Being first conceptualized in the Middle Ages, non-compete clauses have been signed by millions of people as terms for their employment. Non-compete clauses protect employers by preventing employees from working with industry competitors during or after their employment. For decades, many have claimed that these clauses stifle competition by preventing employers from seeking out the best workers in their fields. Large companies have often abused these clauses to pay employees much less than what they are worth over the long term and used their extreme bargaining power to effectively silence any complaints from employees. However, all of this could potentially change in the coming months. On January 5, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a ban on non-compete clauses claiming they harm workers and aspiring businesses. This new rule would nullify any existing non-compete clauses and prevent any from being signed in the future, even for employees that are not paid (like unpaid interns). This ban would allegedly increase total United States wages by over $300 billion and provide more job opportunities for nearly 30 million employees throughout the country. The main argument for non-compete clauses is that it prevents employees from taking trade secrets or training from one company to another with little regard for their prior employers. The ethics of trade secrets alone remain questionable; it would not be surprising if a rule regarding these was introduced soon by the FTC as well. The arguments for and against non-compete clauses are all valid in some way or another, but nonetheless, it seems more people are leaning against them than not. With the significant pay increases and employment opportunities that come with banning non-compete clauses, it seems likely that the rule proposal will be furthered until it becomes a finalized rule. Compliance with this rule, per the FTC, will be strictly enforced exactly 180 days after it becomes a final rule, giving employers time to adjust their internal policies and release current employees from their non-compete agreements.

Ghosts, ghouls, and spirits all roam the streets on the final night of October every year to celebrate a holiday dedicated to fear and spookiness: Halloween. In the twenty-first century, Halloween has become a holiday of joy and fear as children and adults alike roam the streets at night in costumes collecting candy and savoring scares. Yet, Halloween hasn’t always been a holiday meant to bring together friends and celebrate the pop culture of the world. Despite common misconceptions, Halloween’s origins come before All Hallow’s Eve through the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived in the modern areas of Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated Samhain on the night of October 31 when they believed the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead blurred allowing ghosts to return to Earth. They also believed that druids, Celtic priests, could better foresee the future and would make sacrifices of crops and animals to the Celtic gods on a large bonfire. By the turn of the first century AD, the Roman Empire had conquered many Celtic lands and consequently, their cultures began to syncretize When Pope Gregory III made November 1 All Saints’ Day, or All-hallows, the following day (November 2) was made to be All Souls Day, a church-incorporated holiday that closely mirrored Samhain. The day before All-hallows bore the name All-Hallows Eve, which would eventually be adopted as Halloween. When Protestant colonizers went to the Americas they brought the tradition of Halloween with them and as their culture began to mix with other colonists and the native peoples of the Americas celebrations of the yearly autumn harvests in which people would share stories of the dead, tell fortunes, dance, and sing became widespread. When immigrants, prominently Irish immigrants, came flocking to the United States, they helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween by the latter half of the nineteenth century. Mirroring the Europeans, Americans would go door to door asking for money or food, a tradition that developed into trick-or-treating. As the holiday became much more popular throughout the country, parties and festivals became much more prominent. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was also a large push by communities to get rid of the very grotesque and scary features of the holiday, leading to a loss of most of its traditional characteristics. By the 1950s Halloween was being driven from large community parties to small household ones directed toward children due to the large boom in the youth population after World War II. Trick-or-treating also revived during this period as a relatively inexpensive way for communities to experience the holiday. From there, Halloween continued to spread across various mediums including films, games, and music evolving into the second largest commercial holiday in the United States with Americans spending approximately $6 billion every year towards Halloween.

In the past couple of weeks, controversies have sprung worldwide concerning the internal and external conflicts in Iran, a country in the Middle East known for its strict government and religious culture. Protests in Iran started on September 16 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman taken into custody by the Iranian morality police. Activists have used her death to escalate protests against the country’s regime over the last month causing many citizens to revolt against the government. While there have been many protests in Iran in the past couple of years, none have pushed as far as the Mahsa Amini protests, which call for reform and a complete overthrow of the government. Despite their internal struggles, Iran’s problems quickly escalated to a worldwide scale on October 17 after a Russian drone strike in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Many countries promptly found evidence of these drones having been supplied to the Russian military by Iran. This turned the heads of politicians around the globe, the majority of which have been rallying behind Ukraine since the conflict with Russia began. This led to a barrage of economic sanctions on Iran from international superpowers, further weakening the government’s authority in their own country. The Iranian government continued to deny committing any wrongdoings, stating the protests were under control and claiming they possessed no knowledge of or involvement with the Russian drone attack. However, many pieces of evidence including videos from Iranians provide significant evidence against these claims. While it can not be determined with certainty whether or not the Iranian government was affiliated with the drone strike prior to the current moment or whether the protests are genuinely under control, one thing is certain, countries are becoming more hostile and unpredictable as the world takes sides in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

The British Empire, once the largest empire in the world, was the staple of trade and innovation in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. But what made this empire so powerful? What made it fall? To answer these questions, it is important to start at the very beginning of the British Empire. The British Empire formed in the early 1600s with one goal: to expand maritime trade. While England had been strong previous to this, the start of colonization and imperialism is what made Britain an empire rather than a state (a country, not a province). Over time, Britain’s maritime ambitions increased, primarily due to competition with France, leading to the establishment of both the American and Indian settlements. After this, Britain started to expand into territories in Africa as well. The Empire’s interest in their overseas settlements only began to grow once the Industrial Revolution came in the 19th century. Britain was the center of attention and innovation for most of the start of the Industrial Revolution due to its exceptional location for trade and its abundance of coal, which could be used to power steam engines, and therefore machines. However, Britain could not industrialize on its own, it relied on the imports of raw materials from its territories to keep providing resources which it would turn into manufactured goods and sell right back to their territories, as well as to other states. Some of Britain's territories were more beneficial than others. For example, the North American colonies were quite a small contributor to the British economy when compared against India, the “crown jewel” of the British Empire. Due to this, Britain tended to ignore or neglect their American colonies, so much so that they rebelled and formed “a more perfect union”, the United States. Other colonies however, received much more attention. As the British Empire became the empire where “the Sun never sets”, there was an increasing demand for the abolishment of slavery in the territories it possessed. After much debate, the slave trade was abolished in the Empire in 1807, long before the United States, and by 1833, there were no more slaves allowed in British territories. As both World Wars passed, the economies of the world shook, but so did the people. In places around the globe, a large part of which were British territories, people started to cry songs of nationalism on a scale never seen before. Starting with India in 1947, Britain’s colonies started to break away to form their own independent states, whether it be through war or diplomacy. One of the largest reasons Britain allowed this to happen in many places was due to the pressure put upon them by the United Nations and other countries around the world. The last territory held by the British Empire, Hong Kong, was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, marking the official end of the worldwide empire. While the British Empire may have only ended 25 years ago, a lot can be learned from its history. The British Empire was the first world power to recognize and show that industrialization and technology was the future, and that a worldwide economy was not only essential to progress, it was inevitable. The Empire was also the first to show that nationalist ideals can not be ignored as the world progressed technologically and ideologically. This was expressed best by Winston Churchill who stated, “If the British Empire is fated to pass from life into history, we must hope it will not be by the slow process of dispersion and decay, but in some supreme exertion for freedom, for right and for truth.”

Throughout the world, secondary school graduations mark not only a large accomplishment in the lives of the students but a large-scale development and effort by the state in which they are. For a student to go through a primary and secondary school education students require many different curriculums, teachers, and even schools to meet the requirements to graduate, all being reflections of the country and environment they live in. For students to spend a large amount of time, money, and work that school requires, they must live in a stable area where economics, politics, and other social pressures do not impede their ability to learn. Graduations can also show gender and racial equity in an area by demonstrating the ability of these groups to make their way through secondary school. While many countries have different reasons for educating their students, an equal opinion is shared throughout the world: it is a moment to celebrate. Many people in the United States are familiar with US graduation traditions, but many other countries have different graduation traditions. For example, graduates in Japan perform choreographed dances and parades to celebrate. In the Philippines, graduates receive a wreath with their diploma to symbolize the country’s tropical climate and culture. In Scandinavian countries, graduates wear sailor hats and participate in city-wide parades. Despite these very eccentric and exciting traditions, some countries have more odd traditions. In Argentina, parents throw food and condiments on the graduates to symbolize their coming of age and in China instead of spending time with families and relatives, graduates spend their last moments with friends, often not allowing parents to attend the graduation ceremony at all. A secondary school diploma symbolizes all of the student’s work through many years of schooling and often provides a gateway into higher education. A student’s diploma often also symbolizes maturity and independence, as most students will be adults that are on their own after receiving it. While every country and student may celebrate their graduations differently, one thing is for sure: graduation is a student’s gateway to the future.

Early in the morning on May 12, 2022, the president of Finland announced that Finland was going to seek to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as soon as possible. This announcement was not too surprising to many due to Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine causing worldwide conflicts for the non-NATO country. Many predict that Sweden will follow in Finland’s footsteps and join the alliance as well to ensure its security against Russia. NATO was formed in 1949 to directly combat the rising Soviet Union’s control of the Eastern Hemisphere and to control the spread of communism to worldwide democracies. The addition of Finland to NATO would be huge for the alliance as it would almost triple the size of their shared border with Russia from 440 miles to over 1,200 miles. This would make any retaliation or invasion by NATO much easier to execute and would significantly increase their ability to advance into Russia. This was also one of the reasons why Russia invaded Ukraine: because they were in negotiations to become a NATO member. In a response to Finland’s declaration, the Russian government stated they would “take retaliatory steps, both of military-technical and other nature, to stop the threats to its national security that arise in this regard.” This means that a possible invasion of Finland by Russia could occur, and if done before an approved NATO membership the NATO countries would then again be unable to effectively protect Finland. It is important to remember that Russia has one of the largest military reserves and capabilities on Earth so they could very easily call on their reserves to invade Finland if it is deemed necessary for national security. Establishing Finland as a NATO member would bring NATO one step closer to limiting Russian expansion for good.

On April 26, 1986 Chernobyl experienced a complete meltdown before exploding, spilling radiation onto its surrounding landscape. Chernobyl, a Soviet nuclear power plant in Northern Ukraine, was undergoing routine tests and maintenance when the workers noticed something was wrong: steam production and pressure was too high. By the time the operator moved to shut down the reactor, it was too late. This caused the plant to explode, immediately killing two workers, and release radioactive materials into the surrounding environment. In the following weeks after the accident, 28 people died of acute radiation syndrome. It caused over 350,000 people to evacuate threatened areas in order to avoid the large radiation cloud that drifted over Eastern Europe. As of 2022 there was no major public health crisis attributed to the event, and although the major and long-term impacts are not known it is estimated that the area will be habitable by the end of the twenty-first century. Due to the lack of data available and collected from the Soviet Union immediately after the event the deaths of wildlife is unknown but estimated to be great. The Chernobyl site saw little action until the events of the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War in which Russian troops took over and occupied the site for a little over a month before returning it back to Ukraine. It is not completely known why the Russians took the power plant, but it is most likely it was to disconnect the plant from the Ukrainian power grid, which did occur for a little over two weeks. Other than the Russian movements causing a slight increase in radiation, due to disturbing the topsoil, the occupation was not significant nor actively threatening the environment.

Every year over fifty million students throughout the country in grades K-12 take standardized tests that are meant to compare their knowledge and capabilities to every other student in the United States. Whether or not these tests are high stake, such as the ACT, or low stake, such as AZMerit tests, students are encouraged to do their best to truly show the knowledge they have acquired throughout their educational journey. But how many actually try on these tests? How useful are they to begin with? Do they really show who is superior in the classroom? Every year United States students take an average of 8 to 10 standardized tests, but many do not benefit from or even pay attention during these exams. As many people know, these tests have become mere inconveniences to the general student, many of which guess a majority of their answers, sometimes because they don’t know the answer, and sometimes because they are too lazy to figure it out. The exams are standardized so that students all around the country can be judged on an even scale despite where they come from and where they are, but when many people do not even try, it throws off the comparisons between students greatly. Despite the somewhat questionable statistics associated with standardized tests, there has been much debate on whether or not standardized tests are actually valid to test students. Many argue that the current standardized tests do not truly and accurately test whether an individual is ready for college, a job, or whatever else they decide to do. This has caused a nationwide movement to rid students of standardized testing as it costs taxpayers a lot of money and costs students and teachers much of their time. Although these tests may function as data collectors well, they often fail in their primary purpose, to show students where they are compared to their peers. If a student struggles in math then they are told they are worth less and can not function on a level as compared to their peers. Standardized tests often cause one of two things to happen. Students that struggle can fall behind and never recover, losing motivation to continue their educational development, or, if a student does not choose to fall behind, they can be left stressing to unhealthy levels and rigorously competing to show that they are worthy of a college education as compared to their peers. Many areas do not get as good of an education as others. Standardized tests can show these students are behind the mean despite never getting a chance to show what they can do. There are obvious pros and cons to standardized testing. It can provide good group data to focus tax money and education initiatives across the country to the areas that need it; but, they can also leave students behind, or with a lot of stress that can lead to unhealthy habits. These patterns can cause many to question whether or not standardized tests should remain, especially when attempting to distinguish an individual student from the rest. Whether or not standardized tests will remain is unclear, but the decisions and motivations behind the movement against them will not be silenced in the near future.

In July 2022 the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is planning to launch the first of a series of missions in a program by the name of “Artemis.” These missions are planned to return humans to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years. But, many people have wondered why NASA is returning to the moon. They argue there is nothing there to explore or test and that the United States could better spend tax money on other things such as the military or economy. Although these claims seem credible at first, it is important to realize how important space exploration is as a whole. The most major and significant way humans can continue to build their civilizations is through the increased technology and energy available from space exploration and colonization. These things range from terraforming planets to building Dyson spheres, but even the smaller accomplishments matter, such as living on another planet and showing sustainability in spaces absent of external intervention. The future of space exploration starts with colonizing the moon as it’s the next big jump in human innovation. The very fact that humans can demonstrate the ability to transform an environment to be habitable through their technology will be instrumental in the future exploration and expansion of the universe. The major opposition against space exploration as a whole is the fact that we are venturing out while our Earth is ‘dying.’ While this is true, space exploration should not be stopped because of this, instead focus on the Earth should be brought up to the level of space travel. The study of space is a scientific discipline, and no other scientific discipline, such as theoretical physics and atomic chemistry, would be asked to stop research due to the funding it takes from environmental programs. Although space exploration should not be the only thing of concern, it should still be focused on advancing our knowledge of it just like any other scientific field. The Artemis missions are not only important to long-term space exploration but short-term as well. The major reason to explore and colonize the moon is to test and perfect technology that will allow us to occupy Mars in the future; enabling us to expand and improve the human race. While this may seem far off, it’s never too early to start; That is why we are returning to the Moon.

On Feb. 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an attempt to install a puppet government and stop the process of Ukraine being accepted into NATO or other supranational organizations (such as the European Union). Since Ukraine was not technically part of these organizations, countries have to be careful in the ways that they support Ukraine to avoid breaking International Law. The most major of this support had been through the economic sanctions imposed on Russia. Sanctions are penalties countries can impose on each other to stop them from acting aggressively because they are seen as the harshest way to punish a country. Much of Europe and the United States had put many sanctions on Russia in an attempt to punish and persuade them to stop their actions. These sanctions imposed large taxes on imports and exports, such as cars, oils and gas. Many multi-billionaires in Russia were also targeted to turn them against their own country. Travel bans were imposed on Russian citizens and transportation. However, the largest sanctions on Russia were the financial sanctions limiting their central banks. This prevented Russians from transferring money into accounts, effectively freezing their accounts. These sanctions devalued the Russian ruble and plunged the country’s citizens into near-poverty. This caused a massive uproar in Russia as people became restricted in the opportunities and products they could use. In response to the sanctions, Russia banned many exports from the country, most notably oil and natural gas, causing prices to increase dramatically. Russia also tried to stop its economy from collapsing further by limiting purchases and increasing interest rates to combat the decline in the value of the ruble. These sanctions could be disastrous towards the future of global trade. Democratic countries’ relationships with Russia could be permanently damaged. This could mean one of two things; either Russia will be excluded and cut off from global innovation and trade, or they could be conquered and the relationships will slowly be rebuilt. We currently do not know what will come out of the sanctions or the war in a long-term sense, but it will be an event that will be in the history books.

Many people hear and think of nuclear fusion as a technological advancement waiting hundreds of years in the future, but the truth is we are closer than most think. Many people know nuclear fusion is a very powerful energy method, but very few actually understand what it is and how it works. Earth is already being powered and has been for millions of years, by the world’s most popular fusion reactor: the Sun. The Sun’s source of energy is quite simple in concept. The gravity and heat are so intense inside of the star that atoms move at incredibly high speeds. When at this high-energy level, their properties start to become less abundant and the atoms start to act differently. When two atoms collide, they have so much energy that they combine to make an atom with a larger nucleus. For example, when two hydrogen atoms collide, they form a helium atom. This process releases a lot of energy because the total mass is slightly less than the original. This energy is then radiated into space where it provides light to the solar system. Nuclear reactions are the same reactions that are used in thermonuclear bombs around the world. Why is this important? Scientists around the world have been studying for decades trying to make a fusion reactor; a device that could contain and control a nuclear fusion reaction to produce vast amounts of cheap and clean energy. Although this may seem scary to some, nuclear fusion is inherently safe. Due to plasma having to be kept at extremely hot temperatures while contained in a magnetic field, any shift in temperature or environment would cause it to cool down or leave containment; in this case, it would immediately come to a halt due to the loss of a power supply. Even thermonuclear bombs require a fission reaction in order to explode using a fusion reaction, and this amount of energy would never be given to a fusion reactor due to the mere fact it is not necessary and rather inefficient. Scientists at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) predict that (relatively small) fusion reactors will be able to produce 500 megawatts of power a day, rivaling a nuclear power plant. This is the amount of power needed to provide constant electricity to over 800 homes! Although this may not seem like much, the average coal plant only produces 600 megawatts of power a day, and with fusion power being nearly completely environmentally friendly, it seems like a hopeful way to advance towards a more sustainable and environmentally neutral future.

In 1938, a discovery in nuclear physics in a laboratory in Berlin, Germany made the first atomic bomb possible to develop. When atoms split they release immense levels of energy. This process is called nuclear fission and can be used in many ways. Nuclear fission can be used to power large power plants that can supply energy to large cities, but, nuclear fission can also be used as a weapon of mass-destruction. The first time a nuclear bomb was detonated in war was on the city of Hiroshima, Japan when the United States dropped the “Little Boy” bomb on the city in an attempt to stop the Pacific War with Japan. When Japan refused to surender, another bomb–”Fat Man”--was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, forcing the Japanese Emperor to surrender, ending World War II. Although nuclear weapons have not been used since the bombing of Nagasaki, during the Cold War there was a significant threat of nuclear warfare between the United States and Russia. This led to the stockpiling of thousands of nuclear warheads by countries around the world. In 1962, many thought the world would end when the Soviet Union installed nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba. The following 13 days was known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. During this crisis nuclear warfare was threatened and nearly started a handful of times before the Soviet Union removed the weapons from Cuba in an agreement with the United States. In 1970, many countries around the world agreed to and signed the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This separated the countries into two groups–nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states. Nuclear weapon states included those that possessed nuclear weapons who agreed to not use their weapons or help states without nuclear weapons (non-nuclear weapon states) acquire them. These countries also agreed to gradually reduce their stockpiles of weapons in an effort of total abolishment. Non-nuclear weapon states also agreed to not attempt to develop nuclear weapons. After the fall of the Soviet Union, many nuclear weapons were scattered across Eastern Europe and Central Asia and were deactivated and returned to Russia. Although nuclear weapons may seem like a curse from the heavens, they have also been the resolutory in near global peace for many years. Many less countries are willing to go to war due to the impending threat of nuclear weapons being used against them. Some argue that the development of nuclear weapons has contributed greatly to everlasting global peace and that their imposed peace will continue in the future. Humankind will just have to wait and see if and when these weapons of mass destruction–and bringers of superimposed peace–will ever be used again.