Assessing wild turkeys in Rhode Island

Trying to better understand these majestic birds

Kristen Curry

Photo by Will Collette

New URI project launching this fall will study the state’s wild turkeys to better understand and maintain local population

Everyone’s talking turkey at this time of year. But Scott McWilliams’ lab at the University of Rhode Island is thinking about them in particular, hoping to call significant attention to the iconic New England bird.

The University’s Department of Natural Resources Science is launching a five-year study of the North American Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) to track its health and population in Rhode Island, in partnership with the state’s Department of Environmental Management (DEM).

Professor McWilliams, a certified wildlife biologist, says the team seeks to learn more about the reintroduced bird’s health in terms of disease prevalence, stressors, reproduction, and other habits.

“This is a well-known species, but we don’t know a lot about the drivers of this population,” he says.

Foreign Food Safety Inspections Hit Historic Low After Trump Cuts

Despite Trump tariffs, we still buy lots of imported food, especially what we cannot grow ourselves

By Annie Waldman and Brandon Roberts for ProPublica

American inspections of foreign food facilities — which produce everything from crawfish to cookies for the U.S. market — have plummeted to historic lows this year, a ProPublica analysis of federal data shows, even as inspections reveal alarming conditions at some manufacturers. 

About two dozen current and former Food and Drug Administration officials blame the pullback on deep staffing cuts under the Trump administration. The stark reduction marks a dramatic shift in oversight at a time when the United States has never been more dependent on foreign food, which accounts for the vast majority of the nation’s seafood and more than half its fresh fruit.

The stakes are high: Foreign products have been increasingly linked to outbreaks of foodborne illness. In recent years, FDA investigators have uncovered disturbing lapses in facilities producing food bound for American supermarkets. In Indonesia, cookie factory workers hauled dough in soiled buckets. In China, seafood processors slid crawfish along cracked, stained conveyor belts. Investigators have reported crawling insects, dripping pipes and fake testing data purporting to show food products were pathogen free.

When Americans hurt by the rising cost of living believed Donald Trump, they made a big mistake

Welcome Back Inflation! Soon You’ll Be Bigger Than Ever!

Mitchell Zimmerman

In 2024 Donald Trump promised: “a vote for Trump means your groceries will be cheaper.” “Prices will come down,” he vowed, “and they’ll come down fast, with everything.” “When I win,” he pledged, “I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.”

Trump never said how he would accomplish this wonder because in fact he had no idea. And didn’t care.

Surprise! Surprise! Prices did not come down “fast,” “immediately,” “starting on Day One” or at all. They’re moving in the other direction.

In the nine months since Trump took office, here’s what’s happened to prices:

• Electricity + 7%
• Natural gas + 6%
• Gasoline + 6%
• Beef (ground chuck) + 13%
• Oranges + 15%
• Bananas + 9%

In fairness, chicken prices are the same, eggs are down and bread is 2% cheaper. If all you eat are egg salad sandwiches, you’ll do fine under Trump. (But hold the mayo – the mayonnaise producer price index is up 4% over the year).

Trump’s Labor Department admits his immigration policies have caused “acute labor shortages” posing “immediate dangers to the American food supply” — and “higher prices”

Honor our anti-fascist heroes tomorrow

Thank you for speaking up

How Trump's signature gives him away

Adds evidence to the diagnosis that Trump is a malignant narcissist. 

Richie Zweigenhaft, Guilford College

Trump's infamous birthday greeting to Jeffrey Epstein

For years, Donald Trump’s distinctive, large and bold signature has captured the public’s attention. Not only did it recently come to light that his signature appeared in a book that Jeffrey Epstein received for his 50th birthday (left), but it fits neatly alongside Trump’s long history of brash self-adulation. 

“I love my signature, I really do,” he said in a Sept. 30, 2025, speech to military leaders. “Everyone loves my signature.”

His signature also happens to be of particular interest to me, given my decades-long fascination with, and occasional academic research on, the connection between signature size and personal attributes.

A long-time social psychologist who has studied America’s elite, I made an unintentional empirical discovery as an undergraduate more than 50 years ago. The link that I found then – and that numerous studies have since echoed – is that signature size is related to status and one’s sense of self.

Signature size and self-esteem

Back in 1967, during my senior year of college, I was a work-study student in Wesleyan University’s psychology library. My task, four nights a week, was to check out books and to reshelve books that had been returned.

When students or faculty took books out, they were asked to sign their names on an orange, unlined card found in each book.

At some point, I noticed a pattern: When faculty signed the books out, they used a lot of space to sign their names. When students checked them out, they used very little space, leaving a lot of space for future readers.

So I decided to study my observation systematically.

I gathered at least 10 signatures for each faculty member and comparison samples of student signatures with the same number of letters in their names. After measuring by multiplying the height versus the width of the amount of space used, I found that eight of the nine faculty members used significantly more space to sign their names.

In order to test for age as well as status, I did another study in which I compared the signatures of blue-collar workers such as custodians and groundskeepers who worked at the school with a sample of professors and a sample of students – again matched for the number of letters, this time on blank 3-by-5-inch cards. The blue-collar workers used more space than the students but less than the faculty. I concluded that age was at play, but so was status.

When I told psychologist Karl Scheibe, my favorite teacher, about my findings, he said I could measure the signatures in his books, which he had been signing for more than a decade since his freshman year in college.

As can be seen in the graph, his book signatures mostly got bigger. They took a major leap in size from his junior year to his senior year, dipped a bit when he entered graduate school and then increased in size as he completed his Ph.D. and joined the Wesleyan faculty.

I did a few more studies, and published a few articles, concluding that signature size was related to self-esteem and a measure of what I termed “status awareness.” I found that the pattern held in a number of different environments, including in Iran – where people write from right to left.

Charlestown Democrats unanimously endorse Jill Fonnemann for Town Council

“Jill’s inexhaustible energy, humanitarian spirit and ability to find common ground with anyone will serve our town well.”

News release from the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee

CHARLESTOWN, RI — The Charlestown Democratic Town Committee has unanimously endorsed Jill Fonnemann for Town Council in the upcoming special election Dec. 2.

“Jill is already well known in Charlestown for stepping up to help those in need and I couldn’t be happier that she is running to bring her experience and fresh perspective to the Town Council,” said Committee Chair Tristan Grau. “Jill’s inexhaustible energy, humanitarian spirit and ability to find common ground with anyone will serve our town well.”

In accepting the endorsement, Jill Fonnemann said “I’m running because I love Charlestown and I want to see it thriving and vibrant for generations to come. I’m happy to accept this endorsement from community members who feel the same way, and I look forward to working with them during the final stretch of this election.”

A lifelong native of South County, Jill Fonnemann has lived in Charlestown for 11 years. She has served on the Charlestown Parks and Recreation Commission since January 2023, and is the beverage director at the Charlestown Rathskeller, where she has worked since 2013.

If elected, she pledges to work to maintain Charlestown's low tax rate through fiscally responsible policies and practices; support affordable housing initiatives to allow seniors and children to be able to afford a home; make our children a priority by supporting our schools, quality education, sports programs and extracurricular activities; continue to support local businesses and work to protect Charlestown’s environment, including its open spaces and the breachway.

She will also propose the formation of a task force to address blighted and vacant buildings.

Early in person voting for this special election begins Nov. 12 at Charlestown Town Hall, 4540 S County Trail, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each weekday through Nov. 26. Early voting will resume Dec. 1 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. On election day, Dec. 2, voting will be open at Town Hall from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Voters who wish to vote by mail must request a ballot by Nov. 12 at 4 p.m.

Trump was already cutting low-income energy assistance – the shutdown is making things worse as cold weather arrives

King Donald doesn't care.

Conor Harrison, University of South Carolina; Elena Louder, University of South Carolina; Nikki Luke, University of Tennessee, and Shelley Welton, University of Pennsylvania

Have no doubt this will be properly heated

As fall turns to winter and temperatures begin to drop, millions of people across the U.S. will struggle to pay their rising energy bills. The government shutdown is making matters even worse: Several states have pushed back the start of their winter energy assistance because their federally allocated funds have yet to show up.

A 2023 national survey found that nearly 1 in 4 Americans were unable to pay their full energy bill for at least one month, and nearly 1 in 4 reported that they kept their homes at unsafe temperatures to save money. By 2025, updated polling indicated nearly 3 in 4 Americans are worried about rising energy costs.

Conservative estimates suggest that utilities shut off power to over 3 million U.S. households each year because the residents cannot pay their bills.

This problem of high energy prices isn’t lost on the Trump administration.

On the first day of his second term in 2025, Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency by executive order, saying that “high energy prices … devastate Americans, particularly those living on low- and fixed incomes.”

Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright raised concerns about utility disconnections and outlined a mission to “shrink that number, with the target of zero.”

Yet, the administration’s 2026 budget proposal zeroed out funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, the federal program that administers funding to help low-income households pay their utility bills. While there appears to be continued bipartisan support for LIHEAP in Congress, on April 1, 2025, the administration laid off the entire staff of the LIHEAP office. These layoffs hinder the ability of the federal government to release LIHEAP funds, even when the government reopens.

Many people already struggle to cobble together enough help from various sources to pay their energy bills. As researchers who study energy insecurity, we believe gutting the federal office responsible for administering energy bill assistance will make it even harder for Americans to make ends meet.

Let’s get the facts straight on who messed with $1 million from Charlestown’s open space bond fund

CCA continues to push phony issue

By Will Collette

Council President Carney (center)

In 2015 by an 11-vote margin, Charlestown voters authorized issuing $2 million in bonds to buy open space. In the following years, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance-controlled Town Council approved a series of land purchases proposed by Planning Commissar (and CCA de facto leader) Ruth Platner.

They took $1 million out of the General Fund to buy several properties, usually at prices much higher than their assessed value and often at the behest of CCA allies.

The CCA-led Council did NOT use bonds, preferring to use cash and not coincidentally keeping the $2 million bond fund intact, presumably to allow Ruth Platner a blank check to continue her land buying spree.

Voters did not give Platner carte blanche in 2015 – they issued approval for low-interest municipal bonds. Using bonds to fund long-term capital investments is prudent normal practice, just as it is when your own family takes out a mortgage, car loan or student loan.

Taking $1 million out of the General Fund, as the CCA did, had an immediate effect on your taxes compared to amortizing the cost over years, as voters in 2015 approved. Taxes consistently rose during the CCA’s 10 years of control over town government.

This year, Town Council President Deb Carney has proposed to redress the CCA’s disregard of voters’ expressed decision by issuing one million in bonds to cover the money the CCA inappropriately used to make land purchases and put that money back in the General Fund where it belongs.

And of course, the CCA screams its outrage, claiming that Carney is betraying the 2015 voters and somehow paying twice for the same property.

Bonnita B. Van Slyke is the CCA’s nominee in the December 2 Town Council Special Election. She voiced the CCA’s new party line and added that “Certainly, the Town Council should not float a bond without taxpayers being able to vote on whether they approve of $1 million to $2 million in new spending in a general election.”

I already responded to this by noting that voters already approved the bonds in 2015. Issuing a bond to replenish the General Fund simply redresses the CCA’s past financial mismanagement; it's NOT about new spending.

Failed 2024 CCA Council hopeful Sarah Fletcher raises the same issues almost verbatim in the CCA blog. No matter how many CCA stalwarts repeat it, the facts don’t change. Voters approved long-term bonds for open space, but the CCA paid cash. By taking cash out of the General Fund, they bumped up taxes each time. 

Carney wants to put that money back in the General Fund which will give taxpayers a break on next year’s tax bill, and not raise the tax rate by 3 cents as both Fletcher and Van Slyke claim - without evidence.

Charlestown voters should note that the CCA’s misappropriation of open space money spawned not just a series of shady land deals, but also a whole string of CCA financial gaffs, including the “$3 million dollar oopsie” and subsequent cover-up.

In a nutshell, the CCA had so many special accounts and cash stashes, including a bloated “Unassigned Fund Balance,” that they lost (or “misallocated” as they prefer to call it) $3 million dollars for 2 years. Click on the links for more detail.

It took a while for Charlestown voters to finally absorb the ways the CCA betrayed taxpayers’ trust by screwing up the money finally voting down all but one CCA candidate in 2022 (the year the $3 million oopsie went public) and then taking the last CCA seat in 2024

The CCA hopes to claw back a Town Council seat and re-install their most inept member in the December 2 Special Election. I warned you when the special election was announced to expect a torrent of phony attacks and misinformation in expensive mailers from the CCA or “Friends of Bonnie Van Slyke.” By the way, that “Friends” group is a CCA proxy that helps the CCA to get around state expenditure caps on spending by political action committees.

But you do have other choices and, for me, the best one is Democrat Jill Fonnemann.

What we need

And now he wants you to pay him $230 million more

Here's what you should try when your health insurance company says no.

This Little-Known Appeal Could Force Your Insurer to Pay for Lifesaving Care. Here’s How to File It.

By Duaa Eldeib for ProPublica

CLICK HERE for detailed instructions for
Rhode Islanders wishing to appeal an insurer's denial

When a health insurance company refuses to pay for treatment, most people begrudgingly accept the decision.

Few patients appeal; some don’t trust the insurer to reverse its own decision.

But a little-known process that requires insurers and plans to seek an independent opinion outside their walls can force insurers to pay for what can be lifesaving treatment. 

External reviews are one of the industry’s best-kept secrets, and only a tiny fraction of those eligible actually use them.

ProPublica recently reported the story of a North Carolina couple, Teressa Sutton-Schulman and her husband, who we identified in the story by his middle initial, L, to protect his privacy. Last year, L suffered escalating mental health issues and needed intensive psychiatric care. Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield issued the couple multiple denials in their case, even after Sutton-Schulman’s husband attempted suicide twice in the span of 11 days.

The instructions for an external review were buried on page seven of one of the denial letters.

“You can now request that your case be reviewed by a health care provider who is totally independent of your health plan or insurance carrier,” read the letter from the state insurance department in Texas, where the treatment occurred.

Skeptical but hopeful, Sutton-Schulman submitted the request for the external review. Their case was assigned to Dr. Neal Goldenberg, an Ohio doctor who works for a third-party review company as a side job. After reading the extensive appeal, Goldenberg overturned Highmark’s denial to cover treatment that had cost Sutton-Schulman and L more than $70,000.

Highmark previously said in a statement that the company was “passionate about providing appropriate and timely care” to its members. It acknowledged that “small errors made by physicians and/or members can lead to delays and initial denials” but said that those are corrected on appeals.

The lesson is simple, explained Kaye Pestaina, a vice president at the nonprofit health policy think tank KFF, who has studied external appeals.

“Appeal, appeal, appeal, appeal,” she said. “That’s all you have.”

Get the stronger flu vaccine this year

High-dose flu vaccine better protects against hospitalization, infection than standard-dose

Mary Van Beusekom, MS

Two new analyses conclude that high-dose influenza vaccine is more effective against hospitalization and infection than the standard-dose version.

For the first study, published in The Lancet, an international group of researchers, including two from vaccine maker Sanofi, parsed pooled data from two large trials comparing the efficacy of the high-dose inactivated influenza vaccine (HD-IIV) with the standard-dose (SD-IIV) version against hospitalization for flu or pneumonia in older adults.

The FLUNITY-HD trial was an individual-level pooled analysis of two pragmatic randomized trials: DANFLU-2 in Denmark from 2022 to 2025 and GALFLU from 2023 to 2025 in Spain. In both trials, participants were randomly assigned to receive either HD-IIV or SD-IIV and followed, starting 2 weeks later to May 31 of the following year, in each flu season.

At an estimated 515 older adults needed to be vaccinated with HD-IIV instead of SD-IIV to prevent one all-cause hospitalization, a simple switch from SD-IIV to HD-IIV could substantially reduce the burden of influenza on health systems.

FLUNITY-HD included 466,320 adults with an average age of 73.3 years; 48% were women, and 48.9% had one or more chronic conditions. 

Hospitalization for flu or pneumonia was documented in 0.56% of the HD-IIV group, compared with 0.62% of SD-IIV recipients (relative vaccine effectiveness [rVE], 8.8%). HD-IIV also lowered the rate of cardiorespiratory hospitalization (2.02% vs 2.16% in the SD-IIV group; rVE, 6.3%), flu hospitalization (0.11% vs 0.16%; rVE, 31.9%), and all-cause hospitalization (8.54% vs 8.73%; rVE, 2.2%).

Hospital admission for flu occurred in 0.07% of HD-IIV participants and 0.12% in SD-IIV recipients (rVE, 39.6%), and hospitalization for pneumonia was documented in 0.50% and 0.51%, respectively (rVE, 2.3%).

Participants in both groups died of any cause with similar frequency (0.61% vs 0.62%; rVE, 1.2%). The rate of serious adverse events was comparable between groups (16,032 vs 15,857).

The findings "will inform evidence-based decision making by health-care providers, policy makers, and immunization technical advisory groups, contributing to potential optimization of influenza vaccination strategies in the vulnerable older adult population globally," the authors wrote. 

"At an estimated 515 older adults needed to be vaccinated with HD-IIV instead of SD-IIV to prevent one all-cause hospitalization, a simple switch from SD-IIV to HD-IIV could substantially reduce the burden of influenza on health systems," they added.

29% greater protection against infection

The second study, published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, used a test-negative design to analyze inpatient and outpatient data from four studies on older vaccinated adults tested for flu during the 2022-23 and 2024-25 flu seasons.

The average patient age was 81.1 years, 52.1% were women, and 87.2% had at least one chronic condition, primarily cardiovascular disease (74.2%), respiratory conditions (27.0%), and diabetes (18.7%).

In this integrated analysis, Italian older adults vaccinated with HD-IIV tended to report fewer laboratory-confirmed influenza episodes than their counterparts vaccinated with SD-IIV.

A total of 102 (8.2%) flu cases were identified, all but two (98.0%) of which were type A. Cases were almost evenly distributed among type A(H1N1)pdm09 (52.0%) and A(H3N2) (48.0%).

Of 1,238 participants, influenza positivity was lower among HD-IIV recipients than in the SD-IIV group (6.6% vs 10.3%; rVE, 29%). Relative to SD-IIV, HD-IIV was 54% more effective against infection among adults aged 80 years and older.

In the entire cohort, rVE of HD-IIV versus SD-IIV estimated using an unadjusted model was 40%, but when parsimoniously (28%) or fully (29%) adjusted, the estimate wasn't statistically significant.

"In this integrated analysis, Italian older adults vaccinated with HD-IIV tended to report fewer laboratory-confirmed influenza episodes than their counterparts vaccinated with SD-IIV," the researchers wrote. "This benefit was particularly evident in the oldest old, where the observed rVE consistently indicated a meaningful effect, regardless of the modeling strategy employed."

As the country suffers, King Donald rolls out his latest self-indulgent rape of history

Sure, of course Abraham Lincoln used a bathroom that looked like one in Trump Plaza

Brad Reed

The bathroom adjacent to the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom is seen after being remodeled by President Donald Trump. 

 (Image via Truth Social)

As millions of families across the US are about to lose their access to food aid over the weekend, President Donald Trump on Friday decided to show off photos of a White House bathroom that he boasted had been refurbished in “highly polished, statuary marble.”

Trump posted photos of the bathroom on his Truth Social platform, and he explained that he decided to remodel it because he was dissatisfied with the “art deco green tile style” that had been implemented during a previous renovation, which he described as “totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era.”

“I did it in black and white polished Statuary marble,” Trump continued. “This was very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln and, in fact, could be the marble that was originally there!”

Charlestown mobile home park residents buy their own properties to defend against predatory buyers

Coop ownership to preserve the future

Cassie Powell, University of Richmond

EDITOR'S NOTE: In Charlestown, the residents of the Border Hill Mobile Home Park on South County Trail (Route 2) put together financing for a $5.125 million group purchase of their 16-acre mobile home complex. Deb Foss, treasurer of the Border Hill Mobile Home Park Home-Owners Association noted “We wanted to purchase the park to secure our future. We didn’t want to wait for a hedge fund to come in and jack up our lot rents or kick us out" as described in the following article.

With help from the Cooperative Development Institute and financial support from the Rhode Island Foundation, they closed the deal on September 29. It's a great success story and congrats to the new owners!   - Will Collette

One of America’s most affordable paths to homeownership is slipping away.

At manufactured home parks – sometimes called trailer parks or mobile home parks – rents are rapidly rising due to large-scale buyouts by private equity firms.

Although private equity’s foray into the housing market is not new, the buyout of mobile home parks by investment firms is on the rise – with devastating consequences for residents. Over the past decade, rents in these parks have risen 45%, according to census data. Once a park is sold, the risk of eviction rises significantly in the following year.