The Week in Philly from KYW Newsradio

What everyone feared has happened, Russia has commenced a full-blown invasion of Ukraine. We had a lot of questions -- what are Putin's goals? Was war with Ukraine always going to happen or was there something the US could have done to stop it? How do the people of Russia feel? And what's going to happen next? Dr. Lisa Baglione is a Professor of Political Science and member of the International Re...

For someone who studies earthquakes, what are the scariest places in the world? How big does an earthquake have to be before it has societal impacts? Where in the United States are we most at risk for serious earthquakes? And could a big quake ever hit the Philadelphia area? This episode of KYW Newsradio In Depth is part four of a mini series called Doomsday Scenarios, where we ask very smart peop...

Those direct cash payments to families with children as part of the Expanded Child Tax Credit did an incredible lot of good last year as they lifted millions of kids out of poverty. But those payments ended on December 15th and hopes of continuing them were dashed for the time being when President Biden’s Build Back Better plan was sidelined. We wanted to talk about the ramifications of those paym...

Nostalgia is big business. Everywhere you look - TV, movies, stores - we are surrounded by ads, items, shows, and music that take us back to younger days. And that is not an accident. Dr. Dustin Kidd, Chair of the Sociology Department at Temple University is on the podcast to talk about why nostalgia marketing is hot, how companies know what to get you with, and how long this wave is going to last...

Sigal Atzmon is the Founder and CEO of Medix Global, a global medical management company. She recently wrote an op-ed for The Hill about how many other countries will emerge from the pandemic with populations that have suffered less than the population in the US, both in terms of physical and mental health, mainly because of the lack of a vaccine mandate. We wanted to talk to her about her op-ed a...

How do you keep kids and teens safe online when they have digital access to the world? Philadelphia police Detective Kate Gordon and Officer Stephanie Rosenbaum from the Special Victim's Unit are tasked with finding children who've gone missing, some lured online by predators. Now, they want parents to know what they can do to protect their children, while allowing them to live lives online. Today...

A libel case brought by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin against The New York Times took a very strange turn of events this week, involving a judge's comment, a jury's decisions, and news push alerts. Craig Green, Professor of Law at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law joins the podcast to explain what's happening and the possible ripple effects this case and others like it could have on f...

Gas prices are stubbornly high. So what's causing us to pay so much at the pump? Villanova chemical engineering professor Dr. Scott Jackson explains what's happening behind the scenes that's making gas prices so high, as well as diving into a fascinating breakdown of why natural gas has very quietly made the US essentially energy independent, what presidents can and can't do to affect gas prices,...

The retail doom and gloom around the holidays looks a lot better right now. Inflation is still a concern, but what does it mean on a macro level? And why are energy prices so high? Philadelphia area economist David Fiorenza breaks down the economic news of the week and why it should matter to you.

Millions of people are living with Alzheimer’s disease and millions more are at risk of developing it. It’s scary, but all kinds of research is being done to try and treat and prevent the disease. And it is important to note that the Black community is significantly affected by Alzheimer’s, yet they are vastly underrepresented in clinical trials. The AHEAD study is trying to make progress in the f...

Wharlest Jackson was a Korean War veteran and a Mississippi NAACP leader who was murdered in 1967 in the Deep South. His murder is still unsolved, and now it's the focus of a PBS Frontline documentary called American Reckoning. The film takes us back to the Civil Rights Era to examine Jackson's murder, and it also looks at the Black opposition to racist violence in the South, including a group cal...

James Harden is one of the most dangerous scorers in basketball. Thanks to a blockbuster deal at the NBA trade deadline, the 76ers are now set to pair the 10-time All-Star with another generational talent, Joel Embiid. But how did Harden ascend from relative obscurity in his youth to superstardom? Scott Pera coached Harden at Artesia High School in Southern California. The two then reunited at Ari...

The school mask debate has been raging for more than a year and half. But a lot has changed since this time last year. In the second interview of KYW Newsradio In Depth's two part series on school masks, KYW's Jim Melwert talks to Dr. David Rubin, the director of CHOP Policy Lab which has been key in informing school boards and administrators on how to handle everything from in person learn, hybri...

Perkiomen Valley school district in Montgomery County voted to lift its universal masking requirement. But a federal judge overruled that decision when families of some students claimed it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. It's a complicated story with really important local ripple effects, so we asked Villanova Law Professor Michael Moreland to help us to understand the case in questi...

If you've been feeling depressed or uninspired as the second year of the pandemic winds down, you're not alone. But University of Pennsylvania psychologist Dr. Melissa Hunt thinks it might be time for us to start changing how we think about our new world. From letting go of certain fears to thoughtfully framing sensitive issues like masking, Hunt shares some insights and tips about how to shake of...

How do we get from where we are right now in the pandemic to a place where COVID-19 is endemic and we just learn to live with it? What would endemic COVID mean for how we live our lives? How do we approach an endemic pandemic as a society? Dr. Seth Welles, Professor of Epidemiology at Drexel University's Dornsife School of Public Health joins the podcast for to help us get our heads around being o...

A volcano erupted underwater in Tonga recently, starting a tsunami that caused incredible damage. The blast was visible from space. So how much damage could a massive eruption from a supervolcano actually do? Where are the hot spots? And what would happen one mile, ten miles, and a hundred miles away from the eruption? There's a little bit of good news -- Dr. Loÿc Vanderkluysen, associate professo...

More and more states are locking in the maps that will be used as the basis for elections for the next decade. And the redistricting process hasn’t played out the way many thought it might. We wanted to dig into this so we caught up with Dr. Joshua Weikert, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Civic Engagement at Immaculata University.

The Super Bowl is Sunday, and for every person looking forward to watching the Bengals and the Rams, there’s probably somebody that is just as excited if not more excited to check out the Super Bowl commercials. A 2022 Super Bowl commercial that runs 30 seconds costs as much as $6 million dollars. Can that ad really be worth the price tag? What does a company need to do to have a commercial that r...

The Winter Olympics in Beijing are here, and many countries including the United States have instituted a diplomatic boycott for the games -- the athletes will still go but the high level politicians and diplomats won’t in protest of China’s human rights abuses. China is a country with no free press. Dissent is cracked down upon, and that could create problems for athletes from the US and other co...

The January jobs report is out, and guess what? Philadelphia economist David Fiorenza thinks it's really good! In his weekly check in, David also recaps the encouraging GDP from 2021, and implores the Fed to just get it over with and make its impending interest rate hike.

Brian Flores was recently fired as head coach of the Miami Dolphins after three seasons, the last two of which he led Miami to a winning record. Now he has filed a class action lawsuit against the NFL and three teams, including the Dolphins, alleging racial discrimination. There's a lot going on and a lot to unpack in this story, so we asked Andrew Brandt, executive director of the Moorad Center f...

There are two sides to every story, including history. We're taught that the Battle of Yorktown was a great victory for the American Revolution, but it also played a role in embedding slavery into the groundwork of the new nation that came after. Dr. Gregory Urwin, Professor of History at Temple University, wrote about this in the Journal of the American Revolution. He joins us to explain what he...

What are the best starting words in Wordle? How do I get better at solving the word every day? What are Wordle pitfalls that even experts fall for every day? We asked Villanova University Linguist Dr. Grant Berry for his Wordle pro-tips, and his take on what the game's acquisition by the New York Times means for the future of daily word puzzles.

We're so great! Just let us tell you about it! Odds are, you've come across a narcissist or two in your life. And in the age of social media, who knows? You might even have some narcissistic tendencies yourself. According to West Chester University Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Michael Roche, narcissism in a vacuum isn't necessarily a bad thing; it's all about whether people use it in adap...