Pittsburgh Explainer

On this week's Explainer:

Two different locals of the second-largest union in the U.S. are putting their weight behind two different Pittsburgh mayoral candidates. Government and accountability editor Chris Potter looks into why the Service Employees International Union 32BJ backed Mayor Bill Peduto, while SEIU Healthcare PA is supporting his primary challenger, state Rep. Ed Gainey.

On this week's Explainer:

On this week's Explainer:

This week the Allegheny County Health Department announced that the first case of B.1.1.7 variant of the coronavirus was identified in the county. The strain is sometimes referred to as the UK variant. It’s more contagious than the strain of the coronavirus currently dominant in the U.S. Health and science reporter Sarah Boden joins Explainer to discuss what this means for Allegheny County.

On this week's Explainer:

On this week's Explainer:

Pittsburgh Public Schools students will continue learning remotely until at least April. Education reporter Sarah Schneider spoke with guest host and The Confluence editor and producer Marylee Williams. Schneider says it's just the latest in a series of delays by the district to in-person instruction.

On this week's Explainer:

This week, the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced that people over age 65 are now eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19, as are other adults and older teens with certain health conditions. Health and science reporter Sarah Boden looks into the local data on inoculation.

On this week's Explainer:

The COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been slow and uneven.

On this week's Explainer:

Far-right extremists who support President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. It was an effort to disrupt the congressional process of certifying Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as President-elect and Vice President-elect.

Pittsburgh Explainer is taking a break from the news this week. Instead, we're bringing you four winter scenes from WESA journalists.

First, take a walk with host Liz Reid and her dog, Roscoe; get your yoga mat and work out with The Confluence producer Laura Tsutsui and her partner (and hear why it's okay to sleep in a little); bake pistachio pinwheel cookies with The Confluence editor Marylee Williams; and hear from government and accountability reporter Ariel Worthy about what it's like to be pregnant for the first time during a pandemic.

Nine hours, 17 minutes and 35 seconds of sunlight will shine in Pittsburgh's sky on Christmas day. That's 37 seconds more than appeared on Monday, the winter solstice, and the shortest day of the year. 

This week explained: 

Cheers erupted as UPMC nurse practitioner Charmaine Pykosh became the first person in Allegheny County to receive the COVID-19 vaccine Monday.

On this week’s Explainer:

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine mandated new restrictions on Thursday, aimed at reining in the coronavirus as it continues to spread rapidly across the state.

On this week's Explainer:

The coronavirus pandemic has many families who rely on food stamps struggling to put food on the table. Kate Giammarise reports on efforts by the Trump administration to prevent the distribution of additional benefits to certain recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Pittsburgh Explainer is taking a break this week for the Thanksgiving holiday. Instead, we’re bringing you the first episode of 90.5 WESA’s new series, Land & Power.

On this week's Explainer:

Allegheny County set a new record this week, with more than 2,000 new COVID-19 cases. Health reporter Sarah Boden reports state and county officials say they don't plan to put new restrictions in place, but are advising people to only interact with others in their home. 

This week on Explainer we have something a little different -- the introduction to a new podcast called Land & Power.

In 2015, residents of the Penn Plaza apartment buildings in Pittsburgh learned that they’d have to leave their homes to make way for a new development. The news arrived like a pronouncement: this neighborhood, East Liberty, isn’t for you anymore.

All eyes are on Pennsylvania as ballots continue to be counted. If Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden takes the commonwealth, he’ll win the presidency. WESA’s government and accountability editor Chris Potter and reporter Lucy Perkins break down what’s at stake and what’s to come.

This week on the Explainer:

COVID-19 cases are rising in Pennsylvania, with more than 40,000 people testing positive this month. Health and science reporter Sarah Boden breaks down the numbers, noting health officials say there isn’t a particular source of new infections.

On this week’s Explainer:

On this week's Explainer:

WESA’s Lucy Perkins outlines what happened that caused nearly 29,000 misprinted ballots to go out to Allegheny County residents. County elections officials are blaming the error on a third-party vendor.

On this week's Explainer:

Keystone Crossroads' Avi Wolfman-Arent reports that more than a half a million kids in Pennsylvania are learning to read right now. It's a demanding task in normal times, and considered by many to be the most significant event of a child's academic career. Remote learning could exacerbate existing gaps in literacy skills, which can impact a student's grasp of other subject areas.

On this week's Explainer:

Government and accountability reporter Lucy Perkins was there when former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was in town this week, riding an Amtrak train through parts of Ohio and western Pennsylvania. 

Pennsylvania played a key role in the election of President Donald Trump in the 2016 election. This year, both Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have their eye on winning Pennsylvania and securing the state's 20 electoral votes. 

The coronavirus pandemic caused more than one million Pennsylvanians to vote by mail in the June primary, and state officials expect that number to roughly triple in November. With a little over a month until the election, the rules around voting by mail are still in flux, as several lawsuits make their way through the courts.

An extra $500 per month will soon arrive for 200 Pittsburgh households. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said the city will start to make the payments later this year as part of a universal income pilot program. The initiative is funded by philanthropic donors and will go to very low-income families with an emphasis on homes run by Black women.

Two women, lifelong friends, consummate their yearly hotel-room assignation on the eve of Y2K. A man and a woman, near-strangers, have sex in a car outside the hospice where both their mothers are dying. A woman writes a long letter to her sister, who never knew their wayward father, who just died. A girl grows up understanding, but forbidden to speak about, her mother’s years-long affair with their pastor – and then becomes close to the pastor’s wife and teen-aged son.

Both President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden were in Southwestern Pennsylvania this week.

Pittsburgh’s Public Art Commission will soon hold a public hearing on whether to remove the Christopher Columbus statue in Schenley Park. More than 14,000 people have signed a petition asking for the statue’s removal.

Anti-racist activists faced off with Pittsburgh police in Point Breeze Wednesday night, after talks with Mayor Bill Peduto broke down. Police used chemical agents and other less-lethal crowd control methods, and one person was arrested.

This week, Duquesne University held its first press conference in response to the demands of Dannielle Brown, whose son Marquis Jaylen Brown died on campus in 2018.