The Week in Philly from KYW Newsradio

Schools have had to deal with a lot over the last couple of years as the pandemic rolled on. On top of that, many folks have been anxious for schools to get back to how they used to operate before COVID-19. But should that be the goal? Or, does this moment in time present an opportunity to reimagine the approach to public education? Dr. Jeff Rhodes, the Director of School Improvement Services for...

The state of caregiving in the U.S. is a serious issue - it's expensive and the people providing the caregiving are underpaid and overworked. Dr. Julie Morita, Executive Vice President at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, digs into this topic and provides some potential solutions, while explaining how the Build Back Better program could resolve these problems. 

For years, Dr. Drew Weissman has researched and created mRNA vaccines. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit nearly two years ago, he and his team at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania were positioned to help the world combat the dangerous virus. In an exclusive conversation with KYW Newsradio City Hall Bureau Chief Pat Loeb, the award-winning Weissman explains what it's be...

In 2021, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney faced a pandemic, a gun violence epidemic, battles over the 2020 election results, worker shortages, and more. Our City Hall Bureau Chief Pat Loeb sat down with the mayor to take a look back at how he handled one of the toughest years in the city's history. Kenney grades the city's performance on violence and education, and he reflects on how the turmoil and...

The spread of "fake news" in America has been aided and abetted by social media, and the consequences are dire. Dr. Min-Seok Pang ( https://twitter.com/minspang ), Associate Professor of Management Information Systems at Temple University's Fox School of Business shares his research on factors that amplify disinformation on social media, and what these platforms should do to help curb the problem.

The opioid crisis hasn’t gotten headlines like it had prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. But that hasn't stopped it from getting worse. We wanted to talk about it addiction -- what do these drugs do to people? Why is so hard to come out on the other side? And are we prepared for the mental health crisis that continues to emerge because of the pandemic?  Clinical psychologist Dr. Jaime Zuckerman joins...

The last couple of years have been truly unprecedented times for local food pantries, as they have had to deal with levels of need that have skyrocketed. We wanted to check in with one group that has been working hard to make a difference -- so we caught up with Vince Schiavone, CEO of Caring for Friends . For more information go to Caringforfriends.org or call: 215-464-2224

Independence Blue Cross presents Facts over Fear, a special pandemic mini-series from KYW Newsradio In Depth. In the third part of our series, we're talking with Dr. Perry Halkitis, the Dean of Rutgers School of Public Health, for a look at the public health angle of this pandemic as we move into another winter with COVID. What approach should we be taking now, and have we learned enough from this...

Independence Blue Cross presents Facts over Fear, a special pandemic mini-series from KYW Newsradio In Depth. We're learning how to manage the fear that has come with a new surge of COVID cases right before the holidays. In part two of the series, KYW's Medical Editor Dr. Brian McDonough gets real about who's most at risk - the key being that vaccines provide significant protection. He advises us...

Independence Blue Cross presents Facts over Fear, a special pandemic mini-series from KYW Newsradio In Depth. The holidays are here. Omicron is spreading rapidly. For many people, it’s a very scary moment in the timeline of this pandemic. So how do we keep ourselves from letting fear dictate yet another holiday season? For starters, we can arm ourselves with the facts. Omicron is now the dominant...

Nutrition misinformation is 'the original fake news.' That's what Melinda Boyd calls it -- the Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition at Cedar Crest College says an alarming amount of the information people find online about diet and nutrition is actually misinformation. So what are the biggest lies people constantly believe about nutrition? Diet shams that won't go away? Super foods t...

Checks in the mail from the American Rescue Plan. The Texas power grid failures. The Surfside condo collapse. January 6th. 2021 had no shortage of big news stories. The data intelligence company Morning Consult recently released a report that looks at the news stories that really resonated, and those that didn’t break through from this past year. We wanted to talk about the Seen Read Heard 2021 re...

From the inflation roller coaster to house prices, Philadelphia economist David Fiorenza joins the podcast to break down the biggest stories of the year in a wild pandemic economy, and what he's keeping an eye on for next year. 

The US recently announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Several other countries have followed suit. We asked Dr. Mark Thomas, assistant professor of political science at La Salle University to come on the podcast to explain what it means to diplomatically boycott the games, how many times it's happened before, and what, if anything these actions are going...

The controversial abortion law out of Texas survived a Supreme Court challenge, and now California announced its intentions to use the framework of that law to target illegal guns. So was this inevitable? What kind of judicial Pandora's box have we opened? And what happens next? Dr. Michael Moreland, Professor of Law at Villanova University's Charles Widger School of Law is on the podcast to expla...

America's teachers are facing increasing needs and decreasing resources, and there just aren't enough teachers to meet the demand. We are in the midst of a teacher shortage, and the ripple effects can be seen just about everywhere. Dr. David D. Timony, Associate Professor and Chair of Education at Delaware Valley University is on the podcast to talk about why there's a shortage, the biggest proble...

Inflation is up. Gas prices are high. And there is some talk in Congress about tackling both by suspending the federal gas tax. So would it work? What kind of impact could putting a pause on the gas tax actually have? And what does the gas tax do anyway? Dr. Steven Balsam, Professor of Accounting at Temple University's Fox School of Business joins the podcast to weigh in on the great gas tax debat...

Omicron is in Philadelphia. Many people have questions about the variant, how the region is reacting, how the hospitals are doing. We asked some of the reporters at KYW Newsradio to join us for a Twitter Spaces chat and break down what people should know about the virus and the biggest stories of the week, we recorded the chat with Pat Loeb, Jim Melwert, Tim Jimenez and Brian Seltzer and we're put...

Jobless claims hit a number we haven't seen in half a century. Inflation is driving prices higher, so what's the long term outlook? Are wages keeping up? What's happening with gas prices, and what's the holiday buying season looking like? Philadelphia economist David Fiorenza helps us break down the all the economic news of the week that matters to you in your daily life.

One of the big themes from 2021? Learning to live with the pandemic, and purchasing considerations reflected this trend. Joanna Piacenza (https://twitter.com/jpiacenza), the Head of Industry Intelligence at Morning Consult, shares some of the key takeaways from her company's recent report about the fastest growing brands in the past year ( https://info.morningconsult.com/fastest-growing-brands-202...

Dick Allen needed 12 votes from the committee that could have sent him to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He got 11. It's the second time he's been one vote short. The great Phillies slugger passed away one year ago. Today on KYW Newsradio In Depth, Dick Allen's son Richard Allen Jr. talks with Dave Uram about his father's legacy and the incredible disappointment surrounding Dick Allen's second hall of...

A new study published by the Philadelphia-based A.J. Drexel Autism Institute reveals noteworthy findings about the intersection between the autistic community and the criminal justice system. Kaitlin Koffer Miller took the lead on the state-wide survey, and explains how a variety of factors - from gender to caretakers - affect the way people with autism are treated by law enforcement.  Hosted by M...

Many celebrities serve as spokespeople for various companies or brands. And usually, the situation is a win/win for everyone -- right up until the celebrity does or says something less than desirable. We saw this with Aaron Rodgers recently when the Packers quarterback made controversial vaccine comments. So how effective are celebrity spokespeople for brands, and how do brands determine when the...

The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments about a case that could overturn Roe vs. Wade and fundamentally change abortion rights in this country. So what happened in court, and what did the Justices say about the case? What would changing the Court's position on abortion mean for abortion access across the country, and what would it mean for the Supreme Court itself? And how did we get to a...

The jobs report massively underperformed expectations, so why were the numbers so off? And will it look so bad when the numbers get revised? Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has the confidence of the Biden administration, what does that mean for the future of the economy? And what can we tell about the economy from the strength of the housing market? Philadelphia economist David Fiorenza helps...