COVID-19

Endless buffering: Local schools try to solve students’ internet access issues on their own

The pivot to online learning has revealed deep internet inequality issues in places like Pittsburgh. Advocates say the future of educational crises is now.

/ January 7, 2021


How City of Asylum is bringing the jazz poetry to you this year

This year’s International Jazz Poetry Month festival from City of Asylum will look a little something like this. (📸: Courtesy of City of Asylum) You’ve never seen an International Jazz Poetry Month like this. And that’s because City of Asylum has never done an International Jazz Poetry Month like this. For the first time in […]

/ September 8, 2020


Meet the Castle Shannon man liveblogging his COVID-19 case

The COVID Chronicles. (📸: Sean McGrath) Sean McGrath tested positive for COVID-19 and started driving.  The 43-year-old from Castle Shannon was hours from home at a family summer camp he’d planned to attend with his 11-year-old daughter when the results of a 15-minute PCR test put an end to that. “My daughter melted down in […]

/ July 6, 2020


A Black archivist in Pittsburgh, at the crossroads of Black history

Sam Black, director of African American Programs at the Senator John Heinz History Center, pictured at the Fulbright Germany Transatlantic Seminar in Washington, D.C. last fall. (📸: Courtesy of the Senator John Heinz History Center) Someday we’re going to have to explain all of this.  The pandemic. The lockdowns. The 21st century breadlines. The deaths […]

/ June 11, 2020


The date was too special to change, so this Pittsburgh couple improvised a pandemic wedding

Making the most of a pandemic wedding. (📸: Mariah Treiber Photography) Stanton Heights couple Emily Caudill Martello and Anthony Martello chose their wedding date to fall on the groom’s parents’ anniversary weekend. COVID-19 threatened to upend those plans, but the couple found a way to get married on that special date — May 9 — […]

/ June 4, 2020


13 books to read during the pandemic — several with a Pittsburgh twist

Ready, set, read. 📸: Rossilynne Culgan / The Incline For lots of people (myself included), reading for pleasure during the pandemic has been nearly impossible. Reading every single terrifying news article? Check. But cracking open a book and flipping pages for fun? Nope. So we consulted with Shayna Ross, a librarian at Carnegie Library of […]

/ May 28, 2020


Highlighting the Helpers: The food bank workers at the center of a hunger storm

Volunteers at a food bank event at PPG Paints Arena in April. (📸: Courtesy of Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank) The images were stunning and daunting and grim.  Hundreds of cars waiting for emergency food in Duquesne. The same at the Butler County Fairgrounds, and PPG Paints, and the airport weeks later.  During this pandemic, […]

/ May 14, 2020


Love in the time of corona: How these Pittsburghers made the most of a pandemic wedding

If people can’t come to the wedding, bring the wedding to them — virtually. (📸: Courtesy of Emma Kober) While some couples are postponing their wedding days, others want to get married now, COVID-19 be damned. Emma and Jay Kober had one of those unstoppable weddings. As the bride put it, “I would’ve gotten married in […]

/ May 5, 2020


Meet the Pitt researchers working to end the COVID-19 pandemic

(📸: Courtesy of University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine) Updated 3:34 p.m. May 5  When Pitt announced last month that its researchers were working on a COVID-19 vaccine and seeing promising results, we held our collective breath. Some of us did celebratory handstands, others made GIFs or imagined the new, intolerable heights Pittsburgh pride might […]

/ May 4, 2020


Highlighting the Helpers: Feeding seniors — body and soul

Volunteers with the In Service of Seniors program. (📸: Courtesy of In Service of Seniors) Deborah Trammell has been helping Allegheny County seniors for more than a decade. She’s never seen anything like this. “They need food,” she told The Incline by phone. “It’s just a dearth of food.”   A longtime volunteer with the In […]

/ May 1, 2020