...Here's the answer
Former Charlestown state Rep Blake "Flip" Filippi has turned into a Robert F. "Worm Ate My Brain" Kennedy Jr. fan with several favorable "tweets" on Elon Musk's "X" platform.
Flip's most recent tweet highlights the debunked conspiracy theory that offshore wind turbines are responsible for killing whales. Here it is:
Charlestown state Rep. Tina Spears on the Commission
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
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| Tina (left) and Charlestown state Senator Victoria Gu have been working hard on this issue |
Its official name is a mouthful — the Special Legislative Study Commission on Climate Change Impacts and Solutions — with an equally long agenda and a member roster to match.
Rhode Island has been no stranger to strong, intense storms,
but it’s not the infamous Hurricane of 1938 that lawmakers have been inspired
by. A trio of stronger-than-usual nor’easters whacked the state last winter,
causing an epidemic of coastal flooding and beach erosion in all of the state’s
coastal communities.
Is it COVID-19? Flu?
Julie Sullivan, Emory University and Wilbur Lam, Georgia Institute of Technology
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| Over-the-counter multiplex tests for more than one illness may soon come to a pharmacy near you. Paco Burgada/iStock via Getty Images |
Many of the viruses that cause upper respiratory infections such as influenza A or B and the virus that causes COVID-19 all employ similar tactics.
They target the same areas in your body – primarily the upper and lower airways – and this shared battleground triggers a similar response from your immune system. Overlapping symptoms – fever, cough, fatigue, aches and pains – make it difficult to determine what may be the underlying cause.
Now, at-home rapid tests can simultaneously determine whether someone has COVID-19 or the flu. Thanks in part to the National Institutes of Health’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics, or RADx, program, the Food and Drug Administration has provided emergency use authorization for seven at-home rapid tests that can distinguish between COVID-19, influenza A and influenza B.
Our team in Atlanta – composed of biomedical engineers, clinicians and researchers at Emory University, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Georgia Institute of Technology – is part of the RADx Test Verification Core.
We closely collaborate with other institutions and agencies to determine whether and how well COVID-19 and influenza diagnostics work, effectively testing the tests. Our center has worked with almost every COVID and flu diagnostic on the market, and our data helped inform the instructions you might see in many of the home test kits on the market.
While no test is perfect, to now be able to test for certain viruses at home when symptoms begin can help patients and their doctors come up with appropriate care plans sooner.
EDITOR'S NOTE: You can get four free, home-delivered standard COVID test kits NOW. Click here to order Free At-home Tests. Need help placing an order for your at-home tests? Call 1-800-232-0233 (TTY 1-888-720-7489).
Want to vote? Time to act
By Beth
Comery
October 15, 2024 — Deadline to submit a mail ballot
application.
October 16 to November 4 — Early voting and emergency
mail ballot period.
November 5 — General Election (gulp).
Find your polling place and view sample ballot go here.
One reason to vote early: You could wake up sick on election
day.
********************
(Also, go get your Covid vaccination. It’s not over. People
are still being hospitalized. People are still dying.)
They listen and help
By Anne Mulhall
As we approach this year’s election, I want to share my
thoughts on why I’ll be voting for the following candidates running for Town
Council: Deb Carney, Stephen Stokes, Craig Marr, Rippy Serra and Peter Slom.
When I first got involved in Charlestown’s local politics, I
didn’t know much about the workings of the town. What I did know is that I
cared about our community and wanted to be more informed. Over time, not only
did I learn more about Charlestown’s issues, but I also found myself with a
supportive group of people who are always available to address any questions or
concerns I have, both personally and for my neighbors.
It’s a refreshing change to know that there are candidates
who are genuinely invested in the needs of the residents. They’re not just
asking for our vote; they’re actively engaging with people, listening, and
explaining the complexities of town matters in a way that makes sense to
everyday citizens like me. I appreciate their ability to break down issues,
helping me understand the how, why, and what of each decision, even though I’m
not particularly political by nature.
Now, when my neighbors come to me with questions about town
issues or who to turn to, I confidently direct them to these candidates,
because I trust their commitment to doing what’s right for the people of
Charlestown. Their willingness to listen and explain things at any time, with
full transparency, is why I’m supporting them.
I encourage you to join me in voting for these candidates
this election season. Let’s continue to support leaders who are open,
responsive, and dedicated to the well-being of our community like Deb Carney,
Stephen Stokes, Craig Marr, Rippy Serra and Peter Slom.
A version of this article appeared as a Letter To the Editor
According to news reports, fueled by Donald Trump lies, MAGAnuts have been sending death threats to meteorologists and, in North Carolina, disrupted FEMA aid to hurricane victims. FEMA evacuated its workers from Rutherford County NC after threats that "armed militia" planned to attack FEMA workers.
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| By Matt Davies |
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Tours offer better understanding of community issues around shoreline access, sea-level rise, and stormwater impact
The group of more than 40 people recently gathered on a narrow walkway at Barrington Town Beach drew quizzical looks from passersby.
Perhaps it was the large poster board of aerial views of Barrington shoreline
access points, or the sight of the town’s planning director talking into a
karaoke microphone about green infrastructure projects along the coastline.
The evening walk was not a nighttime field trip, but an
educational seminar putting a spotlight on shoreline issues of stormwater and
water quality, sea-level rise and shoreline access. However, these
presentations are not taking place in classrooms, they’re happening at the
water’s edge.
Hosted by the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management
Council, Rhode Island Sea Grant, and the University of Rhode Island Coastal
Institute, these walking tours feature discussions of ongoing research and
bring together experts in shoreline processes, resource economics, and the law.
To date, walking tours have been held in Charlestown, Bristol, Barrington and
Westerly. More walks are planned for 2025.
It's getting really bad here
When Geri Tebo, a registered nurse, moved back to
her home state of Rhode Island late last year after living for many years in
Arizona, one of her priorities was finding a primary care practitioner for
herself and her husband, Paul.
From MarketWatch
It proved to be a frustrating and troublesome task.
“In Arizona, it probably took about two weeks to get
scheduled with a primary care doc when you looked for a new one,” Tebo told
Ocean State Stories. “We were not prepared for it to be very difficult finding
one here.”
During December and January, Tebo said she was “making calls
trying to get a provider appointment and I was not only calling in Rhode Island
but nearby Connecticut because we live on the border. I had one office tell me,
and this was in late 2023, that they could get me in in January of 2025. We
were dumbfounded.”
Another office, Tebo recalled, said “our doc isn’t taking
any new patients, but if you go to Newport, you might be able to find one. And
I actually called one in Newport but then I thought ‘do we really want to drive
that far from home for a PCP?’ And the last thing we found was an appointment
in Connecticut, but it was like an hour and 15 minute drive.”
Tebo’s experience is emblematic of a crisis in Rhode Island
and the nation. According to a recent report by the Milbank Memorial Fund, the
number of primary care physicians per 100,000 people in America continues to
fall. The number is 2012 was 68.4 per 100,000 people in 2021, but had fallen to
67.2 per 100,00 people in 2021.
Authors of Project 2025 drop FOIA bomb on government
by Sharon Lerner and Andy Kroll for ProPublica
.webp)
Among the documents they’ve sought are lists of agency personnel and messages sent by individual government workers that mention, among other things, “climate equity,” “voting” or “SOGIE,” an acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.
The Heritage team filed these requests even as the think tank’s Project 2025 was promoting a controversial plan to remove job protections for tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be identified and fired if Donald Trump wins the presidential election.
All three men who filed the requests — Mike Howell, Colin Aamot and Roman Jankowski — did so on behalf of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, an arm of the conservative group that uses FOIA, lawsuits and undercover videos to investigate government activities. In recent months, the group has used information gleaned from the requests to call attention to efforts by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency to teach staff about gender diversity, which Fox News characterized as the “Biden administration’s ‘woke’ policies within the Department of Defense.”
Heritage also used material gathered from a FOIA search to claim that a listening session the Justice Department held with voting rights activists constituted an attempt to “rig” the presidential election because no Republicans were present.
An analysis of more than 2,000 public-records requests submitted by Aamot, Howell and Jankowski to more than two dozen federal offices and agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Trade Commission, shows an intense focus on hot-button phrases used by individual government workers.
Those 2,000 requests are just the tip of the iceberg, Howell told ProPublica in an interview. Howell, the executive director of the Oversight Project, estimated that his group had submitted more than 50,000 information requests over the past two years. He described the project as “the most prestigious international investigative operation in the world.”
Massachusetts Towns Grapple With High-Hazard Dams as Climate Risks Escalate
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| Westerly's dangerous Potter Hill Dam, mired in town politics like this story describes. Photo by Cynthia Drummond for ecoRI |
Of the state’s 3000+ original dams, most built to power
small mills during the industrial revolution, around 300 are considered
high-hazard. This classification, one intended to warn surrounding civilians
that structural failure or misoperation is likely to result in the loss of
human life, is becoming even more salient as climate change increases severe
weather. And although experts say the best solution is dam removal, townsfolk
don’t like change.
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| A “Cancer Country” sign on a taxi parodies a famous Marlboro ad campaign. Viviane Moos/Corbis via Getty Images |
The same year, a report from the nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise found gun manufacturers were targeting the youth market with eye-catching ads and product placements in video games.
And in the run-up to the Paris Olympics, a leading international health journal urged the International Olympic Committee to end its relationship with Coca-Cola because of the increased obesity, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure associated with sugary drinks.
Social media, guns, sugar: These are all examples of what we call “market-driven epidemics.”
When people think of epidemics, they might think they’re caused only by viruses or other germs. But as public health experts, we know that’s just part of the story. Commerce can cause epidemics, too. That’s why our team coined the phrase in a recent study because you can’t solve a problem without naming it.
Market-driven epidemics follow a familiar script. First, companies start selling an appealing, often addictive product. As more and more people start using it, the health harms become clearer. Yet even as evidence of damage grows and deaths pile up, sales continue to rise as companies resist efforts by health authorities, consumer groups and others to control them.
We see this pattern with many products today, including social media platforms, firearms, sugar-sweetened beverages, ultra-processed foods, opioids, nicotine products, infant formula and alcohol. Collectively, their harm contributes to more than 1 million deaths in the U.S. each year.
