To follow our coverage of these stories, go to post-gazette.com and use the search term to locate full story online. The Week In Review
The dawn of a new year always prompts media outlets to take a look back at the past year. What could be more mind-numbing than “The Year in Review”?
Now, let’s get going with our regular Sunday feature: “The Week in Review.”
The big news last week was the city’s First Night celebration, which attracted tens of thousands to the Cultural District, Downtown, for music, acrobats, magicians, puppets, comedy, crafts and a parade. Oh, and a double dose of fireworks.
Staff writer Ashley Murray was out there talking to those who took part in the festivities, including a few who could remember when we simply marked the start of a new year by beating on pots and pans.
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All dressed up
OK, we admit being guilty of doing a few of those “Year in Review” things, too. But sometimes we learn things about what lies ahead by looking at what took place, right?
Take fashion, for example. Staff writer Sara Bauknecht, who really does a fine job covering what’s covering other people, looked at 2019 in the mirror and came up with moments that elevated the city’s burgeoning fashion industry — and ways to keep it thriving in 2020.
There were a handful of boutiques, including clothing and accessory shops, that opened in the Golden Triangle last year. Pittsburgh Fashion Week in October was strong again, with another sellout crowd. Style Week Pittsburgh returned after a one-year hiatus. And several Downtown stores organized a boutique crawl to kick off the holiday shopping season.
Pittsburgh closets contain a lot more than black-andgold hoodies.
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And they’re so cute
And what New Year’s reporting would be complete without word on the first babies born? A good news story you can count on.
Staff writer Marylynne Pitz wrote about two babies born minutes apart to start 2020.
Erika Peoples and Kenneth Sands, of Pittsburgh, brought their 7-pound, 6ounce daughter, Onari, into the world at 12:09 a.m. Wednesday in UPMC MageeWomens Hospital.
Seven minutes later, at 12:16 a.m., Mark and Jessica Ciufo, of Franklin Park, welcomed their first child, a 9pound, 4-ounce son named Leo John Ciufo, the first baby born in the New Year at West Penn Hospital.
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Farewell, Darlene
New beginnings also mean new endings, as was the case with Pittsburgh City Council, which witnessed the end of the Darlene Harris era.
Ms. Harris said goodbye Monday in a mixture of tears and tension befitting the departure of the nine-member body’s longest-serving and most outspoken member.
Staff writer Rich Lord recounted the gracious remarks of each of her fellow council members.
“We have been both friends and foes. She was a fierce adversary and a very generous ally,” said Councilman Ricky Burgess, who called her “the hardestworking member of council.”
He added: “We will miss you here on council.”
As well as in the pages of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
SEARCH: HARRIS
Medicaid changes
New years also bring new government regulations, as we learned in a Monday story about changes affecting nearly 150,000 Medicaid recipients in Pennsylvania.
As of Jan. 1, the Department of Human Services will require the eight companies that manage pharmacy benefits under Medicaid in the state to use the same preferred prescription drug list — essentially, drugs that will be automatically covered — instead of their own individual lists.
As a result, some drugs no longer will be available without a special exception. That will force an estimated 150,000 of the state’s 2.8 million Medicaid recipients to switch to new medications, state officials said. Among that group, approximately 40,000 will have to switch multiple medications.
The change is widely seen as beneficial in the long term, simplifying care and decreasing health care costs. The preferred list prioritizes cheaper options and makes them automatically available, while requiring doctors to seek special approval for coverage of more expensive drugs.
This story was generated by Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and PennLive/ The Patriot-News.
SEARCH: MEDICAID
Battling TB with an IV
Staff writer Sean D. Hamill reported that the world’s deadliest infectious disease, tuberculosis, which kills 1.5 million people a year, could become significantly less deadly by changing the way vaccines are delivered into the body.
A new study, with research done at the University of Pittsburgh, was published Wednesday. It found that rather than giving the vaccine for TB through a simple shot into the skin and muscle, giving the vaccine intravenously dramatically improves its effectiveness.
“I think we were hoping [doing it intravenously] would work great,” said JoAnne Flynn, co-author of the study and professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Vaccine Research. “But we were stunned by the results.”
Researchers have been trying to find new strategies to prevent TB infection — including alternative vaccines — for decades. That’s because the only currently available human vaccine in common use — Bacillus Camette-Guerin — has widely varying success in fighting off TB, with effectiveness ranging from 0% to 80%.
Dr. Robert Seder, a co-author of the study and chief of the cellular immunology section of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had been worrying about this dilemma for a while: If the one available common vaccine is not always effective, is there a way to make it more effective?
Ms. Flynn, who has known Dr. Seder for about 30 years, began collaborating with him six years ago on possible models that might work on TB.
SEARCH: VACCINE
Life goes on
Homicide news is never good. But it was encouraging to read staff writer Lacretia Wimbley’s story on how the homicide rate in Pittsburgh last year was the lowest since 1998.
Pittsburgh saw a total of 37 homicidal deaths — a 35% decrease from what police reported in 2010. The same total was also reported in 1998, city police spokesman Chris Togneri said on Thursday. Roughly 58 total homicides remained steady between 2016 and 2018.
But while data shows the city is pushing forward in decreasing its homicide total, Allegheny County as a whole is struggling.
“Outside the city of Pittsburgh, the county numbers are up,” county Police Investigations Cmdr. Andrew Schurman said. “In previous decades, there would be maybe 60 homicides inside the city limits, and maybe 40 outside. This decade, it’s going the other way. We’re seeing more outside the city than inside.”
SEARCH: HOMICIDES
Narcan concerns
Then there was the news about the decrease in the county’s supply of naloxone, the overdose-reversal drug that has saved so many lives.
The trend worries advocates who have spent decades trying to reduce the harm done by opioid addiction. “I absolutely cannot see the rationale, in the face of the deaths that we’re seeing, for reducing state funding for Narcan,” said Alice Bell, the overdose prevention project coordinator at Prevention Point Pittsburgh, which distributes naloxone. “If we’ve seen a significant drop [in overdoses], then we should do more of what we’re doing. … We need to increase, not decrease, our efforts.”
In the fiscal year that ended in mid-2018, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency gave the Allegheny County Health Department 2,976 kits of Narcan, containing two doses each. It followed that with a flood of 10,176 kits in the fiscal year ending in mid2019.
In calendar year 2018, overdose deaths in Allegheny County dropped 41%.
This fiscal year, the state has a total of 2,268 kits reserved for Allegheny County, of which it has shipped roughly half, according to Samantha Koch, a senior project manager at the commission. She said the amount is lower this year in part because the money available for the commission to spend on Narcan dipped from $2.5 million in each of the prior two fiscal years to $1.5 million this year.
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Snow job
Staff writer Lauren Rosenblatt shared news of a handful of lawn care and landscaping companies that are offering snow removal services this winter. And hiring them can be as easy as ordering a ride from Uber or getting a pizza delivered.
One of the companies, GreenPal, which launched seven years ago in Nashville, Tenn., put Pittsburgh on a short list of cities to roll out the addition of snow removal services.
To request a service, customers upload information about their request and a desired service date to GreenPal’s website. From there, local vendors can bid on the job and the customer can select a company based on things such as pricing, past reviews and the vendor’s ranking.
Vendors typically charge $30 to $40 for lawn mowing and $35 to $45 for snow removal. GreenPal takes 5% of the profits made through each transaction, according to GreenPal co-founder Gene Caballero.
The industry is still new — Martin Tirado, of the Snow and Ice Management Association based in Milwaukee, said he just started noticing these types of platforms about five years ago — so its “true applicability” remains to be seen, he said.
SEARCH: SNOW
Our best storytelling
Two of the really compelling stories we published last week involved the fatal shooting of a 90-year-old man in Greenfield.
Staff writer Jonathan D. Silver recounted how Samuel Rende, who was imprisoned in the 1980s for his alleged involvement in a murder-for-hire scheme, was the victim of a targeted killing. The shooter knew him.
This after Rende spent the years after his release from prison not only steering clear of trouble but helping people in his Hazelwood neighborhood.
Jonathan’s first story, which ran Tuesday, recounted Rende’s extraordinary life. His follow-up story in Wednesday’s e-editions included a powerful interview with the mother of the man police said did the shooting.
Jacqueline Kurta, the mother of Anthony W. Miller, 27, of White Oak, didn’t shy away from the most awful of questions.
“Do I believe that my son killed Sam?” she said. “Yes.”
Ms. Kurta said Tuesday that she prayed for both her son and Samuel Rende’s relatives.
“My heart is extended, my condolences are extended to the Rende family,” she said. “I feel absolutely horrible for the Rende family, I do, and I just want them to know that I am truly, truly sorry for what has happened, because no one deserves that, no one.”
SEARCH: RENDE
The stories we could tell
And finally, we at the Post-Gazette pause to remember the years we spent laboring in the love of journalism in the old building at 34 Boulevard of the Allies, Downtown.
Monday brought the news that our former home, with its green signage and prominent placement near Point State Park, has been sold to a developer.
Scripps-Howard, publisher of The Pittsburgh Press, constructed the building in the 1920s for $4 million and sold both the building and the newspaper to the Post-Gazette in 1993 following an eight-month work stoppage.
The massive presses, first put into use in 1927, could be viewed by passersby on the boulevard as crews printed afternoon editions of The Pittsburgh Press and the morning Pittsburgh PostGazette.
The building has been vacant since 2015 after the PostGazette moved its editorial operations and some business operations to the North Shore.
“The location, proximity to housing, parking, green space and public transportation make this a truly unique site,” said Sam DiCicco Jr., of DiCicco Development Inc. Don’t we know it. SEARCH: DiCICCO