Point Park University

It’s one thing to learn economics or world history off a lecture on Zoom. But try it with dance, acting – or tuba.

On today's program: Point Park University celebrates black dancers; Gov. Wolf’s ambitious carbon goals don’t really square up with pushing for a boom in petrochemicals; agriculture is a major industry in Pennsylvania, but it faces serious challenges; and Airbnb is changing the hospitality game in Pittsburgh.

On today's program: FBI Pittsburgh hopes to apply the cyber security lessons of 2016 to 2020; the U.S. Census Bureau needs many more numerators ahead of this year’s count; a Point Park initiative goes beyond basic survival needs for the city’s homeless; and Philadelphia honors native son Kobe Bryant after the basketball star’s tragic death. 

On today's program: Eating disorders uniquely affect women over age 40; mentorship at Brashear came from an unexpected place; what it will take for lawmakers to consider raising the state minimum wage; and why A+ Schools changed its annual report to focus on pockets of success.

On today's program: Point Park teams up with a Mississippi newsroom to investigate lead in water; how the "felony murder" charge has given thousands life sentences, despite many having nothing to do with the homicide; and a year into a merger, how is Pittsburgh's early music organization keeping baroque alive?

Jeremy Resnick co-founded Propel Charter Schools in the basement of a Homestead hospital more than 16 years ago, and helmed the organization as it's expanded to 4,000 students in 13 distinct schools.

Officers assigned to missing persons cases often aren’t given the best resources for their search and rescue dogs to trail the lost or kidnapped person, but a new kit could change that.

It’s been almost three years since The McKeesport Daily News published its final edition, and a pilot program out of Point Park University aims to fill at least a portion of that media void. 

Dance studios across the United States are brimming with bunheads dreaming of crossing the stage at Lincoln Center, but guests would be hard pressed to find any boys among them. 

Sorrow, unrest and anger drove Pittsburghers into the streets this week in grief and solidarity following the shooting deaths of two young black men, Antwon Rose and Jimmy Wopo, as well as a border patrol policy that's left thousands of children stranded far away from their immigrant parents.

Later this spring, the end of an era in Pittsburgh theater arrives with the shuttering of the Pittsburgh Playhouse in Oakland.

It's been a busy week for the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. A consultant found PWSA to be “a failed organization atop a dangerous and crumbling structure” in an initial assessment presented Monday. Hours later, the authority issued a flush-and-boil water order for 18,000 homes across the North Side, Millvale and Reserve Township related to holes in the cover on top of a water reservoir in Shaler Township.

The Confluence – where the news comes together is 90.5 WESA’s weekly news program.

Each week reporters, editors and bloggers join veteran journalist, and host, Kevin Gavin. They’ll go behind the headlines taking an in-depth look at the stories important to the Pittsburgh region.

The Confluence broadcasts live from Point Park University’s Center for Media Innovation. As the 2016 election season winds down a panel of journalists join us to discuss the presidential and senate races. We’ll also examine how the media has covered the elections.

In June, a Baltimore judge vacated the conviction of Adnan Syed and ordered a new trial for the 35-year-old who's been incarcerated since being found guilty for the murder of his high school girlfriend 17 years ago.

If the case sounds familiar, you might be one of the millions who downloaded the first season of "This American Life’s" wildly successful spin-off podcast, "Serial." And if you never heard the show, chances are somebody you know did.

Former Pittsburgh Tribune-Review investigative reporter Andrew Conte knows newspapers. The industry is not dying, he said.

As the new director of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University, Conte -- still a monthly columnist -- is using his delight for an evolving craft to help prepare aspiring storytellers.

The terms socialist and socialism have been mentioned with some regularity during the presidential campaign. But what exactly is socialism, who is a socialist and why does it seem to be spoken of pejoratively? We'll pose those questions to Robert Ross associate professor of global cultural studies  & Jehnie Reis  an assistant professor of history in the  Humanities and Human Sciences Department at Point Park University.