Tomorrow, Health Dept. wants to hear what you have to say about health care in South County

CDC reports highlight 2024-25 flu season's deadly impact on US kids

Almost 300 kids died during the last flu season - they need their shots this year

Chris Dall, MA

Two new reports this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide more detail on the deadliest flu season for US children in more than a decade.

The reports, published yesterday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), include data on the 280 US children who died during the 2024-25 flu season, along with information on 109 children who died from a rare and severe neurologic complication of flu during the season. The 280 pediatric flu deaths are the highest number reported in the United States since the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic and the highest for a non-pandemic flu season since child deaths became nationally notifiable in 2004.

The reports add further information on what the CDC has previously described as a high-severity flu season.

Highest mortality rate seen in infants

In first report, researchers with the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases analyzed data from the Influenza-Associated Pediatric Mortality Surveillance System, which collects reports on pediatric flu deaths from state and local health departments. The analysis includes information on flu virus types, underlying medical conditions, vaccination status, and healthcare use during illness.

The 280 children who died with flu from September 29, 2024 to September 13, 2025, represent a national rate of 3.8 deaths per 1 million children. The median age at time of death was 7 years, and 61% of deaths occurred in children under the age of 9 years. The influenza-associated mortality rate was highest overall in infants under 6 months of age (11.1 per 1 million), higher among girls (4.5) than boys (3.1). Among racial and ethnic groups, Black children (5.8) had the highest mortality rate.

Rhode Island in the top ten states with highest energy costs

Energy supply stressed by "superusers" like AI data centers and blocked green energy projects

By Dan Gearino

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Rising electricity rates are hitting consumers just about everywhere as utilities struggle to build enough power plants to meet rising demand from data centers.

But the effects on prices vary a lot by state.

Federal electricity data released on Tuesday helps to identify where the increases in bills have been the most drastic. I found several surprises.

As of July, the average household price of electricity in the United States has risen by 9.5 percent this year, according to the Energy Information Administration. You might guess that the largest increases were in states known for high electricity costs, such as California, or those that are part of the PJM Interconnection, a multistate grid region embroiled in controversy over rising prices.

But the largest percentage increase this year was in Missouri, which rose 38.3 percent, due in large part to rate hikes by the state’s largest utility, Ameren.

The rest of the top five are North Dakota, with 33.6 percent; New Jersey, with 28.6 percent; Iowa, with 27.5 percent; and Montana, with 25.3 percent.

Of those five, only New Jersey is in PJM, which covers parts of the Mid-Atlantic, South and Midwest.

California, with a 7.8 percent increase, trails the national average.

Trump's perversion of justice

Echoes FBI’s dark history of mass surveillance, dirty tricks and perversion of justice under J. Edgar Hoover

Betty Medsger, San Francisco State University

The building in Media, Penn. where burglars in 1971
found evidence of decades of FBI abuses against citizens. 
Betty Medsger

As a candidate last year, Donald Trump promised retribution against his perceived enemies. As president, he is doing that.

At the Department of Justice, a “Weaponization Working Group” has a long list of Trump’s perceived enemies to investigate. At the FBI, director Kash Patel has conducted a political purge, firing the highest officials at the bureau and thousands of FBI agents who investigated alleged crimes by Trump as well as investigated participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riots.

It marks the first time since J. Edgar Hoover’s 48-year reign as FBI director that the FBI has targeted massive numbers of people perceived to be political enemies.

Trump’s recent fury showed how much he expects top officials in federal law enforcement to carry out his retribution.

He was enraged when Erik S. Siebert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, decided there was insufficient evidence to charge two people Trump regards as enemies: former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“I want him out,” Trump angrily told reporters on Sept. 19, 2025. Siebert resigned, although Trump claimed he had fired him.

Trump’s most recent demands for retribution came soon after top adviser Stephen Miller’s vow to prosecute leftists in the “vast domestic terror movement” – that the administration blames, without evidence, for Charlie Kirk’s assassination – using “every resource we have.”

As the director of the FBI, Patel will likely be in charge of the investigations of perceived enemies generated by the Department of Justice and the White House. He already has sacrificed the bureau’s independence, making it essentially an arm of the White House.

This isn’t the first time an FBI director has been driven by a desire to suppress the rights of people perceived to be political enemies. Hoover, director until his death in 1972, operated a secret FBI within the FBI that he used to destroy people and organizations whose political opinions he opposed.

It's those pesky priorities again

Oct. 3: South County Rising open meeting

So happy together

Dispatches from "war-ravaged" Portland, OR

Will he order air strikes?

Olivia Rosane for Common Dreams

In his latest attempt to turn the US military on an American city, President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he was sending troops to Portland, Oregon and had authorized them to use “Full Force, if necessary.”

“At the request of Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump’s announcement follows his deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, as well as his threats to send the military to Chicago and Memphis. These deployments have been widely condemned and legally challenged as a massive overreach of executive authority.

Portland and Oregon leaders were no less vehement in their opposition to Trump’s order for their city.

“President Trump has directed ‘all necessary Troops’ to Portland, Oregon. The number of necessary troops is zero, in Portland and any other American city,” Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement on Saturday. “Our nation has a long memory for acts of oppression, and the president will not find lawlessness or violence here unless he plans to perpetrate it.”

Oops, not Portland. That's Gaza after Trump pal Netanyahu
used "Full Force" on it

Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said that she had not been informed ahead of time of any reason for the deployment of federal troops.

“In my conversations directly with President Trump and Secretary Noem, I have been abundantly clear that Portland and the State of Oregon believe in the rule of law and can manage our own local public safety needs,” she wrote on social media. “There is no insurrection. There is no threat to national security.”

Oops. Also not Portland. It's Ukraine after
Trump pal Vladimir Putin put some "Full Force"
whoop-ass on it. 

Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) said in a statement: “The President of the United States is directing his self-proclaimed ‘Secretary of War’ to unleash militarized federal forces in an American city he disagrees with. This is an egregious abuse of power and a betrayal of our most basic American values.”

“Authoritarians rely on fear to divide us,” she continued. “Portland will not give them that. We will not be intimidated. We have prepared for this moment since Trump first took office, and we will meet it with every tool available to us: litigation, legislation, and the power of peaceful public pressure.”

Dexter also posted a photograph of a tranquil park on social media, mocking the idea that Portland was a war zone.

Why a study claiming vaccines cause chronic illness is severely flawed

Biased and unsupported conclusions

Jeffrey Morris, University of Pennsylvania

At a Senate hearing on Sept. 9, 2025, on the corruption of science, witnesses presented an unpublished study that made a big assertion.

They claimed that the study, soon to be featured in a highly publicized film called “An Inconvenient Study,” expected out in early October 2025, provides landmark evidence that vaccines raise the risk of chronic diseases in childhood.

The study was conducted in 2020 by researchers at Henry Ford Health, a health care network in Detroit and southeast Michigan. Before the Sept. 9 hearing the study was not publicly available, but it became part of the public record after the hearing and is now posted on the Senate committee website.

At the hearing, Aaron Siri, a lawyer who specializes in vaccine lawsuits and acts as a legal adviser to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said the study was never published because the authors feared being fired for finding evidence supporting the health risks of vaccines. His rhetoric made the study sound definitive.

As the head of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, when I encounter new scientific claims, I always start with the question “Could this be true?” Then, I evaluate the evidence.

I can say definitively that the study by Henry Ford Health researchers has serious design problems that keep it from revealing much about whether vaccines affect children’s long-term health. In fact, a spokesperson at Henry Ford Health told journalists seeking comment on the study that it “was not published because it did not meet the rigorous scientific standards we demand as a premier medical research institution.”

The study’s weaknesses illustrate several key principles of biostatistics.

Southcoast Wind agrees to pact to promote unionization of permanent maintenance and operations workers as well as construction

New England labor unions sign first-in-the-nation labor peace agreement with Southcoast Wind

SteveAhlquist.news

"This is the kind of climate policy we need nationwide," said RI AFL-CIO's Patrick Crowley. "Actions that tackle the climate crisis while lowering costs and creating good jobs for working families."

At a panel discussion entitled Facing Challenges, Seizing the Moment: A Climate Action Agenda for Working Families, Patrick Crowley, President of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, announced that unions in Rhode Island and Massachusetts had recently signed a first-of-its-kind Labor Peace Agreement with SouthCoast Wind to ensure labor protections for operations and maintenance workers on the 2.4 gigawatt project.

The agreement is the first in the nation to reach beyond offshore wind construction jobs, marking a new step toward raising the quality of the permanent operations and maintenance jobs and ensuring these workers have a voice on the job and receive fair wages, healthcare, retirement security, safety protections, and rigorous training.

SouthCoast Wind signed the agreement on June 30 with the R.I. Building and Construction Trades Council, Rhode Island AFL-CIO, Massachusetts Building Trades Unions, Southeastern Massachusetts Building Trades Council, and Massachusetts AFL-CIO. 

Offshore wind construction is heavily unionized in the U.S., but now, this agreement will also bring long-term operations and maintenance work into the security of a union. When SouthCoast Wind is running, it will have the potential to generate enough low-cost, clean energy to power over one million homes in New England.

A domestic and unionized offshore wind industry in New England has the power to address the region’s rising cost of living and utility bills. This agreement comes when the federal administration is working to dismantle offshore wind energy for political gain.

Department of Names

Get out your erasers and SharpiesⓇ as we align titles and names with our nation’s goals and philosophies. 

By BRIAN C. JONES

The Gold House, formerly the White House

ON JUNE 5, PRESIDENT TRUMP signed an executive order moving to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.

The text of the order said that change “… demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our Nation at a moment’s notice, not just to defend.”

The Onion

In comments at the signing, Trump said the move actually restores a title that had been used until after World War II, when, in his telling, the country “decided to go woke” and stopped winning wars.

That version of history would have surprised the only man who has ordered the destruction of two cities with atomic bombs, President Harry Truman, who later went on to change “war” to “defense.”

“We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct, or wokey, and we just fight forever.” said Trump, who has long been suspected of dodging the draft during his student years.

My wife points out another irony, since among the honors that Trump seems to covet is the Nobel Peace Prize, a concept that seems at war with the military department's new title. 

In any case, the War Department designation got me thinking – and I’m sure a lot of people, too – about other changes that better fit with Trump’s vision for America.

HERE’S A FEW OF MY SUGGESTIONS. Some need just a syllable or two added or subtracted; others. a word or two, here or there.

CURRENT NAME:    The White House.
PROPOSED NAME: The Gold House.

This would fit in with Trump’s executive mansion makeover, plastering gold leaf over the Oval Office and other historic areas, converting the Rose Garden to a patio, adding a convention wing, with the goal of recreating a Washington version of the original American Dream home, Mara-a-Logo

CURRENT NAME:   Department of Health and Human Services
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Death and Inhumane Services

Carries out Director R. F. Kennedy’s vision of how to make America sick again by discouraging vaccine use and by cutting cutting-edge medical research, while implementing the Big Beautiful Bill’s reductions to Medicaid, which are sure to be followed by reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits to both able and disabled Americans of all ages. A political question: will people who are sick and dying be allowed to vote?

CURRENT NAME:    Department of Energy
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Fossil Fuels

Implements the president’s vision of a nation free of wind and solar power in favor of oil and natural gas, along with the Great Coal Revival. “Our planet got started with a Big Bang," the president said, reading from prepared remarks. "Let’s see if it ends the same way.”

CURRENT NAME:    Harvard University
PROPOSED NAME: Trump University

“I ask you,” the president exclaimed at a signing of an agreement between the Administration and the nation’s most esteemed university, “shouldn’t higher education reform be about more than  money? Of course not: money trumps everything. But the 'Art of the Deal' says if you can get all of Harvard’s endowment, plus a meaningful name change, go for it. And I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that the president of the Trump University and the United States of America WILL BE ONE IN THE SAME.  Thank you for your attention.”

CURRENT NAME:     Environmental Protection Agency
PROPOSED NAME:  Environmental Pollution Agency
  (See Department of Fossil Fuels)

CURRENT NAME:     Department of Housing and Urban Development
PROPOSED NAME:  Department of Unhousing and Urban Disparagement

“I would have preferred 'The Department of Homelessness,'" Trump said at the signing. "But I wanted to keep the gullible liberals guessing about whether I’m going woke. But don’t you worry, whether we increase the number of homeless people or number of unhoused people, we'll need to call out more of the National Guard to protect our wretched cities from the poorest and most helpless.”

CURRENT NAME:    Department of Homeland Security 
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Homeland Insecurity

No explanation needed. Masked, unidentified thugs with dubious police powers snatching people off the streets and stuffing them into unmarked SUVs and sending them to secret detention centers before deporting them to countries with names most of us can’t spell: Makes it hard to get good night’s sleep, then to wake up to a nightmare that turns out not to be a dream.
    
CURRENT NAME:     Department of Justice
PROPOSED NAME:  Department of Injustice

Another no explanation needed. On his first day in office, Trump granted pardons and/or clemency to about 1,600 people convicted or suspected of taking part in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in 2021. Later, his DOI went after people involved in those prosecutions or who otherwise offended the president. Bringing criminals to justice in America has always been iffy; now, it's that much harder to tell the bad guys from the good guys, assuming there still are good guys. 

CURRENT NAME:    Department of Labor
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Unorganized Labor

“I mean, how stupid does a union guy (or gal) have to be to have voted for me, and any other Republican,” Trump said while signing the executive order. “Talk about un-enlightened self interest.”

CURRENT NAME:     Federal Bureau of Investigation
PROPOSED NAME:  Federal Bureau of Intrusion
     (See Department of Injustice, Department of Homeland Insecurity).

CURRENT NAME:     Central Intelligence Agency
PROPOSED NAME:  Central Ignorance Agency

The CIA has long been a mixed blessing. We need spies to know what other countries are up to; but the agency has long been a mechanism for international meddling. "Now, the perceived danger is that in the past, the CIA came up with actual facts. Trust me, facts no longer matter.”

CURRENT NAME:    Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 
PROPOSED NAME: Bureau for the Promotion of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

“It’s time we accelerated the development, possession and use of substances and mechanisms that maim and kill and that generally are bad for the human body,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This change reflects core values of this Administration.”

CURRENT NAME:    John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
PROPOSED NAME: Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts
      But  you knew that was coming.

CURRENT NAME:    National Portrait Gallery
PROPOSED NAME: National Portrait Gallery
      Same name, but a new Permanent Exhibit: Featuring photographs, paintings and Time magazine covers of Donald J. Trump through the 20th and 21st Centuries.

CURRENT NAME:    Library of Congress
PROPOSED NAME: None
   We closed the place.

CURRENT NAME:    United States of America
PROPOSED NAME: Disunited States of America

Trump unveils new plan for the White House

 

Trump declares war on Portland, OR authorizing "Full Force." Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Portland wonders WTF he's talking about

There's a Reddit account where Portland residents can post photos of "war-ravaged" Portland. Here are some examples:

And this: 

And my favorite, with this lead-in from the poster: FAKE NEWS! I SAW ON THE PRESIDENT'S TWITTER THE REAL PICTURE! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

Finally, there's Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution:

R.I. federal judge strikes down Trump edict tying federal disaster aid to immigration

Judge calls Trump action "coercive"

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

States don’t have to help enforce the Trump administration’s immigration policies to get disaster aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a federal judge in Providence ruled Wednesday.

Senior U.S. District Judge William E. Smith of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted a motion for a permanent injunction against the Department of Homeland Security, calling a federal directive issued in April “coercive, ambiguous, unrelated to the purpose of the federal grants, and undermine[s] the system of federalism.” 

The directive made enforcing the administration’s immigration detention policy agenda a condition for receiving federal disaster relief aid.

“States rely on these grants for billions of dollars annually in disaster relief,” wrote Smith, a George W. Bush appointee. “Denying such funding if states refuse to comply with vague immigration requirements leaves them with no meaningful choice, particularly where state budgets are already committed.”

Trump regime ends annual report on hunger in America because it's too "woke"

This is an actual news release from the Department of Agriculture - not made up!

USDA Terminates Redundant Food Insecurity Survey

(Washington, D.C., September 20, 2025) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the termination of future Household Food Security Reports. These redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous studies do nothing more than fear monger.

For 30 years, this study—initially created by the Clinton administration as a means to support the increase of SNAP eligibility and benefit allotments—failed to present anything more than subjective, liberal fodder. Trends in the prevalence of food insecurity have remained virtually unchanged, regardless of an over 87% increase in SNAP spending between 2019 - 2023.

USDA will continue to prioritize statutory requirements and where necessary, use the bevy of more timely and accurate data sets available to it.