Revival of Defunct Board Could Debunk Notion That Affordable Housing, Land Preservation Don’t Mix

Pay attention, Ruthie

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

There’s a longstanding cliche in state politics, said by everyone from governors to mayors to planning board officials: you can build affordable housing, or you can preserve land, but it’s impossible to do both.

Conservation and housing advocates are aiming to dismantle that misconception this year with legislation that aims to boost resources for both housing and open space preservation by reviving a defunct state commission.

It’s called the Housing and Conservation Trust Board, and it has been on the books in Rhode Island since 1990. Lawmakers at the time based it on a similar model that had just been launched in Vermont to some success. The board’s purpose was to identify and funnel money to affordable housing projects that also conserved land, ideally by using the land trust model of affordable housing.

Despite being state law for more than three decades, there’s no evidence the state has done anything with the 11-member board since creating it; no affordable housing projects have been funded and no land has been preserved under its authority. The board has never been awarded a budget, nor has it had any members in the decades since its creation. It’s not clear, however, why it has never been used.

That could change under a pair of bills now under consideration in the General Assembly. Under legislation (H7699 and S2638) introduced by Rep. June Speakman, D-Warren, and Sen. Jacob Bissaillon, D-Providence, the board’s membership would be bumped up to 15, 11 of whom would be chosen from the general public. The governor would have until the end of next year to make the appointments.

During a committee hearing on the House version of the bill last week, Speakman told lawmakers it was aimed at disputing the notion that housing development and land conservation are opposed to each other.

“This is a false dichotomy,” she said. “All Rhode Islanders deserve affordable housing, and all deserve access to natural spaces. The future of our planet depends on preservation of forest, farmland, and coastal resources.”

No hard feelings, eh?

Is Trump ordering assassinations?

Freshwater anglers prepare to wet their lines for trout

‘Rite of spring’ 

By Cynthia Drummond, Rhode Island Current

Chain link fencing keeps predators from the long concrete tanks outside the Lafayette Fish Hatchery, just five minutes off Route 1 in North Kingstown. But that doesn’t stop the great blue herons in nearby woods from keeping tabs on KC Fernstrom when he unlocks the gate one February morning to check on the fish.

Rhode Island
Trout Season: April 13, 2024 to February 28, 2025

Opening Day of Trout Season starts at 6 a.m. on the second Saturday in April and continues through the last day of February at midnight.

Find answers to common questions and safety tips at www.dem.ri.gov/fishing.

“They’ll push at the door,” said the longtime hatchery manager for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM). “They’ll go down and they’ll push at the next door, hoping that one day, one of those doors will open.”

10-Year Study Unlocks the Secret to Overcoming Insomnia

The Science of Sleep

By BMJ 

Regular exercise is associated with better overall health, and several studies have suggested that physical activity promotes better quality sleep and may improve symptoms of chronic insomnia, note the researchers.

But it’s not entirely clear how much gender, age, weight (BMI), overall fitness, general health, and exercise type contribute to this association, they add.

To explore this further, the researchers assessed the frequency, duration, and intensity of weekly physical activity and symptoms of insomnia, nightly sleep clocked up, and daytime sleepiness among middle-aged adults from 21 centers in nine European countries.

If you’ve taken an Uber recently, you’ve probably noticed it costs a lot more than before. Here’s why.

How Uber overcharges riders and underpays drivers

By Mariah Montgomery 

If you’ve taken an Uber ride recently, you’ve probably noticed it cost a lot more than a few years ago. Why is that?

PowerSwitch Action, my organization, conducted the largest-ever study of rideshare fares to find out. We discovered a story of gaslighting and greed that squeezes drivers and riders alike — while funneling our money to banks and billionaires.

In March, Minneapolis passed an ordinance requiring rideshare corporations to pay drivers at least $1.40 per mile and 51 cents per minute. In a desperate attempt to block this pay floor, Uber and Lyft are threatening to leave the city, claiming the requirement would make rides too expensive for residents.

This argument — that higher driver pay would force big fare hikes — is one of Uber and Lyft’s favorite scare tactics. As drivers across the country have protested poverty wages and organized for better pay, the rideshare giants have trotted out this line again and again — in Connecticut, Chicago, New York, and Seattle, to name just a few places.

Rhode Island journalism, past and future

INTERVIEW: Q & A with professor and author Mike Stanton

 By G. Wayne Miller in Ocean State Stories

Shana Novak

Mike, let’s start with today. You live in Rhode Island and are a journalism professor at the University of Connecticut. Tell us about your responsibilities and the courses you teach.

Having lived in Rhode Island for three decades, I didn’t want to move when UConn hired me in 2013. I grew up in Connecticut, but love Providence. So now I keep one foot in each state, which is interesting when UConn plays Providence College in basketball – I have season tickets to the Huskies and the Friars, who I used to cover for the ProJo!

I teach a range of courses, from our introductory Press in America and Newswriting I classes to more advanced courses like Investigative Reporting, Sports Journalism and Feature Writing. 

My investigative class last year published a project about housing evictions and the affordable housing crisis in southeastern Connecticut in The Day of New London. It won a national award for investigative reporting in the Hearst student journalism competition. It’s a great example of the hands-on learning that we stress.

What attracts your students to journalism?

Two things – storytelling and making a difference.

Since prehistoric cave paintings, humans have told stories and that appetite continues, even as the platforms change. Students are very excited to tell stories – through words, pictures, video, podcasts, etc. I tell them that newspapers may be dying, but not the public’s hunger for stories – and that they’re going to help invent the future.

Secondly, students are passionate about making a difference. Since the rise of disinformation and our fractured politics, we’ve seen an increase in students – even non-majors – who take Press in America because of a heightened awareness of the importance of a free press in a democratic society. 

Some have changed their major to journalism or added it as a second major. They want to do stories that hold the powerful accountable – that afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

Throw his ass in jail!

By Bill Bramhall

GOP leaders admit Republicans are peddling Russian propaganda

Brushfire control project to commence on northern Charlestown border

Brush-Clearing at Carolina Management Area

The Department of Environmental Management (DEM) is announcing that it will conduct a project of thinning dense tree cover and removing underlying brush within the Carolina Management Area. 

Starting this month weather permitting, a crew of professional foresters will create a shaded fuel break along various stretches of forestland bordering the fire roads of Carolina, located in Richmond, RI. 

The aim of a shaded fuel break is to reduce and manage fuels within a designated area to lessen the risk of a wildfire becoming an uncontrolled wildfire. A fuel break is not a firebreak. A firebreak is a natural or built barrier to stop or check fires that may occur. 

Pollen is back!

Lots of pollen in Charlestown this week, if the rain stays away

If you suffer from seasonal allergies, as I do, you can sign up for a FREE daily forecast of the pollen count and types of pollen in the air at Pollen.com. CLICK HERE to sign up.

Connecting the Dots Between Diet and Surgery

Brain Inflammation and Memory Loss

By OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 

Eating fatty food in the days leading up to surgery may prompt a heightened inflammatory response in the brain that interferes for weeks with memory-related cognitive function in older adults – and, new research in animals suggests, even in young adults.

The study, building upon previous research from the same lab at The Ohio State University, also showed that taking a DHA omega-3 fatty acid supplement for a month before the unhealthy eating and surgical procedure prevented the effects on memory linked to both the high-fat diet and the surgery in aged and young adult rats.

DNA says you’re related to a Viking, a medieval German Jew or a 1700s enslaved African?

What a genetic match really means

Shai Carmi, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Harald Ringbauer, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

A genetic match to an ancient person doesn’t mean
you’re more related genealogically. 
Mark Edward Atkinson/Tetra Images via Getty Images

In 2022, we reported the DNA sequences of 33 medieval people buried in a Jewish cemetery in Germany. 

Not long after we made the data publicly available, people started comparing their own DNA with that of the 14th-century German Jews, finding many “matches.” 

These medieval individuals had DNA fragments shared with thousands of people who have uploaded their DNA sequence to an online database, the same way you share DNA fragments with your relatives.

But what type of a relationship with a medieval person does a shared DNA fragment imply?

It turns out, not too much that will help with your family roots research.

We are population geneticists who work with ancient DNA. We understand how exciting it can be to find a genetic link to particular people who lived many generations ago. But these DNA matches aren’t the tight ties you may be imagining. Here’s how it works.

Trump follows Hitler's playbook

The five stages of grift