Republicans solve the PFAS problem

Heil

 

Grants available for resilient infrastructure

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 https://riib.org/work-with-us/r

equest-for-proposals/

What a Five-Year Study Reveals About Binge-Eating Disorder

Constant cravings

By MCLEAN HOSPITAL 

In the United States, binge-eating disorder is the most prevalent eating disorder. However, previous studies have presented conflicting views of the disorder’s duration and the likelihood of relapse.

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.

Hurricane forecast points to a dangerous 2024 Atlantic season, with La Niña and a persistently warm ocean teaming up to power fierce storms

June 1 could see the start of the worst hurricane season in US history

Jhordanne Jones, Purdue University

The U.S. is in for another busy hurricane season.
Here are hurricanes Irma, Jose and Katia in 2017. NOAA

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season starts on June 1, and forecasters are predicting an exceptionally active season.

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.

Mageau mimics cartoon to defend his Mango Master

Uses Tom Tomorrow script to condemn Trump verdict

By Will Collette

This week's cartoon by Tom Tomorrow ran in Daily Kos today, the same day the Westerly Sun reprinted a letter Charlestown's most vocal MAGA, Jim Mageau, wrote to the Providence Journal (third from the top) a few days ago.

It's not unusual for Mageau to write wacky letters or to use fake facts and flawed logic to defend his perfect spiritual master, the Donald. It is unusual for Mageau to use almost exactly the same talking points that are so expertly skewered by a cartoon.

For a great laugh in these troubled times, I invite you to check out Mageau's letter and compare it, frame-by-frame, with this Tom Tomorrow MAGA send-up:

For more cartoons by Tom Tomorrow, CLICK HERECLICK HERE.

By the way, I think it is worth pondering Mageau's (and Tom Tomorrow's) MAGA argument:

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?

I recognize that if I was running for high public office and I cooked my company's books to pay off a porn star I had sex with so it wouldn't hurt my election chances, than yes, I'd be right to worry about prosecution too. 

As Mageau observed, "What happened to the once active and proud ACLU that once led the fight to protect our civil rights?"

Then and now

For more cartoons by Jen Sorenson, CLICK HERECLICK HERE

Lying, cheating dirtbag

 

State expands crime victims fund to include home modifications

Help prevent a repeat

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

The Governor signed into law legislation that lets crime victims use up to $1,000 from the Office of the General Treasurer’s compensation program to add security systems to their homes.

“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.

Researchers Develop Healthier, Sustainable Chocolate

Good News for Your Diet

By DEBORAH KYBURZ, ETH ZURICH 

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.

Education, housing and health care come out on top in lawmakers’ revised fiscal 2025 budget

More progressive than McKee budget

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

House Speaker Joe Shekarchi (right)

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.

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.

Militia groups planning a comeback

How will they organize the next insurrection?

Amy Cooter, Middlebury

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

When journalists sounded alarm bells in early May 2024 that more than 100 extremist militia groups had been organizing and communicating on Facebook, it wasn’t the first time militias had garnered attention for their online activities.

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.

"Lock her up!"

By Nick Anderson

What you need to make to be "comfortable"

Visual Capitalist infographic

Rhode Island is tenth highest.

This visualization illustrates the income necessary for two working adults with two children to maintain a comfortable lifestyle in each state.

“Comfortable” is defined as the income needed to cover a 50/30/20 budget, with 50% allocated to necessities like housing and utilities, 30% to discretionary spending, and 20% to savings or investments.

The calculations for family income needed in each state were done by SmartAsset, using the cost of necessities sourced from the MIT Living Wage Calculator, last updated on Feb. 14, 2024.

2023 was the hottest summer in two thousand years

It's gonna get worse

University of Cambridge

Researchers have found that 2023 was the hottest summer in the Northern Hemisphere in the past two thousand years, almost four degrees warmer than the coldest summer during the same period.

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.