The News You May Have Missed: March 2026

Sons of Thunder

Belmont Abbey College, a 150-year-old Benedictine institution in North Carolina, offers training in a field rarely associated with small Catholic liberal-arts colleges: motorsports. At a campus known for its monastery and Great Books program, students study the marketing, event management, and business of auto racing — all within sight of Charlotte’s booming motorsports industry (National Catholic Register, Dec. 29). The college’s Sport and Motorsport Management Department grew from a simple concern voiced 20 years ago by NASCAR promoter and Belmont Abbey trustee Humpy Wheeler Jr.: The industry needs people who understand both racing and business. This led to the college’s first “Racing Management” class in 2007, an unexpected campus hit. The next year brought a business concentration. More classes were added, and roughly 12 years ago Belmont Abbey launched one of the first undergraduate Motorsport Management degrees in the country. Today, the program enrolls around 65 undergrads and, as of this fall, 20 students in its new Master of Arts program. The Belmont Abbey alumni network now reaches throughout the motorsports world.

The Students Whom Time Forgot

After a statewide cellphone ban took effect in New York schools, teachers found that many teenagers can’t tell time. Students often have no clue what time it is during the day because classrooms have analog clocks on the walls. “It’s a source of frustration because everyone wants to know how many minutes are left in class,” said an English teacher in Manhattan. “It finally got to the point where I started saying, ‘Where’s the big hand and where’s the little hand?’” Students learn to read analog clocks in first grade, but most forget how by the time they get to junior high because their phones have digital clocks. The ban, which went into effect in September, has few other downsides, according to educators. It’s helped kids focus in class, socialize at lunch, and move more swiftly through hallways — which, ironically, has helped them get to class on time (New York Post, Dec. 16).

Child of Man

In a rural village in Italy’s Abruzzo region, celebrations marked a rare occurrence: the birth of a child. Lara Bussi Trabucco is the first baby born in Pagliara dei Marsi in 30 years. Her baptism was attended by the entire community, and she is now the village’s main tourist attraction. “People who didn’t even know Pagliara dei Marsi existed have come, only because they had heard about Lara,” said her mother, Cinzia. Births in Italy reached a historic low in 2024, continuing a 16-year trend, while the fertility rate fell to a record low of 1.18 children per child-bearing woman. Lara’s parents received a $1,160 “baby bonus,” a one-time payment for each child born, which the Italian government introduced to combat demographic decline, plus a monthly payment of $430. The financial incentives are helpful but insufficient, Cinzia says. “The entire system needs to be revolutionized. We’re a country of high taxes but this does not translate into a good quality of life or good social services.” She worries about Lara’s schooling, as Pagliara dei Marsi hasn’t had a teacher in decades (The Guardian, Dec. 26).