How ICE’s plan to monitor social media 24/7 threatens privacy and civic participation

The end of even the pretense of online privacy

Nicole M. Bennett, Indiana University

When most people think about immigration enforcement, they picture border crossings and airport checkpoints. But the new front line may be your social media feed.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has published a request for information for private-sector contractors to launch a round-the-clock social media monitoring program. The request states that private contractors will be paid to comb through “Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, VK, Flickr, Myspace, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Reddit, WhatsApp, YouTube, etc.,” turning public posts into enforcement leads that feed directly into ICE’s databases.

The request for information reads like something out of a cyber thriller: dozens of analysts working in shifts, strict deadlines measured in minutes, a tiered system of prioritizing high-risk individuals, and the latest software keeping constant watch.

I am a researcher who studies the intersection of data governance, digital technologies and the U.S. federal government. I believe that the ICE request for information also signals a concerning if logical next step in a longer trend, one that moves the U.S. border from the physical world into the digital.

Here's a surprise: New research finds no clear link between acetaminophen (Tylenol) and autism debunking Trump and Bobby Jr. false statements

DO NOT take medical advice from Trump or Bobby Jr.

BMJ Group

An extensive review of existing studies, published in The BMJ on November 10, finds no clear evidence that using acetaminophen (Tylenol) during pregnancy increases the risk of autism or ADHD in children. The new analysis was conducted in response to growing public debate about the safety of acetaminophen use while pregnant.

Researchers reported that the reliability of earlier studies and reviews on this topic is rated as low to critically low. They noted that any apparent associations observed in past studies may be influenced by factors shared within families, such as genetics and environmental conditions, rather than by the medication itself.

Community health centers provide care for 1 in 10 Americans, but funding cuts threaten their survival

Groups like our local Wood River Health Center provide vital service

Jennifer Spinghart, University of South Carolina

Editor's Note: Group like 49-year-old Wood River are chronically underfunded and, in these times, face harsh cutbacks. 

That makes them even more dependent on community support, which is a lot of work. Recently, Wood River held its major annual fundraiser and raised $125,000. But it takes a lot more than that to stay open, so please give them your generous support.  - Will Collette

Affordable health care was the primary point of contention in the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, which hit 43 days on Nov. 12, 2025.

This fight highlights a persistent concern for Americans despite passage of the landmark Affordable Care Act 15 years ago.

In 2024, 27.2 million Americans, or 8.2% of the population, lacked health insurance entirely. A significant number of Americans have trouble affording health care, even if they do have insurance. The tax and spending package signed by President Donald Trump into law in July 2025 puts a further 16 million Americans at risk of losing their health care insurance by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Many people who lack or have insufficient health insurance seek health care from a network of safety net clinics called community health centers. Even though community health centers provide care for 1 in 10 people in the U.S. – and 1 in 5 in rural areas – many people are unaware of their role in the country’s medical system.

As an emergency physician and the director of the student-led community health program at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Greenville, I collaborate with the community health center in Greenville and am closely familiar with how these types of providers function.

These clinics often operate on razor-thin margins and already function under continual demands to do more with less. Slated cuts to health care spending from the tax and spending bill and funding uncertainties that were driven by the shutdown threaten to destabilize them further.

Bannon Tells GOP: ‘Seize the Institutions’ of Government Now or We’re ‘Going to Prison’ After 2028

Trump advisor calls for MAGA to mount fascist takeover

Jon Queally for Common Dreams

Far-right podcaster and former top presidential advisor Steve Bannon told a crowd of aspiring conservative staffers on Capitol Hill this week that the job of Republicans between now and the midterm election next year is to seize complete control of government institutions and turn as many of Donald Trump’s executive orders as possible into law as a way to avoid politic defeat in the coming years and, ultimately, keep MAGA loyalists from being tried and sent to jail.

“I’ll tell you right, as God as my witness, if we lose the midterms and we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison,” Bannon told the crowd Wednesday at an awards event hosted by the Conservative Partnership Academy. This group offers training and certifications to aspiring right-wing ideologues working in politics and government.

Bannon, who has already served time in prison for refusing to submit to a congressional subpoena related to his role as a top aide to Trump during his first term, included himself among those who might be targeted if Republicans lost power.

In his remarks, Bannon said Tuesday’s election results in New York City, Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere—where Democrats swept the GOP—should be seen as a warning to Trump’s MAGA base, but called for an intensification of the agenda, not a retreat.

Ready, set, GO!

Trump's economic fantasies

Now he wants to give every American a $2000 payment from the trillions of dollars he has imagined the US has collected in tariffs charged to American companies for imported foreign goods...
 

South County Hospital used to be consistently rated "A" for patient safety - rating drops to "C"

South County, Roger Williams hospitals slip in new national ranking while Westerly Hospital continues its "A" streak

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

Four of Rhode Island’s nine acute care hospitals earned the highest marks in the latest report by a national nonprofit that ranks patient safety. But three slipped one grade.

Rhode Island Hospital and the Miriam Hospital in Providence, Newport Hospital, and Westerly Hospital all earned an A grade from the Leapfrog Group in results published Thursday.

Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket received a B. Kent Hospital, South County Hospital in South Kingstown and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital in North Providence all received a C. Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence received a D.

None of the Ocean State’s hospitals received the lowest grade of F. 

VA hospitals, children’s hospitals, psychiatric hospitals are excluded from the report.

The Washington, D.C.-based Leapfrog Group assigns letter grades to hospitals based on its surveys plus safety data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The ratings are updated twice a year, in spring and fall, and calculated across over 30 measures related to errors in care, infections, injuries, and how effectively hospitals minimize and prevent harm to patients.

Rhode Island hemp industry faces uncertainty amid federal crackdown on THC products

Republicans snuck surprise ban into bill to reopen the government

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Mike Simpson is one of Rhode Island’s biggest cheerleaders for hemp cultivation and the plant’s derivative products — remedies, he believes, that may help where pharmaceutical medicines cannot. 

It’s that very reason Simpson helped co-found Rhode Island’s only outdoor hemp farm, where he says many of the business’ products ship all across the country.

But Lovewell Farms’ may cease operations now that Congress has approved reopening the federal government under legislation that would effectively ban hemp products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC. If approved by President Donald Trump, the ban will go into effect in a year.

“This might be the final straw,” Simpson said in an interview Wednesday. “I may have to shut my whole company down.” 

Simpson doesn’t sell intoxicating products, but said crops grown at his Hopkinton farm can contain up to 1 milligram of THC in it, as is allowed under existing Rhode Island hemp regulations.

“I have 700 to 800 pounds of flower that I grew this year that under that law would not be legal,” he said.

Simpson said he would grow crops with lower concentrations, but as a USDA-certified organic farm, there aren’t that many seed suppliers he can buy from.

“We’re really at the whim of what those folks are providing,” he said.

The provision in the shutdown-ending appropriations bill was championed by GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in order to close a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp but inadvertently paved the way for the proliferation of hemp-derived THC products like infused drinks — products which states have since scrambled to either regulate or ban.

THC drinks derived from hemp were illegal in Rhode Island until August 2024, when the state’s now-defunct Office of Cannabis Regulation began allowing the sale of products containing low levels of delta-9 THC at licensed retailers, including vape shops and liquor stores.

The presence of hemp-derived drinks has led to a debate on whether such drinks should even be legal in Rhode Island. Members of the state’s recreational cannabis industry for the most part have been against allowing THC products to be sold outside licensed pot shops. 

Since the start of the fiscal year on July 1, regulators in the newly-established Rhode Island Cannabis Office have crafted recommendations on dosage limits, packaging standards, labeling requirements, licensing conditions, and other ways to ensure children don’t accidentally consume the intoxicating drinks. 

Battle Over Westerly Beach Access Rages On Before CRMC

Fake fire district fights to restrict public beach access

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

Access to Weekapaug Beach in Westerly, R.I., is guarded by a security officer from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the summer. The Weekapaug Fire District, at least according to a group of concerned residents, is also illegally blocking a shoreline right of way known as the Spring Avenue Extension. (Frank Carini/ecoRI News)

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Weekapaug Fire District is actually just a homeowners' association not an fire-fighting entity. Ironically, the Fire District lost what little capacity it had when its own firehouse burned down in November 2017. They have a security force, as shown above, but no firefighters. Weekapaug is similar to Charlestown's two fake fire districts, Shady Harbor and Central Quonnie, who likewise lack the ability to fight fires but plenty of determination to keep outsiders off the beach.  - Will Collette

Observers hoping for a quick resolution to the Spring Avenue Extension coastal access point are sure to be disappointed.

The Coastal Resources Management Council’s right of way (ROW) subcommittee opened its first evidentiary hearing Nov. 4. It’s the first chance both sides have had to produce evidence that proves or disproves if the ROW is truly open to the public.

For two and a half hours — with a single 15-minute break — the subcommittee heard testimony from witnesses, including title attorney Joseph Priestly, as attorneys representing the town of Westerly tried to prove to council members using decades-old plat maps the public status of the ROW.

“It’s a public highway open for access by the public and will remain so until abandoned by the town of Westerly,” Priestly testified. “Assuming that it has not been, it remains a public highway.”

Priestly added he had seen no evidence indicating the town had abandoned the ROW, either formally or informally, but noted he had not specifically looked for evidence of abandonment either. He also testified to subcommittee members that he saw no maintenance obligation by Westerly in the land evidence records.

A key point of evidence for supporters of the right of way is a 1939 plat map that has the ROW labeled. Westerly solicitor William Conley said for the ROW to be accepted under common law jurisprudence was a plat map depicting the ROW, and proof that it was open to the public historically, which would count as the town “accepting” the ROW without formally adopting it.

They're tough guys in the streets and delicate little babies in court.

The softest Nazis you ever did see

Lisa Needham

The Trump administration only wants the most formidable warriors, real stone-cold-killer types, to join his war on immigrants.

They should be white, of course, and ideally ‘roided up. These guys are the sort that can take a punch and not even blink, the hardest MFers you’re ever going to see. 

Just look at all the sizzle reels DHS is putting out, and you can feel the toughness through the screen, right? And you just know that if those dudes want to take you down, you’re going down.

Now, it’s not at all unusual for authoritarians to treat even the smallest pushback on law enforcement officers as an attack on their authority and an excuse to be rabidly violent. But that’s not quite what the administration is doing. In public, they want everyone to know that these thugs they’ve deployed to terrorize cities are battle-hardened and impervious to pain. 

But on the other hand, they are also such delicate flowers that if they are, say, lightly grazed by a sandwich, they are entitled to justice because of the horrific assault they have suffered.

Call it tough guy in the streets and widdle guy in the sheets (of paper for court filings).

2025 election results were meaningless, he thinks

Support workers right to organize for a fair contract. BOYCOTT Starbucks

While Trump wrecks US efforts to fight climate change, state governors step up

New Data Finds Members Reduced GHG Emissions 24% and Grew GDP by 34%

US Climate Alliance

The U.S. Climate Alliance today released its Annual Report, Pressing Forward: Governors’ Enduring Fight for a Resilient and Sustainable Future, detailing how its members are achieving record climate pollution reductions, driving economic growth, building the clean energy and clean technology future, and charting a path forward to save Americans trillions of dollars.    

“We are resilient, determined, and undaunted. And most importantly, our states are standing together,” said Alliance co-chairs Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers and California Governor Gavin Newsom in their Annual Report message. “Americans want a cleaner, safer, healthier future and that’s what we will continue delivering. No matter the obstacles, we are pressing forward.”  

The report was released today by Governor Evers and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, during a press conference at the COP30 Local Leaders Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the world’s mayors, governors, and subnational leaders are showcasing how local action is driving global climate progress. The Alliance will lead a delegation of top state leaders to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, where they will send a clear message to the international community that climate action in the U.S. cannot be stopped. Learn more about the U.S. delegation of more than 100 local leaders in Brazil here.  

Questions raised about long-term melatonin use

Think melatonin is safe? New research reveals a hidden heart risk

American Heart Association 

Remember that statistical correlation is
not the same as causation

Key Research Findings

• A large review of health data from more than 130,000 adults with insomnia found that people who took melatonin for a year or longer were more likely to develop heart failure, be hospitalized for the condition, or die from any cause compared to those who didn't take the supplement.
• While the study cannot prove that melatonin directly causes these outcomes, the strong association raises important safety questions about long-term use of this popular sleep aid. Researchers emphasize that more studies are needed to fully understand melatonin's impact on heart health and ensure it can be used safely.

People who regularly take melatonin to improve sleep may face serious health risks. A preliminary study presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2025 found that adults with chronic insomnia who used melatonin for a year or longer were more likely to develop heart failure, be hospitalized for heart failure, and die from any cause than those who did not take the supplement. The findings will be discussed at the AHA's annual meeting, taking place Nov. 7-10 in New Orleans, a leading international event for cardiovascular science and clinical research updates.

Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland that regulates the body's sleep-wake cycle. Its levels naturally rise in the dark and drop during daylight hours. Synthetic melatonin, which is chemically identical to the natural hormone, is widely used to treat insomnia (difficulty falling and/or staying asleep) and jet lag. In many countries, including the U.S., melatonin supplements can be purchased over the counter. However, because they are not regulated in the U.S., products can differ widely in purity and dosage.

‘Mega-Layoffs’ Under Trump as Corporations Have Cut 1 Million Jobs This Year—Most Since 2003

“Trump put billionaires in charge of everything” 

Brad Reed

The US labor market, which in recent months had ground nearly to a halt, now appears to be entering a downward spiral.

As reported by the Washington Post on Thursday, new data from corporate outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that employers in October announced 153,000 job cuts, which marked the highest number of layoffs in that month since October 2003.

Total announced job cuts in 2025 have now reached 1.1 million, a number that the Post describes as a “recession-like” level comparable to the steep job cuts announced in the wake of the dotcom bust of the early 2000s, the global financial crisis of 2008, and the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

John Challenger, the CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, told the Post that the huge number of October layoffs showed the economy was entering “new territory.”

“We haven’t seen mega-layoffs of the size that are being discussed now—48,000 from UPS, potentially 30,000 from Amazon—since 2020 and before that, since the recession of 2009,” he explained. “When you see companies making cuts of this size, it does signal a real shift in direction.”

CNBC noted that the Challenger report found that the tech sector is currently being hardest hit by the layoffs, and it said that the adoption of artificial intelligence was a significant driver of job cuts.