Sen. Whitehouse One of Few US Representatives at Climate Conference
PROVIDENCE — It’s not every day a Rhode Island politician can claim to be the only representative of the US federal government.
For the opening weekend of this year’s 30th U.N. Conference of the Parties (COP) — the largest and most important venue for world governments to gather to address the global climate crisis — commonly known as COP30, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, was one of the few representatives from the US, as President Donald Trump refused to send a federal delegation this year.
The junior senator from Rhode Island is the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Whitehouse arrived in Belém, Brazil, a city known for being the gateway to the lower Amazon region, to push back against climate denialism in the United States and abroad.
“We had no support whatsoever from the State Department, which is a first for me. I’ve done a lot of climate conferences,” Whitehouse told reporters during a press gaggle following his trip. “Usually, they automatically provide logistical support; [this time] they wouldn’t even help us get our badges for the conference; we had to go through a private organization.”
After Service Cuts, Ridership, Complaints about RIPTA Dip
The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority saw 90,000 fewer riders on its fixed-route service in October, compared to last year.
In October 2025, RIPTA serviced 1.16 million riders on its fixed routes, down about 7% from 1.22 million rides in October 2024.
The dip in ridership comes after the authority cut service on more than 40 of its routes. The cuts, which took effect Sept. 27, reduced frequency, narrowed the span of service, and/or eliminated some sections of bus lines.
Looking month to month, fixed-route ridership also declined by about 10,000 rides from September, when cuts largely weren’t in effect.
Ridership on RIPTA’s flex buses, which operate on demand within certain geographic areas around the state, and its paratransit service, called RIde, increased slightly compared to last year, with about 2,000 more rides total, combined.
On-time performance (OTP) for the system remained relatively consistent with last year at 73.2% this October compared to 73.7% in 2024.
RIPTA had been on time nearly 80% of the time in the first few months of 2025, but dipped down in September, which isn’t uncommon. Over the past few years, RIPTA has seen similar dips in OTP around when school goes back into session.
Complaints are also down in general. In the 30 days prior to the cuts taking effect, RIPTA received 245 complaints, many of them about customers being passed by the bus, and in the 30 days after, the agency received 197 complaints.
Although there were fewer complaints in total, complaints about late buses more than doubled from eight to 20 complaints following the cuts.
URI Researchers Find Fewer Microplastics in Southern Narragansett Bay
New research from scientists at the University of Rhode Island suggests that microplastics are more likely to accumulate in the northern parts of Narragansett Bay, closer to where the state’s biggest population clusters live.
“Our results suggest that freshwater rivers flowing through urban areas are likely accumulating microplastics and then depositing them into the bay,” said Sarah Davis, a postdoctoral research fellow at URI.
The study, authored by Davis and fellow URI researcher Victoria Fulfer from the 5 Gyres Institute, shows that southern Narragansett Bay tends to have lower amounts of microplastics. Davis said the researchers used surface water travel to collect samples during three seasons: winter, spring, and a combined fall and summer season. Over two years they collected two replicate samples from each site, leading to a total of 72 unique trawls throughout the bay.
According to the research, the state’s marshes trap 10-to-50 times more microplastics than the nearby seabed.
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