Vox clamantis in deserto
Llewellyn King: Artificial intelligence seems ‘exponential’
WEST WARWICK,R.I.
Artificial intelligence began in 1950 with British physicist Alan Turing’s landmark paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” It asked the question: Can machines think? It even proposed a test for the idea.
The name was coined five years later by John McCarthy as a title for a summer workshop, planned for the next year at Dartmouth College. That 1956 gathering was the beginning of AI as a formal subject of academic research.
In December 2014, another great British physicist, Stephen Hawking, told a BBC interviewer that AI could bring an end to the human race.
But for most of us AI, with its huge promise and Frankenstein threat, arrived in November 2022 when OpenAI released ChatGPT. It was a watershed moment, after which nothing has been the same.
Faster than any product ever, AI spread globally.
Nearly everyone with a computer and everyone who works with one has dived in. Partly because AI is so useful so immediately. But mostly because the world was already wired for it with the Internet.
‘
In four short years, it has changed how most of us do things with computers, whether we are in the high, thin air of inventors and AI researchers or simply looking for a recipe for French onion soup. AI became an instant part of life, like shoes and cell phones, here to stay.
I became interested in AI when I read the foreboding pronouncement by Hawking. Later, ChatGPT fired up the afterburners of my curiosity.
I have been reporting on AI regularly and, along with my colleague Adam Clayton Powell III, have recorded many episodes on it for White House Chronicle, on PBS and SiriusXM Radio.
‘
The great stories of my long life in journalism have been the end of the colonial empires, the Cold War, the energy crisis of the 1970s and 1980s and, now, AI. These big events of my life had a trajectory — a beginning, a middle and an end.
AI is different. It will always be with us.
I will wager that AI will be more consequential and transformative than any of the mileposts of history, such as the printing press and the steam engine.
I remain uncertain about the nature of its impact but overall, I am looking to it to do more good than harm. That is just a guess not an informed conclusion.
I have interviewed people from across the AI spectrum. But the most pertinent words about it have come from Omar Hatamleh, a scientist of relentless curiosity and courageous thought.
He told me the problem with probing AI is “it is exponential, and we are linear thinkers.”
I first met Hatamleh, a native of Jordan who was educated in Spain and who worked for NASA for 29 years, when he was chief innovation officer at the Johnson Space Center. I was struck by the originality of his thinking.
When AI heated up, he moved to the Goddard Space Flight Center as chief AI officer. He retired early this year and is now devoted to writing and researching.
Bearing in mind Hatamleh’s law that in probing the possibilities of AI, one is doing so with linearity and it is exponential, these things emerge:
Productivity and efficiency leap forward. A lot of repetitive jobs disappear.
Medicine vaults ahead, along with life expectancy.
Intellectual property is threatened. The world built on words — including the law, journalism, education, and the theater and film arts — are thrown into chaos. And certifying truth becomes critical.
Warfare becomes more dangerous as it gets less predictable.
I believe AI will eventually develop to a point where it will police itself or will be educated to police itself, so that AI agents and their underlying neural networks don’t continue to run amok.
I have no evidence for that scenario, just a strong belief that the moral strictures, rules and codes of human civilization, on which AI is trained, will come into play —that AI will get some kind of conscience.
When I asked Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, about this supposition, it was ambivalent. It said it wasn’t yet clear where “emergent moral agency” would develop. In other words, my guess is as good as any other.
Good luck with AI. Even if you aren't interested in it, it is interested in you, as Leon Trotsky might have said.
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS, and an international energy-sector consultant. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com , and he’s based in Rhode Island.
Aneri Pattani: On providing housing with opioid-settlement money
From Kaiser Family Foundation Health News (except for image above)
Jason Fazekas has spent most of his adult life on the street or behind bars. He was addicted to heroin for decades and often stole to support his habit. On rainy days, he slept in building stairwells to stay dry. On winter mornings, he woke up with fingers too numb to bend.
That all changed in September, when he moved into a one-bedroom apartment in East Haven, Conn.
“I never knew what it was like to have your own apartment, to live on your own, until this,” said Fazekas, 49.
Now he attends a daily treatment program and virtual “Sober at Seven” meetings. He makes grilled cheese and cold-cut sandwiches; works occasional jobs, such as cleaning out a truck; and is in bed most nights by 8:30.
This simple life is “the best thing in the world,” said Fazekas, who celebrated nine months of recovery in October.
That life has become his reality thanks to a housing program that the state of Connecticut funded with about $59 million in opioid-settlement cash, money paid by companies, such as CVS and Walgreens, accused of aggressively pushing painkillers and fueling the opioid crisis. The housing program provides people with substance-use disorders a rental voucher, a case manager to help them find and keep their home, and money to cover the costs of settling in, such as a security deposit or basic furniture.
Nationwide, state and local governments invested more than $340 million from opioid settlements into housing-related initiatives in 2025, according to an analysis by KFF Health News, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Shatterproof, a national nonprofit focused on addiction. Some projects, like the one in Connecticut, are aimed directly at helping people most affected by the opioid epidemic. But others lack a clear connection to the crisis, leading to criticism by recovery advocates that the money is at risk of being squandered.
Opioid-settlement cash, expected to total about $60 billion over nearly two decades, is considered a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address an overdose epidemic that has claimed more than 1 million lives in the United States since 2000. Although there are some spending guidelines, there is a lot of wiggle room, little oversight, and large gaps in the public’s ability to track the money.
To shed light on where funds are flowing, KFF Health News and its partners annually file public records requests, scour government websites, and assemble a database of expenditures by state and local governments, which are then sorted into categories such as treatment or prevention.
The result is the most comprehensive national resource of its kind: a catalog of more than 17,500 ways settlement cash was used (or left unspent) in 2025.
Of the roughly $3.7 billion publicly reported as spent or committed last year, about 9% went to housing initiatives, ranging from permanent housing like the Connecticut effort to temporary recovery housing and assistance in navigating complex applications and other social services.
Jurisdictions reported spending more than $340 million on housing-related initiatives, including rental vouchers and recovery housing, per public records. Although housing is not a main bucket of settlement spending or itself a core strategy recommended in most opioid agreements, it is an allowable use. The money allocated to it was similar to spending on the prevention bucket and greater than spending on the overdose reversal drugs core strategy.
Many public-health researchers, recovery advocates, and families affected by addiction are excited about the investments. Housing can stabilize people’s lives enough to get them into treatment and increase their chances of maintaining long-term recovery.
Settlement funds also provide flexibility at a time when the Trump administration opposes federal funds for efforts to house people before they’re sober — despite evidence that such policies are effective.
However, some people closely tracking settlement money worry that the lines will be blurred between general homelessness initiatives and those that focus specifically on people with substance use disorders. As jurisdictions continue to grapple with people living on the street and public backlash over encampments, they may be tempted to use opioid dollars to reduce the visibility of homelessness with little or no programmatic link to addiction.
“The most important piece” of investing settlement dollars “is maintaining that connection to opioid remediation and the populations impacted by opioid use disorder,” said Dan Kelly, who worked in housing and homelessness initiatives before joining the Michigan Association of Counties, where he guides local governments on settlement spending.
Connecticut is investing $58.6 million of opioid-settlement funds in a program called Housing Empowering Recovery from Opioids. It provides people with substance-use disorders a rental voucher, case management services, and funds to cover initial costs, such as a security deposit. From left: Kathleen Therrien and Marie Paulemon are case managers in the program, Amy Cedrone is a participant, Ben Werth is a peer support specialist, and Jason Fazekas is a participant.
Blurred Lines in Local Spending
In Connecticut, Fazekas and other participants must have a verified substance-use disorder to be eligible for the housing program.
Elsewhere, it’s less clear-cut.
For example, New Brunswick, New Jersey, spent $520,000 of its settlement funds on “homeless services.”
That may include crucial services for the general homeless population, recovery advocates say. But unless the money is targeted specifically to homeless people with substance use disorders, it may do little to address the overdose crisis. To some, that violates the spirit of the settlements.
J.T. Miller, a city spokesperson, did not answer questions about what specific services were funded or how they related to addiction. Instead, he wrote that settlement money was used to “support staff and services who actively engaged with the homeless population addressing ongoing assistance, prevention and drug addiction programs.” He shared a link to the city’s community services website, which did not mention addiction.
In a report to the state, the city wrote that the money was for “budgetary offsets and allocations” in its Department of Human and Community Services.
Recovery advocates have long feared that governments would use the opioid money to simply replace general taxpayer funding for existing services, rather than enhancing those services or creating new ones.
The database contains thousands of examples of how state and local governments spent or committed their opioid settlement funds in 2025, as reported in public documents. This glossary may help you interpret the reports, and this video can show you how to use the database, which is formatted similarly to ones that KFF Health News and its partners developed in previous years. You can also download the data to sort and filter it.
Disclaimer: This database is being shared as a public resource; however, it does not represent all opioid-settlement expenditures. Though our team undertook extensive searches, some reports may have been missed or released after our research period. Many jurisdictions do not produce public reports. And even in jurisdictions with public information, reports may not capture the full scope of planning, intent, and activities surrounding opioid settlement funds.
In Louisville, Kentucky, more than $1 million in settlement funds went to a Goodwill program called Another Way.
The program aims to reduce panhandling by gathering people who are on the street, taking them to work around the city — often picking up litter for a few hours — and paying them $50 plus lunch. They are connected to Goodwill’s resources on housing, job training, treatment, and more. Although participants may have substance use disorders, they are not screened for them.
In 2025, Another Way had about 1,800 participants, according to Goodwill Kentucky. Of those, about 270 gained full-time employment and about 240 connected to treatment, though a larger number may have a history of addiction.
Matt Mudd, a spokesperson for Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, said the city has invested opioid settlement funds in “proven programs that show positive impact and results.” Another Way provides a “data-proven pathway to treatment, housing, and employment,” he said.
To explain the program’s connection to addiction, he said, “Overdose is the number one cause of death for unhoused people.”
But Brittany Morris is skeptical that the program is a good fit for opioid dollars.
Another Way “helps people that are on the streets,” said Morris, who works at Vocal-KY, a nonprofit that advocates for policies addressing the overdose crisis and poverty. “But do I feel like it’s related to the opioid crisis? That’s basically implying every homeless person is a drug addict hooked on heroin.”
Danny Walker credits Goodwill Kentucky’s Another Way program with helping him transition from being homeless in Louisville to getting two part-time jobs, finding housing, and reconnecting with his family. The Another Way program gathers people who are on the street, takes them to work around the city, often picking up litter for a few hours, and pays them $50 plus lunch.
A Complex Connection
Many people assume homelessness and addiction go hand in hand.
But research suggests more nuance.
A large study on this topic was published last year, based on data from California, which accounts for about a quarter of the nation’s homeless population. It found that less than half (37%) of homeless people used illicit substances regularly in the prior six months. And 25% had never used drugs.
“Most people who are homeless do not have an addiction. And most people who have addictions are not homeless,” said Margot Kushel, a co-author of the study and the director of the University of California-San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative.
While the two issues are related, the connection is not as common or straightforward as people imagine, she said.
For example, the study found that 23% of people began regularly using illicit drugs only after becoming homeless. Addiction didn’t land them on the street, but the trauma of living there can push people to self-medicate, Kushel said. For example, some may use stimulants to stay awake at night to avoid being assaulted.
The complexity of this relationship means putting settlement money toward general homelessness services may not address the addiction crisis.
Humanity and Survival
That’s why some people with firsthand addiction experience want to see the funds flow to programs like the one that helped Dominic Sitz.
After years on the streets of Louisville, Sitz got housed in 2022.
Arthur Street Hotel, a transitional housing initiative that specialized in helping people with mental illness and substance use disorders, helped him along the way.
“It made me feel human again,” Sitz said of housing.
For the first 48 hours in his place, he locked his apartment door and slept on the tile floor. No food. No furniture. Just a sense of safety.
The Arthur Street Hotel had an annual budget of about $3.5 million and required a lot of staff and intensive case management, said Susan Buchino, executive director of CARE, the nonprofit that ran the facility. Her team often spent weeks earning people’s trust before they’d be ready to come inside.
Over its tenure, the program housed more than 400 people. It closed in July due to a lack of funding.
Sitz, now four years into recovery, wishes opioid settlement funds went to efforts like that, instead of Another Way.
More than $786 million nationwide was spent on or committed to housing, transportation, education, job training, and other support for people to maintain long-term recovery, per public records.
It’s not that the Goodwill program does not do good. It can put money in people’s pockets and potentially move them toward a better life. But it also isn’t specifically aimed at helping people with addiction.
Another drawback: It sometimes asks participants to do work that is traumatic or unsafe, local recovery advocates say.
For example, the program sometimes assigns homeless people to clean up street encampments. Participants may know people who live in the encampments or encounter them later on, Sitz said.
People do it to “have money just to survive,” he said. But “you got to go right back to the people whose stuff you just threw away, and that’s a dangerous situation.”
Sharon Allgeier, senior manager of homeless initiatives at Goodwill Kentucky, who created Another Way, said she’s never encountered such a problem.
“They’re happy to do the work,” she said. “Maybe because they know they’re going to get paid and they’re going to get fed lunch.”
Danny Walker, who participated in Another Way earlier this year, said police had cleared people out of the encampments before he and other participants arrived, so he wasn’t concerned.
He credits the program with helping him land his current part-time jobs at a Goodwill thrift store and Dairy Queen. He’s also gotten housed and is reconnecting with his grandkids after years of substance use and living on the street.
“I can look myself in the mirror and I can say, ‘Hey bud, you’re doing all right,’” Walker said.
Living Better
Although housing programs like the one in Connecticut are expensive, homelessness and addiction experts say they’re more likely to make a dent in the opioid crisis long term. Research also suggests they save money over time by reducing healthcare, judicial, and welfare costs.
The initiative that helped Fazekas is funded for four years at $14.25 million a year to support up to 500 people. The money goes to rental vouchers; case managers and peer support specialists, who visit participants at home at least once a month; and a support fund for application fees, security deposits, furniture, or utilities. An additional $400,000 a year is allotted to the University of Connecticut to evaluate the program.
As of mid-September, about 170 people had moved into housing and about 180 participants were searching for a place, according to the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.
Fazekas said he hopes to stay in his apartment forever.
“When I was homeless and using drugs, I didn’t love myself. I didn’t care how my day went,” he said. But this program “makes me want to live better.”
One small example that feels big to him: When Fazekas was on the street, he rarely saw his siblings and only called if he needed something.
Now, they visit his place, and he calls them just “to tell them I love them.”
Read the methodology behind this project and download the data.
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has taken a leading role in providing guidance to state and local governments on the use of opioid settlement funds. Faculty from the school collaborated with other experts in the field to create principles for using the money, which have been endorsed by over 60 organizations.
Shatterproof is a national nonprofit that addresses substance use disorder through distinct initiatives, including advocating for state and federal policies, ending addiction stigma, and educating communities about the treatment system.
Shatterproof is partnering with some states on projects funded by opioid settlements. KFF Health News, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Shatterproof team that worked on this report are not involved in those efforts.
Aneri Pattani is a KFF Health News reporter (Pattaniapattani@kff.org)
Visualizations by Lydia Zuraw (Zurawlzuraw@kff.org Lydia Zuraw)
Change your life before winter
“Autumn Night” (oil), by Dwight William Tyron (1849-1925), American landscape painter. He lived in Dartmouth, Mass.
New England Council: Proposed DHS rule on foreign students would slam regional and national economies
The unofficial flag of New England.
BOSTON
From The New England Council (slightly edited by New England Diary):
On Nov. 5 the New England Council submitted comments to express significant concerns regarding the proposed federal rule titled “Optional Practical Training (OPT) Fees.” Under this proposed rule, fees would apply for each F-1 nonimmigrant student to engage in OPT through a Student and Exchange Visitor Program-certified institution: $70,000 for initial OPT; and $30,000 for any subsequent OPT.
The Department of Homeland Security asserts that this rule would help prevent fraud. In reality, it would raise the cost of hiring and training international graduates, weaken the talent pipeline that New England employers depend on, and contribute to a brain drain from the U.S. to our competitors as researchers go elsewhere.
International students contribute nearly $5 billion to our region’s economy. These students support 40,968 jobs. 119,334 international students are enrolled in our region’s colleges and universities. By state:
Connecticut
Financial Contribution: $747.7 million
Jobs Supported: 5,848
International Students Enrolled: 21,865
Maine
Financial Contribution: $87.3 Million
Jobs Supported: 499
International Students Enrolled: 2,306
Massachusetts
Financial Contribution: $3.6 billion
Jobs Supported: 30,805
International Students Enrolled: 84,097
New Hampshire
Financial Contribution: $160.4 million
Jobs Supported: 1,263
International Students Enrolled: 4,575
Rhode Island
Financial Contribution: $272.4 Million
Jobs Supported: 2,217
International Students Enrolled: 5,212
Vermont
Financial Contribution: $57.6 million
Jobs Supported: 336
International Students Enrolled: 1,279
To remain competitive globally, we must attract and maintain the best talent. We urge DHS to withdraw the proposal.
Religion in New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett House, in Kingston, N.H.
“{I} Called on the people of New Hampshire . . . to confess before God their aggravated transgressions and to implore His pardon and forgiveness through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ . . . [t]hat the knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ may be made known to all nations, pure and undefiled religion universally prevail, and the earth be fill with the glory of the Lord.’’
-Josiah Bartlett (1729-1795), New Hampshire physician and an American Founding Father
Bedford Presbyterian Church
“We had no religion at all, but we were Jews in New Hampshire, and my sister - who is now a rabbi - said it best: We were, like, the only Jews in Bedford, New Hampshire, as well as the only Democrats, so we just kind of associated those two things together. My dad raised us to believe that paying taxes is an honor.’’
-- Sarah Silverman (born 1970), American comedian
Memories in hand
From B. Amore’s show “Following the Thread,’’ at Atlantic Works Gallery, Boston, for month of November.
The artist says:
“My art has evolved from its origins in carved forms and public sculpture, to complex installations involving text, ancestral artifacts, alternative photo processes, stone, fabric, and the found object transformed. The installations and assemblages often appear to be meditations on the layered nature of existence. They are sculptural ruminations, which bridge the past and the present.
“The current series, ‘Street Calligraphies,’ incorporates found gloves that have been cold cast in bronze which still evoke the mysterious presence of the lost owner. Although the gloves always retain their original gesture, they are combined with other enigmatic elements from city streets and transformed through the artistic process into works of art. Each glove has its own unique history and nature but becomes part of the whole which creates our intertwined life on this planet.’’
And the gallery says:
“‘Following the Thread’ consists of panels that were part of her exhibit, ‘Life Line: filo della vita’ originally displayed at Ellis Island Immigration Museum in 1999-2000. The exhibit traveled in the U.S. and Italy. The families represented in the panels lived first in the North End, then in East Boston. After the exhibit, the panels will be held by the East Boston Museum and Historical Association.’’
Sara Suzuki: Driven by economic concerns, young adults voted in near-record numbers in midterm
From The Conversation, except for image above
(The Conversation is a nonprofit organization. New England Diary is a donor.)
MEDFORD, Mass.
The economy was the top issue for voters in the November 2026 midterm elections, which saw Democrats win decisive majorities in both houses of Congress.
And for young voters, whether in college or not, the economy and jobs, as well as healthcare, were their top concerns, our research at CIRCLE, a nonpartisan, research organization focused on youth civic engagement at Tufts University, shows.
Overall, 27% of young people – meaning people ages 18 to 29 – went to the polls during the midterms, our Nov. 5 analysis shows. This marks the second-highest midterm youth voter turnout in the past 30 years, behind only the 2018 election cycle.
As a scholar at CIRCLE who studies young people and their voting behavior, I think it’s helpful to understand some of the factors that motivated so many young people to vote – and to cast their lot with the Democrats.
Understanding young voters
Among youth, being enrolled as a college student or not did not make a big difference in who they voted for during these midterms.
But there are some voting trend differences based on young people’s educational attainment, especially in the gap between young people with an education level of high school or less, and those with at least some college experience and more. Those with only a high school degree or less voted Democratic by a 24-point margin, compared with a 42-point margin among those with at least some college education.
College students who are young men also voted Democrat by a 24-point margin. Female college students, meanwhile, voted Democrat at a 45-point margin. A similar gender gap appears among young voters who aren’t in college.
Overall, this gender gap has persisted at least since 2024, as young women then were also voting more Democratic than men were.
People vote on Nov. 3, 2026, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images
Latest youth voter trends
About 66% of young people ages 18-29 voted for a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, compared with 31% for a Republican candidate, our data shows. This marks the highest percentage of support for Democratic candidates among all age groups.
Within this group, 70% of young women voted for a Democratic U.S. House candidate in the midterms, as opposed to 59% of young men.
Partisan trends among young voters have fluctuated over the past few decades – in 2000, for example, 49% of young people voted Democratic, while 48% voted Republican.
In 2026, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Black and Latino young people gave Democrat candidates the strongest support, at 81%, 79% and 71%, respectively. By comparison, 61% of white young people voted for Democratic House candidates, with 36% voting Republican.
Young people are focused on the economy
Across race, education, income and geographic location, young people overwhelmingly indicated that the economy and jobs was their top issue in this election.
Healthcare and the Iran war also showed up as areas of importance for young voters. All three of these issues are connected to young people’s concerns about the cost of living.
We found that voting preferences did vary according to how young people viewed their own financial circumstances, a pattern that held among college students.
Low-income students were more likely than their affluent peers to vote for Democrats.
The issues that matter most to young people have shifted considerably over the past several years.
In 2020, we were seeing different groups of young people prioritize social issues like racism, climate change and gun control.
In 2022, we began to see young people prioritize the economy – their concern about inflation was the second-most important issue to them after abortion.
Now, after the economy, healthcare was ranked second for young voters. The third-most important issue was the war in Iran. This is striking, because in the past, we’ve polled young voters about foreign policy issues like the war between Israel and Palestinians and the war between Russia and Ukraine. Young people have never really ranked these other foreign policy issues as a top area of concern.
Students listen during a Democratic get-out-the-vote rally on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus on Oct. 20, 2026. Scott Olson/Getty Images
On the sidelines
Youth voter turnout generally tends to be much weaker in midterm elections than in presidential elections. In 2018, there was 28% turnout for young people – a midterm turnout that was considerably higher than 2014, when only 13% of young people turned out to vote.
Campaigns seem to recognize that young voters tend to be less politically engaged. For example, our research shows that during the 2024 presidential election cycle, more than 1 in 3 young people were never contacted about the election. Among those without college experience, 48% were never contacted.
Our research still shows that college students face logistical barriers to voting.
Young people are frequent movers, which means they might need to reregister whenever they change addresses. The fact that college students may be living on campus while they’re registered to vote from their parents’ address can also create complications.
College students still have more voting information than young people who are not in college. But compared with other age groups, young people receive less voting information – making their turnout in the 2026 midterms all the more remarkable.
Sara Suzuki is a senior researcher and research assistant research professor at CIRCLE, Tufts University. She does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond her academic appointment.
Partners
Tufts University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US.
An exhausting prospect
“If Our Days Rolled on Forever,’’ by Jim Dodds, at Morse Block Deli, Barre, Vt., through Jan. 2, in association with Studio Place Arts.
The gallery says:
“Dodds's computer art with psychedelic and Art Nouveau sensibilities emerges from his pencil sketches, photos and poetry.’’
The fear effect in a coastal marsh
A fearsome Atlantic Blue Crab
The Great Marsh in Plum Island, Newbury, Rowley and Ipswich, Mass.
— Photo by Doc Searls
Excerpted from an EcoRI News article
“Fear changes behavior. For a ribbed mussel clinging to a New England salt marsh, the presence of a blue crab nearby can mean eating less and holding tighter to the marsh platform, bracing for danger. The crab doesn’t even have to attack.
“That response — what scientists call a ‘fear effect’ — is at the heart of research by University of Rhode Island graduate student Maja Nielsen. A master’s student in URI’s Biological and Environmental Sciences program working with assistant professor of watershed ecology Shelby Rinehart, Nielsen is studying whether fishing-driven shifts change how ribbed mussels respond to the threat of predation.
“‘There’s some evidence that the fear effect may be even more important in determining ecosystem functions than the consumptive effect,’ Nielsen said, ‘because predators can scare a lot more prey than they can eat.”’
Not just snowy owls
“A Bluebird Day on Dog Mountain,” by Anna Yakubovskaya, in the show “Show Your Gift,’’ at the Gallery at WREN, Bethlehem, N.H., in the White Mountains.
The Dog Chapel at Dog Mountain, in St. Johnsbury, Vt.
Llewellyn King: We need many more engineers in Congress
Milas Hall, at the Olin College of Engineering, in Needham, Mass.
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
I am a sucker for big engineering. I respond to it the same way other people respond to a great painting or a superbly sung opera.
You may be enthralled by a football game. But if one of those tall, skinny skyscrapers is going up in New York City, I am at the sidelines, watching with rapt attention.
I marvel at how the engineers keep those buildings standing, allowing for the sway in the wind and designing elevators that are fast enough to compensate for a long ride into the sky.
I get sentimental over nuclear-power plants, nearly lose it when looking at a great ocean liner such as the Queen Mary 2, and see the beauty and wonder of an aircraft carrier.
Yes, I like big iron, but I also love such small, intricate things as mechanical watches.
The simple universal joint in a car axle inspires me. How it solves a problem: One wheel turns faster than the other in a turn. That is clever stuff and routine.
I am more at odds with computer engineering. If I can’t see it, I don’t love it. I could see the engineering in a typewriter, but the engineering in the computer on which I am writing this is spooky science to me.
I love engineering because it moves the human project forward, improves our lot on earth and now points us to the distant sky, to the Moon and Mars and way beyond.
Poets – writers, my people — can talk about the spacious firmament, but engineers put us there. I am amazed at how airplanes leave the ground in defiance of logic.
When I was a private pilot and “rotated” at takeoff speed, I was always thrilled that the aircraft left the ground. I didn’t calculate it as a power-lift-equation. For me, it was the mystery of engineering — and life — in my hands.
I preferred to think of it as engineered magic and I, by moving the joystick back a few inches, could leave the ground and fulfill my desire, and that of humans for thousands of years, to fly.
The imagined future is with engineers, not poets.
Which gets me to this point: There aren’t enough engineers in Congress. It is a place dominated by lawyers and public-affairs professionals. It does seem to me that many of the challenges facing the nation are at heart engineering, not legal.
Engineers build and fix. Lawyers dispute, refute, argue, and settle. Compromise is in their DNA. Lawyers will struggle — as do journalists with whom they have an affinity -- to understand AI, data centers, space science, the electric grid, small modular nuclear reactors, carbon capture, sea level rise, and drone warfare.
When it comes to crafting law to deal with those and myriad other technical subjects, an engineering degree, it seems to me, would be more useful than many others.
There are no accurate tabulations yet of the professional backgrounds of the elected members of the brave new 120th Congress. But in the past, only 1-4 percent have had an engineering background.
The problem of balance in Congress has been with us for a long time. It is a logical progression to go from the courtroom to the legislature. It is less so to leave a construction site or a drafting computer for politics.
It is worth asking if we are getting the best of our talent in politics? I would say no, and no again.
Running for Congress is a horrible experience. You and your family, even your pet, will be vilified, denigrated, lied about, and held up to ridicule. You will be forced to raise a lot of money and to endure the pleadings of shafts of people.
Alas, the cream of the nation, including its imaginative engineers, stays away.
There is a talent deficit in Congress along with the fiscal one. What has just happened in the election hasn’t solved that challenge.
On X: @llewellynking2
Llewellyn King, an international energy-sector consultant and former publisher, is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. He’s based in Rhode Island.
‘Besieged’ in Northampton
From Harriet Diamond’s show “Besieged,’’ at A.P.E. Gallery, Northampton, Mass., Nov. 12-Dec. 12.
The gallery says:
Diamond’s artistic impressions, gathered and distilled from photo and print journalism, eyewitness reports and the poetry of Palestinian and Jewish authors, led to her creation of 25 life-size figures and numerous small figures that are joined by floor to ceiling paintings.
Chris Powell: More ‘good gummint’ coming with one-party rule?
Huey Long (1893-1935), Louisiana governor and U.S. senator. Seen by many as a potential fascist dictator, he was assassinated.
MANCHESTER, Conn.
With the federal government having become more corrupt and incompetent than ever, the new Democratic majorities in Congress elected this week will have much fun investigating and publicizing it, even as President Trump, with vetoes and the Republican minorities in Congress, will be able to block legislation they find objectionable.
Things could be worse. With luck the president's increasingly frightening megalomania will be checked somewhat as well.
But with its own election on Nov. 3, Connecticut may have made itself the worst one-party state in the country -- not just because the Democrats held on to the governorship with Ned Lamont and kept all other statewide offices and the congressional delegation, which was expected, but also because the Republican minority in the General Assembly, already small, was nearly wiped out.
It seems as if 32 or 33 of the 36 seats in the state Senate will be held by Democrats, leaving the Republican minority there with just three or four members.
The legislature has only 28 standing committees, not enough to give each Democratic senator a chairmanship, as is customary. So maybe a few more committees will be created. Indeed, the larger Democratic majorities in the legislature likely foreshadow a big expansion of state government, at least in form if not in substance, even as Connecticut needs the opposite, needs what the federal government needs: a big expansion of investigation and auditing for effectiveness.
For the Lamont administration has been full of scandals of corruption and incompetence -- as in the state Office of Policy and Management, the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, the Social Services Department, the state police, and the administration of state financial grants. Though it might not have made much difference in the election amid the public's disgust with Trump and its resolve to punish all Republicans, the party's candidate for governor, Greenwich state Sen. Ryan Fazio, made little of this. Now Connecticut has passed it by.
Decent as he is, Lamont is no administrator and has been badly served by some people he trusted and failed to monitor. Apart from that, poverty in the state has increased steadily during his administration and has been addressed only with more welfare, not with any inquiry as to its causes, which preceded Trump. The president isn't why Connecticut is so highly taxed, so short of housing while so full of illegal immigrants, and producing so many uneducated high school graduates capable only of menial work even as the state's manufacturers lack qualified applicants for 80,000 well-paid jobs.
While the state's election results may be almost entirely a repudiation of Trump, they will be construed by the strengthened Democratic regime as vindication and approval of Connecticut's circumstances. After all, while many people always claim to be dissatisfied with those circumstances and considering leaving the state for less expensive places, they just voted for more of the same in the name of punishing Trump, who couldn't care less about one-party Connecticut.
The collapse of political competition here will thrust on journalism more of the burden of protecting the state against exploitation and stupidity, even as journalism, reflecting the public's declining literacy and interest in government and politics, is ever-less equipped to carry that burden. Indeed, in many towns during this election campaign it was impossible to find even basic journalism about legislative candidates and their positions on issues. Such journalism used to be standard.
This decline may unleash in Connecticut more of the worst instincts of public life, like those in Louisiana under demagogic Gov. Huey Long a century ago. Supposedly he said that people who supported him before the nominating convention would get highway contracts, people who supported him before the primary would get government jobs, and everyone else would get "good gummint." A lot more "good gummint" may be on the way to Connecticut.
As for the Republicans left in Washington, at least they can enjoy the renovated Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial to which the president delusionally called attention on Election Eve.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net).
‘It’s something we all have to do’
Oak Grove Cemetery, in Falmouth, Mass.
Photo by Magicpiano
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocalProv.com.
As my father noted to me at a family funeral back in 1975 a few months before suddenly dying at 58: “It’s something we all have to do.’’
Back when I was a reporter for the Boston Herald Traveler (long dead itself), I sometimes had the not-sought-after duty of going to the home of a decedent and talking with his or her survivors and then writing it up. Sometimes accompanied by an irascible or jokey photographer, I was usually expected to get (or, as we usually said, “grab’’) there what was called in my newsroom a “takeout’’—a photo of the dead person.
I found one such assignment particularly fraught, being a somewhat shy person myself. A teenage boy had died in a car crash. I was told to drive to his family’s suburban house, talk to his parents about their son and make sure that I got a picture of him on the way out. Mortifying.
It’s one thing to mourn loved ones or friends who die in a nursing home at 90 after a few years of not recognizing anyone (but visit them anyway: they’ll probably much appreciate your presence) but quite another to take in the death of a nice kid with possible high promise.
But I was deeply surprised by how nice and helpful the traumatized parents were. As we sat at their kitchen table for an hour or two, they told me, occasionally weeping, about their son’s personality and achievements. They seemed to feel empathy for me in having been ordered to interview them. As I stood to take my leave, I asked for a picture of their son to run with my story. His mother left the kitchen and came back with one.
I drove back to return it a few days later, not willing to trust the mail.
The challenge in writing an obituary is to try to present the person in the round. That of course can be difficult, particularly if the dead person isn’t a public figure about whom much is widely known. Family members and friends might prefer that some important things be left out. But a good obituary writer can draw out enough stuff, through patience, charm, guile and lucky timing of questions, to present a picture not that far from reality.
At their best, writing or reading obituaries can make readers – and the writer--- reflect on their own lives more than they usually would and maybe think about how they can move ahead, perhaps beyond paralyzing regrets, and make the best of their remaining time.
There’s a new novel, by turns funny and maudlin, called I See You’ve Called in Dead, by John Kenney, about a troubled and soon-to-be fired middle-aged obituary writer in New York City that speaks to some of this stuff, and how enriching the experience of exploring a recently ended life can be. (I particularly liked that much of it was set in my old complicated neighborhood in Brooklyn.)
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Monty Python and “Bring Out Your Dead’’
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There’s a nifty article in City Lab about how some cemeteries are widening their attractions as well-managed-and-monitored parks and even becoming quiet entertainment centers as traditional and outrageously expensive casket burials continue to decline. (Cremation and, er, composting are becoming ever more popular.)
The famous Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge, Mass., is the article’s centerpiece. Gorgeous Swan Point Cemetery, on the East Side of Providence, is the nearest Rhode Island equivalent. Both cemeteries, created in the first half of the 19th Century, are examples of how the creation of such green public amenities spread as relief from the grit of the Industrial Revolution and the rapid urbanization that went with it.
(I’m environmentally correct! My “cremains” will be deposited into a shoe-box sized box under a tiny metal plaque at a very old cemetery in Falmouth, Mass., in a section with a lot of my mostly very long departed ancestors. There’s still some space if you’d care to join me.)
“Earth sinks to rest’
“November Light”(watercolor with pencil on paper), by Charles Ephraim Burchfield (1893-1967)
November comes
And November goes,
With the last red berries
And the first white snows.
With night coming early,
And dawn coming late,
And ice in the bucket
And frost by the gate.
The fires burn
And the kettles sing,
And earth sinks to rest
Until next spring.
― Elizabeth Coatsworth (1893-1986), Maine-based poet and novelist
Collaborating colors
“MC#1’’ (mixed media), by Julie Dunigan, in her show “Labyrinth,’’ at Burlington (Vt.) City Works, Feb. 5 to May 8.
The gallery says:
“Julie Dunigan’s mixed media works feature motifs inspired by human-built and nature-grown architectural forms. Exploring charged yet repetitive arrangements, the artist plays with color theory and the energy of mark-making in her complex compositions. Dunigan experiments with a spectrum of hues and tints, allowing collaboration and new relationships to form between colors.’’
Arthur Allen: Now about those pills from Canada?
U.S.-Canada border at Beebe Plain, an unincorporated village partly in Stanstead, Quebec, and partly in Derby Line, Vt.
—Photo by Mike Kalasnik
From Kaiser Family Foundation Health News (KFF Health News) (except for image above)
Days before it was to go into effect, the Trump administration pushed back a U.S. customs rule threatening the supply of vital prescription drugs imported by millions of Americans.
Under the rule, Customs and Border Protection and the FDA will require coding on packages that makes it easier to know what’s in them. It is aimed at collecting tariffs on even low-value imports, and at catching illegal drugs like fentanyl. It will also add costs and complex paperwork to each order.
Now the regulation, which was set to start Oct. 22, is delayed until Jan. 20.
While it is illegal to import most FDA-approved prescription drugs, the U.S. has allowed Americans to import legal medications in small quantities for personal use since 2003. The FDA rarely inspects the parcels.
“The information we have is there’s going to be a complete shutdown on Oct. 22,” Tim Smith, general manager of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, said in an interview in early October. The 51 licensed retail pharmacies in his organization urged their hundreds of thousands of U.S. customers to file extra orders before Oct. 9 to be sure as many medications as possible arrived before the clampdown, Smith said.
“These are people in every case who have gone to the doctor, gotten a prescription for whatever, gone to the pharmacy to fill the order, seen how expensive it’s going to be, and then looked for an alternative,” he said. “Those are the people who’ve been coming to us for years.”
As Donald Trump campaigned in 2016, allowing people to import drugs was part of his platform. In his first term, President Trump let states buy cheaper drugs from Canada. He told Floridians at 2020 rallies that their state could “go to Canada” to obtain drugs for them.
But while Florida and Colorado joined the importation program, neither state has brought in any drugs yet.
Patients have, however, and they flooded authorities with at least 109,000 letters urging the FDA to clarify that the rule won’t stop personal-use drug shipments, said Ken Hunter, executive director of the Campaign for Personal Prescription Importation. And Trump ally Laura Loomer called the rule a case of stupidity or sabotage, under a headline that asked, “So Why Is Someone in His Administration Trying To Make Prescription Drugs More Expensive Before The Midterms?”
Seventy-one congressional Democrats signed an Oct. 1 petition led by Reps. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin to warn about the potential impact of the rule. Three House Republicans from Florida wrote separately to CBP and the FDA, noting that Floridians, unlike Americans in Northern states, can’t easily drive to Canada to buy medicine.
By cutting off imports, Hunter said, “they are going to lose millions, maybe billions in tariff revenue.”
“Why would you want to cut off this massive revenue source?” he asked. “Why would they want to cut people off from lifesaving medications two weeks before midterms?”
Pressure by advocacy groups may have led the agency to back off, said Lucia Mueller, president of PharmacyChecker, which helps patients find legitimate pharmacies to obtain cheaper drugs.
“Loomer’s political argument is sound,” she told KFF Health News. “We know she’s had Trump’s ear before.”
The agency’s Oct. 14 news release on the delay said it would help “avoid disruptions to certain international postal shipments.” It didn’t specifically refer to drug imports.
“This is an important short-term success,” said Gabriel Levitt, founder of Prescription Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for more-affordable drugs. “However, the underlying threat to personal prescription drug importation remains, and the next 90 days will be critical.”
A 2020 study found that 2.3 million Americans regularly imported medications from abroad, and some surveys show much higher numbers. About 4 in 10 Americans in a recent KFF survey said cost had led them to not take medications as prescribed over the past year.
When he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation years ago, Leslie Waters learned that a 90-day supply of the blood thinner Eliquis, or apixaban, would cost $486. “Holy crap!” said the retired computer scientist, who said he lives off a monthly $1,886 Social Security check. Waters, of San Jose, Calif., learned about the Canada option on the internet and has been buying 90-day supplies from a pharmacy there for $57, including shipping
Under previous administrations, orders worth $800 or less weren’t taxed or saddled with extensive paperwork. The new rule will require shippers of even low-value international parcels to transmit detailed information about their contents to CBP, along with tariff payments, which must be transmitted through a licensed customer broker.
Zonos, a U.S.-based company that handles logistics for mail from Canada and other countries, told clients in early September that its understanding was that CBP would no longer allow in personal prescription drug packages after the rule took effect, said Smith, of the Canadian pharmacy trade group. In an Oct. 6 webinar, Zonos senior broker Angela Macke said that the company would continue to ship the drugs but that it didn’t know whether the agencies would let them reach patients.
The pharmacy announcements have frightened thousands of customers, said Bill Hepscher, whose company, Canadian Medstore, has six Florida storefronts that help patients import drugs.
“It’s really been hair on fire,” he said. “I could spend my entire day fielding phone calls from people saying: ‘Can I no longer get my Eliquis? I could have a blood clot or stroke!’”
Hepscher said about half his clients buy their drugs from Canada, with many of the others buying from Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., or Turkey. He said 2025 was his company’s busiest year ever — changes to Medicare drug plans and increased enrollment in high-deductible Affordable Care Act plans had led seniors and younger people facing higher costs and copays to seek Canadian drugs.
“I only have 23 days’ worth of pills,” Roland Hofferber told KFF Health News in early October. The retired supply chain engineer in Muscatine, Iowa, takes Jardiance, also known as empagliflozin, to slow his chronic kidney disease. “If I don’t get some through pretty soon, I’m going to have to cut back or quit.”
The drug would cost him $641 for three months in the U.S., he said. He buys a generic from an Indian pharmacy for $54.
The FDA “hasn’t given parameters as to what they will approve and what they won’t,” Zonos’ Macke said during the webinar. “We’ve been told there will not be a general ban. But we cannot reassure U.S. patients. We have to see how FDA applies. They could be lenient. They could be very strict.”
When asked whether patients could still import prescription medicines, CBP spokesperson Jessica Turner said that pharmaceuticals remained under the FDA’s jurisdiction and that the FDA “will continue to determine whether imported medication shipments are admissible.” Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily Hilliard said the FDA would “continue to evaluate personal imports on a case-by-case basis.”
White House spokesperson Allison Schuster did not respond to questions about imports but said Trump “remains dedicated to lowering the cost of prescription drugs.”
Since summer 2025, patients have had to pay tariffs on brand-name medicine shipments. In 2022, the FDA said it typically checked about 1 in 2,000 medication packages passing through U.S. customs.
“A lot of products weren’t even looked at, because CBP and FDA didn’t have full visibility” into what entered the country, Prescription Justice’s Levitt said. The rule requires shippers to post a bond and fill in a complex data form for each package, he noted.
“Let’s say you’re importing 90 days’ worth of Eliquis,” Levitt said. “FDA can now look on a screen and see that. Do they let it in, or refuse it under law?”
“If they don’t, there’s going to be a cohort of people who cannot afford their drugs anymore,” he said. “And those people are going to suffer.”
Arthur Allen( Allenaallen@kff.org) is a KFF Health News correspondent
‘Chance happenings’
“Free Flowing Fossils” (acrylic on canvas), by Tim McFarlane, in his show “Another Day, Another Way,’’ at the University of Maine’s Zillman Art Museum, Bangor, through Dec. 12.
He says:
‘‘My works emphasize multi-layered systems, color (chromatic and gray scale) and process. In my paintings, overlapping forms and fractured spaces alternately support, negate and influence each other, mirroring events in everyday life. Shifts in formal relationships between layers, marks, color, and space, subtle and overt, contribute to the overall visual narrative in my work. My paintings and works on paper feature open and opaque layers that incorporate various modes of mark making including: direct painting, drawing, image transfers, stenciling and collage. My process relies on a sense of interdependence and chance happenings, which allows for multiple meanings in my work that can be explored by the viewer.’’