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Westerly plans to bio-bomb mosquitos on Monday

Helicopters will spread bacteria that kills mosquito larvae on Chapman Pond

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) is announcing that the Town of Westerly will conduct an aerial application of mosquito larvicide across 500 acres of Chapman Swamp and nearby swamplands by helicopter on Monday, April 29, weather permitting. 

The application, which consists of pellets that kill mosquito larvae being dropped by a helicopter, will take place between 8 AM and 3 PM. In the event of inclement weather, a rain date will occur on Tuesday, April 30, weather permitting.

Bti, a naturally occurring bacterium applied in granular form to control mosquito breeding in swamps and other breeding habitats, is the treatment that will be applied. It is applied to standing water where developing larvae are found. 

It is an environmentally friendly product whose toxins specifically affect the larvae of only mosquitoes, black flies, and fungus gnats and do not pose a risk to human health. 

Larviciding is recommended as part of the state's action plan to control West Nile Virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) and considered an effective strategy to reduce mosquito populations and related disease risk.

In most communities, the state recommends applying larvicide by hand to roadside catch basins. In the Chapman Swamp area of Westerly, however, aerial application is recommended given the area’s remote location and large footprint. Mosquitoes carrying the EEE virus were found in Chapman Swamp in 1996, 2003, 2019, 2020, 2022. 

Since 1997, the Town has applied Bti annually to help control mosquito breeding. Additional dates for treatment may be scheduled by the Town; the targeted areas include portions of Chapman Swamp and swampland near Hespar Drive.

For additional mosquito prevention tips, videos, and local data from the Rhode Island Department of Health, visit health.ri.gov/mosquito.

For more information on DEM programs and initiatives, visit www.dem.ri.gov. Follow DEM on Facebook, Twitter (@RhodeIslandDEM), or Instagram (@rhodeisland.dem) for timely updates.

New Research Reveals Why You Should Always Refrigerate Lettuce

Eat your greens but store them safely

By UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES 

A new study explores E. coli contamination in leafy greens, finding that factors like temperature and leaf characteristics affect susceptibility. 

Lettuce is particularly vulnerable, but kale and collards show promise as less susceptible options due to their natural antimicrobial properties when cooked.

Leafy greens are valuable for their dietary fiber and nutrients, yet they may also carry dangerous pathogens. Lettuce, in particular, has frequently been linked to foodborne illness outbreaks in the U.S. A recent study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign investigates the factors influencing E. coli contamination in five different types of leafy greens: romaine lettuce, green-leaf lettuce, spinach, kale, and collard greens.

Medical Providers Still Grappling With UnitedHealth Cyberattack

‘More Devastating Than Covid’

Samantha Liss 

DALL-E Created Thumbnail

Two months after a cyberattack on a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary halted payments to some doctors, medical providers say they’re still grappling with the fallout, even though UnitedHealth told shareholders on Tuesday that business is largely back to normal.

“We are still desperately struggling,” said Emily Benson, a therapist in Edina, Minnesota, who runs her own practice, Beginnings & Beyond. “This was way more devastating than covid ever was.”

Change Healthcare, a business unit of the Minnesota-based insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, controls a digital network so vast it processes nearly 1 in 3 U.S. patient records each year. The network is a critical conduit for shuttling information between most of the nation’s insurance companies and medical providers, who submit claims through it to get paid for treating patients.

We can't recycle our way out of our plastic mess

Reduce. Period.

By Daily Dose

This year’s Earth Day theme was Planet vs. Plastics, a problem we have been railing against since Alan Weisman first published his essay “Polymers Are Forever,” in 2007, where we first learned about the persistence of microplastics and their infiltration into the marine food chain.

“Plastic is still plastic. The material still remains a polymer. Polyethylene is not biodegraded in any practical time scale. There is no mechanism in the marine environment to biodegrade that long a molecule.” Even if photodegradable nets help marine mammals live, he concluded, their powdery residue remains in the sea, where the filter feeders will find it.

“Except for a small amount that’s been incinerated,” says Tony Andrady the oracle, “every bit of plastic manufactured in the world for the last fifty years or so still remains. It’s somewhere in the environment.”

The official Earth Day organization is “demanding a 60% reduction in the production of ALL plastics by 2040. Our theme, Planet vs. Plastics, calls to advocate for widespread awareness on the health risk of plastics, rapidly phase out all single use plastics, urgently push for a strong UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution, and demand an end to fast fashion.”

What a nice boy!

Draw your own conclusions

Star Trek's Holodeck recreated using ChatGPT and video game assets

What could possibly go wrong?

University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science

Many of STNG's worst episodes centered around
holodeck malfunctions, such as "Fistful of Datas"

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise leverage the holodeck, an empty room capable of generating 3D environments, to prepare for missions and to entertain themselves, simulating everything from lush jungles to the London of Sherlock Holmes. Deeply immersive and fully interactive, holodeck-created environments are infinitely customizable, using nothing but language: the crew has only to ask the computer to generate an environment, and that space appears in the holodeck.

Today, virtual interactive environments are also used to train robots prior to real-world deployment in a process called "Sim2Real." However, virtual interactive environments have been in surprisingly short supply. 

Rhode Island public radio and TV merger is OK'd

Hopes high for stronger non-profit journalism

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

AG Peter Neronha's statement that the
merger offers "a community benefit"

Rhode Island PBS and The Public’s Radio’s will soon be one entity.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha announced the approval of the merger of the two public media organizations Tuesday after conducting a review to ensure compliance with state law.

Elizabeth Delude-Dix, chair of the board of directors of The Public’s Radio, thanked the attorney general’s office and said in a statement: “The Public’s Radio and Rhode Island PBS have long provided honest journalism, robust educational programming, and engaging and entertaining content to Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. Our impact will be increased and our audience expanded as we take these next exciting steps forward.” 

Torey Malatia, CEO of The Public’s Radio, said via email: “I agree the new institution has great potential for community service.”

Now, a new jointly-made board will begin to work with staff from both broadcast stations to align their respective operations and administration, according to a press release from Rhode Island PBS. 

UAW wins big at Volkswagen in Tennessee – its first victory at a foreign-owned factory in the American South

The first of many wins?

Bob Bussel, University of Oregon

Volkswagen workers celebrate in Chattanooga, Tenn.,
after their bid to join the UAW union prevailed.
 AP Photo/George Walker IV

A decisive majority of the Volkswagen workers employed at a factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee cast their ballots in favor of joining the United Auto Workers union, the German automaker announced on April 19, 2024.

Persuading any Southern autoworkers to join a union had long been one of the U.S. labor movement’s most enduring challenges, despite persistent efforts by the UAW to organize this workforce.

To be sure, the UAW already has members employed by Ford and General Motors at facilities in Kentucky, Texas, Missouri and Mississippi.

However, the union had previously tried and largely failed to organize workers at foreign-owned companies, including Volkswagen and Nissan, in Southern states – where about 30% of all U.S. automotive jobs are located. It was the UAW’s third election at the same factory since 2014. The prior two ended in narrow losses.

The victory follows the UAW’s most successful strike in a generation against Detroit’s Big Three automakers, through which it won higher pay and better benefits for its members in 2023.

Volkswagen said it will await certification of the results by the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency responsible for enforcing U.S. workers’ rights to organize. As long as neither side challenges the results within five business days, the NLRB will certify them – greenlighting the start of bargaining over a contract.

The union has already scheduled another election that will occur less than a month after the Volkswagen vote. More than 5,000 workers at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, will have their say on whether to join the UAW in a vote that will run May 13-17, 2024.

5 years after the Mueller report into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election on behalf of Trump

Mueller did a poor job of putting the facts about Russia's election interference before the public

Howard Manly, The Conversation

In the long list of Donald Trump’s legal woes, the Mueller report – which was released in redacted form on April 18, 2019 – appears all but forgotten.

But the nearly two-year investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election dominated headlines – and revealed what has become Trump’s trademark denial of any wrongdoing. For Trump, the Russia investigation was the first “ridiculous hoax” and “witch hunt.”

Mueller didn’t help matters. “While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the special counsel stated.

Trump Bible: illustrated version

I'm with Joe

Biden's new solar energy plan will bring $50 million to Rhode Island

On Earth Day, RI Delegation Delivers $49.3M for Cost-Saving Clean Energy Upgrades

In an effort to make clean energy upgrades accessible to more Rhode Islanders, U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressmen Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo announced that the state will receive $49.3 million in federal funding through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Solar for All Program.

The Biden Administration’s $7 billion announcement of clean energy funding comes on Earth Day 2024 and was made possible by the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (P.L. 117-169), which Democrats passed in 2022. 

The funding secured for Rhode Island Equitable Access to Solar Energy (EASE) programs will support the launch and expansion of a comprehensive suite of seven financial assistance programs and twelve project deployment technical assistance initiatives designed to equitably address financial barriers to solar adoption. 

These initiatives will facilitate broader, more equitable access to reliable solar power across Rhode Island’s most historically underserved communities. 

According to Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources (OER), these funds will help serve thousands of households in the Ocean State, help to unlock millions in household energy cost savings over time, and realize significant reductions in annual carbon dioxide emissions.

EDITOR'S NOTE: In 2017, we took advantage of the Solarize Charlestown to install solar panels at a discount. Over the past seven years despite living in a wooded area, our monthly electricity bill is much lower plus we get a monthly check from National Grid for their purchase of excess power our panels produce and feed into the grid. We've long past the break-even point. Charlestown ought to do this again and if they do, you ought to consider going solar.     - Will Collette