VIDEO: He had him confused with Ted Nugent

Trump claims long-dead tenor is a “great friend of mine”

By Rika Christensen 

To watch Pavarotti's amazing last performance of "Nessun Dorma" at the 2006 Olympics on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0Sx5lbVlQA

Is The Donald really this oblivious to the entire world? And history? And, well, everything?

Two and a half months after embarrassing himself by implying that Frederick Douglass was still alive, he embarrasses himself by dropping the name of yet another famous person who has passed away – Luciano Pavarotti.

He didn’t just imply that Pavarotti is still living today (he died of pancreatic cancer ten years ago). 

While he and Italy’s prime minister held a joint press conference, he must have decided to praise Italy for the gift of Pavarotti (or rather, he decided to use Pavarotti to puff himself up and appear more superior) by saying:

“Pavarotti, friend of mine, great friend of mine.”

First off, as stated before, Pavarotti is no longer gracing the world with his amazing tenor voice. 

But it’s also not likely that Pavarotti was any friend of Trump’s at all.

Continuous war, continuous shake-downs

The Trump Doctrine

By Robert Reich

What’s the “Trump Doctrine” of foreign policy? At first glance, foreign policy under Trump seems inconsistent, arbitrary, and devoid of principle.

A few weeks ago, even before the airstrike on Syria, Trump communications director Mike Dubke told Trump’s assembled aides that international affairs presented a messaging challenge because the Trump administration lacks a coherent foreign policy. 

“There is no Trump doctrine,” Dubke declared. 

I think Dubke is being grossly unfair. Of course there’s a Trump Doctrine. You just have to know where to look for it. 

Funding the Trump Wall

How it works

Next decade literally do or die

Next ten years critical for achieving climate change goals

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis 

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be reduce in  two ways—by cutting our emissions, or by removing it from the atmosphere, for example through plants, the ocean, and soil.

The historic Paris Agreement set a target of limiting future global average temperature increase to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to even further limit the average increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Yet the timing and details of these efforts were left to individual countries.

In a new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) used a global model of the carbon system that accounts for carbon release and uptake through both natural and anthropogenic activities.

Mission control: Salty diet makes you hungry, not thirsty

New studies show that salty food diminishes thirst while increasing hunger

Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association

We've all heard it: eating salty foods makes you thirstier. But what sounds like good nutritional advice turns out to be an old-wives' tale. 

In a study carried out during a simulated mission to Mars, an international group of scientists has found exactly the opposite to be true. "Cosmonauts" who ate more salt retained more water, weren't as thirsty, and needed more energy.

For some reason, no one had ever carried out a long-term study to determine the relationship between the amount of salt in a person's diet and his drinking habits. 

Scientists have known that increasing a person's salt intake stimulates the production of more urine -- it has simply been assumed that the extra fluid comes from drinking. 

Not so fast! say researchers from the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), Vanderbilt University and colleagues around the world. Recently they took advantage of a simulated mission to Mars to put the old adage to the test. Their conclusions appear in two papers in the current issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Show your support

Concerned About Climate Change? Change Where You Bank!

Wall Street is destroying the planet with our own savings — so let's move them.

By Todd Larsen

On April 29, hundreds of thousands of people will take part in the People’s Climate March in DC and around the country. The march will send a clear message that the majority of Americans understand that climate change is all too real — and they’ll continue to raise their voices until the government takes action.

The march is also a great way to inspire people to take action for climate solutions in their own communities — whether by calling their elected officials or speaking up at town halls, pushing their local and state governments to act, or working with schools and houses of worship to address the climate crisis without waiting for Washington.

If all that’s not for you, there may be an even simpler option: Move your money.

We must act to save Rhode Island’s children

Children’s deaths are horrifying and accountability is needed at DCYF
By Rep. Julie A. Casimiro

To say that I am horrified by the death of so many children connected to DCYF would be an understatement, as I am sure it is for anyone else who has heard the same tragic news over the past couple of years.

At a recent House Oversight Committee meeting, it was revealed to the committee that over the past 26 months, 10 children who have been associated with DCYF have died, eight of them under the age of 18 months old.

This is beyond unacceptable.

The art of distraction

For more cartoons by Ruben Bolling, CLICK HERE.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

NGC 4302 and NGC 4298 

From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

Seen edge-on, spiral galaxy NGC 4302 (left) lies about 55 million light-years away in the well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices.

A member of the large Virgo Galaxy Cluster, it spans some 87,000 light-years, a little smaller than our own Milky Way.

Like the Milky Way, NGC 4302's prominent dust lanes cut along the center of the galactic plane, obscuring and reddening the starlight from our perspective.

Smaller companion galaxy NGC 4298 is also a dusty spiral. But tilted more nearly face-on to our view, NGC 4298 can show off dust lanes along spiral arms traced by the bluish light of young stars, as well as its bright yellowish core.

In celebration of the 27th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, 1990, astronomers used the legendary telescope to take this gorgeous visible light portrait of the contrasting galaxy pair.

"Look up in the sky....It's a bird..."

Radar Data Proves R.I.'s Importance to Migrating Birds

By TODD McLEISH/ecoRI News contributor

Rhode Island is the smallest state, but it plays an outsized role in providing food and habitat for migrating birds traveling through the region each fall.

That’s the preliminary result of the first year of data collected for the Rhode Island Bird Migration Atlas. The information combines satellite data of mass movements of birds during migration with field observations collected along 10 transects scattered throughout the state.

“We’ve confirmed what we’ve always suspected: Rhode Island is a very important stopover site for migrants. We’ve just never been able to put numbers to it before,” said Charles Clarkson, the ornithologist who leads the project on behalf of the University of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

Clarkson said the bulk of the birds migrating north along the Atlantic flyway in the spring travel to the west of Rhode Island, whereas most of those traveling south each autumn do so by crossing through the state.

Dog of the Week

Meet Dots

Animal Rescue Rhode Island

Dots is a one-year-old lab mix patiently waiting for his forever home.

Dots is an adventurous young pup who would do great with an active couple.

This sweet boy would absolutely LOVE to go home with another young dog.

He adores belly rubs and squeaky toys.

Won’t you come see this adorable pup today?

Congrats, Graduates! Here’s Your Diploma and Debt

44 million households now hold student debt.

By Chuck Collins

It’s that time of year again. Flowers are flowering, spring is springing, and across the country college graduates are graduating with their newly awarded degrees held high.

Also higbh is the mountain of student debt most of these recent graduates are taking on. All told, 44 million Americans now owe student debt — including 7 in 10 graduating seniors last year, who owe an average of $37,000.

If you’re not one of those tens of millions of people, you might’ve missed how out of control student debt has become. Total student debt is approaching $1.4 trillion, surpassing auto loans and credit card debt.

Now we know more about why the Camp Davis deal went sour

Tribe rejected deal conditioned on yielding sovereignty

By Will Collette

For a time, it looked like the Narragansett Indian Tribe’s lands in Charlestown would be greatly enlarged and existing gaps in the 1978 borders of Narragansett tribal lands would be filled in.

The state of Rhode Island had offered the Tribe three parcels of land, two of them in Charlestown, as compensation because the Route 95 Providence Viaduct project in downtown Providence had improperly disturbed the site of an ancient Indian village.

Under the agreement, the state would turn over the 105-acre abandoned Camp Davis property (off Route 2) and the smaller nearby Chief Sachem Nighthawk property, as well as an important Salt Pond Archaeological Preserve in Narragansett to the Tribe.

But recent news reveals that this land transfer has come completely off the rails. The Narragansett tribe has filed suit in US District Court against the Federal Highway Administration seeking to block further construction on the I-95 project because RIDOT violated the land transfer agreement.

The Providence Journal reports the Tribe cites actions by RIDOT that began about eight months into the negotiating process when DOT demanded the Tribe waive its sovereignty rights over the use of the property.

Because the Tribe refused the state demand, RIDOT filed notice on February 15 that it intended to cancel the land transfer offer. On March 20, RIDOT filed THIS REPORT explaining why it decided to pull the plug on negotiations.