Sunday, January 11, 2026
R.I. has a rising tide of tiny trash on its beaches.
But it still doesn’t have a bottle bill.
By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
But the button-sized plastic and foam pieces less visible to the casual observer might be a more serious problem. More than 14,000 of these 2.5-or-smaller centimeter pieces were collected from state shorelines as part of 2025 volunteer-led efforts through the International Coastal Cleanup, according to a new report from Save the Bay.
Tiny trash came in second to cigarette butts, which claimed the dubious honor of no. 1 trash item among the 15,561 pounds of trash collected from September to November 2025. “Other plastic waste” was the third most prevalent, followed by food waste, bottle caps and plastic beverage bottles and cans.
Your Daily Cup of Tea Could Help Fight Heart Disease, Cancer, Aging, and More
Tea may offer powerful health benefits, but how it is prepared and consumed matters.
Across human cohort studies and clinical trials, tea
drinking shows its most consistent links to better heart and metabolic health,
including lower risks of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and related
problems like obesity and type 2 diabetes — with hints of protection against
some cancers as well.
The authors also point to early signs that tea may be tied
to slower cognitive decline, less age-related muscle loss, and
anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects. Those areas are promising, they
note, but still need stronger long-term human trials.
How much you drink seems to matter, too. In a meta-analysis
of 38 prospective cohort data sets, “moderate” intake tracked with lower
all-cause, CVD, and cancer mortality. For CVD mortality, the benefit signal
appeared to level off around ~1.5–3 cups per day, while all-cause mortality
showed its strongest association at ~2 cups per day.
Big Oil tells Trump they won’t go into Venezuela without big bucks from US taxpayers
The grift goes on
Trump had hoped to convince executives from around two
dozen oil companies
to invest in Venezuela after the president claimed US firms pledged to spend at least $100
billion in the country. However, Trump got a reality check during
Friday’s White
House meeting, as at least one Big Oil CEO balked at
committing financial and other resources in an uncertain political, legal, and
security environment.
“If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and
frameworks in place today in Venezuela today, it’s uninvestable,” ExxonMobil CEO
Darren Woods told Trump during the meeting. “Significant changes
have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system. There has to
be durable investment protections, and there has to be a change to the
hydrocarbon laws in the country.”
There is also skepticism regarding Trump’s promise of “total safety” for investors in Venezuela
amid deadly US
military aggression and regime change.
However, many of the executives—who stand
to make billions of dollars from the invasion—told Trump that they
remain eager to eventually reap the rewards of any potential US takeover of
Venezuela’s vast oil resources.
The oil executives’ apparent
aversion to immediate investment in Venezuela—and Trump’s own admission that the American people might end up
reimbursing Big Oil for its efforts—prompted backlash from taxpayer advocates.
Trump's Venezuela adventure is already a propaganda disaster
Nobody is buying it, and we don't even know what they're trying to sell.
For a man who spent a lifetime using showmanship to con
people into believing things that aren’t true, Donald Trump has run an
absolutely dreadful propaganda campaign in support of his latest foreign
military adventure.
Nothing about what just happened in Venezuela is clear — who is now running the country, what will happen from this point forward, or why we did it.
We don’t even know what to call it. An invasion, a kidnapping, a coup, a takeover? Who knows? In the long run, it will probably turn out badly for the people of Venezuela and for US foreign policy interests, but it’s already a case study in incompetent public relations.
Let’s be honest: Getting the American people to support a fun little war has never been all that hard, at least at first. When things eventually go sideways they’ll realize it was a mistake, but the beating of the war drums gets their toes a-tapping, and it isn’t long before a majority of them are clapping along.
But despite spending months laying the groundwork for
the incursion that happened Saturday morning — bombing boats supposedly
carrying drugs, moving an aircraft carrier to the region, making an endless
series of threats to Nicolás Maduro — Trump never got anything like a majority
of the public behind him.
Granted, skill at public relations doesn’t necessarily
correlate with policy competence. In 2002 and 2003, the Bush administration
conducted what may be the most extraordinary public persuasion effort in
American history, to convince Americans that we absolutely had to invade Iraq
lest Saddam Hussein obliterate us all with his terrifying arsenal of weapons of
mass destruction.
As propaganda, it was a smashing success. Before the war
began, overwhelming
majorities believed the twin lies the administration was pushing —
that Saddam had WMD and was involved in the 9/11 attacks. But the skill of
their communication was not reflected in the implementation of the war and its
aftermath, which turned out to be probably the most catastrophic blunder in the
history of American foreign policy.
Nevertheless, the incoherence of the Trump administration’s
communication suggests that what happens next in Venezuela will be an unfolding
series of screwups. If these clowns can’t even get the American public to
support a war, do we really think they’ll be able to manage an infinitely more
difficult task of nation-building?
They can’t get their story straight
Start with the most basic question: Why, precisely, did we attempt a takeover of the Venezuelan state through military force? If the first answer is “Well, it’s not exactly a takeover, we arrested Maduro, but we’re not really running Venezuela,” then that illustrates the problem. What was all this about?
Maduro and his wife have now been indicted for drug trafficking. Was that the reason for this whole thing? Not exactly — after all, President Trump recently pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, who was convicted of helping to send hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States. Maduro’s indictment also mentions cocaine, but we’ve been told that the real drug problem is fentanyl, of which almost none comes through Venezuela.The point is, if you’re going to invade another country, you
have to at least put some effort into convincing the public that this will
solve a serious problem that faces them. How many people believe that taking
over Venezuela is going to change America’s relationship with drugs?
Here’s the truth, and it isn’t exactly a secret: Multiple
key administration figures had their
own motivations for wanting to overthrow the Venezuelan government,
none of which are about drugs.
Saturday, January 10, 2026
Five ways to become a billionaire
None have anything to do with “free market” capitalism
For many years, whenever I’ve warned that an increasing
portion of the nation’s wealth is falling into the hands of an ever-smaller
number of people, the moneyed interests have responded: “But that’s just
the free market,” or “the free market has decided they deserve it.”
Rubbish. There’s no such thing as a “free market” to begin
with. Today’s so-called “free market” is the outcome of political decisions
over monopolization, labor organization, private property, finance, trade,
taxes, and much more.
Who’s behind these political decisions? Increasingly, the
same small number of ultra-rich who have gained disproportionate influence over
our politics. They’ve created five ways for themselves to accumulate a billion
dollars or more.
1. First, exploit a monopoly.
Does Jeff Bezos deserve his billions
because he founded and built Amazon?
No. Amazon is a monopolist with nearly 40
percent of all e-commerce retail sales in America. In addition, Amazon
is protected by a slew of patents granted by the U.S. government.
In 2023, the U.S. government — through the Federal Trade
Commission and 17 states— charged Amazon with illegally maintaining a monopoly
by crushing competition, inflating prices, and harming consumers through
anticompetitive practices like punishing sellers who offer lower prices
elsewhere. (The trial is currently scheduled to begin in 2027.)
If the government fully enforced anti-monopoly (antitrust)
laws and didn’t give Amazon such broad patents, Bezos would be worth far less.
If anti-monopoly laws were enforced, other titans of high
tech would be worth far less, too — among them, Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark
Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison.
From Charlestown Residents United
|
Trump says wind farm off RI coast is a "national security" risk - Here's his "proof"
‘Specific’ Revolution Wind national security risks remain classified in court documents
They look a lot like the Epstein files
by Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
A recent federal analysis revealed new and specific national security risks posed by offshore wind, including Rhode Island’s nearly completed Revolution Wind project, according to the Trump administration.
But, it’s classified.
 |
| Pages from a federal analysis outlining perceived national security risks posed by Revolution Wind and four other East Coast wind farm projects submitted in a court filing by the Department of Justice. |
Federal regulators, and the U.S. Department of Justice attorneys representing them in court, offered little explanation for the abrupt suspension of five East Coast wind projects, including Revolution Wind, in court filings submitted Thursday. The tranche of documents, spanning 160 pages, defends the Interior Department’s Dec. 22 stop work order, which is being challenged by the Revolution Wind project developers, along with the companies behind three of the four other projects.
The companies have each turned to federal courts to attempt to bar the Trump administration from interfering in their projects, claiming the 90-day suspension is an executive overreach that violates constitutional separation of powers, among other laws.
For the 65-turbine Revolution Wind project already 87% complete south of Rhode Island’s coastline, the late December halt to construction was especially harmful. The 704-megawatt project already endured a monthlong pause from August to September when federal regulators first sought to stop work under the guise of national security concerns.
The initial stop work order was temporarily tossed by U.S. Senior Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Lamberth is scheduled to consider the second request for a preliminary injunction from the Revolution Wind developers, joined by the Rhode Island and Connecticut AGs, on Monday.
Ahead of the in-person hearing, Trump attorneys laid out their defense in writing to the court. They refuted allegations of constitutional breaches, and consequences for the project developers, who say they are at risk of losing $6 billion if construction cannot resume by Jan. 12.
The Trump administration’s response?
“When it comes to the operation of the Project, the public interest in national security outweighs Revolution Wind’s alleged economic harms,” wrote Adam Gustafson, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources division.
But exactly what security concerns prompted the Trump administration to renege on the existing federal approval for the project remains fuzzy. The project had already undergone a rigorous and lengthy review of economic, environmental and security considerations.
Viral outbreaks are always on the horizon – here are the viruses an infectious disease expert is watching in 2026
Are we prepared? What do YOU think?
Old viruses are constantly evolving. A warming and increasingly populated planet puts humans in contact with more and different viruses. And increased mobility means that viruses can rapidly travel across the globe along with their human hosts.
As an infectious diseases physician and researcher, I’ll be keeping an eye on a few viruses in 2026 that could be poised to cause infections in unexpected places or in unexpected numbers.
Influenza A – on the cusp of a pandemic
Influenza A is a perennial threat. The virus infects a wide range of animals and has the ability to mutate rapidly. The most recent influenza pandemic – caused by the H1N1 subtype of influenza in 2009 – killed over 280,000 people worldwide in its first year, and the virus continues to circulate today. This virus was often called swine flu because it originated in pigs in Mexico before circulating around the world.
Most recently, scientists have been monitoring the highly-pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 subtype, or bird flu. This virus was first found in humans in southern China in 1997; wild birds helped spread the virus around the world. In 2024, the virus was found for the first time in dairy cattle in the U.S. and subsequently became established in herds in several states.
The crossover of the virus from birds to mammals created major concern that it could become adapted to humans. Studies suggest there have already been many cow-to-human transmissions.
In 2026, scientists will continue to look for any evidence that H5N1 has changed enough to be transmitted from human to human – a necessary step for the start of a new influenza pandemic. The influenza vaccines currently on the market probably don’t offer protection from H5N1, but scientists are working to create vaccines that would be effective against the virus.
Trump pulls US out of 60+ international treaties and organizations as Trump isolates the US from the rest of the world
What's next? Leaving NATO and the United Nations?
 |
| Question: How did it come to this? |
Among the treaties Trump ditched via a legally dubious executive order was the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC), making the US—the world’s largest historical emitter
of planet-warming greenhouse gases—the first country to abandon the landmark
agreement.
The US
Senate ratified the convention in 1992 by unanimous consent, but
lawmakers have repeatedly failed to assert their constitutional
authority to stop presidents from unilaterally withdrawing from global
treaties.
Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center
for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that “Trump cutting ties with
the world’s oldest climate treaty is another despicable effort to let corporate
fossil fuel interests run our government.”
Trump also pulled the US out of the International Institute
for Justice and the Rule
of Law, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the UN International Law Commission,
the UN Democracy Fund,
UN Oceans, and
dozens of other global bodies, deeming them “contrary to the interests of the
United States.”
The president’s move came as he continued to steamroll
domestic and international law with an illegal assault on Venezuela and
threats to seize Greenland with
military force, among other grave abuses.
Below is the full list of international organizations that
Trump abandoned with the stroke of a pen:
Friday, January 9, 2026
Donald Trump could have been exposed and stopped long ago
Trump's mental illness has been obvious for years
Dr. Bandy X. Lee
He is still the mafia don who has instilled false but serious fear into many. As I have said since the very beginning, he will never relent, never admit to any wrong, and never give up power, unless he is stopped from without.
However, the situation could get so difficult for him, with his cognitive abilities and now his physical as well as his mental health declining—as I pointed out from the very beginning—as to make him ever more dangerous.
Nearly eight years ago I was invited to write an article
for the Guardian, headlined "Trump is now dangerous - that makes his mental health a matter of public interest". In that
article, I wrote:
There is another pattern by which he is dangerous. His cognitive function, or his ability to process knowledge and thoughts, has begun to be widely questioned. Many have noted a distinct decline in his outward ability to form complete sentences, to stay with a thought, to use complex words and not to make loose associations. This is dangerous because of the critical importance of decision-making capacity in the office that he holds. Cognitive decline can result from any number of causes—psychiatric, neurological, medical, or medication-induced—and therefore needs to be investigated. Likewise, we do not know whether psychiatric symptoms are due to a mental disorder, medication, or a physical condition, which only a thorough examination can reveal.
A few days after the Guardian article, CBC
published an article headlined "Psychiatrist's new warning that Trump's mental state 'is a national and international security risk."with the headline:
It featured this information:
the National Coalition of Concerned Mental Health Experts [precursor to the World Mental Health Coalition], led by Dr. Bandy Lee—a forensic psychiatrist with an expertise in violence at the Yale School of Medicine—issued a statement calling for an emergency evaluation into Trump’s behaviour and mental health. Last month and again this week, psychiatrists led by Lee met with members of Congress to express their concerns about Trump’s fitness for office.
Fast forward to earlier this year, and in April 2025
an article
that contained an interview with me headlined "Psychiatrist calls Trump's mental unfitness a 'Public Health Emergency'."
In it I said the following:
Donald Trump is the most dangerous man in the world, and this is the most dangerous moment ever—not because he is the worst but because we allowed his pathology to magnify over time…. Given his instability and fragility, his decisions will be unpredictable, irrational, and changeable…. The end goal of pathology is destruction and death, which is why we treat it. This is also how I was able to predict the destructiveness of his first presidency—which in my opinion included the eventual 1.2 million American deaths from Covid-19, the propagation of political violence, the exacerbation of economic inequality, the destruction of the climate, the replacement of international collaboration with transactional combativeness, a renewed and accelerated nuclear arms race, and a global emboldening of brutal dictators that laid the groundwork for the intensity of wars in Ukraine and Gaza. I also believed that there was a large possibility he would be reelected and bring a sledgehammer to this country, as he is doing now.
The previous year, on November 4, 2024, the day before the
election, MindsiteNews also published an article
highlighting myself and the World Mental Health Coalition headlined "Mental health experts continue their 'Duty to Warn' about Trump's mental unfitness up to the 11th hour."
It stated the following:
The group of psychiatrists and doctors that first warned about the “unmistakable” signs of Donald Trump’s mental instability in the first year of his presidency has continued its effort to sound the alarm right up to the last day before the momentous election that could return him to office.
Simultaneously, we posted on the World Mental Health
Coalition web site, our “Statement on Cognitive
Concerns in the Presidential Election,” signed by fifty of the most eminent
neuropsychiatrists, neurologists, and geriatricians in the nation:
We are a group of medical and mental health professionals with expertise in aging, mental fitness, and how these relate to the capacity for leadership and ensuring our national security. We feel an obligation to express concerns about the manifestations of poor cognitive function in former President Donald J. Trump.
o Deterioration in language skills, such as simpler
vocabulary, incomplete and incoherent sentences, grammatical errors, and
paraphasias (substituting words)
o Impaired memory/recall, such as confabulation, where
memory gaps are filled with false or fabricated details
o Tangential thinking, where speech often drifts to
unrelated topics in an erratic manner
o Inappropriate or vague statements that lack
connection to reality
o Perseveration, where thoughts or ideas are repeated
without a relevant trigger
o Rigidity in thinking, evidenced by an inability to
adapt or revise opinions, often manifesting as “doubling down”
o Amplification of maladaptive personality traits, such
as paranoid (invented threats), narcissistic (excessive focus on self), or
antisocial (criminal and dangerous) personality traits
o Disinhibition in speech, such as the frequent use of
vulgar, profane language or hate speech
o Disinhibition in behavior, such as impulsive decision
making or aggression and violence
We believe these observable and repeated behaviors warrant
public awareness of their implications. The multiple signs and symptoms we have
observed in Mr. Trump comprise critical information for America’s 2024
presidential voters. We submit this informed opinion by fifty (50) nationally
renowned professionals in the interest of public trust and safety.
Now, at the end of an immensely destructive year, I hope it will be clear to the public why mental health experts felt the need to come forth and to speak up in unprecedented ways, why we felt such extraordinary obligation, with the special knowledge we have, and how mental health—or its lack—formed the foundation for what we see today, no matter what it initially looked like on the outside (the distinction should now be clear between just another political ideology and mental pathology).
The failure to intervene with
a mental health problem with the mental health resources that we have—so as to
prevent vast, unnecessary suffering, destruction, and deaths—is a legacy that
will stay with us for generations, if we survive this period at all.
Dr. Lee is a forensic and social psychiatrist who became known to the public through her 2017 Yale conference and book that emphasized the importance of fit leadership. In 2019, she organized a major National Press Club Conference on the theme of, “The Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” In 2024, she followed up with another major Conference, “The More Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership.” She published another book on fit leadership that has been recently expanded, in addition to a volume on how unfitness in a leader spreads and two critical statements on fit leadership. Dr. Lee warned that journalists and intellectuals are the first to be suppressed in times of unfit leadership, and it is happening here; she continues, however, to be interviewed or covered abroad, such as in France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Russia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Canada (with notable articles in Dutch, Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Slovakian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Persian, Hindi, and Korean). She authored the internationally-acclaimed textbook, Violence; over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters; and 17 scholarly books and journal special issues, in addition to over 300 opinion editorials. Dr. Lee is also a master of divinity, currently developing a new curriculum for public education on “One World or None.”
Bobby Jr.'s actual achievements after MAHA's first year
From Wikipedia: Peter Jay Hotez (born May 5, 1958)[1] is an American scientist, pediatrician, and advocate in the fields of global health, vaccinology, and neglected tropical disease control. He serves as founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also Director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics.[2][3] He also serves as a University Professor of Biology at Baylor University.
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