americans who led successful fights for justice: Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, and Mother Jones. But what lessons do such heroic figures have for me, now?

The answer is more than I thought. The evidence is in Loomis’s book, where he tells the stories of other Americans who found themselves in the fight for human rights: against slavery, against lynching, for labor unions, for women’s suffrage, for gay rights, and more. Some of these are names you might have heard -- Ida B. Wells, Eugene Debs, Daniel Berrigan -- but many are not. 

Maggie Walker was an entrepreneur in the Black community in Virginia, Frank Little was a union organizer in Montana mines, Robert Williams was a not-terribly-peaceful civil rights activist in both North and South, and Richard Oakes participated in the American Indian struggles of the 1960s and 1970s in New York and California.

Erik Loomis is a historian at the University of Rhode Island. In addition to his duties there, he participates in writing the excellent Lawyers, Guns, and Money blog, where he writes a series he calls “Erik Visits an American Grave,” which is more or less exactly what it sounds like. He visits graves of the famous, infamous, and almost famous, and writes short biographies of the people he finds there, with almost 2,000 visits under his belt, and still going. 

Tom in 2012

His writing is straight-ahead, nothing fancy, but pleasurably propelled by both the subject matter and his exhilaratingly frank evaluations of the people he writes about. He is willing to call a hack a hack (Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist), a fascist a fascist (U.S. Senator David Reed), and a legend a legend (Bluesman Willie Dixon). My favorite is when he writes about a grave in Arlington where Jack Miller is “buried on the confiscated grounds of the traitor Lee,” a formulation that strikes me as undisputably factual and admirably so.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Since we first published a column by Tom in February 2012, we've carried just under 60 of his always interesting essays on Rhode Island's politics and economy. 

Numbers lie

Sept. 14: South County Rising potluck picnic in Ninigret

Here's a great new issue for the CCA

An environmental guide on how to shit in the woods

Shari Edelson, Penn State and B. Derrick Taff, Penn State

A pilot program to distribute waste bags to hikers on
Mount Elbert in Colorado successfully cut down the amount
of human waste on the massive mountain. Shari Edelson, CC BY-ND

If you’re one of the 63 million Americans who went hiking last year, chances are you’ve found yourself needing to go, with no toilet in sight.

Aside from personal inconvenience, why is this such a big deal?

Human fecal contamination is a public health concern in natural areas.

Pathogens in human poop can remain active for a long time – over a year in outdoor environments – meaning that waste left behind today can cause severe gastrointestinal disease and other sicknesses for future visitors. Fecal waste can enter waterways after storms or snowmelt, harming water quality. 

Finally, it can be upsetting – or at the least, unpleasant – to encounter someone else’s poop and used toilet paper in nature.

Toilet paper waste on Mount Elbert in the San Isabel
National Forest in Colorado. Shari Edelson, CC BY-ND

As a researcher and a Ph.D. candidate who study human impacts on parks and protected areas, we have been thinking quite a lot about poop and ways people can tread more lightly on the landscape. 

Our focus is on Leave No Trace, an environmental education framework – created by an organization with the same name – that helps people implement minimal-impact practices in the outdoors.

Starting Saturday, beware of guys with guns (or bows) in the woods

Duck and cover as hunters start firing on Saturday

DEM news release:

With hunting season kicking off, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) reminds the public that it’s time to break out your finest fluorescent orange fashions for your fall forest frolicking. 

Yes, it clashes with everything, but it helps keep you safe. 

Starting this weekend with archery deer season, anyone in state management areas and undeveloped state parks during hunting season must wear 200 square inches (a hat or vest) of orange clothing from Saturday, Sept. 13 through Friday, Feb. 27. Archery hunters are exempt from this requirement during archery deer season. For more details, visit www.dem.ri.gov/orange. 

For a complete breakdown of hunting season dates, regulations, and a map of Deer Management Zones (DMZs), please review the 2025-26 Hunting and Trapping Regulation Guide available online at www.eregulations.com/rhodeisland/hunting and at local sales agents. 

For more information on DEM programs and initiatives, visit www.dem.ri.gov. Follow DEM on Facebook, Twitter (@RhodeIslandDEM), or Instagram (@rhodeisland.dem) for timely updates. Follow DFW on Facebook and Instagram (@ri.fishandwildlife) to stay up to date on news, events and volunteer opportunities. You can also subscribe to DFW’s monthly newsletter

Eight Brown University unions team up to form labor council

In the wake of the bitter Butler Hospital strike, solidarity needed for future success

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

Unions across Brown University and Brown University Health have banded together to form a new labor federation with about 7,000 members total.

In a Monday announcement, the Brown University Labor Council (BULC) branded itself as “the first effort at creating a cross-sector labor organization” since the Ivy League school partnered with Lifespan to rebrand as Brown University Health last summer.  

The council’s president, Maddock Thomas, said in a statement that it will work to unify Brown  and Brown Health workers across any respective labor campaigns, contract talks, and picket lines. Beginning Sept. 15, the council plans to hold a series of educational events on labor organization to help workers get involved in their unions and organize their workplaces.

“In this time of overlapping crises, the voice of labor is crucial,” Thomas wrote. “A strong labor movement means that working people will have a seat at the table as we work to solve these problems. The BULC allows us to build a cohesive labor movement for workers affiliated with Brown across all sectors and workplaces.”

Labor organizations in the council include:

• Brown chapter of American Association of University Professors
• Brown University Postdoc Labor Organization
• Brown Health and Care New England units of Committee of Interns and Residents
• Graduate Labor Organization
• Brown Student Labor Alliance
• Transdev and Rhode Island Hospital units of Teamsters Local 251 
• United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP) Local 5098
• Library and dining units of United Service and Allied Workers of Rhode Island