New RI pension investment plan pays off

$872 million in its first year, 11.6% return on investment

Rhode Island's pension fund continues to deliver strong investment performance, earning $74.3 million in the month of September 2017, and more than $872 million in the 12 months since Treasurer Magaziner announced his Back to Basics investment strategy.

"I am committed to bringing growth and stability to our State's pension fund," said Treasurer Magaziner. "Our Back to Basics approach is improving investment returns through common sense investments and providing financial security for those who have dedicated their careers to public service."

For the 12-month period ending September 30, 2017, the fund earned over $872 million, a return of 11.6 percent, which beats the plan's 11.1 percent benchmark and a tradition 60% stock/40% bonds portfolio which would have earned 10.9 percent.

Trash pandas smarter than we thought

Raccoons solve an ancient puzzle, but do they really understand it?

Springer

Scientists have been using an ancient Greek fable written by Aesop as inspiration to test whether birds and small children understand cause and effect relationships. 

In "The Crow and the Pitcher," a thirsty crow realizes it should drop stones into a pitcher in order to raise the water level high enough so that the bird is able to drink it. 

A group of US scientists led by Lauren Stanton of the University of Wyoming have now extended this body of work to study raccoon intelligence. Their research in Springer's journal Animal Cognition is the first to use the Aesop's Fable paradigm to assess if mammalian carnivores understand the principles of water displacement.

Aaron Regunberg wants to be Rhode Island’s next Lt. Governor

8 questions for lt. gov. candidate Aaron Regunberg

By Bob Plain In Rhode Island’s Future

Aaron Regunberg announced on October 24 what many had long assumed: The progressive state representative from Providence’s East Side is running for lieutenant governor.

The 27-year-old Brown University grad already has some important achievements under his belt. 

He authored a bill, now law, that mandates paid sick days for Rhode Island workers. 

He pushed for, and won, net metering, which increases the use of renewable energy, and he was an important voice, and legislative co-sponsor, of increasing the tipped minimum wage for restaurant workers. 

He helped start the Resist RI activist group and, before that, the Providence Student Union, an activist group for students.

Regunberg’s decision to run for higher office sets up a potential primary against current Lt. Governor Dan McKee, a conservative-leaning Democrat, and opens up his District 4 House seat, which the progressive left hopes remains deep blue. 

I caught up with Regunberg, via email, to ask him about his campaign, his political strategy, why he’s running for lieutenant governor, and what he likes and doesn’t like about politics.

How to Cope with Trump Trauma

This presidency has caused an enduring traumatic shock.

By Betty Teng / AlterNet

I am a trauma therapist in New York City. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election, both my patients and colleagues were in shock. Many of them told me they felt unsafe and vulnerable. “I feel like I did after 9/11,” one said. “People on the subways look like they are in mourning,” said another.

I knew exactly how they felt. In the days following the 2016 election, my own mind struggled to focus. I was prone to spontaneous tears. It was difficult to summon the words to speak. I recognized these responses in myself and others as symptoms of traumatic shock, the possible harbingers of post-traumatic stress disorder.

When I finally managed to calm down enough to consider the intensity of our reactions, I was puzzled. It’s true that Donald Trump’s election to the presidency was alarming for many, particularly given his rageful expressions of xenophobia, sexism, racism, and Islamophobia. But it was a nonviolent event; we hadn’t been physically attacked, nor had we experienced a natural catastrophe. Or had we?

They knew what they signed up for

From the Rhode Island Community Food Bank

Annual Meeting recap and hurricane relief update.

Donate Now

Scouting for Food:
Look for Door Hanger & Prepare Donation

On Saturday, October 28, thousands of Scouts from across the state will be distributing door hangers to homes asking for donations of healthy, non-perishable food in the Food Bank’s biggest food drive of the year. As they’ve done for thirty years, the Scouts will return the following Saturday, November 4 starting at 9 a.m.to pick up donations. We need your help to ensure that we have healthy food for our neighbors in need this holiday season. If the Scouts don’t canvass you neighborhood, please consider making an online donation.

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Leadership Recognized at Annual Meeting

At this week's annual meeting, the Loni McGrath Community Garden Award was given to member agency Westbay Community Action for their farm program that grows 15,000 pounds of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, squash and other vegetables each year. The Guy Abelson Leadership Award was presented to Joe MarcAurele for his service as Board President since 2011. In addition, three new board members were elected.

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Food Bank Participates in Hurricane Relief

To help with Hurricane relief efforts in Texas, the Rhode Island Community Food Bank sent two members of our operations team, Charlie LeClerc and Joe Reynolds, to the Southeast Texas Food Bank in Beaumont, Texas. Charlie and Joe have safely returned home and share some of their experiences from visiting this devastated community.

Read More

Donate Now

© 2017 Rhode Island Community Food Bank

200 Niantic Avenue

Providence, RI 02907

Phone: (401) 942‑MEAL (6325)

Email: [contactus@rifoodbank.org]

The budget - how most of us will lose so the rich can gain

Don’t let them Bee misunderstood

Proving the benefits of native bee with a bad reputation

Todd McLeish

Carpenter bees are among the largest bees in the Northeast, and since they burrow into wood – including houses – they have a bad reputation.

But University of Rhode Island junior Becky Gumbrewicz is hoping to change that reputation and demonstrate that the insects provide significant benefits to people, too.

The bees are important pollinators, but because they are so large they sometimes cannot get their head far enough into some flowers to collect nectar. 

So in a strategy called nectar robbery, they instead slit the side of the flowers to feed on the nectar without pollinating the flowers.

Gumbrewicz joined with graduate student Sara Tucker and URI Professor Steven Alm to see if the strategy had any negative implications for local blueberry crops.

An Independent Thinker’s Guide to the Tax Debate

There's a heist coming. Arm yourself with the facts!

By Chuck Collins

For 40 years, tax cutters in Congress have told us, “we have a tax cut for you.” 

And each time, they count on us to suspend all judgment.

In exchange, we’ve gotten staggering inequality, collapsing public infrastructure, a fraying safety net, and exploding deficits. Meanwhile, a small segment of the richest one tenth of 1 percent have become fabulously wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

Ready for more?

Now, Trump and congressional Republicans have rolled out a tax plan that the independent Tax Policy Center estimates will give 80 percent of the benefits to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers.

The good news is the majority aren’t falling for it this time around. Recent polls indicatethat over 62 percent of the public oppose additional tax cuts for the wealthy and 65 percent are against additional tax cuts to large corporations.

Here’s the independent thinker’s guide to the tax debate for people who aspire to be guided by facts, not magical thinking. When you hear congressional leaders utter these claims, take a closer look.

US Soldiers Died in Niger. What on Earth Are We Doing There?

It's a danger to democracy to be fighting wars we don't even know about

By Peter Certo

In our military-revering culture, it’s a strange thing for a president to start a war of words with the grieving families of slain soldiers.

Strange, yes. But from Donald Trump’s campaign season feud with the parents of Humayun Khan, who died protecting fellow soldiers in Iraq, to his recent feud with the mourning widow of La David Johnson, who died on patrol in Niger, it’s no longer surprising.

At root in the latest spat is a comment Trump made to La David’s widow Myeshia Johnson: “He knew what he signed up for.” Myeshia thought that remark was disrespectful — she later said it “made me cry.”

Beyond insensitive, though, there’s a good chance it simply wasn’t true.

See if you can find Niger in this map of Northern Africa. Answer below
the fold.

Why, after all, should La David have expected to die in a dusty corner of Niger — a Saharan country most Americans (and, one suspects, their president) couldn’t find on a map? And where the U.S. isn’t actually at war?

If you were surprised to learn the U.S. has nearly a thousand troops in Niger, you’re not alone. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who serves on the Armed Forces Committee, told NBC he “had no idea.” Neither did Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat.

Well, the surprises may keep coming.

Gotta get me this

For more cartoons by Matt Bors, CLICK HERE.

Sexual assault by the numbers

VIDEO: Astronomy Picture of the Day

Spectacular star merger event detected for the first time - the origin of gold

From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

Illustrative Video Credit: NASA's Conceptual Imaging Lab. To watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_Akn8fUBeQ

Both gravitational and electromagnetic radiations have been detected in rapid succession for an explosive merging event for the first time.

Data from the outburst fit well with a spectacular binary neutron-star death-spiral.

The explosive episode was seen on August 17 in nearby NGC 4993, an elliptical galaxy only 130 million light years distant. 

Gravitational waves were seen first by the ground based LIGO and Virgo observatories, while seconds later the Earth-orbiting Fermi observatory detected gamma-rays, and hours after that Hubble and other observatories detected light throughout the electromagnetic spectrum.

Pictured is an animated illustrative movie of the event's likely progenitors. The video depicts hot neutron stars as they spiral in toward each other and emit gravitational radiation.

Anti-Vaxxers, climate change deniers rejoice

Climate change may accelerate infectious disease outbreaks, say researchers

University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Aside from inflicting devastating natural disasters on often vulnerable communities, climate change can also spur outbreaks of infectious diseases like Zika , malaria and dengue fever, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

"Climate change presents complex and wide-reaching threats to human health," said Cecilia Sorensen, MD, lead author of the study and the Living Closer Foundation Fellow in Climate and Health Policy at CU Anschutz. 

"It can amplify and unmask ecological and socio-political weaknesses and increase the risk of adverse health outcomes in socially vulnerable regions."

How do insurance companies contribute to the opioid problem?

Pressure Mounts on Insurance Companies to Consider Their Role in Opioid Epidemic

By Charles Ornstein for Pro Publica

A prominent Democratic lawmaker asked major health insurers today whether their policies and preferred prescription drug lists have made the nation’s opioid epidemic worse.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote to the companies after an article by ProPublica and The New York Times found that insurance companies sometimes favor cheaper, more addictive opioids over less addictive, but more expensive, alternatives.