Check if the String is a Palindrome

A palindrome is a word, phrase, number or other sequence of characters which reads the same backward or forward, such as madam or kayak.

Write a function that takes a string and determines whether it's a palindrome or not. The function should return a boolean (True or False value).

Examples

is_palindrome("Neuquen") ➞ True

is_palindrome("Not a palindrome") ➞ False

is_palindrome("A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal-Panama!") ➞ True

Notes

• Should be case insensitive.
• Special characters (punctuation or spaces) should be ignored.