Wall Street Journal - Rule to identify audit partners doesn’t improve audit quality “The more years of this rule that researchers can study, the more informational value and historical trends in performance will be provided,” said Sarah Stein, an assistant accounting professor at Virginia Tech and one of the study’s authors. - Pamplin College of Business

Associated Press - Lead pipes that tainted Newark's water are found across US "The biggest problem we face is we don't know where these lead pipes are," said Marc Edwards, an environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech University. "In Flint, ultimately we had to dig up every single yard to find out what pipe was there because the records were so bad." - College of Engineering

ABC News - The connection between violent video games, racial bias and school shootings "We try harder to make excuses for white perpetrators," said investigator Dr. James Ivory, a professor in the Department of Communications at Virginia Tech, in an interview with ABC News. The investigators conducted a two-part study. The first study gave people a mock news story about a school shooting. When asked what caused the shooting, people were more likely to blame video games if the shooter was white than if the shooter was black. Story also picked up by the Root, MIT Technology Review and ABC radio. - College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences

Reuters - Video games more often blamed when school shooters are white “Our results don’t provide hard and fast answers regarding why media and research participants consider video games more salient in school shootings committed by white perpetrators than black perpetrators,” said James Ivory, a coauthor of the study and communications researcher at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. - College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences

National Geographic - Amazon fish species at risk if fires destroy river habitat “If we don’t protect these areas, the rivers will not be the same and we will lose the fish,” says Leandro Castello, a tropical ecologist at Virginia Tech’s Global Change Center, who has studied the links between forest and fish in the Amazon. - College of Natural Resources and Environment 

Vox - These scientists want to make psychotherapy sessions much, much shorter “We’re beginning to question, whether or not we need to do standard psychotherapy, defined as one hour a week, for X numbers of weeks,” Thomas Ollendick, a psychology professor at Virginia Tech who has been researching interventions on youth for decades. He’s developed a protocol for treating child phobias — like being afraid of dogs, the dark, and other fears — in a concentrated three-hour session. His studies find that these brief, intense sessions for phobias and anxiety could be as effective as treatments that are spread out over months. - College of Science

Vice News - How teachers are fighting the white nationalists brainwashing their students A 2017 study by James Hawdon, director of the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention at Virginia Tech, found that 70% of Americans aged 15 to 21 were exposed to extremist messages online (which spiked around the 2016 election), compared to 58% in 2013.  - College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences

Business Insider - The 15 best college dining halls in America, according to students Students highlighted Virginia Tech's food in the reviews section of Niche. A sophomore attending the school said, "I love my experience at Virginia Tech. I am currently a Sophomore and am having a great time! The food is outstanding and there is always something to do!"

Business Insider - Job seekers who came out to Amazon Career Day reveal why they braved long, 'haphazard' lines and a crowded tent to hear about working at the e-commerce giant "I got a degree in art at Virginia Tech, so I'm hoping to get something in graphic design, but honestly at this point I'm just hoping I can help my parents at the house to pay some bills like the car and things like that," he said. "Honestly any job will do for me, I gotta admit." 

Roll Call - With 5G in mind, senators plan big boost for Pentagon cybersecurity “The nature of 5G networks exacerbates the cybersecurity threat,” Wheeler and David Simpson, a professor at Virginia Tech, wrote in a recent Brookings paper. “Across the country, consumers, companies, and cities seeking to use 5G are ill-equipped to assess, let alone address, its threats.” Brookings paper. - Pamplin College of Business

Politics Politics Politics podcast - Why Gerrymandering remedies have failed in the past and are working now - Interview Nicholas Goedert is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech. He explains the history of Gerrymandering. How long it's been a problem in politics, when it really hit the national radar and what is being done to combat it. - College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences

Architectural Digest - The future of design: Transportation Efficient, driverless vehicles, drones, and delivery robots are improving the experience, navigating residential areas noiselessly and with zero emissions, better safety outcomes, and more transparency. Other approaches, like the FutureHAUS, designed by a team at Virginia Tech, focus on intake; the conceptual residence, pictured above, has a drone hatch that provide packages with a clever landing pad. - College of Architecture and Urban Studies

WOIO (CBS) Cleveland -  A vaccine could be the answer to the opioid epidemic plaguing the county The thought of a vaccine being used to treat people with an opioid addiction isn’t just a hope, it’s trying to become a reality in labs at Virginia Tech. The most recent CDC data shows there were 5,111 drug overdose deaths in 2017 in Ohio, with the overwhelming majority of those coming from opioid use. - College of Agriculture and Life Sciences