Syracuse University professor Peter Blanck, one of the nation's leading disability-rights advocates and experts, this week on "Story in the Public Square."

New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert, winner of The Pulitzer Prize, the 2019 Pell Center Prize for Story in the Public Square and many other honors, discusses her book “The Sixth Extinction” this week on “Story in the Public Square” PBS TV and SiriusXM Radio.

Lifespan president and CEO Dr. Timothy J. Babineau discusses Brigham Health's proposed acquisition of Care New England, with Jane Bruno, Lifespan senior vice president for marketing and communications, also commenting. Interviewed by G. Wayne Miller.

Kimberley Wallace, featured editor of Game Informer, the eight-million-circulation monthly magazine devoted to video gaming, is this week's guest on "Story in the Public Square."

In this beginning order, Dr. Stephen DiZio, Community Care Alliance medical director; Jamie Lehane, president and CEO of Newport Mental Health; and Ben Lessing, CCA president and CEO, discuss the problems created by the transition of Medicaid funding to managed-care organizations. Story, photos, video and more in this first installment of the State of Health series at providencejournal.com

The agency also now requires all water systems to test periodically for algae blooms. And it is working on a regulation with the state Water Resources Board and O’Rourke’s office to ensure that all systems are tied into backup water suppliers.

“Many of the water providers around the state operate as an island and they’re not all well-connected, so if one goes down there’s limited ability to draw water from another area,” O’Rourke says. “We think of this as pre-planning and not waiting until the disaster hits.”

“At a state level, if we’re looking at all the impacts of climate change, drinking water absolutely rises to the top,” says Shaun O’Rourke, chief resiliency officer for Rhode Island. “Why? It isn’t just one neighborhood or one municipality where it’s being felt more than others. This is truly a statewide issue.”

Sarah Fawn Montgomery, poet, professor and author of “Quite Mad: An American Pharma Memoir,” this week on Story in the Public Square.

Louise Durfee recalls a professor singling her out at Yale Law School in the 1950s, during an exercise demonstrating whether a contract's terms had been substantially performed.

"Miss Durfee," he called out with a German accent.

"Of course, I was pretty shy in those days, and the last thing I wanted to be was noted," Durfee, now 88, said. "It was sort of unnerving."

Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson became the second woman confirmed to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the first ever African American in 2010.

"To me it’s still disgraceful that I’m only the second woman to ever be on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. ... I’m two, and I’m the first and only African American to be on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals," Thompson said Monday in her 15th-floor office looking out to the Rhode Island State House.