The state says that the classic Japanese automobiles are unsafe for public roads but that golf carts are A-OK

Rhode Island is reportedly asking kei-vehicle owners, which include cars, trucks and minivans, to relinquish their registrations. This move is a direct challenge to federal laws that grant 25-year-old vehicles the freedom to remain in the country. It’s also puzzling, as the state claims its reasoning is safety-based, but at the same time, it wants to enable golf carts to wander the streets.

The DMV, which defines Kei Vehicles as “Primarily mini-trucks manufactured for the Japanese market designated as ‘kejidosha’ lightweight vehicles,” evidently canceled kei truck and car registrations over a year ago, according to a report from The Drive.

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Now, a new report suggests that the state is taking further steps. It’s asking owners to return their registrations, which were once legally issued. In fact, it might be denying registrations for normal vehicles to those who own kei cars and trucks. Almost any vehicle over 25 years old is legal to import to the USA under federal law, and this includes kei cars, like the ones that Rhode Island is targeting.

According to WPRI, “the DMV has made efforts over the last several years to prevent any additional registration of these vehicles… there are, however, a handful that still remain registered, and the proposed bill would restrain the DMV’s ability to further eliminate unsafe vehicles from the public roadways of the state.”

What it’s referring to is a bill proposed by State Senator Lou DiPalma who is fighting to keep the kei-vehicles legal. “What the bill seeks to do is grandfather everybody who has [a Kei vehicle (car or truck)] and has it registered. It would allow you to re-register if you had it prior to 2021,” DiPalma explained. The Providence Journal reports that the bill would “Apply only to kei cars, trucks, and microvans that were registered in Rhode Island as of August 1, 2021.” (At the time, there were at least 30 in the state, DiPalma said).”

It’s also worth noting that the state seems to be completely hypocritical when it comes to laws regarding vehicles on public roads. In July, it’ll become legal to drive “Low-Speed Vehicles” like golf carts on streets. Specifically, these vehicles must have a top speed above 20 mph (32 km/h) but no higher than 25 mph (40 km/h) and can only go on streets with speed limits up to 35 mph (56 km/h).

Notably, the street-legal golf carts in question aren’t just any old course-covering vehicle. They have to be all-electric, must have wipers, a license plate, be insured, and meet some other qualifications.

The point remains, though. To claim that they’re safe while Kei cars and trucks aren’t appears to be a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing. Oh, and all of this appears to be over approximately 30 kei vehicles in total.

PROVIDENCE − With backing from Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, a fast-moving bill to double the gambling-on-credit limit at Rhode Island’s two Bally’s-run state casinos to $100,000 is sparking questions.

Among them: Why is this a good idea? How deeply is Bally’s able to probe the off-limits gambling habits of online gamblers or the patrons of the tribal casinos across the border? What else does this newly filed legislation actually do?

“Obviously we’re not interested in extending lines of credit to those individuals who would not be able to pay it back,” Bally’s representative Elizabeth Suever assured the Senate Committee on Special Legislation last week on the wide-ranging bill introduced on May 2.

Why it matters:

Taxpayers have a stake because state-sponsored gambling – including gambling in Bally’s-run two state casinos in Lincoln and Tiverton – is the state’s third largest source of revenue, with an anticipated $428.8 million in gambling revenue headed to the state treasury this year.

What is the rush on the bill?

No one from the Rhode Island Lottery – which is the state’s gambling control agency – or the Council on Problem Gambling appeared at last week’s hearing to say anything on the bill that Senate President Dominick Ruggerio allowed to be introduced more than two months after the Senate’s bill-introduction deadline.

Why did Ruggerio sponsor a bill this late in the session? “The bill was introduced at the request of Bally’s, to keep them on par with competition from casinos in Massachusetts,” a spokesperson for Ruggerio said.

A hearing has been scheduled for this Thursday on the matching House version of the bill. That version also seeks to give the state’s Department of Business Regulation the power to change the terms in the latest version of the state’s current operating agreement with Bally’s without having to ask legislative approval.

In the State House: More than one senator seemed shocked that the new language was not delineated in “blue” – as is usually the case – and unsatisfied by Suever’s answer that this is not, technically, the kind of law that requires legislative approval.

What are the arguments for a $100,000 credit limit?

How Suever explained the need: “We want to make sure that, as the operator of the two casinos for the state of Rhode Island, we’re doing everything that we can to be regionally competitive. By that I mean competitive with those casinos that are in Connecticut, which are some of the largest casinos in the United States, and Massachusetts.”

She said Bally’s already has high limit rooms, but players in the rooms have said they can’t get the same level of credit in Rhode Island as they can in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts does not have a credit limit. (Connecticut casinos are tribal, meaning they can decide how much credit to issue, she said.)

While Bally’s is not suggesting Rhode Island go as far as Massachusetts, she said, extending the limit from $50,000 currently to $100,000 would be “an amenity for our players that play very high limits because they don’t want to be carrying that amount of cash on their person as they’re coming and going from the casino.”

Suever said the limit would be for a “very, very limited amount of players.”

The limit would only be available to people gambling at the casino in person, she said, and would not be available to those using iGaming.

She did not mention how the casino’s are faring financially. While state revenues from the Lottery’s instant tickets, Powerball and Daily Numbers games are up year-over-year, the state’s share of the take from the video-slots and table games at the two casinos was down. At the Tiverton casino, the table game action was down 8.2%, at LIncoln, 3.2%.

What does it take to get the $100,000 limit?

Before extending or upping anyone’s credit, Suever said they:

• Have the player file a credit application
• Have Bally’s do bank account checks and credit history checks
• Require two forms of identification
• Require a player number to track their play and their gaming history at all local casinos

How many players current carry a $50,000 credit limit? Suever wasn’t able to say, and the Rhode Island Lottery did not respond to an inquiry about the gambling debt loads of Bally’s customers in Rhode Island by deadline.

What else would the bills do?

Other features of the bill would change the 20-year deal for Rhode Island’s lottery and casino operations, according to Bally’s spokeswoman Patti Doyle, by:

• Allowing negotiations between RI Lottery and Bally’s on the calculation of Bally’s debt ratio, allowing, for example, “addbacks for development projects and not just acquisitions.”
• Changing the way promotional points are calculated. This is money that comes straight off the top of the state’s share that the casino can give customers as an incentive to visit and play more.

Pressure Point

Brown scientists have discovered a key driver of preeclampsia, which causes high blood pressure during pregnancy. By Dana Laverty

Researchers at Brown University have identified a protein in cerebrospinal fluid that’s a driver in preeclampsia, a dangerous pregnancy condition that affects between 5 to 8 percent of pregnancies and is a leading cause of maternal and fetal death.

Research led by Surendra Sharma and Sukanta Jash at Brown University and Kun Ping Lu and Xia Zhen Zhou at Western University in Canada found the protein, cis P-tau, in the blood and placentas of people with preeclampsia. They also found that depleting cis P-tau prevented mice from developing the condition. 

“Our study identifies cis P-tau as a culprit and biomarker for preeclampsia,” says Sharma, who until recently was a Brown professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and professor of pediatrics. “It can be used for early diagnosis of the complication and is a crucial therapeutic target.” (Sharma is now a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.)

Preeclampsia is a complication that results in high blood pressure during pregnancy. Untreated, it can lead to serious complications for both the mother and baby, and often leads to preterm labor and birth. 

The protein cis P-tau has mainly been associated with Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injuries and stroke. Lu and Zhou discovered the association in 2015.

Screening tests for the cis P-tau biomarker, combined with therapies involving the cis P-tau antibody, could change the outlook for pregnant people with preeclampsia, Jash says. The root cause of preeclampsia has so far remained unknown, Sharma says, and without a known cause there has been no cure.

The team at Brown is currently working on developing a lab test that can detect preeclampsia.

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Bridging the Gap

Researchers from Brown University and Lifespan are partnering on a device that could restore function for individuals with a spinal cord injury. By Lauren Clem

A clinician works with a participant in the trial. Photo courtesy of Lifespan

In an unassuming building on Allens Avenue in Providence, research is underway that could change the future of spinal cord injury treatment.

The Intelligent Spine Interface, led by researchers from Brown University and surgeons from Rhode Island Hospital, aims to restore limb motor function, sensation, autonomic function and bladder control for individuals paralyzed following a spinal cord injury. According to principal investigator David Borton, an associate professor of engineering and brain science at Brown University and biomedical engineer with the Department of Veterans Affairs, no technology currently exists to bridge the gap created by such an injury.

“There’s no tool or a magic fix that we have for someone who has a complete spinal cord injury,” he says. “There’s nothing available to help them regain functions that they have lost.”

Working with Dr. Jared Fridley, director of the Spinal Outcomes Laboratory at Lifespan and an associate professor of neurosurgery at Brown, the team is creating a device that would carry signals across the injury site and restore the connection between brain and limbs. The device uses artificial intelligence to interpret signals from the spinal cord and adapt to the needs of the wearer over time.

“These devices enable the person’s spinal cord and nervous system to modulate over time to hopefully recover function,” Fridley says. “For most people, we’re talking about weeks to months of rehabilitation, plus the device, to see if there’s recovery of function.”

David Borton and Dr. Jared Fridley, right, present their research to Yunyan “Jennifer” Wang and Jean-Paul Chretien of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of DARPA.

The study, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Department of Veterans Affairs at the Providence VA Medical Center, has the potential to restore movement to those with spinal cord injuries, including veterans paralyzed in combat situations. A clinical trial is underway at Lifespan’s Center for Innovative Neurotechnology for Neural Repair, where the researchers have enlisted two individuals to participate in phase one of the trial.

“This is a first in human clinical study for this type of technology,” Borton says. “No one’s ever done this before.”

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Vasectomy Victor

There may be a faster and easier way to perform a vasectomy. By Jamie Coelho

Imagine if men could get a vasectomy in five seconds. There may be a new, minimally invasive way to conduct the procedure in our near future. On the heels of its five-year anniversary, Providence-based Signati Medical earned FDA approval for clinical trials for a study of a minimally invasive surgical device to perform a sealed vasectomy procedure (SVP). 

Photo courtesy of Signati Medical.

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Signati Medical is a medical device company working to advance men’s health. Signati CEO William Prentice says the study kicked off this April with its first patient at Louisiana State University Medical Center, and they plan to have an additional seven people undergo the procedure by the end of the month. The device obstructs the vas deferens by sending a shock through the skin that seals the tubes, rather than a surgeon cutting and fusing. 

Prentice wants to undergo SVP on live TV to gain support, but he must wait until the procedure is fully approved. “I agreed to do it,” he says. “We should be doing this for women. There’s no reason women need to go in for tubal ligations and have major surgery, take birth control pills or get IUDs. Men think because they have a vasectomy, they are not going to get an erection. It really shouldn’t be that way.” 

Prentice says this is the first innovation in vasectomy in more than twenty years. 

“About twenty years ago, one thing changed and that was that they went from scalpel to no scalpel,” he says. “This procedure takes about five seconds. Bipolar sealing in the body is the best sealing you can get.” signatimed.com