No reason

Who would you trust?

 

Goodbye and thank you!

Dr. Ashish Jha, a familiar face during COVID pandemic, stepping down as Brown’s public health dean

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

Dr. Ashish Jha — one of the most recognizable public health experts during the COVID-19 pandemic, and at one point a leader of the federal response to the virus — is leaving his post at Brown University’s School of Public Health. 

Jha will step down at the end of December to spearhead “an initiative that aims to bolster the nation’s defenses against emerging pandemic and biological threats,” the school announced Thursday. The unnamed initiative will continue the work Jha started in April 2022 as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator.

But that was all the information available Thursday about Jha’s new venture.

“At this time there are no additional details to be shared on what he is doing next,” Rob Hancock, a spokesperson for the School of Public Health, said in an email.

Jha said in emailed comments Thursday evening that his new venture will be informed by his time at Brown and as a face of the federal response to COVID — experiences which taught him how to communicate public health challenges to non-scientists.

Vaccinating newborns against hepatitis B saves lives.

Why might a CDC panel stop recommending it?

Liz Szabo, MA

RFK Jr. is the problem. He thinks vaccines are bad
but taking his grandkids to swim in sewage,
despite warning signs, is fine.

Alex Lee suffered for years because of a chronic hepatitis B infection.

Like many people with chronic hepatitis B, Lee contracted the virus from his mother during birth. Lee didn't learn he was infected until he was 40, when his mother underwent a liver transplant due to organ failure caused by hepatitis B.

By the time Lee was diagnosed, he already had advanced cirrhosis, a serious liver disease. He has since undergone surgery to remove growths on his liver, followed by chemotherapy to treat liver cancer caused by the virus, as well as a liver transplant. Although Lee is healthy today at 68, he will need to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his life to prevent his immune system from attacking his new liver.

Yet Lee considers himself lucky; he doesn't need to worry that his children will develop the same disease. All three were vaccinated against hepatitis B, the first anti-cancer vaccine approved in the United States.

"I would recommend all babies take the vaccination," said Lee, a volunteer health educator for San Francisco Hep B Free, a nonprofit that educates community members about hepatitis B. "I was lucky that I found out early and that my liver cancer was not advanced." 

A 99% drop in hepatitis B

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) first recommended vaccinating all babies against hepatitis B at birth in 1991. Since then, chronic hepatitis B infections in children and adolescents have fallen by 99%.

A study published in 2022 found that US children who received the vaccines as newborns were 22% less likely to die from any cause.

The universal birth dose of hepatitis vaccine "has been incredibly effective,” said Ravi Jhaveri, MD, head of infectious diseases at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “The US is in many ways is an envy of the world because we have been able to do this."

Since 1991, the universal HBV birth dose has prevented more than 500,000 childhood infections and prevented an estimated 90,100 childhood deaths, according to a joint statement from the American Public Health Association and 72 public health experts that was submitted as a public comment in response to an upcoming meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Again, weekend snow seems unlikely for Charlestown

Donald J. Trump Puts His Name on ‘US Institute of Peace’ while waging illegal wars and killing civilians

Latest chapter in Trump's quest for the Nobel Peace Prize

Jon Queally

The signs on the building of the United States Institute of Peace were changed overnight to include “Donald J. Trump,” adding the name of the sitting US president who, among other examples of warmongering and war-making, has openly supported the Israeli genocide in Gaza, bombed Iran, sent an aircraft carrier strike group to threaten Venezuela, and ordered the extrajudicial killings of over 80 people aboard boats in the Caribbean and Pacific in recent months.

The building’s name change preceded a meeting on Thursday between leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a proposed peace deal between the two warring nations is set to be signed. It also came amid an ongoing clamoring by the president to be recognized as a great maker of peace despite his record of violence, thuggery, racism, and human rights violations.

Critics of the move were swift in their condemnation of Trump, known more for being possibly the most famous narcissist in the history of humanity than for waging anything that remotely looks like a just and lasting peace.

“This is pathetic, like a little boy running around putting ‘Property of Donald’ stickers on everything in the house,” said Tom Nichols, a staff writer at The Atlantic magazine. “It’s not the Trump institute of peace, it’s the US Institute of Peace.”

Trump's ugly Thanksgiving meltdown

It's getting so bad that even Republicans are starting to notice.

Noah Berlatsky

Thanksgiving is supposedly a holiday devoted to welcoming family, friends, and guests to eat together. So of course, Trump used it to indulge in a bizarre orgy of xenophobia and hate, culminating in a gutter attack on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who he referred to as “seriously retarded.”

Trump’s decision to “give thanks” by spewing bigotry and slurs is not a surprise. Even by his standards, though, his harangue was despicable. It was also a disgusting effort to leverage for partisan ends the shooting of National Guard members in Washington DC.

As his popularity and influence slips, Trump seems more and more desperate. That makes him more reckless and in many ways more dangerous. It also opens up opportunities for opposition, though — sometimes from unexpected quarters.

100% accurate Narco anti-missile system

Not even Kim Il Jun has this power

This is even a greater achievement than his glorious 2019 feat of changing Hurricane Dorian's path with his magic SharpieⓇ

If you walk in RI woods between Dec. 6 and Jan. 2, beware of shotgun-toting hunters

DEM requires you to wear orange to keep from getting killed 

Orange hats and vests are so chic this season – shotgun deer season, that is. The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) reminds the public that starting this weekend on Saturday, Dec. 6, it’s time to make a bold fashion statement in hunting areas by adding plenty of orange into your winter wardrobe. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: "bold fashion statement" my ass. DEM wrote this cutesy news release, not me. While I have no problem with subsistence hunting, I am no fan of killing such magnificent creatures for sport. Unless the deer are armed so they can shoot back.   - Will Collette

Anyone in state management areas and undeveloped state parks during shotgun deer season must wear 500 square inches of solid, fluorescent orange, such as an orange vest and hat worn above the waist, through Friday, Jan. 2.  

Wonder what Bobby Jr. thinks of this

Garlic shows promise as a mouthwash alternative to standard chemical compounds

By University of Sharjah

Edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan

Garlic extract demonstrates antimicrobial efficacy comparable to other widely used antiseptics and disinfectants, such as chlorhexidine, according to University of Sharjah medical scientists.

Published in the Journal of Herbal Medicine, the study suggests that while garlic-based mouthwash may cause more discomfort than chlorhexidine, it offers longer-lasting residual effects.

"Chlorhexidine is widely used as a gold standard mouthwash but is associated with side effects and concerns over antimicrobial resistance," the authors note. "Garlic (Allium sativum), known for (its) natural antimicrobial properties, has emerged as a potential alternative."

Rhode Islanders worry about winter energy costs

As winter heating costs rise, so does consumer anxiety in Rhode Island, poll finds

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

Feeling anxious about how to pay for your winter heating bill? You’re not alone, according to the latest Ocean State Poll from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, which found roughly 78% of Rhode Islanders feel the same way about their upcoming winter heating bills. 

Unease over heating prices has risen since last November, when UNH researchers found 70% of residents were worried about their winter energy bills. Among the anxious, 40% said they were “very worried,” while 37% were “worried.” 

And that worry was expressed across each of the three voter affiliations used in the survey released Nov. 25 — Democrat, Republican and independent — expressed being “worried” or “very worried.” That included 88% of independents, 83% of Democrats, and 61% of Republicans.

Independents, or unaffiliated voters, comprised the overall survey’s largest share at about 51% of the total of 711 residents surveyed. The survey was conducted online between Nov. 13 and 17.

The worries are not abstract, as evidenced by Federal Energy Information Administration data which shows Rhode Island home heating oil prices at about $3.88 a gallon in the last week of November 2025. That’s up from the same time last year, when a gallon of oil cost about $3.52. It’s also significantly above pandemic-era November 2020, when heating oil cost about $2.31 a gallon in Rhode Island. 

Heating oil is, however, still below the heights achieved in the fall of 2022, when October and November oil prices regularly soared above $5 a gallon, almost reaching $5.89 in the last week of October 2022.

Propane has been similarly expensive in recent years, with federal data showing residential propane averages about $3.56 a gallon on Nov. 24, 2025, comparable to the $3.61 per gallon recorded in the same time period in November 2024, but still above the high-$2.80s of late 2020. Like oil, propane prices spiked in fall 2022, regularly reaching the $3.80s in October and November of that year. 

The day after the poll was released, Rhode Island Energy submitted a request to increase service charges for gas and electric customers in an application submitted to the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission. If approved, the proposed new distribution rates which would take effect in September 2026 would increase the average residential electric bill by about $7.78 a month, while a typical gas customer would pay $343.53 more annually, a 20.6% jump.

Rhode Island federal lawsuit challenges HUD move to defund evidence-based approach to reducing homelessness

Trump regime pushes "incomprehensible" policy change

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Two Rhode Island nonprofits joined a federal lawsuit filed Monday by a coalition of municipal governments and nonprofit organizations challenging the Trump administration’s push to overhaul a key federal homelessness and housing grant program.

The 85-page lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island seeks to stop the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) from slashing the amount of grant funds that can be spent on permanent housing, or subsidized units that provide a stable residence for formerly homeless people, often those who have experienced mental illness or spent years on the streets. 

Lead plaintiffs include the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, along with Providence-based nonprofits Crossroads Rhode Island and Youth Pride Inc. — among other groups and cities across the country.

The plaintiffs are challenging changes to HUD’s Continuum of Care grant program announced Nov. 13 that shift over two-thirds of the $3.9 billion program toward transitional housing and other short-term interventions for people without shelter. The lawsuit claims the new policy is contrary to “well-established and proven strategies that reduce homelessness” and jeopardize the housing of more than 170,000 people across the nation. 

The so-called “housing first” model prioritizes stable housing before offering case management, mental health treatment, substance use services, and supported employment services. Research has shown this approach leads to more long-term housing stability than programs that require residents to consent to treatment and abstain from using substances before receiving housing.

MAGA evolves

HopArts for the holidays...that's REALLY buying local