Here comes Trump's "irrefutable evidence" of his innocence

 

Welcome news

DEM teams up with national researchers to protect forests against climate change

Cutting out deadwood, planting new, resilient trees

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

DEM is working to preserve a 45-acre parcel of state
forestland in Richmond, pictured in the orange oval.
(Courtesy RIDEM)

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management is teaming up with a national group of scientists and foresters to help preserve and protect state forests against climate change.

The partnership between DEM and the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change network will help “future-proof” a 45-acres swath of forest in Richmond, according to a statement from DEM. 

“This project aims to find out how different forest types will respond to future climate,” DEM Division of Agriculture and Forest Environment (DAFE) Supervising Forester Will Walker said in a statement. 

Ivermectin, rightwing COVID drug of choice, may be useful against tick-borne diseases

A small study showed that feeding deer a type of ivermectin reduced the number of ticks drinking their blood.

BY MARYN MCKENNA 

IT TURNS OUT THAT eating ivermectin is good for something after all. If you’re a deer, that is. And if the goal is to kill the ticks that are biting you — ticks that carry diseases that threaten humans.

The antiparasitic drug, which is mostly used on animals, gained a raucous following during the Covid pandemic after an early search for drugs that could be repurposed to fight it spotted some antiviral activity in a lab assay.

But multiple randomized trials could never reproduce the effect in infected people — including a study published in February that followed more than 1,200 U.S. Covid patients for months. After overwhelming politically driven enthusiasm, ivermectin dwindled to a niche interest.

Now, a team of scientists working within the Connecticut state government has found a new application for something ivermectin was always good at: killing parasites that live in or on animals. 

In a small study, they found that feeding deer corn dosed with an ivermectin derivative builds up enough drug in their blood that ticks biting them will (probably) die.

This will be good news, if the finding holds up while the researchers expand the study into more, and larger, sites. 

EPA approved fuel ingredient even though it could cause cancer in almost every person exposed over a lifetime

Wrong in so many ways

By Sharon Lerner for ProPublica

The Environmental Protection Agency approved a component of boat fuel made from discarded plastic that the agency’s own risk formula determined was so hazardous, everyone exposed to the substance continually over a lifetime would be expected to develop cancer. 

Current and former EPA scientists said that threat level is unheard of. It is a million times higher than what the agency usually considers acceptable for new chemicals and six times worse than the risk of lung cancer from a lifetime of smoking.

Federal law requires the EPA to conduct safety reviews before allowing new chemical products onto the market. If the agency finds that a substance causes unreasonable risk to health or the environment, the EPA is not allowed to approve it without first finding ways to reduce that risk.

But the agency did not do that in this case. Instead, the EPA decided its scientists were overstating the risks and gave Chevron the go-ahead to make the new boat fuel ingredient at its refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Though the substance can poison air and contaminate water, EPA officials mandated no remedies other than requiring workers to wear gloves, records show.

ProPublica and the Guardian in February reported on the risks of other new plastic-based Chevron fuels that were also approved under an EPA program that the agency had touted as a “climate-friendly” way to boost alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. 

That story was based on an EPA consent order, a legally binding document the agency issues to address risks to health or the environment. In the Chevron consent order, the highest noted risk came from a jet fuel that was expected to create air pollution so toxic that 1 out of 4 people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer.

In February, ProPublica and the Guardian asked the EPA for its scientists’ risk assessment, which underpinned the consent order. The agency declined to provide it, so ProPublica requested it under the Freedom of Information Act. The 203-page risk assessment revealed that, for the boat fuel ingredient, there was a far higher risk that was not in the consent order. 

EPA scientists included figures that made it possible for ProPublica to calculate the lifetime cancer risk from breathing air pollution that comes from a boat engine burning the fuel. That calculation, which was confirmed by the EPA, came out to 1.3 in 1, meaning every person exposed to it over the course of a full lifetime would be expected to get cancer.

After Chariho's narrow escape from a right-wing takeover, focus on 2024

How communities can protect school boards from 'extremist' takeovers

Brandon Gage

Future school committee member?

School board elections are part of the bedrock of local democracy. In Ohio, Washington Monthly's David Pepper explains, community grassroots efforts have thwarted attempted takeovers by right-wing culture warriors, and Pepper believes that the Buckeye State can serve as a model for districts throughout the whole country.

"Two conservative board members faced reelection in November 2022, and a third Republican-held seat was open. (Board of Education elections are officially nonpartisan, but the major parties generally endorse candidates.) Eleven of the 19 members are elected, with the others gubernatorial appointees," Pepper writes. 

"First elected in 2018, Jenny Kilgore had spent much of the prior two years fighting to rescind a resolution against racism that the school board had passed following the 2020 murder of George Floyd. She participated in protests against teaching critical race theory in schools (even though it's not taught in Ohio public schools). 

Tim Miller, appointed by Republican Governor Mike DeWine in 2021 to fill a vacancy in an elected seat, also voted to rescind the anti-racism resolution. These and other actions turned the once-quiet school board into a vicious political battleground."

Pepper recalls that "three candidates—two former teachers themselves—ran for those seats promising to end the culture wars," noting that they "faced difficult odds of being elected in 2022, a year that was mostly a smashing success for Ohio Republicans. DeWine won reelection in a landslide. 

He has failed the test

 

Pass the ketchup

 

Ticks claim first Rhode Island fatality of the year

RIDOH Reports Case of Rare Tick-Borne Disease Powassan

The Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) is reporting a confirmed case of the tick-borne Powassan virus disease (Powassan) detected in a Rhode Island resident who later died after contracting the disease.

Laboratory testing was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which confirmed the finding earlier this month. The case involved a female over the over the age of 80 from Washington County, who developed neurological symptoms and died in mid-July.

Powassan is a tick-borne disease that is found mostly in the Northeast and the Great Lakes region of the U.S. and in eastern Canada. Over 239 cases of Powassan have been reported in the United States in the past 10 years (2013-2022).

Powassan cases are rare, but the reported number of cases has increased in recent years. Between 2013 and 2022, there were 93 cases of Powassan reported in New England: 49 cases in Massachusetts, 18 cases in Connecticut, 16 cases in Maine, five cases in New Hampshire, and five cases in Rhode Island.

Initial symptoms of Powassan include fever, headache, vomiting, and generalized weakness. The disease usually progresses to meningoencephalitis, which may include meningeal signs, altered mental status, seizures, aphasia (difficulty understanding or speaking), paresis (muscular weakness or paralysis), movement disorders, or cranial nerve palsies. People with severe Powassan disease often need to be hospitalized. There is no vaccine or treatment for Powassan, so preventing exposure to ticks is the best strategy to avoid this disease.

New Weight Loss Drugs Carry High Price Tags and Lots of Questions for Seniors

Losing weight comes with a weighty price tag

Judith Graham 

Corlee Morris has dieted throughout her adult life.

After her weight began climbing in high school, she spent years losing 50 or 100 pounds then gaining it back. Morris, 78, was at her heaviest in her mid-40s, standing 5 feet 10½ inches and weighing 310 pounds. The Pittsburgh resident has had diabetes for more than 40 years.

Managing her weight was a losing battle until Morris’ doctor prescribed a Type 2 diabetes medication, Ozempic, four months ago. It’s one in a new category of medications changing how ordinary people as well as medical experts think about obesity, a condition that affects nearly 4 in 10 people 60 and older.

The drugs include Ozempic’s sister medication, Wegovy, a weight loss drug with identical ingredients, which the FDA approved in 2021, and Mounjaro, approved as a diabetes treatment in 2022. (Ozempic was approved for diabetes in 2017.) Several other drugs are in development.

The medications reduce feelings of hunger, generate a sensation of fullness, and have been shown to help people lose an average of 15% or more of their weight.

We're in hot water

NOAA Releases Updated 2023 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook

NOAA

Due to current ocean and atmospheric conditions, such as record-warm sea surface temperatures, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center—a division of the National Weather Service—has increased their prediction for the ongoing 2023 Atlantic hurricane season to an “above normal” level of activity from a “near normal” level with their most recent update. 

The outlook now includes a 70% chance of 14-21 named storms, of which 6-11 could become hurricanes, and 2-5 could become major hurricanes. The updated outlook also states that current conditions are likely to counterbalance the usually limiting atmospheric conditions associated with the ongoing El Niño event. 

Although cyclone formation can occur any time of the year, the Atlantic Hurricane Season officially runs from June 1 through November 30, when most tropical cyclones tend to form in the Atlantic. 

The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season began surprisingly early on January 16, when the National Hurricane Center issued a special tropical weather outlook for a low-pressure system north of Bermuda. This system became an unnamed subtropical storm southeast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, which made landfall on January 17 near Louisbourg, Nova Scotia before dissipating over eastern Quebec the next day. 

Then, on the first official day of hurricane season, a tropical depression formed off the west coast of Florida, over the Gulf of Mexico on June 1. This strengthened into Tropical Storm Arlene the following day, bringing several inches of rainfall across South Florida before dissipating north of Cuba. 

Compromised Supreme Court justice to hear case that would tax his rich benefactors

Alito Urged to Recuse From Case That Could Preemptively Ban Federal Wealth Tax

JAKE JOHNSON

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is facing growing calls to recuse himself from a case that could hamstring Congress' ability to enact a federal wealth tax, a policy that progressive lawmakers and economists say is needed to rein in out-of-control inequality.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter urging Chief Justice John Roberts to "take appropriate steps to ensure that Justice Alito will recuse himself" from Moore v. United States, which the Supreme Court recently agreed to take up.

The lawmakers' demand was prompted by a friendly interview that Alito gave to The Wall Street Journal's opinion section, which in June allowed the right-wing justice to get out in front of a ProPublica story on his luxury trip with billionaire hedge fund titan Paul Singer.

MAGAnut cult doesn't care

 

Hope that's enough

 

Brown joins the fight to stem the climate crisis

Brown-led team to establish climate and health research hub for New England coast

Brown University

A new federal grant will enable a team of researchers led by a Brown University scientist to bring together experts and stakeholders in an effort to create a coastal resilience research hub aimed at addressing climate change related challenges faced by low-lying communities in New England.

The National Science Foundation grant is expected to total approximately $6 million over five years.

The team will include eight faculty members from Brown as well as 21 researchers from University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College, University of New Hampshire, Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems. 

The group will be led by Emanuele Di Lorenzo, a professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Brown, and Sarah Lummis, a researcher at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and executive director of the new hub.

The team plans to initially work with four coastal communities in New England — one industrial port and one commercial fishing port in both Rhode Island and Maine — but eventually they hope to bring solutions from these pilot communities to the entire New England coast and beyond. 

The goal is to create a set of systems and establish a network of experts that members of these communities can turn to for help developing strategies to become more resilient to climate change, including tools for data collection and predicting rising water levels.