News Room

March Madness begins March 15. Blue-blood programs like Villanova, Duke and Kansas are locks to make the tournament. Mid-majors like Loyola-Chicago and Murray State hope to pull upsets and advance to the second weekend. Virginia Commonwealth and BYU are just hoping for a spot in the Big Dance.

Political commentator and radio host Clay Travis expressed his disdain for the federal mask mandates for travel on commercial airlines. He tweeted on March 10, "The Biden administration has extended the mask mandates on airplanes for another thirty days. (It was expiring March 18th). Aside from the fact that masks do nothing, what imbeciles are still in favor of this mandate? If you truly think masks work you can wear one like an idiot." We rate the claim that "masks do nothing" as false. It has been proven that masks have helped prevent the spread of SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Several studies have shown that widespread mask-wearing is associated with reductions in disease transmission of COVID-19.

Francis Fukuyama, the American political scientist who once described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “end of history,” suggested that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might be called “the end of the end of history.” He meant that Vladimir Putin’s aggression signals a rollback of the ideals of a free Europe that emerged after 1991. Some observers suggest it may kick off a new Cold War, with an Iron Curtain separating the West from Russia.

(CNN)The Transportation Security Administration is set to extend the federal public transportation mask mandate for another 30 days, an administration official told CNN, pointing to guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

High-paying jobs in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are plentiful, with millions going unfilled every year. In 2018, 2.4 million STEM jobs sat empty, with no qualified candidates available and few in the pipeline to backfill the deficit. The COVID-19 pandemic also had a less severe impact on people in STEM positions, with many able to transition to remote work with greater ease than those in non-STEM fields.