Adhiti Bandlamudi

As school security has become a top priority in communities across the country, security companies have found a thriving new market for their products. But in a sea of gadgets and technology, how do school districts effectively sift through and find the products that can truly help prevent a school shooting?

The ‘big aha moment’

The Chatham County School District has about 8,700 students within its system and is situated in the center of northern North Carolina, a mix of rural and suburban communities.

Lockdown drills have become increasingly common in schools across the United States. Though drills differ from school to school, they usually require students to crouch in a corner of their darkened classroom, away from the door, and stay quiet until the teacher says it is okay to start talking again. Students start practicing these drills as early as pre-school, before they can truly understand what threat they are hiding from.

PLAYlive Nation, a nightclub-style video game lounge, is one big, dark room with club music playing in the background. Flat-screen televisions line the walls with XBox gaming systems plugged into each one. There's a big, comfortable chair for each television. Almost every screen is taken up by someone playing Fortnite.

This fall Nintendo re-released the Super NES Classic, a mini-version of one of its first consoles from the 1990s. It sold out in stores in just a few hours — the latest example of the craze for retro-games and their hardware.

As an Indian-American, I don't immediately associate Bollywood films with food — mostly because the characters in many Bollywood movies are too concerned with dance numbers and melodrama to be bothered by what's for dinner. So, when I came across the new cookbook Bollywood Kitchen, I feared it might have been written by someone who knew nothing about Indian culture and only a bit about Bollywood, "curry" and naan.

Angry Orchard, Strongbow, Woodchuck — these are some of the biggest national cider brands. (By the way, they're all owned by major beer companies.) But those big brands weren't what people came to drink at this fall's Rock the Core cider festival in Washington, D.C.