Newsroom 2/24/25

On Monday, February 24th, dietcoke4lyfe shared local, national, and global news stories to the class.

Image from The Breeze JMU

The first story discussed was the recent fire in Garber Hall, which is located in the middle of the village at JMU. The fire started last Thursday, February 13, around 9 pm and was eventually put out later that night. Luckily, out of the 200 students involved, none were injured, and all were led to safety. Unfortunately for the residents in wing “A” on the third floor of Garber, their clothes were not okay. Students in the “A” wing of Garber were not let back into their dorms to retrieve their things; however, students in wings “B” and “C” were able to be let back in. The 50 or so students directly affected by the fire were displaced into Hotel Madison, where they stayed for 5 days before being moved into the Doubletree off of East Market Street. The cause of the fire is still unsure, however the fire was put out extremely fast because of the amazing response from the police and firefighters. They arrived on the scene in a timely manner and their efforts caused the fire to be out much quicker than expected. From the time of the fire to the time it was extinguished, numerous text and email alerts were sent out notifying students of the fire and then letting everyone know it was safe again. JMU emphasized the students’ safety during this event and prioritized the students overall, and let families know that their child was okay. Although this was an unfortunate accident, it showed just how much JMU and the community care about their students and making sure they are safe.

Image from NBC News

The next national story that was covered was President Trump’s executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” This executive order was signed on February 5th and was an effort to target trans women. With this order, federally funded institutions are forced to comply and change their policies around trans women on women’s sports teams. If they fail to do so, their funding will be taken away, unfortunately. This order has already caused policies to be changed at universities such as Oregon and the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association.) Trump stated that after signing this order that “the war on women’s sports are over,” however many believe that this caused even more discourse on the issue. This is not the only attack Trump has made towards trans women since his time in office, and this can be seen in multiple sections of his executive order when broken down. He also is trying to work with the Department of Education to force teachers to report when trans students are caught using “the opposite” bathrooms. This order not only promotes hateful rhetoric towards trans women, it also promotes more policies targeting transgender individuals further.

Image from CNN

The last global news story that was covered was the Delta plane crash that occurred on Monday, February 17. Delta flight 4819 from Minneapolis to Toronto with 76 passengers aboard flipped upside down and burst into flames. The cause was speculated to be the 2 feet of snow on the tarmac combined with up to 20 mph winds. When the plane flipped, passengers were suspended in the air from their seatbelts and then had to be pulled out of the plane by the flight attendants. Passengers were unable to grab any of their belongings and were rushed out of the plane and onto the tarmac while the plane was up in flames. Out of the 76 passengers, 21 of them were hospitalized and all of the passengers survived. Delta is always giving out $30,000 to each passenger in an attempt to keep them happy and silent. If each passenger takes this money, Delta will have to fork over $2.3 million in total, which, in their case, is pocket change.