Apply by July 26
The @RI_InfraBank released the 2024 Request for Proposals for MRP Action Grants. Grant funds will help local communities restore & improve resiliency of vulnerable coastal habitats, river & stream floodplains & infrastructure.
Apply by July 26 riib.org/work-with-us/r
Constant cravings
By MCLEAN HOSPITAL
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A new five-year study led by investigators
from McLean Hospital, part of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system,
revealed that 61% of individuals continued to experience symptoms of
binge-eating disorder 2.5 years after being diagnosed, and 45% still exhibited
symptoms after five years. These findings challenge earlier prospective studies
that suggested quicker recovery times, the researchers noted.
June 1 could see the start of the worst hurricane season in US history
Jhordanne Jones, Purdue University
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| The U.S. is in for another busy hurricane season. Here are hurricanes Irma, Jose and Katia in 2017. NOAA |
If the National Hurricane Center’s early forecast, released May 23, is right, the North Atlantic could see 17 to 25 named storms, eight to 13 hurricanes, and four to seven major hurricanes by the end of November. That’s the highest number of named storms NOAA has ever forecast for a hurricane season.
Other forecasts for the season have been just as intense. Colorado State University’s early outlook, released in April, predicted an average of 23 named storms, 11 hurricanes and five major hurricanes. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts anticipates 21 named storms.
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| For more cartoons by Tom Tomorrow, CLICK HERECLICK HERE. |
Think! It isn't Donald Trump who is accused of subverting the "Rule of Law"! If it can happen to Trump, can it happen to you and me? If Trump is disqualified or something more sinister happens to him, who will speak for you and me?
Help prevent a repeat
By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current
“All Rhode Islanders should feel safe in their own homes,” McKee said in a statement. “This bill provides the necessary support for crime victims to get back that sense of security.”
The Crime Victim Compensation Program, which began in 1972, provides up to $25,000 in reimbursement for expenses resulting from being the victim of a violent crime, such as costs associated with crime scene cleaning, counseling, relocation, and funerals. Funding comes from federal grants and in-state court fines and fees, restitution fines and court orders.
For fiscal year 2024, the program had a budget of roughly $1.26 million. A little over $1 million is budgeted for fiscal year 2025, according to data from General Treasurer James Diossa’s office.
Prior to the governor’s transmittal, the program did not cover home modification.
Good News for Your Diet
By DEBORAH KYBURZ, ETH ZURICH
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| The illustration shows the utilization of the entire cocoa fruit. Credit: Kim Mishra |
ETH researchers have developed a type of chocolate that is more sustainable and nutritious than conventional varieties.
Cocoa-fruit chocolate uses cocoa fruit jelly
as a replacement for powdered sugar, reducing the sugar content and increasing
the product’s nutritional value.
This new chocolate recipe also has the
potential to diversify the income sources of small farmers.
The primary components of chocolate are cocoa
mass and cocoa butter, both of which are derived from the cocoa fruit. However,
there are many other useful ingredients in the cocoa fruit that are largely
underutilized in traditional chocolate recipes.
In a new Innosuisse project, researchers
from ETH Zurich are collaborating with
sustainability-focused chocolate start-up Koa, and Swiss chocolate manufacturer
Felchlin to create a new chocolate recipe that maximizes the use of the whole
cocoa plant. This new recipe is healthier, more sustainable, and increases the
profitability of cocoa cultivation.
More progressive than McKee budget
By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
Good news for transit riders, Medicaid providers and public school students, all of whom stand to benefit from the revised fiscal 2025 budget given first passage by a panel of House lawmakers Friday night.
House Speaker Joe Shekarchi (right)
The $13.9 billion spending plan unveiled late Friday falls just shy of the $14 billion high water mark that characterized fiscal 2024’s approved spending plan, but is $271 million more than what Gov. Dan McKee proposed in January.
The updated spending plan includes enough money to stave off service cuts at the financially struggling Rhode Island Public Transit Authority while offering Medicaid providers long-awaited reimbursement rate hikes in a single year, rather than the three-year incremental uptick McKee proposed. Meanwhile, a nearly $33.8 million boost in state aid for K-12 schools, above what McKee called for, will offset a steep drop in federal funding, along with more dollars for multilingual learners.
How will they organize the next insurrection?
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| Summoned by social media connections, a mob, including militia members, stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest the 2020 presidential election results. Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images |
As a scholar of militias, I’ve seen extremists get kicked off Facebook before.
This time, the platform’s moderators took down roughly 100 pages and profiles for violating the social media network’s rules that prohibit “militarized social movements.”
These organizations include U.S. domestic militias, which are usually groups of armed people who meet regularly for shooting practice as well as discussions of cultural and political concerns. They also take personal responsibility for defending their communities and their country from a variety of perceived possible threats.
Some militias seek to defend themselves from the government, while others prepare to attack it – but all prioritize preserving Second Amendment rights and believe that they are protecting democracy from government tyranny that would otherwise be unchecked.
The 100 groups most recently removed are just a tiny fraction of the thousands of militia groups Facebook has previously kicked off the site, supposedly permanently. But it is nonetheless a concern that militias appear to be trying to reclaim the platform to network, recruit and publicize their activities.
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| Visual Capitalist infographic |
It's gonna get worse
University of Cambridge
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Although 2023 has been reported as the hottest year on
record, the instrumental evidence only reaches back as far as 1850 at best, and
most records are limited to certain regions.
Now, by using past climate information from annually
resolved tree rings over two millennia, scientists from the University of
Cambridge and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz have shown how
exceptional the summer of 2023 was.
Even allowing for natural climate variations over
hundreds of years, 2023 was still the hottest summer since the height of the
Roman Empire, exceeding the extremes of natural climate variability by half a
degree Celsius.
Vaccines save lives with minimal risk, contrary to what anti-vaxxer quacks say. Yes, this means you, RFK Jr.
It’s going to get worse, largely because a growing number of parents are deciding not to get their children vaccinated against measles as well as diseases like polio and pertussis. Unvaccinated people, or those whose immunization status is unknown, account for 80% of the measles cases this year.
Many parents have been influenced by a flood of misinformation spouted by politicians, podcast hosts, and influential figures on television and social media. These personalities repeat decades-old notions that erode confidence in the established science backing routine childhood vaccines. KFF Health News examined the rhetoric and explains why it’s misguided:
MAGAnuts go after Fauci again for trying to save lives despite Trump
Former National Institutes of Health official Anthony Fauci has faced many hostile questions from members of Congress, but when he appears before a House panel on Monday, he’ll have something new to answer for: a trove of incendiary emails written by one of his closest advisers.
In the emails, David Morens, a career federal scientist now on administrative leave, described deleting messages and using a personal email account to evade disclosure of correspondence under the Freedom of Information Act.
“i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the search starts, so i think we are all safe,” Morens wrote in a Feb. 24, 2021, email. “Plus i deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail.”
The pressure is on as Fauci himself prepares to appear June 3 before a House subcommittee exploring the origins of covid-19. The NIH, a $49 billion agency that is the foremost source of funding in the world for biomedical research, finds itself under unusual bipartisan scrutiny.
