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Sharon OKs funds to fix River Road
Jan 13, 2026
SHARON — During a brief town meeting on Thursday, Jan. 8, attended by 12 people, $1.7 million was approved to be allocated from the town’s Undesignated Fund toward a remediation project on River Road.
The project is intended to fix storm damage that has reduced traffic down to a single lane.
Of the total dollar amount, $1 million is set to be reimbursed by a Small Towns Economic Assistance Program (STEAP) grant, which was awarded to the town last year.
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A difficult year for the environment
Jan 13, 2026
2025 turns out to be the warmest year on record followed by the previous ten years.At the same time, the Trump administration has removed the term “climate change” from federal agency websites and declared it to be a “hoax”.
The gently progressive environmental policies of President Biden, culminating in the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act of 2023 incorporated a huge array of provisions designed to improve the environment. Since returning to office, President Trump has produced a whirlwind of policy changes and actions, bold and far-reaching in environmental matters. What follows are just a few of those changes.
On his first day in office, President Trump removed the United States from the 2016 Paris Agreement, the accord signed by nearly 200 nations to move forcefully to arrest climate change.Last Wednesday at the U.N., Trump went further and withdrew the U.S. from the 1992 climate treaty which was a pact between all nations to keep global temperatures at safe levels.
Earlier this year when more than 100 nations were poised to approve a deal to slash pollution from cargo ships, the Trump administration launched a successful pressure campaign to halt it. State Department officials threatened tariffs, visa restrictions, additional port fees, sanctions and personal reprisals against diplomats supporting the agreement; it failed to pass.
In November, the U.S. boycotted the United Nations COP Conference for the first time in thirty years, thereby leaving it leaderless and ineffective.
The Trump administration also sided with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran to block part of a U.N. report about the state of the planet because it called for phasing out fossil fuels and the use of plastics.
Trump’s dislike of clean energy became clear soon after his inauguration when he signed an executive order banning both new solar and new wind power installations on federal property. His executive order to stop work on five large off shore wind farms along the Atlantic coast, two of which were nearly complete and would power close to two million homes puts the wind energy industry in dire financial straits imperilling investments and more than 10,000 jobs.Currently wind turbines provide nearly a third of US electricity. Each of the governors of the five states with the threatened wind farms are Democrats. Clean energy investments for the year have declined by more than $32 billion in 2025.It seems likely that Trump’s moves against the wind farms were largely vindictive;many billion dollars of unfinished power plant construction seem much too valuable to abandon.
While the Biden administration was beginning to put significant federal money into rebuilding rail service, Trump has been opposed and pulled support from a number of major rail projects already approved including the North River project featuring a new desperately needed rail tunnel under the Hudson River to help facilitate improved rail traffic along the entire east coast.
On December 16, the Trump administration announced plans to dismantle the leading US atmospheric science center. Constructed in 1960 and housed in an I. M. Pei designed structure in Boulder, Colorado, the National Center for Atmospheric Research had become world famous for its research activities.
Russell Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget (and previously the main author of the Federalist Society’s Project 2025) had condemned the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) calling it “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.” A wide range of federal officials and scientists, not just from NCAR, have lobbied to save the Center and keep it intact but the Trump administration seems intent on dismantling it, sending the more mundane weather aspects of the center to the National Weather Service and disposing of more research-oriented functions.
No cabinet department has been as involved in undoing the efforts of previous administrations in protecting the environment as the Environmental Protection Agency. During the past year dozens of rules and regulations regarding air and water pollution have been dropped or eased.Promised new controls over “forever chemicals” (PFAS) have been postponed or dropped. Fossil fuel exhaust controls have been severely weakened. In October the EPA removed protections for millions of acres of wetlands and streams. In July the EPA revoked the “Endangerment Finding” that said that greenhouse gas emissions posed a threat to public health, the underlying justification for the pollution control regulations that followed; what will happen now?
Subsidies for solarcollectors and electric vehicles have been drastically cut. At the same time, the administration has actively promoted fossil fuel including massive sales of oil and gas abroad and issuing enormous leases on land and sea for oil and gas drilling. The Trump administration’s recent seizure of the Venezuelan petroleum reserves leaves the U.S. with the largest reserve of what turns out to be probably the world’s dirtiest, most polluting oil. At the same time they spent significant sums to recondition coal burning power plants otherwise at the edge of retirement.
Is there anything we can do to improve this troubling situation we are finding ourselves in?Perhaps the most significant action individuals can take would be to become better informed about environmental issues and vote accordingly.
Architect and landscape designer Mac Gordon lives in Lakeville.
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Camels at the eye of the needle
Jan 13, 2026
‘And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”– Matthew 19:24
The world woefully reels from an unexpectedly viscous blow as the United States truncated humanitarian funding established by a myriad of laws set by Congress, solely in Congress’s authority.Marauding cyber bandidos, initially led by an unelected, garish swashbuckler steeped in billions of government contracts, have bulldozed agencies and laws spilling forth private personal data, ceasing life sustaining research and services, terminating employment not in their jurisdiction.Charity, equity, legal are in 2025 the newly minted nasty words of the rising bashers of today’s federal government, following a presidential creed “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law”- Donald J. Trump.
It is predicted that since closing this year, 600,000 former recipients of U.S.A.I.D services worldwide – the majority children – have died from malnutrition and infection as food and medicines were withheld, often stored in regional warehouses – accessible yet unutilized.
Christian, Jewish, Islam, Hindi, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism- all formal religions agree charity, reaching out to others, helping others, is a key precept of religious living. Many Christian sects suggest a worshipper tithe at 10% or “in keeping with income” (1 Corinthians 16:2). According to Forbes’s annual publication of the richest US persons in 2025, 70% of the 400 richest Americans donated less than 5% to charity (charity, not to include political donations).The generosity of this cadre is dropping annually.
The richest of the rich, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Peter Thiel, have Forbes philanthropy scores of 1 on the 5 point scale indicating their total lifetime donations to be 1 % or less of their wealth (a 5 rating on the Forbes scale is gifting 20% or more of one’s wealth). Though only half way up the prestigious list of 400, Trump has doubled his wealth since taking office, moving in 11 months from 319 of 400 to 201, his personal increase of wealth over $3 billion.Trump’s philanthropic score remained at 1; in 2018, the Trump Foundation was closed for fraud.
Oddly, much of the rhetoric of the Trump second administration (with 12 billionaire appointees) is laden with references to Christian values, beliefs, behaviors.VP Vance and Paypal cofounder Peter Thiel, who bought Vance’s Ohio Senate race with a $15 million donation, rarely demonstrate recognizable deeds or words modelling Christianity. They with gusto have liberalized political spending that the Supreme Court made law in 2010, Citizens United vs the FEC decision.
Though seemly in an age of high religious fever, faceless, nameless ICE storm troopers stalk and invade schools, churches, apartments, homes, shopping malls exhibiting rough to ruthless behaviors – they can, they have been striped clean of accountability markers and are often personally encouraged by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to be brutal.In opposition, led most rigorously by Catholic Cardinals and Bishops, religious leaders of all sects first sought Congressional disapproval of the Big Beautiful Bill in June, then recently sent letters to the White House condemning immigration deportation – behaviors and brutality.No impact.
Has the heart gone out of this nation, has regard and respect been smothered by not the elite but the outlandishly rich.Here is to 2026 – a new year, perhaps with renewed humanity.
Kathy Herald-Marlowe lives in Sharon.
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