A massive budget deficit means fewer hands out to R.I. lawmakers as 2025 begins

Less money, more problems

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

In December 2023, the phone calls and emails to House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi came fast and furious, with advocates and lobbyists eager to make their pitches early ahead of the upcoming legislative session.

This year: silence.

Hasbro Inc. has yet to ask for any kind of tax break or policy change that could keep the century-old Ocean State fixture from moving its local headquarters to Massachusetts. No word from the developers of the “Superman” building, despite news reports of its request for additional funding from the city of Providence for the $220 million project. Not even a peep from the grassroots advocacy groups whose perennial demands for payday lending reform or an assault weapons ban remain unmet.

“I think even the advocates are getting it this year,” Shekarchi said in an interview on Dec. 16. “They still want their priorities, yes, but they know we don’t have the money. It just doesn’t exist.”

A structural deficit estimated at $330 million in the latest forecasts and revenue reports from state budget-crunchers looms large as the start of the 2025 legislative session approaches, weighing heavily on Shekarchi, who as House Speaker controls the purse strings for the state’s fiscal 2026 budget.

Americans Are Angry About Their Health Insurance—With Good Reason

We could do so much better

Claudia Fegan in Common Dreams

How should we react when a man is shot to death on the street on his way to work? Our humanity tells us that we should be shocked and horrified—and feel that something is deeply wrong with such a brazen act of murder. Ideally, we would do what we could to help sooth the survivors, condemn the violence, and bring the perpetrator to justice.

So why did hundreds of thousands of people have the exact opposite reaction when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was executed in New York City last month? Because Americans are furious with health insurance corporations—and they have every right to be.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, many Americans took to social media not to mourn, but to celebrate. Caustic posts about prior authorization and denied medical claims were common. Sympathetic statements were met with rancor—and in the case of UnitedHealth Group’s own statement, over 70,000 “laugh reactions” before the company made that tally private. Even verbose political figures like Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump declined to comment for days. This shooting touched a raw nerve.

As a physician who’s treated countless victims of gun violence, and who’s life’s work is to care for all of my patients, I found this response to be deeply unnerving. But I also can’t waive it away with simple explanations like online radicalization or trolling. Something much deeper is at play.

For decades, health insurance corporations like United have been growing more powerful and more profitable. How do they generate these profits? By taking in as much money as possible in premiums and paying out as little as possible in medical claims. 

MAGA jobs

Common Herbicide Linked to Lasting Brain Damage

Round-up® on your brain

By Arizona State University

The human brain is an incredibly adaptable organ, often capable of healing itself even from significant trauma. However, new research reveals for the first time that even brief contact with a common herbicide can cause lasting damage to the brain, with effects that may persist long after direct exposure has ended.

In a groundbreaking new study, Arizona State University researcher Ramon Velazquez and his colleagues at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), part of City of Hope, demonstrate that mice exposed to the herbicide glyphosate develop significant brain inflammation, which is associated with neurodegenerative disease. The findings suggest the brain may be much more susceptible to the damaging effects of the herbicide than previously thought. Glyphosate is one of the most pervasive herbicides used in the U.S. and worldwide.

The research, which appears in the Journal of Neuroinflammation, identifies an association between glyphosate exposure in mice and symptoms of neuroinflammation, as well as accelerated Alzheimer’s disease-like pathology. This study tracks both the presence and impact of glyphosate’s byproducts in the brain long after exposure ends, showing an array of persistent, damaging effects on brain health.

Glyphosate exposure in mice also resulted in premature death and anxiety-like behaviors, which replicates findings by others examining glyphosate exposure in rodents. Further, the scientists discovered these symptoms persisted even after a 6-month recovery period during which exposure was discontinued.

Rhode Islanders' personal information hacked from RIBridges goes on-line

Data stolen from RIBridges shows up on dark web

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

A trove of personal data burgled from Rhode Island’s public benefits network in early December has finally made its way onto the dark web, Gov. Dan McKee announced Monday afternoon.

At around 7 a.m, the countdown timer on Brain Cipher’s dark web site was replaced with a download button for the now-published files, plus a note taunting the path not taken by the system’s architect and vendor, Deloitte: “It seems that it was easier to pay and fix everything.”

The international cybercriminal group had threatened to release the data stolen from RIBridges — the online infrastructure that determines eligibility for benefits like food stamps and Medicaid — if its ransom demand went unmet by a deadline that changed at least five times over the last two weeks.

The ransom group had moved the deadline to Monday if it didn’t receive an unspecified payment from Deloitte after extending the deadline from Dec. 24. That deadline was already elongated, with hackers giving the original cutoff date as Dec. 15, although the reasons for the extensions remain unclear. The data breach was first made public on Dec. 13.

McKee confirmed that “at least some” of the files thought to be part of the breach were part of the data dump during a State House press conference Monday afternoon.

The Gävle Goat Lives

If the goat can survive, so can we

Abby Zimet

At the fraught start of an apocalyptic new year, we find a slight, weird sliver of hope in the improbable survival of Sweden's Gävle Goat, a massive straw goat that sanguine residents have built each Christmas since 1966 but that malevolent humanity has, most years, implacably destroyed. Typically, they burn him down; he's also been beaten, run over, bird-pecked to collapse and shot with flaming arrows by perps dressed as Gingerbread Men. But this year, he boasts, "Still standing!"

Because we are a mystifying species with often-impenetrable rituals, the Yule Goat is erected each year on the first day of Advent at Slottstorget in the center of Gävle, about a hundred miles north of Stockholm. A 45-foot-high replica of a Northern European Christmas symbol, Gävlebocken seems to have sprung from German paganism fused with Norse tradition. 

He is based on ancient proto-Slavic beliefs that honor Devac (Dažbog), the god of the harvest and fertile sun, typically depicted as a white goat; he also celebrates Devac's bestie the Norse god Thor, who rode the sky in a chariot drawn by two goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr. By tradition, the last sheaf of grain bundled in the harvest is imbued with magical properties that symbolize the sacred spirit of the harvest. In today's late-stage capitalism, the goat just brings presents.

While the Goat may have originated in Söder, a neighborhood in Stockholm, local historians in Gävle say he was conceived - and drawn on a pastry shop napkin - by their merchants, either ad man Stig Gavlén, trader Harry Ström, or Inga Ivarsson, whose family had already created the world's largest chair and skis so why not a goat. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: I've been a Gavle Goat fan almost from the beginning of Progressive Charlestown. It's nice to see that other non-Swedes follow the story. I wrote the first of many annual reports on the Goat and its fight for survival usually as a promo for our annual New Year's Eve bonfire. CLICK HERE for my first article in December 2011.

How did we get here?

Go do your duty, MAGA

Are Plant-Based Milks As Healthy as You Think?

New Study Challenges Assumptions

By University of Copenhagen - Faculty of Science

Over the past decade, the global market for plant-based beverages has experienced significant growth. Drinks made from oats, almonds, soy, and rice have become popular substitutes for cow’s milk, particularly in coffee and oatmeal.

One key factor driving the demand for plant-based beverages is their typically lower climate footprint compared to cow’s milk. However, a new study by the University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with the University of Brescia in Italy, reveals that these alternatives may not necessarily be healthier than cow’s milk—a common misconception among consumers.

In the study, researchers examined how chemical reactions during processing affect the nutritional quality of ten different plant-based drinks, comparing them with cow’s milk. The overall picture is clear:

“We definitely need to consume more plant-based foods. But if you’re looking for proper nutrition and believe that plant-based drinks can replace cow’s milk, you’d be mistaken,” says Department of Food Science professor Marianne Nissen Lund, the study’s lead author.

Microplastics in the Air Could Be Causing Cancer

Could be contributing to male and female infertility

By University of California - San Francisco

Tires and degrading garbage release tiny plastic particles into the air, contributing to air pollution that researchers at UC San Francisco believe may be linked to respiratory issues and other health problems.

A comprehensive review of approximately 3,000 studies highlights the potential dangers of these particles. They have been associated with serious health concerns such as male and female infertility, colon cancer, and impaired lung function.

Additionally, these particles may trigger chronic pulmonary inflammation, which could elevate the risk of lung cancer.

What Can We Do as Democracy’s Enemy—Disinformation—Gains Ground?

Deep change requires courage. So, with pounding hearts let us jump into this contentious arena.

Frances Moore Lappé for Common Dreams

It’s a crisis. America is now among 11 nations deemed most threatened by both mis-and disinformation.

Little wonder that almost 90% of us fear our country is on the “wrong track.” And, President-elect Trump has led the way with 492 suspect claims in just the first hundred days of his first presidency. Then, before the 2020 vote, in a single day he made 503 false or misleading claims. By term’s end he’d uttered 30,573 lies, reports The Washington Post.

Now, he is joined by his promoter Elon Musk who is flooding his own platform X with disinformation—for example, about the bipartisan end-of-year funding deal.

Some play down our current “mis-and-disinformation” crisis as nothing new. Referring to the Vietnam War era, the Heritage Foundation says “Trump is not guilty of any lie, falsehood, fabrication, false claim, or toxic exaggeration that equals the lies of one past president [Lyndon Johnson] whose Alamo-sized ego caused the deaths of thousands of Americans.” In 2018, Heritage dismissed Trump’s lies as insignificant embellishment about “his wealth, his girlfriends of decades ago, or the size of his inaugural crowd.”

Yet, his more recent lies have had deadly consequences. Playing down the severity of Covid-19, Trump described it as “like the flu,” “under control,” and “already disappearing.” His casting doubt about protective measures likely contributed to “tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths,” reported health scientists.

After losing the presidential race in 2020, he repeatedly reinforced unsubstantiated questioning of electoral integrity. “Trump’s big lie”—sparking a violent insurrection on January 6—caused multiple deaths and helped trigger stricter voter-registration laws.

Trump’s actions may have taken us into a new era some call “post-truth” politics. So, what might this mean? And how might we learn from democracies standing up against mis- and disinformation?

Vote for a fascist moron and this is what you get

This little piggy

What Spicy Food Really Does to Your Body (and Why You Might Crave It)

How hot is too hot?

By Paul D. Terry, University of Tennessee

People have different levels of tolerance for spicy food — some enjoy the intense heat, while others find it unbearable. When it comes to how spicy food affects health, scientific findings remain mixed, with evidence pointing to both potential benefits and risks.

In September 2023, a 14-year-old boy tragically died after eating a pepper-laden chip during the viral “One Chip Challenge.” This challenge features the Paqui One Chip, made with Carolina Reaper and Naga Viper peppers — two of the hottest peppers in the world.

While health officials were still investigating the exact cause of the boy’s death, the incident prompted some retailers to pull the spicy chips used in the challenge from their shelves.

The Appeal and Biological Effects of Spicy Foods

As an epidemiologist, I’m interested in how spicy food can affect people’s health and potentially worsen symptoms associated with chronic diseases like inflammatory bowel disease. I am also interested in how diet, including spicy foods, can increase or decrease a person’s lifespan.

Spicy food can refer to food with plenty of flavor from spices, such as Asian curries, Tex-Mex dishes or Hungarian paprikash. It can also refer to foods with noticeable heat from capsaicin, a chemical compound found to varying degrees in hot peppers.

As the capsaicin content of a pepper increases, so does its ranking on the Scoville scale, which quantifies the sensation of being hot.

Capsaicin tastes hot because it activates certain biological pathways in mammals – the same pathways activated by hot temperatures. The pain produced by spicy food can provoke the body to release endorphins and dopamine. This release can prompt a sense of relief or even a degree of euphoria.

Master Gardeners grow Indigenous connections

Food, culture and history

Kristen Curry 

Master Gardeners from URI Cooperative Extension are growing connections with Rhode Island’s Indigenous community at the Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens, two miles from campus. Heirloom seeds harvested and saved there include Narragansett White Cap Flint Corn, Succotash Pole Beans, and Butternut Squash. (Photos Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens)

As University of Rhode Island students and employees departed campus for winter break, concluding the fall semester — and harvest season — URI’s Cooperative Extension celebrated its work partnering with Indigenous-led food sovereignty organizations.

Just two miles from campus is the Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens, a non-profit organization on Broad Rock Road in South Kingstown. The property is the site of a productive partnership between Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens, an Indigenous-led group, and the URI Master Gardener Program.

Pettaquamscutt Community Gardens is an Indigenous-led, multigenerational non-profit garden that uses traditional ancestral practices and heirloom seeds with a focus on the Three Sisters Garden: corn, beans, and squash. The project is led by Indigenous community members, including Shirley Brown, URI Master Gardener, Class of 2022, and a Narragansett Tribal elder. She’s keeping Narragansett traditions alive and well, and this year, partnering with volunteers from the URI Master Gardener Program to help support and expand the garden’s capacity.