Editor’s Note: Each time a new public health disaster strikes, we become both witnesses and victims in the failure to invest in our public infrastructure. What follows is a policy issue brief … more

PROVIDENCE – Rebecca Altman, Ph.D., an environmental sociologist who is in the midst of writing The Song of Styrene, a history of plastics that interweaves her own family’s story in the … more

PROVIDENCE – Some things are hard to swallow, such as big horse pills and big piles of horse manure served up on Twitter.Take, for instance, the glowing reaction by R.I. Education Commissioner … more

PROVIDENCE – I once was cast -- perhaps typecast might be a more accurate description – as Howie Newsome, the milkman, in Thorton Wilder’s iconic “Our Town,” a drama … more

PROVIDENCE – We are entering a time of major transitions. We are changing horses in midstream, in the midst of a dangerous storm, making it difficult to talk about hope, as we frantically try … more

PART ONE: PROVIDENCE – In the midst of a deadly pandemic, social media platforms, particularly Twitter, have become the place where news content is shared widely, with the potential to reach … more