Judge orders Matunuk owner Perry Raso be given another shot at starting to aqua-farm scallops

‘Do it again, but the right way.’

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

Perry Raso. Photo: Chip Riegel, Edible Rhody

The embattled Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council was dealt another blow last week after a Superior Court judge tossed one of its most high-profile and controversial decisions because the panel violated its own procedures.

The 48-page order from Associate Justice Joseph Montalbano reopens the longstanding battle between acclaimed restaurateur and oyster farmer Perry Raso and nearby property owners, remanding the case back to the council for additional public hearings and consideration. 

Raso, originally known for the now-closed Matunuck Oyster Bar, sought to expand his shellfish empire with a scallop farm in Potter Pond in South Kingstown. The expansion spawned public outcry by property residents who argued the shellfish beds would interfere with recreational boating, fishing and other activities within the cove. A five-year standoff ended in June 2023, when the coastal agency’s appointed panel approved a scaled-down version of Raso’s original proposal, cutting 40% of the acreage and banning floating cages. The council later signed off on further modifications submitted by Raso that changed the size, layout and position of the submerged scallop nets.

Two sets of property owners took their case to the judiciary, filing two separate lawsuits in Providence County Superior Court in September 2024, later consolidated into a single case. The property owners, through their attorneys, again argued the scallop beds interfered with their ability to enjoy the cove — a point Montalbano rejected in his order.

However, Montalbano, who is on track to become the court’s presiding justice, found credence in the plaintiffs’ arguments over process. Specifically, he said the council flouted its own rules by failing to fully explain the rationale for its decision, which contradicted the recommendation from a smaller subcommittee that gave a preliminary, and more comprehensive, review. The council also violated its procedures by failing to give public notice or opportunity for additional public input in the “substantial” revisions Raso submitted after the final vote.

Disgraced former Rhode Island general Mike Flynn just ripped you off for $1.25 million

DOJ payout to Mike Flynn has J6-ers lining up at the trough

Liz Dye

The Department of Justice announced that it was “settling” a malicious prosecution case with Michael Flynn for $1.25 million.

Flynn’s claims were entirely without merit, and a federal judge had already dismissed them once. But the Justice Department decided to pay him anyway, calling it a righteous vindication of Trump’s constant whining that he was illegally targeted by the FBI and Robert Mueller.

"Those who instigated the Russia Collusion Hoax and Crossfire Hurricane abused their power to mislead the American people and tarnish the reputations of President Trump and his supporters,” a DOJ spokesperson told ABC. “Today’s settlement, secured by this Justice Department, is an important step in redressing that historic injustice."

Encouraged by this blatant corruption, Trump’s most ardent supporters are demanding their own cut. This week, a group of January 6 rioters filed a class action lawsuit demanding recompense for the injuries they suffered when they attempted to overturn the election.

The stage is set for the wholesale looting of the federal coffers by Trump and his MAGA allies.

“I’m the opposite of desperate. I don’t care.”

The Catastrophe of Trump’s War and Its Mounting Costs

Robert Reich 

Sorry to intrude on you again, but as we near the end of the fourth week of Trump’s war with no end in sight, I want to make sure you are aware of what he said today, and its implications.

After Tehran dismissed his 15-point ceasefire plan, Trump claimed today that Iran is “begging to make a deal” and that he wasn’t the one pushing for negotiations. (Earlier, he told Tehran to “get serious soon” about negotiating an end to the war.)

“They’ll tell you, ‘We’re not negotiating,’” Trump said. “Of course, they’re negotiating. They’ve been obliterated.” He said Iran is allowing some oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz as a “present” to show how serious it is about negotiating to end the war.

He rejected reports that he was looking for an exit ramp. “I read a story today that I’m desperate to make a deal,” Trump told reporters. “I’m the opposite of desperate. I don’t care.”

Is he naive? Ignorant? Stupid? Or does he think we’re so stupid as not to see that he’s making this up as he goes, that he has no plan, no exit strategy, no way out?

Trump — and Pete Hegseth and anyone else who may be advising him — have already blown this.

They thought the Iranian regime would fall as easily as the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. They assumed they could use air power alone. Wrong on both counts.

They overestimated the capacity and desire of Iranians to overthrow the regime.

They underestimated the regime’s resilience. They didn’t count on it expanding the conflict through the use of cheap drones aimed at closing the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting supply chains throughout the region, and raising oil prices — thereby putting mounting political and economic pressure on the United States.

They didn’t anticipate that they’d have to lift sanctions on Iran, delivering the regime a huge windfall. Nor that they’d deliver vast oil profits to Vladimir Putin.

To the extent they engaged in any planning at all, they focused on America’s military might rather than the consequences of what might happen next. But as we should have learned years ago from bombing North Vietnam, political outcomes cannot be achieved solely from the skies.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse on fired Attorney General Pam Bondi

April 7 – Chariho School Budget Referendum

Vote "YES" on Tuesday - vote at Charlestown Town Hall

Donald Trump issues his most inspiring and profound holiday message yet

Will someone PLEASE go get the 25th Amendment!

Save the Bay volunteers count nearly 600 seals along Rhode Island coastline

Seal population drops

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Photo by Will Collette

Volunteers for Save the Bay counted 22% fewer seals when conducting their annual census of the marine mammal along Rhode Island’s coastline in mid-March. A third of those counted were found on or around Block Island.

The nonprofit environmental advocacy group held its point-in-time count on Wednesday, March 18, when the high temperature reached into the mid-30s off Block Island and winds were between 5 to 10 mph. 

Counts are typically held in March because that’s when the peak number of harbor seals are seen in the Narragansett Bay before they migrate further north, Save the Bay spokesperson Juan Espinoza said. 

“They kind of thrive in spring,” Espinoza said in a phone interview.

How to contain avian flu H5N1 if human-to-human spread begins

With RFK Jr. in charge of the CDC, we are not prepared

By Sandra McLean, York University

Edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan 

The Onion

At this point, avian flu H5N1 is thought to have very limited ability to transmit between humans, but a recent case in British Columbia with an unknown source of transmission has piqued the curiosity and concern of scientists, including York University Professor Seyed Moghadas. Did this lone case come about through transmission from an animal or another person, and if it was via human transmission, what methods would control its spread in the human population?

Director of York's Agent-Based Modeling Laboratory in the Center of Excellence in AI for Public Health Advancement, Moghadas and a group of researchers used modeling to understand the best spread control measures should human-to-human transmission become possible.

"The idea was, let's evaluate some of the interventions that we usually implement at the very earliest stage of a disease outbreak or emerging disease, which we know very little about," he says.

For the research, "Containment Scenarios for Post-Spillover Transmission Chains of Avian Influenza H5N1 from Poultry to Humans," published in Nature Health, various scenarios from isolation to vaccination before or after a spillover event were modeled.

It is one of only a few studies that have explicitly modeled outbreak dynamics following spillover into humans or the effectiveness of public health interventions in early and highly uncertain phases of virus development.

VA Families Losing Homes After Trump Killed Loan Program

"The Most Anti-Veteran President in History"

Julia Conley for Common Dreams

Just as Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress were warned would happen, close to 100,000 US veterans are currently behind on their mortgage payments or are in the process of foreclosure as a result of the White House’s decision to shut down a Department of Veterans Affairs program that helped people with VA-backed home loans when they were behind on their monthly payments.

As NPR reported Thursday, more than 10,000 have already lost their homes, nearly a year after the Trump administration abruptly did away with the VA Servicing Purchase (VASP) program.

The program was rolled out during the Biden administration, after the VA ended a pandemic-era assistance program that had allowed VA home loan borrowers to gradually pay back mortgage payments that they had needed to skip.

Under VASP, the VA purchases home loans that were in default from mortgage services and then modified the loans.

In March 2025, a representative from the Mortgage Bankers Association told the House Veterans Affairs Committee that widespread foreclosures would result if the VASP program—which Republicans in Congress said had been created by former President Joe Biden for “political purposes... to undercut the VA Home Loan program—was not protected.

Despite the warning, the VASP program was halted two months later.

Nearly a year after the program’s end, the VA is still developing a replacement to help veterans—many of whom are struggling to afford essentials just like the majority of other Americans as the cost of living crisis intensifies with rising fuel prices due to Trump’s war on Iran.

Pope to Hegseth: God disapproves

Pope tells Trump administration that God does not want their holy war

Sabrina Haake

The First Amendment strictly prohibits the government from favoring one faith over another, or from endorsing religion in general, whether through subtle or not-so-subtle means. As it evolved from Constitutional text into the canons of caselaw, that framework has protected the plurality for over 250 years by heeding our founders’ warnings to keep church and state separate.

In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause for public school officials to sponsor or encourage prayer in school. State regulations in New York required public schools to open each day with both the Pledge of Allegiance and a nondenominational prayer in which the students recognized their dependence upon an un-named and unspecified God. Under that law, students could absent themselves from the prayer if they found it objectionable. A parent sued.

The Court found that the recitation of a state-composed, non-denominational prayer in public schools was a form of religious indoctrination, even if the prayer was not specific to one denomination, even if it was optional.

The rub then and now is that “optional” participation in a setting controlled by the government is never completely optional. The Jewish kid, the Muslim kid, the Buddhist kid, or the child taught to love God as nature instead of a vindictive creep in the sky has to set themselves apart from the other kids in order not to participate in the prayer. Even standing there silently while the popular kids mouth the prayer all around you can signal difference— defiance against the norm, even. Given stigma and peer pressure, the Court acknowledged that there are social ‘costs’ for not adhering to the group norm. That’s why reinforcing religion as a norm is a form of government indoctrination prohibited under the First Amendment.

Hegseth: First Amendment Who???

Despite the decades-long smacking clarity of the law, Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News bobblehead who renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War without permission from Congress, can’t stop imposing his own religion on the military.

Hegseth holds a monthly Evangelical prayer service at the Pentagon. He announces and promotes his monthly worship coven, what some have called “combative Christianity,” through formal announcements to the troops, and by encouraging attendees to spread the word.

Similar to the school prayer case, these ‘voluntary’ services aren’t entirely voluntary even though Hegseth says they are. They are held in the official Pentagon auditorium, and are broadcast on the Pentagon’s internal TV network, a system designed for maximum saturation at military installations available to over 1.4 million active duty personnel, 1.2 million National Guard/Reserve, 650,000 civilian employees, and thousands of military residents.

How widespread is voter fraud?

Another win for Rhode Island against illegal Trump policies

OMG! Baby bunnies!

Wild, captive, to wild: Working to help save New England’s only native rabbit

Kristen Curry

URI faculty and students are working to help save New England’s only native rabbit; their work follows efforts started at the University by faculty emeriti Thomas Husband in the Department of Natural Resources Science. (Rabbit Photos/Courtesy Roger Williams Park Zoo)

The elusive native New England cottontail rabbit is the subject of lore and literature. But over the last century, their numbers declined precipitously in our region due to development, landscape change, and the introduction of an invasive rabbit.

Now researchers at the University of Rhode Island are using a two-pronged approach to improve the New England cottontail’s prospects, combining genetic and behavioral approaches at two very different sites: busy Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence and the aptly named Patience Island, off of Warwick.

Breeding programs coupled with translocation form an increasingly important method for conserving imperiled species; the approach has been used in the United States to help conserve pygmy and Riparian brush rabbits, but U.S. islands have rarely been used to produce animals for translocation.

T.J. McGreevy, Jr. in URI’s Department of Natural Resources Science is hoping that islands will help preserve the New England cottontail here.

McGreevey recently finished his 14th season of field trapping the New England cottontail on Patience Island; now his state wildlife biologist collaborators will release the rabbits in New Hampshire and Maine this spring. Each winter they move approximately 30 rabbits off island to the mainland; last winter it was 41.

He’s working with URI colleague Justin Richard; they hope their combined efforts will give the native rabbit a better future, preserving its numbers here for centuries to come.

COVID‑19 variant BA.3.2 is spreading quickly across US – a doctor explains what you need to know

Covid variant poses new risks

Kyle B. Enfield, University of Virginia

A variant of COVID-19 called BA.3.2, which has circulated under the radar since late 2024, is now spreading quickly across the United States.

As a pulmonary and critical care doctor, I see many patients who are at high risk for severe COVID-19 due to chronic lung disease, as well as patients living with long COVID. All of them ask me how worried they should be about new variants of the virus.

There’s no sign so far that BA.3.2, nicknamed Cicada, is any more dangerous or causes more severe disease than the variants that were circulating in the winter of 2025-26. But because it’s significantly different from them, the current COVID-19 vaccine may not be as effective against it.

Where did the BA.3.2 variant come from?

BA.3.2 is descended from the omicron variant, which emerged in late 2021.

Compared to the current predominant strains of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, BA.3.2 carries 70 to 75 genetic changes in its spike protein, the part of the virus that helps it get into cells. The spike protein is also the part of the virus that vaccines rely on to coax people’s immune systems into recognizing the virus.

Researchers first identified BA.3.2 in November 2024 in Africa. It started its global trek in 2025 and had made it to 23 countries as of February 2026.

The first U.S. case was detected in a traveler coming into the U.S. in June 2025. Since then, it has been detected in patients and the wastewater systems of 29 states.

Wastewater monitoring is one of the best early methods of detecting strain shift, though the number of states submitting wastewater data to the CDC has declined since around 2022, after the height of the pandemic.

The Cicada variant was first detected in November 2024.

New Trump Rule Would Let Private Equity, Crypto ‘Endanger Retirement Savings of Millions’

Money for tech bros

Jake Johnson

Donald Trump’s Labor Department unveiled a proposal that would welcome private equity and cryptocurrency investments into Americans’ 401(k) plans, the culmination of an aggressive Wall Street lobbying push that could leave the retirement savings of millions vulnerable to the wild swings of so-called “alternative assets.”

The proposed rule, now subject to a public comment period, was issued at the direction of a Trump executive order from last year that was characterized at the time as “the holy grail for private equity.”

In addition to giving employers a green light to include private equity and crypto investments in 401(k) plans offered to workers, the new rule would establish a “safe harbor” allowing retirement account administrators to avoid legal action from employees who believe their funds were steered into excessively risky products.