No cause for alarm

After the primaries, handshakes or bad blood?

Gubernatorial primary battles end with different outcomes.

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

No love lost

Less than 24 hours after losing a bruising primary reelection battle, Gov. Dan McKee backed his rival, Helena Buonanno Foulkes for the Nov. 3 general election.

Yet endorsements have not materialized in other heated primary matchups, including the Providence Democratic mayoral race. Mayor Brett Smiley declined to endorse his progressive challenger, David Morales, as first reported by The Boston Globe Rhode Island.

Meanwhile, Elaine Pelino, who narrowly lost the Republican gubernatorial nomination to Aaron Guckian, appears unwilling to endorse her opponent, despite pleas for party unity by Guckian. 

But will any of it sway voters?

Not really, according to Adam Myers, an associate professor of political science at Providence College.

“These kinds of personal endorsements from former rivals can make a difference in the margins, but I don’t think there’s strong evidence they matter a lot,” Myers said. “Most voters don’t pay attention enough for it to make a difference.”

Unlike Foulkes and McKee, whose differences are more personal than ideological or generational, GOP nominee Aaron Guckian and his primary opponent, Elaine Pelino, represent vastly different brands of conservatism.

Guckian, 50, of East Greenwich, is a self-described compassionate conservative while Pelino, 72, of Smithfield is a strong MAGA supporter. Guckian cemented his place as the nominee by 259 votes on Tuesday, following a review by election administrators of the memory sticks for ballot-counting machines. 

Guckian said Friday he’s still waiting to hear from Pelino to concede the race. He has not asked Pelino for her endorsement. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it.

“I would hope she would endorse me,” Guckian said in an interview. “We need to unify as a party for November.”

With just 14% of state voters registered as Republicans, the already slim path to victory for Guckian is only possible with a united base of conservative supporters, Myers said.

“Even the appearance of a divided Republican base does not look good for Guckian,” Myers said. 

Especially when matched up against former Republican-turned independent gubernatorial challenger Ken Block, 60, of Barrington, who trailed Foulkes by 20 points in August public polling. But he has nearly as much support among registered Republican voters as he does independents, according to the surveys.

“He could definitely peel off a lot of Republican voters,” Myers said of Block. 

Especially if he got the backing of Pelino.

Scientists reversed biological age in older adults in just 4 weeks

Healthy foods again may hold the key

University of Sydney

Older adults may be able to shift important markers of aging in a surprisingly short amount of time simply by changing what they eat.

New research from the University of Sydney found that Australians aged 65 to 75 who reduced either dietary fat or animal-based protein showed signs of a lower biological age after just four weeks. Biological age is an estimate of how old the body appears based on its health and physiological condition, rather than the number of years a person has been alive.

The findings were published in Aging Cell and were led by Dr. Caitlin Andrews from the University of Sydney's School of Life and Environmental Sciences.

Although the results suggest that diet may influence aging-related health markers relatively quickly, the researchers stress that the findings are preliminary. Longer studies will be needed to determine whether the changes persist, whether they translate into a lower risk of age-related disease, and whether similar effects occur in younger or different populations.

The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way

Former CEO of URI-connected contractor bought Collins' support

By William Turton, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Molly Redden and Kirsten Berg for ProPublica

Then-URI President David Dooley (left) and Navatek CEO Martin Kao (right)
sign collaboration agreement in 2013 establishing Peace Dale office.
Photo by Will Collette

In the final weeks of 2019, a top fundraiser for Sen. Susan Collins walked into a perilous meeting at a Corner Bakery in Washington, D.C.

For the first time in her two-decade Senate career, the Republican lawmaker from Maine was in danger of losing her seat. President Donald Trump’s dismal approval ratings were dragging her down in the polls, and she was falling behind her likely 2020 Democratic challenger in fundraising.

Scott Reed, head of the Collins super PAC, was on a mission to close that gap. Reed was meeting that day with three executives from a Hawaiian defense contractor, Navatek. A year earlier, Collins had helped their company land a multimillion-dollar Navy research contract in Maine. Now, seated at a coffee shop not far from the U.S. Capitol, Reed asked them for a $500,000 donation.

Government contractors are banned from making political contributions. More consequentially, for the company to offer donations to Collins in exchange for an official action, or for Collins to accept, would constitute criminal bribery.

But the company did have such a proposal: Navatek was hungry for more government contracts in Maine. If they cut a big check, the CEO told Reed, Navatek wanted Collins to guarantee tens of millions of dollars in additional federal funding.

To skirt campaign finance laws and conceal the source of the funds, Navatek planned to funnel the donation through a shell company. The CEO wanted assurance that Collins would know where the money came from. Reed confirmed that she would, the executive said — and that Navatek would get its government contracts.

After the Corner Bakery meeting, Navatek’s CEO, Martin Kao, sent an initial $150,000 to the Collins super PAC using the shell company. Two months later, he told Navatek executives that Collins committed to getting the company $32 million in naval contracts, according to an internal company email reviewed by ProPublica.

Three years later, Kao holed up in a conference room to recount the Corner Bakery meeting to a group of four FBI agents and federal prosecutors. The FBI had seen through his shell company ruse, and in 2022 a grand jury indicted him for making illegal campaign contributions. No one working for Collins was charged.

Facing years in prison, Kao hoped to do less time by revealing the entire scheme.

What he told them has never before become public. The Corner Bakery meeting, he asserted, was just one episode in a sprawling pay-to-play operation that embroiled some of the most powerful figures in Congress.

Over three days at the U.S. attorney’s office in Honolulu, Kao laid out in devastating detail how his operation worked. He gave agents a 50-page document naming dozens of lobbyists, congressional staffers and members of Congress who he said helped him trade cash for contracts. Kao and his close associates had donated nearly $900,000 to dozens of politicians, allowing Navatek to establish operations in half a dozen states with over $40 million a year in government funding.

Most damningly, Kao told FBI agents and prosecutors, the company’s work for the government was of no real value. Navatek’s research under his stewardship never resulted in products the military wanted to buy, ProPublica found.

Kao’s tell-all interviews with the FBI lasted into late 2024. His confessions opened up an entirely new phase of the investigation. Agents sifted through hundreds of thousands of records seized during Kao’s arrest and found that many were consistent with his account of widespread influence peddling.

Kao had credibility issues. He was now a felon trying to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. And there were other challenges. Building a corruption case against elected officials requires extraordinary proof of a quid pro quo arrangement, in part because the Supreme Court has narrowed what counts as bribery.

DISCLOSURE: I first wrote about Navatek in 2013 when it opened its first university-partnered branch in Peace Dale. My nephew, a newly minted Ph.D. in ocean engineering was among their first hires and has worked for the company ever since. Their model of teaming up with engineering schools was, and still is, very promising despite Martin Kao's many flaws revealed in ProPublica's investigation.  - Will Collette

Desperate to appear strong, Trump shows pathetic weakness

Surprisingly, providing more evidence that he is crazy doesn't help Trump to regain public support

Paul Waldman

Remember “Sharpiegate,” a relatively inconsequential but uncommonly stupid episode from Trump’s first term?

The Sharpie is back.

In the surrealist performance hall that is the Oval Office, Trump grabbed his pen, took out a map of the Great Lakes, crossed out “Lake Ontario” and wrote in “Lake America,” part of a pointless new trade war he has started with Canada.

“Lake Ontario, that’s gone. Lake America,” he said. “So now we have a lake and now we have a Gulf because we have the Gulf of America and now we have Lake America.”

Stirring words.

Like so much of what Trump does, this was meant to be a show of strength. Yet it actually demonstrated just the opposite: Trump is weak and getting weaker.

He can instruct the federal government to change its maps, as he did with an executive order late last week, and will even find that many people will submit to his desires.

As of this writing, Google Maps has changed Lake Ontario to Lake America for those searching in the US, while Apple Maps has yet to do so — though since Apple Maps did change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on Trump’s instruction, it may fall in line soon. (MapQuest loudly refused to make the change, in what may be a bid to inform people that it still exists.)

But if there are any voters in America who are impressed by Trump’s lacustrine nomenclature revisionism, they will surely be hard to find.

Instead, the “Lake America” inanity will be slotted alongside Trump’s ballroom, his quest to keep his name on the Kennedy Center, his helipad, and his Reflecting Pool faceplant. These are the things a failing, frustrated president does in a desperate bid to look strong, because he hasn’t been able to accomplish much of anything that might improve Americans’ lives.

Who does Daddy love moe?

Two year's later, it's still Biden's fault

South County man confirmed with case of life-threatening tick-borne Powassan disease

Tick bites can happen at almost any time of year

The Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) is reporting a confirmed case of the tick-borne Powassan virus disease (Powassan) detected in a Rhode Island resident. This resident is a male in his 60s who lives in Washington County. He began experiencing symptoms of Powassan in late August.   

“We all need to be thinking about tick prevention measures when outdoors,” said Director of Health Jerry Larkin, MD. “Repel and reduce your exposure to ticks, check your body for ticks, and be sure to remove ticks if you find one on yourself, a family member, or a pet. Ticks are tiny. You may not be able to feel them or spot them right away. The sooner you find and remove them, the better your chances are at preventing the serious health issues caused by illnesses like Powassan and Lyme Disease.”    

This is Rhode Island’s third case of Powassan in 2026 and the eleventh case overall since it was first reported in Rhode Island in 2016. Powassan is a tick-borne disease that is found mostly in the Northeast and the Great Lakes region of the United States and in eastern Canada. Over 397 cases of Powassan have been reported in the US in the past 10 years (2016-2025). Powassan cases are rare, but the reported number of cases has increased in recent years. In 2025, there were 76 cases reported nationwide, which represented the most Powassan cases ever in a year. That year, there were 27 cases of Powassan reported in New England: 12 cases in Massachusetts, 6 cases in Maine, 5 cases in Connecticut, and 4 cases in New Hampshire.   

Initial symptoms of Powassan include fever, headache, vomiting, and generalized weakness. The disease usually progresses to meningoencephalitis, which may include meningeal signs, altered mental status, seizures, aphasia (difficulty understanding or speaking), paresis (muscular weakness or paralysis), movement disorders, or cranial nerve palsies. People with severe Powassan disease often need to be hospitalized. There is no vaccine or treatment for Powassan, so preventing exposure to ticks is the best strategy to avoid this disease.   

Love by the numbers

Scientists say love follows hidden mathematical rules

Taylor & Francis Group

Could lasting love have a mathematical formula? Researchers who have studied romantic relationships for decades say that the way feelings change over time may follow patterns that can be modeled with surprising precision.

Professor Laurent Pujo-Menjouet of the University of Lyon I and other researchers around the world have been developing mathematical models that treat romantic relationships as dynamical systems. In other words, they study how feelings evolve, respond to outside pressures, and either recover or decline over time.

In his book Love! Valour! Equations!, which brings together mathematics, psychology, literature, cinema and everyday life, Pujo-Menjouet writes: "There is no mysterious enchantment or magic potion. By now, that would be known. Is all hope lost then? Certainly not. That is precisely where everything becomes interesting."

Iran war pushes diesel – the economy’s lifeblood – to record high prices, with no relief on the horizon

Ditto on home heating oil

Morgan Bazilian, Colorado School of Mines and Jamie Webster, Colorado School of Mines

Diesel fuel prices in the U.S. continue to break all-time records, hitting $6.28 a gallon as a national average on Sept. 14, 2026, and they aren’t likely to come down anytime soon. Because diesel is the fuel for freight transportation, farming and construction – and is related to a key heating fuel – the effects are set to spread across the entire U.S. economy.

The inflation-adjusted price of diesel in late August was about as high as it was in 2022 and has likely risen further. There are still three factors that we, scholars of U.S. and global energy markets and supply chains, see that set the stage for prices to remain high and potentially climb even further.

Two of these elements – environmental protection regulations on oil refineries and Russia’s war with Ukraine – have been building tension for years. But the situation has been pushed into a crisis by the U.S. war against Iran, which has closed the Strait of Hormuz to a large percentage of oil and refined products shipments for more than six months.

Amid that crisis, U.S. oil refineries are making lots of money.

In mid-September 2026, diesel prices were up 67% over September 2025’s monthly national average of $3.75 a gallon, and they have risen sharply since. In January 2026, before the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran in late February, the average diesel price in the U.S. was lower, at $3.52 a gallon – meaning that diesel prices have jumped more than 78% since the war began.

In part, that’s because the country, and the world, have been losing diesel refining capacity for many years and can’t just ramp up production to fill the shortages.

How did progressives do in Rhode Island's Sept. 9 Primary?

Discussing the progressive election night wins with the Working Families Party’s Anusha Venkataraman

Steve Ahlquist

The WFP’s Anusha Venkataraman addresses the crowd at Riffraff

The day after David Morales’ historic Democratic Primary win in the Providence Mayoral race, I sat down with Anusha Venkataraman, the Rhode Island State Director of the Working Families Party (RIWFP). The RIWFP is celebrating a wave of primary victories that “mark a generational shift in Rhode Island politics, as working-class champions won across the ballot.”

Alongside Morales, the RIWFP helped House District 7 candidate Amy Santiago sail to victory, as well as Providence City Council candidates Miguel Martinez Youngs (Ward 1), Yulyana Torres (Ward 3), Jackie Goldman (Ward 5), AnnaJane Yolkien (Ward 13), Justin Roias (Ward 4), and Miguel Sanchez (Ward 6). Every RIWFP-endorsed candidate in Providence won their primary.

The following has been edited for clarity:

Anusha Venkataraman: We’re so excited to sweep our Providence races, and some races we thought would be close didn’t end up close. The closest ones were incumbents. Overall, incumbents didn’t do well statewide, and the incumbents who did win had the Progressive Coalition’s backing. We saw that in Providence, and we saw it with our other incumbents statewide who also faced challenges from the business lobby.

Steve Ahlquist: The League of RI Businesses didn’t win any races. That’s a lot of money they flushed down the toilet. That makes me feel pretty good; you shouldn’t be able to game the system and win races.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, Steve is right to point out how badly LORIB was beaten in their attempt to game the Democratic Primary, but they're not quite done. They have a number of candidates they are backing in the November 3 General Election, especially in South County. These include incumbent MAGA Senator Elaine Morgan, and MAGA challengers to state Reps. Carol McEntee, Kathy Fogarty and Megan Cotter. Sen. Victoria Gu, who represents the southern half of Charlestown, faces a LORIB-backed MAGA guy she's already beaten twice. 

We need to help Sam Wilcox unseat Elaine Morgan and we must defeat the remaining LORIB acolytes.   - Will Collette

Very stable genius

Since Trump took office, public belief that government is corrupt jumped to 90%

For example:

Notice when the big spike happened:

Geology underfoot: Public invited to join field trips focused on Rhode Island landscape

URI hosting 117th annual New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference, Oct. 2-4

Kristen Curry 

The sole purpose of the yearly New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference is to present field trips in interesting geologic areas; this year it’s Rhode Island’s turn—the public is invited to join in. Shown: Beavertail State Park. (URI Photo / Brian Savage)

University of Rhode Island geosciences students get to welcome an event that hasn’t happened at URI since before they were born—and the larger public is also welcome to join and be a student of geology for a day (or two).

Hosted by URI this year, the annual New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference attracts students and faculty from the geologic disciplines across New England, but anyone is welcome to attend. Conference “field trips” are all free and open to the public.

This year’s conference will kick off with emeritus faculty Dan Murray co-hosting a virtual field trip on Thursday, Oct. 1 at noon to share updates on the ancient bedrock geology of Rhode Island. (Murray was also the organizer for URI’s last conference in 1998.)

According to URI geoscientist Dawn Cardace, one of this year’s organizers, “This is a community-led initiative, loosely managed, but much loved: Every year, the host organization shapes the event to fit the host college, the site, and the local flavors.”

Trump declares victory over Greenland

But what really happened?

Brett Wilkins for Common Dreams

An image posted by Donald J. Trump on his Truth Social account
on 20 January 2026 during the Greenland crisis, showing him planting
a US flag on Greenlandic soil with JD Vance and Marco Rubio

Danish and international commentators dismissed President Donald Trump’s claim that the deal he announced on September 18 gives the United States “permanent control” over Greenland’s security as what one journalist called a “repackaging” of long-standing agreements spun as a foreign policy win.

Trump—who has repeatedly threatened to gain control of the autonomous Danish territory, including by military force—said on his Truth Social network: “I am pleased to announce that the United States of America has entered into an Agreement with The Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland, that gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many US concerns. There will be NO COST to the United States!”

“Additionally, from now on, no US adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval,” the president continued. “This is an ‘Infinite Life’ Agreement, there is no end!”

“We look forward to working with the wonderful people of Denmark and Greenland toward a magnificent future with respect to this large, and highly strategic, parcel of land,” Trump added. “We will be very protective of it! This is a dream come true for the United States of America, one that is very important, historic, and special.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed what he called a “historic deal” and “a huge win for the United States and the American people.”

A joint statement released by the office of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who chairs the Naalakkersuisut—Greenland’s governing body—confirmed that “Greenland, Denmark, and the United States are expected to sign an agreement on strengthened security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic area next week” at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Frederiksen stressed that the agreement “recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom [of Denmark] and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination,” while Nielsen said the pact “is to the benefit of us all.”