Breaking news: Four astronauts lifted off on a 10-day journey to fly by the moon and propel people farther into space than they have ever gone before. The Artemis II mission is scheduled to loop around the moon for the first time since the Apollo era.

A jury recommends Meta and YouTube pay an additional $3 million in punitive damages in a landmark social media addiction trial.

Now that federal and state governments are writing laws and regulations to crack down on rebates & spread pricing, PBMs are predicted to make up for the lost revenue by imposing larger fees on employer-sponsored health plans and drugmakers when they draw up contracts with clients.

Pittsburgh city officials say police are increasing their patrols around religious institutions in some areas following a third day of threatening and hateful messages broadcast over a public safety radio channel.

Overprescribing antibiotics breeds antibiotic resistance. A new tool aims to lower a notably high rate of such prescriptions in Rwanda. n.pr/4u6bswd

Greetings from Tokyo, Japan! I’m here this month as part of a reporting trip with the @healthjournalism.org to learn more about how the country supports people living with dementia.

As hundreds of pharmacies close across Pennsylvania, some are asking the state to play a bigger role in how they’re paid for drugs dispensed to Medicaid patients. Their plan would sideline middlemen in the pharmaceutical supply chain — pharmacy benefit managers. penncapital-star.com/health-care/...

Prior authorization delayed a Pittsburgh teenager’s brain cancer treatment. But a Philadelphia-based nonprofit helped her family through the appeals process labyrinth. www.wesa.fm/health-scien...

In an order Monday, Judge Cathy Bissoon reaffirmed her December denial of the DOJ’s subpoena to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh for records and rejected the DOJ’s offer to accept anonymized records.

I count myself lucky to have produced a number of Chris Moore's Sunday radio shows as a young producer at KDKA a decade ago. He's a legendary talent and so generous with his time and wisdom. He also had the very best bumper music. www.wesa.fm/arts-culture...

Cutting-edge genealogy has cracked the oldest cold case of an unidentified person at the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's office. Forensic genome sequencing — increasingly used to identify crime suspects — led investigators to the identity of a 1992 homicide victim. www.wesa.fm/courts-justi...

OK so now the former CEO of Tumblr is running the Washington Post. Tumblr. A company whose history is a textbook case study in corporate value destruction.

So about TrumpRx: We crunched the numbers today and about half of the drugs on there have cheaper generics available already. www.statnews.com/2026/02/06/t...

The recent arrest of an immigrant from Nicaragua living in Oakmont is generating confusion from neighbors and blowback from local elected officials. They’re seeking clarity about the situation from ICE, but say the agency lacks transparency and has been largely unresponsive to their questions.

New from me and @cpotterpgh.bsky.social — former Pittsburgh mayor just got a new job! www.wesa.fm/politics-gov...

Doctors and public health officials are concerned about the drop in health alerts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since President Trump returned for a second term. n.pr/3O3LRna

After the Trump administration gave deportation officials access to Medicaid data, hospitals and states are in a bind over whether to alert patients that their information could help ICE locate them.

The White House has to approve all voucher recipients, and Trump officials have used the promise of speedier reviews to reward companies that help them advance political priorities. The episode involving Compass underscores the ways in which political pressure has shaped the voucher program.

In this @hannamwebster.bsky.social piece I’m quoted about a measles outbreak in Lancaster county Pennsylvania—Not surprising given that the virus is basically on the verge of becoming endemic again and the low rate of vaccination in that area www.post-gazette.com/news/health/...

BREAKING: The Washington Post eliminates its sports department and reduces overseas journalists in large-scale cuts, an AP source says.

BREAKING: The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

O'Hara enjoyed a six-decade career in TV and films playing sometimes over-the-top, but endearing characters. "I loved playing cocky untalented people," she told Fresh Air in 1992. n.pr/4q2AuZT

“The AAP formerly partnered with the CDC to create a unified set of vaccine recommendations, but recent changes to the CDC immunization schedule depart from longstanding medical evidence and no longer offer the optimal way to prevent illnesses in children.”

From pushing stuck cars yesterday to half the block joining in to dig out parked cars today — in Pittsburgh, there will always be helpers.❄️

NEW: US formally exits WHO. U.S. officials say nation will remain a global leader in health, but through “existing and new engagements directly with other countries, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and faith-based entities.” My story. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...

1 in 3 kindergarteners in Allegheny County were in a classroom with MMR vaccination rates below the herd immunity threshold during the 2023-2024 school year. My @wesa.fm colleague Jillian Forstadt & I took a look at some school-level immunization data for this story. www.wesa.fm/health-scien...

1 in 3 kindergarteners in Allegheny County were in a classroom with MMR vaccination rates below the herd immunity threshold during the 2023-2024 school year. My @wesa.fm colleague Jillian Forstadt & I took a look at some school-level immunization data for this story. www.wesa.fm/health-scien...

Nearly 15k nurses at some of New York's top hospitals went on strike today to demand minimum staffing ratios, better security and better pay. This major health care labor showdown comes amid a historic severe flu season in NYC. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/n...

In this @kileykoscinski.bsky.social @wesa.fm piece I’m quoted about declining vaccination rates in schools and severely flawed federal guidance on vaccines www.wesa.fm/health-scien...

Three of western Pennsylvania's four Planned Parenthood clinics — including the Downtown Pittsburgh location — will close their in-person services this month. The organization says it has struggled to fill vacant nurse positions amid a statewide nursing shortage. www.wesa.fm/health-scien...

The Blocks announce the demise of the Pittsburgh @post-gazette.com one week after they folded @pghcitypaper.com Local news is more important now than ever before. Pittsburgh’s journalists need your support.

Federal health officials just slashed the number of recommended childhood vaccinations, the most significant reshaping of the vaccine schedule since Trump took office

In his inauguration speech, O’Connor acknowledged the city faces major challenges, including a city budget that faces lean years, even after City Council passed a tax hike in the waning hours of 2025.

Pretty cool www.bbc.com/news/article...

Tech companies and developers looking to plunge billions of dollars into ever-bigger data centers to power AI and cloud computing are increasingly losing fights in communities where people don’t want to live next to them, or even near them.

NEW: Both parties have nominees in the Feb. 24 special election to replace Dan Miller. Jen Mazzocco handily won the Democratic nomination Saturday and will face the GOP's Joseph Leckenby www.wesa.fm/politics-gov...

The military removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on US drug charges comes after Trump has freed other figures connected to narcotics trafficking. n.pr/4skk4yB

A federal judge in Pittsburgh has blocked the DOJ from accessing the identifiable health records of trans patients that sought gender-affirming care at UPMC. In an order quashing the DOJ subpoena, Judge Cathy Bissoon writes the demand for such private info carries “more than a whiff of ill-intent.”

One interesting aspect of the TikTok deal is: There will now be an American version of TikTok overseen by Larry Ellison's Oracle, PE firm Silver Lake and UAE-backed MGX, and then a second version of TikTok controlled by ByteDance for the rest of the world.

The FDA has granted approval to a new gene therapy for a rare immune disorder, the maker of which is notably not a drug company, but an Italian charity. www.statnews.com/2025/12/10/n...

Status update on House Republicans and a health care plan, after this morning’s conference meeting: “The consensus is we need to come up with something,” Rep. Ralph Norman says.

Thrilled to share that I have been selected for the AHCJ International Health Study Fellowship! I will be investigating Japan’s approach to dementia care and exploring what policies Pennsylvania can adopt as its population rapidly ages. healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/12...

“The comments Friday were made to a fellow Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices member and were overheard by others… One liaison member who heard the comments said he understood them to refer to rubber-stamping someone else’s agenda rather than engaging in genuine scientific debate.”

If anyone cares at all, EV battery recycling is now hitting 99% recovery for important metals Please remind me again what the recycle rate for fossil fuels is interestingengineering.com/energy/recyc...

Breaking news: A vaccine advisory panel has voted to end the long-standing recommendation that newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine — the most significant change to the childhood immunization schedule under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Breaking: After contentious debates and three failed attempts at a vote, a federal vaccine committee decided on Friday to end the decades-long recommendation that all newborns be immunized at birth against hepatitis B. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/h...

The FDA never released a comprehensive list of the drugs it allowed into the U.S. even though they were made by banned factories. So we made that list for you 👇

“The model suggested that if the start of hepatitis B vaccination was delayed until 12 years of age, more than 2,700 preventable hepatitis B infections would occur in the first year after the policy went into effect” www.statnews.com/2025/12/02/c...

UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pgh filed a response to a federal subpoena seeking the medical records of the health system’s young transgender patients. In court records, UPMC testified that it has “to date… not disclosed to the government any information or other materials” relevant to the case.

Here's the latest on the video that western PA's Chris Deluzio and other Congressional Dems put up last week urging servicepeople not to follow unlawful orders: The FBI is now seeking interviews, a move Dems say is an attempt to harass and intimidate them. www.wesa.fm/politics-gov...