Legal problems could Stefan Pryor's return to Rhode Island government

Secretary in name only?

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

Since August, Stefan Pryor has spearheaded the state’s economic development strategy, including distribution of millions of dollars in incentives for businesses, researchers and recent college graduates.

But the Rhode Island Senate has not yet confirmed Pryor as state commerce secretary, more than seven months after Gov. Dan McKee’s nomination. And questions linger over the legality of Pryor’s authority to act without legislative approval, including by the Senate’s own legal counsel.

“We don’t believe the statutory authority exists,” Greg Paré, a spokesperson for Senate President Valarie Lawson, said in an interview Wednesday. 

John Marion, executive director for Common Cause Rhode Island, a nonpartisan watchdog group, voiced similar doubts during an initial confirmation hearing for Pryor before the Senate Committee on Commerce Tuesday night.

“Many department directors can serve on an interim basis, but commerce is not one of them,” Marion told the panel. 

Marion referenced the state statute empowering the governor to fill cabinet-level vacancies on an interim basis until Senate confirmation. It lists 11 director roles as eligible for interim appointments, but not commerce secretary. And, it expressly prohibits anyone beyond the 11 named department directors from taking on the job on an interim basis. 

The law doesn’t lay out consequences for interim directors who take the job before Senate confirmation. In Pryor’s case, the Senate is expected to give its blessing next week following the commerce committee’s vote Tuesday to advance the nomination.

Paré said the initial confirmation hearing was delayed due to scheduling issues, noting the commerce committee has only met once before this year, on March 10. 

Concerns over Pryor’s ability to serve in the $238,597-a-year job before Senate confirmation surfaced in August, as first reported by Providence Business News. McKee’s office insisted, and still does, that the appointment was legitimate, pointing to past precedent and the governor’s constitutional authority.

Changed his mind for some reason

April 18: Fishing Moon Festival

What can dogs tell us about how robots can locate objects?

Gestures may be as important as words

Brown University

Whether in the kitchen or on a workshop floor, robot assistants that can fetch items for people could be extremely useful. Now, a team of Brown University researchers has developed a way of making robots better at figuring out exactly which items a user might want them to retrieve.

The new approach enables robots to use inputs from both human language and gesture as they reason about how to locate and retrieve target objects. In a study that will be presented on Tuesday, March 17, during the International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction in Edinburgh, Scotland, the researchers show that the approach had an 89% success rate in finding the correct object in complex environments, outperforming other object retrieval approaches.

“Searching for things requires a robot to navigate large environments,” said Ivy He, a graduate student at Brown and the study’s lead author. “With current technology, robots are pretty good at identifying objects, but when the environment is cluttered, things are moving around or things are hidden by other objects, that makes things much more difficult. So this work is about using both language and gesture to help in that search task.”

The research makes use of an approach to robot planning called a POMDP (partially observable Markov decision process), a mathematical framework that allows a robot to reason under uncertainty. In the real world, robots rarely have a perfect understanding of the world. Different types of objects can look similar. There may be more than one of a particular object in a room. Items might be partially or completely hidden from view.

New vaccine against Lyme disease seeking approval. Will Bobby Jr. give it?

Lyme disease vaccine shows over 70% efficacy in phase 3 trial

Not perfect but good enough

Laine Bergeson

An experimental six-strain Lyme vaccine has demonstrated more than 70% efficacy in preventing Lyme disease in people aged five years and older, according to a statement yesterday from Pfizer. 

Despite falling short of its primary statistical goal in a phase 3 randomized controlled clinical trial, in part because fewer than expected Lyme disease cases were reported during the study period, the vaccine showed about 70% to 73% efficacy in preventing confirmed Lyme disease after a four-dose series. In a secondary analysis, the vaccine did meet the statistical goal. 

The vaccine, being developed by Pfizer and Valneva, was studied at sites in areas of high Lyme disease incidence in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Pfizer said the reduction in infections is “clinically meaningful” and indicated that the companies will submit the vaccine for regulatory approval. If approved, it would be the first Lyme vaccine available for humans in more than two decades.

Trump once again votes by mail in Florida election even though he claims mail voting is cheating

It makes sense though when you remember Trump IS a cheater

Julia Conley

Donald Trump has been escalating his push for the US Senate to pass sweeping legislation that would ban universal mail-in voting, spreading misinformation about mailed ballots, and slamming the system as “cheating”—but amid his efforts, he found time recently to cast his own ballot by mail for the latest time in Florida’s special legislative election.

Voter records in Palm Beach County showed Trump cast his ballot by mail before early voting ended Sunday in state House and Senate races in Florida.

It’s at least the second time that the president has voted by mail in Florida; he did so in 2020 as well.

“I can vote by mail,” he told reporters at the time. “I’m allowed to.”

That same year, he aggressively promoted the baseless notion that voting by mail—a system long used in states run by both Republicans and Democrats, including Utah and Washington—would lead to election fraud.

Numerous US courts found no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election, in which more voters relied on voting by mail due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The third, and largest "No Kings" protest draws thousands to the Rhode Island State House

Huge turn-outs at events throughout Rhode Island

Steve Ahlquist

 

The third “No Kings” protest in Providence brought thousands of people to the Rhode Island State House on Saturday as part of a “nationwide day of action to say, clearly and collectively: No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings.” The event, which ran from 1 to 4 pm, was co-emceed by Sajo Jefferson and Aiyah Josiah-Faeduwor.

The event started with some music by the Raging Grannies.

Here’s the video: No Kings PVD - March 28, 2026

Asa Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, gave what he hoped would be more than just a simple land acknowledgement:

“I was asked to go deeper than just acknowledging the land, so I want to share the history of the United States, this pattern of violence and control over people along certain power dynamics, racial, or religious lines. It was something new to these lands. To ground you, this region we live in has been inhabited by some of my ancestors for around 12,000 or 13,000 years, after the recession of the glacier in the last ice age.

“Over these last 12 or 13,000 years, the people that lived here had been building long-term community responsibility and trusting spiritual bonds to all the other living things that are here - the plants, animals, fungi, and even the stones. Things we learn from and support in what we do every day. In King Philip’s War and the Pequot War in Connecticut, the people witnessed some of the most brutal violence. The colonizers introduced a new level of violence that had not been conceived of as possible.

How other countries deal with child rape

 

Trump brags about his MAGA billionaires buying the news media and stifling opposition

Trump claims victory in his war on the First Amendment

Legislation Would Fold CRMC into DEM, Remaking Controversial Executive Council Into an Advisory Board

One way to deal with a dysfunctional agency

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

Mergers and acquisitions isn’t usually a process that applies to the public sector, but under proposed legislation this year it is something that could happen with the state’s environmental agencies.

Rhode Island government splits environmental management and protection into two separate agencies. Broadly, the Department of Environmental Management handles much of the state’s interior, oversees air and water permits, and oversees the state’s food production.

The Coastal Resources Management Council has jurisdiction over developments within 200 feet of Rhode Island’s coastline and 3 miles out to sea, an area that covers all of Narragansett Bay and most of Block Island Sound.

New legislation (H7996/S3082) proposes to merge the two entities, with CRMC — as the smaller of the two agencies — becoming a bureau within DEM. CRMC’s director would become a deputy director within DEM, and the politically appointed board that oversees the coastal agency would be transformed into an advisory body with little decision-making power.

For advocates of the legislation, the bills kill two birds with one stone. The controversial 10-member CRMC board is nerfed, and the state’s two environmental agencies receive a synergistic boost by joining forces. CRMC’s executive director would go from a position confirmed by the Senate to one hired by DEM.

Why mosquitoes always find you and how they decide to attack

Mosquitoes aren’t following each other—they’re all zeroing in on the same deadly combination of breath and dark targets.

Georgia Institute of Technology

A picture of mosquito trajectories around a person
in a mosquito chamber. Credit: Georgia Tech/MIT

After closely tracking hundreds of mosquitoes swarming around a human subject and analyzing 20 million data points, researchers from Georgia Tech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a mathematical model that predicts how female mosquitoes fly toward people to feed.

This research offers the first detailed visualization of mosquito flight behavior and provides measurable data that could improve trapping and control methods. Beyond being irritating, mosquitoes spread dangerous diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, and Zika, which together cause more than 700,000 deaths each year.

The team also launched an interactive public website that lets users explore mosquito movement and behavior.

What Trump's "reorganization" has done to the Interior Department

Chaos

By Jake Bolster, Peter Aldhous

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

One year into Donald Trump’s second term, the Department of the Interior is in turmoil, hobbling many of the agencies overseeing the country’s public lands and waters. 

Not only has Interior lost some 11,000 employees, or more than 17 percent of its workforce, it is also reeling from a drastic centralization of personnel: Last May, almost 5,500 staff from the department’s component agencies were moved into the office of the Interior secretary, Doug Burgum. 

That shift has created a hostile work culture, made staff less efficient and broken important lines of communication, former Interior employees say. According to an Inside Climate News analysis of federal workforce data released by the Office of Personnel Management, almost 1,800 workers have left Burgum’s office since the reorganization—the vast majority opting to retire or quit.

As a whole, the federal workforce shrank by about 12 percent in the first year of the second Trump administration. Some parts of the government, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, which shed 24 percent of its employees, have suffered bigger losses. But Burgum’s reorganization is unique, with wide ripple effects. 

Under an order signed on April 17, Burgum confirmed plans to absorb administrative staff from Interior’s component agencies, including workers responsible for human resources, training, information technology, contracting and communications. The Inside Climate News analysis shows sudden staff losses in the next month at agencies including the Bureau of Reclamation; the U.S. Geological Survey; the Bureau of Land Management; the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement; and the Fish and Wildlife Service that correspond to the swelling of Burgum’s own staff.

The stated goal was efficiency. “This unification effort will accelerate technology advancements and enhance the Department’s ability to deliver on our core mission,” Burgum’s order said. 

But Interior staff reorganized into Burgum’s office who later left say they encountered a hostile, inefficient work culture designed to push people out. Russell Vought, the powerful director of the federal Office of Management and Budget, said in a private speech between Trump’s two terms that “we want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected” by going to work, ProPublica reported in 2024.

Why do Americans hate each other while Canadians love each other?

Could it have something to do with our politics? With the sociopath in the Oval?

Robert Reich

A survey released on March 5 by the Pew Research Center finds that 53 percent of American adults describe the morality and ethics of our fellow citizens as “bad” (ranging from “somewhat bad” to “very bad”).

This puts Americans way out front of other nations on the we-hate-our-compatriots scale. In the 24 other countries polled by Pew, most people called their fellow citizens somewhat good or very good.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the United States is Canada, where 92 percent say their fellow Canadians are good, while just 7 percent say they’re bad.

Why are we so down on our fellow citizens? It may have something to do with our politics.

Some 30 years ago, my dear friend the late Republican Senator Alan Simpson told me Democrats viewed Republicans as stupid and Republicans viewed Democrats as evil. “I’d rather be in the stupid party,” he chuckled.

I asked him why Republicans saw Democrats as evil.

He took a deep breath. “Religion.”

I said I didn’t understand.

“It’s the Christian right,” he said, as if talking to a five-year-old. “Since Reagan, my party has been a magnet for religious conservatives and Christian fundamentalists, where it’s all about good and evil. Too bad, pal. You’re on the evil side.”

That was 30 years ago. Since then, the divide has only sharpened.

In 2012, Mitt Romney told supporters that “47 percent” of Americans would vote for Obama no matter what because they’re “dependent upon government ... believe that they are victims ... believe the government has a responsibility to care for them ... [and] pay no income tax.”

Insulting 47 percent of Americans was no way to win an election. It was also no way to unite the country.

Then in 2016, Hillary Clinton described half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” Also no way to win or to foster mutual trust.

Once Trump took office, dislike of our fellow citizens soared.

Before he entered the White House, 47 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of Democrats said people in the opposing party were “immoral.”

By 2022, after years of Trump’s venom: 72 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats called people in the opposing party “immoral.”

Since he’s been back in the Oval, it’s gotten even worse. 

Welcome to the USA

Big Oil has moved on from ‘greenwashing.’

Here’s industry's new playbook.

Kate Yoder, Senior Staff Writer

"This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here."

Remember when the fossil fuel industry couldn’t stop talking about climate change? In 2020, when oil prices plunged in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Big Oil promoted efforts to cut carbon emissions and trumpeted various energy “innovations”: transforming algae into fuel (Exxon Mobil), capturing carbon (Chevron), and producing green hydrogen (BP). 

Critics deemed it “greenwashing” — highlighting small sustainable investments to distract people from the pollution at the core of their business.

It didn’t take long for oil companies to move on from those old talking points. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, supply disruptions drove oil prices up, and oil giants switched to a new message: Fossil fuels are essential to “energy security,” and they’re here to stay. 

That’s according to a new report from Clean Creatives, an initiative pressuring PR companies and advertisers to stop working with fossil fuel clients, that analyzed more than 1,800 advertisements, press releases, and social media campaigns from BP, Shell, Exxon, and Chevron between 2020 and 2024.