Saturday, December 20, 2025
Solar Program Designed to Help Low-Income and Environmental Justice Zone Residents Instead Leaves them Stranded
Louisiana contractor picked by McKee administration abruptly goes bankrupt
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
The program was supposed to put solar panels on
roofs and help Rhode Island’s low-income families with their electric bills.
Instead, it left homeowners dealing with a bankrupt company and nowhere to turn
for help.
Question: what due diligence did the McKee
administration do before giving out the contract?
Nearly two years ago, Gov. Dan McKee announced the Affordable Solar Access Pathways (ASAP) program. The
idea behind it was simple: provide cash incentives for homeowners in low-income
and environmental justice zones to install solar panels on the roofs of their
homes.
The state, using money from the Renewable Energy Fund, would
give incentives to a vendor to provide solar panels, leases and power-purchase
agreements to qualifying homeowners. Leases would be signed for 25 years. The
state would also provide energy efficiency measures and a home energy audit to
the homeowners, at no cost to them, as part of the program.
The idea behind the initiative was to spur solar panel
adoption among low-income homeowners and lower their energy costs. Areas of
Woonsocket, Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence, Cranston, West Warwick, East
Providence, Warren, Middletown, and Newport would be eligible to apply.
The only other requirement for households was to have a roof
in good condition and have an income at or below 80% of the state median. There
was no credit score required, and homeowners in default electric service could
apply. The program, as designed, was guaranteed to provide savings for
homeowners in the first year.
“Low-to-moderate income communities have been historically
underserved in the solar marketplace and often experience the negative impacts
of climate change firsthand,” McKee said in a January 2024 press release announcing the launch of the program.
“Providing environmental justice communities with affordable access to rooftop
solar is essential to ensure all Rhode Islanders benefit from the renewable
energy transition.”
The state hired PosiGen, a Saint Rose, La.-based company, to administer the
program, which was similar to the service PosiGen provided, except the state
would subsidize a big chunk of the leases for enrollees in the program.
Why ultra-processed foods make teens eat more when they aren’t hungry
There's a reason why it's called junk food
Virginia Tech
Rates of excess weight are climbing among young people in
the United States.
An analysis published in The Lancet predicts that by 2050,
about one in three Americans between 15 and 24 years old will meet the criteria
for obesity, putting them at higher risk for serious health problems.
Many influences contribute to this trend, including genetics
and low levels of physical activity, but diet plays a central role.
Ultra-processed foods -- which make up 55 to 65 percent of
what young adults eat in the U.S. -- have been associated with metabolic
syndrome, poor cardiovascular health, and other conditions in adolescents.
Health insurance premiums rose nearly 3x the rate of worker earnings over the past 25 years
Health insurance inflation is a problem for almost everybody
Premiums can rise if the costs of the medical services they cover increase. Using consumer price indices for the main components of medical care – such as services provided in clinics and hospitals as well as administrative expenses – based on federal data and data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, we found that the cost of hospital services increased the most, while the cost of physician services and prescription drugs rose more slowly.
Some of the premium increases can be attributed to an increase in hospital outpatient visits and coverage of GLP-1 drugs. But research, including our own, suggests that premiums have rapidly escalated mostly because health system consolidation – when hospitals and other health care entities merge – has led hospitals to raise prices well above their costs.
Friday, December 19, 2025
After all the noise, the Westerly School Committee does the right thing
Westerly School Committee votes down anti-transgender student athlete policy
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| Westerly is ready to compete |
Asked for his professional opinion, the School Committee
Attorney, William Nardone, was unequivocal in his opposition: “…one
of my roles in this position, probably my most important role, is to keep you
out of trouble as opposed to getting you out once you get yourselves in. This
is a perfect example of my opportunity to attempt to keep you from getting into
some trouble.”
The effort to discriminate against transgender, gender
diverse, and transitioning students seems to be led by a small group of
bigoted Christian Nationalists, with the support of Committee member Wycall, who seems desperate to pass something that will somehow fit into Rhode
Island’s strong laws protecting the rights of LGBTQIA+ students, while also
discriminating against them. Unfortunately for Committee member Wycall, there is
no squaring this circle. Any effort to pass and enforce such a policy would be
bigoted, discriminatory, and against the law.
The Westerly School Committee has been wrestling with this
right-wing manufactured “controversy” for months, even years. Even after the
policy’s definitive rejection in last night’s meeting, proponents of
discrimination promised to keep taking shots at it.
Here’s the relevant video from Wednesday’s Westerly
School Committee meeting:
Compassion tied to higher life satisfaction
Feeling happier starts with kindness
By Linda Schädler, Universität Mannheim
edited by Lisa Lock, reviewed by Robert Egan
Key findings from the meta-analysis
While the link between self-compassion and well-being is well established, this effect has hardly been researched with respect to compassion for others.
In a meta-analysis, the research team analyzed data from
more than 40 individual studies.
On
average, these people's psychological well-being was higher. The link between
compassion and a reduction in negative feelings, such as stress or sadness, was
weaker. However, slight positive trends could also be seen in this respect.
Likely Brown University killer found dead in New Hampshire
Suspect in Brown University mass shooting found dead in New Hampshire
From a press release posted by SteveAhlquist.news
 |
| The above video still of Claudio Manuel Neves Valente was taken from Alamo Rent a Car on November 17, 2025. This shows Valente picking up the car. |
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, the Providence Police Department, the Rhode Island State Police, the Boston Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Rhode Island are today announcing the death of Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the individual responsible for the murders of two students during a mass shooting at Brown University on Saturday, December 13, 2025.
You
can watch the news conference video here.
“While we’ll
never be able to prosecute this individual, I hope this result begins to
provide some small measure of closure for the victims and their families. I
want to extend enormous gratitude to all of our law enforcement partners for
their outstanding work in this case. Since Saturday, these men and women have
worked around the clock to achieve justice for the victims and restore a sense
of peace to Rhode Islanders.”
On December 18, 2025, a Rhode Island state court, based on
an affidavit from a Providence Police Detective, issued a state arrest warrant
for Neves Valente, charging him with two counts of murder and 23 felony counts
of assault and felony firearms offenses.
Earlier this evening, law enforcement located Neves Valente
at a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire. After obtaining a federal search
warrant for the unit, authorities entered and found Neves Valente deceased from
a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Neves Valente (age 48) was born in Torres Novas, Santarem, Portugal, and was a Legal Permanent Resident of the United States. Neves Valente arrived in the United States in August 2000 as an F-1 student at Brown University and subsequently obtained U.S. lawful permanent residency in April 2017. While at Brown University, he enrolled in a doctoral program but later withdrew from the university.
Full details of the investigation and subsequent
identification of Neves Valente can be found
in this affidavit.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Valente is also believed by authorities to have killed MIT nuclear scientist Nuno F.G. Loureiro on Monday at his home in Brookline, MA.
Predictably, Trump's Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has suspended the program that allowed Valente to be granted a green card.
Trump’s Own Mortgages Match His Accusations of Mortgage Fraud by His Enemies
Classic Trump: He does what he accuses others of doing
Donald Trump branded one foe who did so “deceitful and potentially criminal.” He called another “CROOKED” on Truth Social and pushed the attorney general to take action.
But years earlier, Trump did the very thing he’s accusing his enemies of, records show.
In 1993, Trump signed a mortgage for a “Bermuda style” home in Palm Beach, Florida, pledging that it would be his principal residence. Just seven weeks later, he got another mortgage for a seven-bedroom, marble-floored neighboring property, attesting that it too would be his principal residence.
In reality, Trump, then a New Yorker, does not appear to have ever lived in either home, let alone used them as a principal residence. Instead, the two houses, which are next to his historic Mar-a-Lago estate, were used as investment properties and rented out, according to contemporaneous news accounts and an interview with his longtime real estate agent — exactly the sort of scenario his administration has pointed to as evidence of fraud.
At the time of the purchases, Trump’s local real estate agent told the Miami Herald that the businessman had “hired an expensive New York design firm” to “dress them up to the nines and lease them out annually.” In an interview, Shirley Wyner, the late real estate agent’s wife and business partner who was herself later the rental agent for the two properties, told ProPublica: “They were rentals from the beginning.” Wyner, who has worked with the Trump family for years, added: “President Trump never lived there.”
Mortgage law experts who reviewed the records for ProPublica were struck by the irony of Trump’s dual mortgages. They said claiming primary residences on different mortgages at the same time, as Trump did, is often legal and rarely prosecuted. But Trump’s two loans, they said, exceed the low bar the Trump administration itself has set for mortgage fraud.
Thursday, December 18, 2025
Birthright Citizenship Is in the Constitution Plain As Day
Almost the entire Trump family, including Donald himself, are children of immigrants.
The case at issue, Trump v. Barbara, involves
birthright citizenship — the principle that you’re a citizen of the country
where you were born.
In the United States, birthright citizenship was written
into the Constitution after the Civil War. Following the end of slavery, the
amendment confirmed that the fundamental rights of citizenship do not depend on
white ancestry, but belong to everyone born in this country.
On Day One of his presidency, Trump issued an Executive
Order to overthrow that principle. He ordered that babies born in the
U.S. of undocumented immigrants should not be considered citizens.
If Trump’s order were deemed legal, he would have the power
to annul the citizenship of tens of millions of Americans, deny their right to
vote and other legal entitlements, and even deport them. Trump’s endorsement of
racial targeting in ICE arrests confirms that, in revoking citizenship, he
would focus on people of color.
“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades,” he
continued. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as
clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
Coughenour is no “radical liberal.” He was appointed to the
bench by conservative Republican President Ronald Reagan. But any reasonable
judge would reach the same conclusion — and many did, including judges of the
Ninth and First Circuits.
Disturbingly, however, the Supreme Court may validate this
“blatantly unconstitutional order.” Under Supreme Court rules, at least four
justices must vote to take up a lower court ruling. So at least four decided
Trump’s incredible claims were sound enough to put on the Supreme Court docket.
The decision is unsupportable. The Fourteenth Amendment
begins with this plain statement: “All persons born or naturalized in
the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Trump’s lawyers assert that children born in the United
States of undocumented immigrants aren’t citizens because they aren’t subject
to U.S. jurisdiction. That’s nonsense — jurisdiction has nothing to do with
whether someone is legally in the United States.
“Jurisdiction” refers
to the lawful authority a government exercises over individuals within its
territory. If someone is not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, that means U.S. laws
don’t apply to them.
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