SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — One day before the Illinois State Fair was scheduled to get underway, Gov. JB Pritzker and other state officials on Wednesday unveiled the 2026 Butter Cow sculpture, celebrating the 100th anniversary of Route 66 and highlighting the historic Mother Road.

This year’s Butter Cow, sculpted out of hundreds of pounds of ...Read more

Harvard University’s policy capping A grades among undergraduates doesn’t officially start for another year, but students heading back to school this fall are already fretting over the changes.

After Harvard’s Dean of Undergraduate Education urged faculty to start implementing the policy as soon as the coming semester, students who’d ...Read more

Many of you are familiar with the term "surprise lilies." This name is mostly attributed to members of the Lycoris genus. In the South the red Lycoris radiata and yellow Lycoris aurea are two of the most treasured surprise lilies. We are approaching their season of bloom.

If you aren’t familiar with the term surprise lily, here's why they ...Read more

UNDERWOOD, Minn. - Do you remember your first camping trip?

Mine was when I was 15. We camped on a spit of land along the St. Croix River and I didn’t bring enough to drink. Nearly 40 years later, I still remember the intense thirst.

A handful of St. Cloud, Minnesota, kids had their first camping experience this summer. Along with parents, ...Read more

Dear Anna,

I (31F) called off my engagement about a year ago and moved to a new city. A few months later I matched with a guy (26M) on an app — the second person I dated post-breakup. We hit it off immediately, but I wrote him off as relationship material: He’s five years younger, still finishing grad school, and had never had a serious ...Read more

It was 2015 and Pastor Rob Dyer was working on the sermon he would deliver that Sunday to his congregation at First United Presbyterian Church in Belleville, a suburb of St. Louis on the Illinois side of the state line.

The message was about taking care of one another — a seed Dyer has worked hard to plant and grow since leaving his ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — The Center for Health & Wellness in Winter Park, Florida, was crowded on the morning of July 25. It went beyond the normal traffic, folks hitting the gym or heading in for the center’s other offerings — classes on everything from nutrition and meditation to medicine, both Eastern and Western.

Today, there are teams in ...Read more

For years, I’ve worked with clients who come to me saying the same thing: “I just can’t find the right person.” When I dig a little deeper, a common theme appears — they’re clinging to a very specific idea of who their “type” is. (It often starts with a physical attribute, but it goes beyond that.) Here’s the kicker: That type ...Read more

BALTIMORE -- Jessica Schatz audibly choked up when she tried to articulate what Patterson Park Academy of Music has meant to her family.

“My grandfather was a music teacher, and eight years ago I inherited his piano,” she told attendees at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly rehabilitated building that will become the Academy’s first ...Read more

Our nightly dinner routine goes like this: I cook dinner and the husband sets the table. Last night we had Panera napkins, the night before we had Subway napkins. We have a drawer full of cloth napkins, but he prefers to save those until we’ve used all the extras that fast food places stuff in the bag with our order.

Sometimes he goes to the ...Read more

I’ve seen a really scary change in how kids are raised over the course of the last quarter century as I’ve worked with parents as a teacher and principal and as a behavioral consultant.

In, I’m sort of guessing, an attempt to value the individuality of their kids (whatever that means), today’s parents often seem to be letting their ...Read more

Q: My co-parent and I just had a custody evaluation done. He has a very complicated mental health diagnosis that includes autism and narcissistic personality disorder. I knew he was difficult to communicate with, but now I see why. How do I co-parent with someone with this serious diagnosis?

A: Learning that your co-parent has a mental health ...Read more

Whenever it’s hot, I’m cold. And whenever it’s cold, I’m hot.

I know it’s not cool to say this, but the cold fact is that I am not hot enough to be a magazine model or cool enough to be a movie star.

The real problem is that I am a geezer for whom no temperature — inside or outside — can make me feel comfortable.

That’s ...Read more

Declining enrollment in California public schools is spawning a new and growing partnership that is helping to keep child-care centers in business — vacant classrooms are being filled with toddlers and babies.

From Los Angeles to Solano counties, nonprofit day-care operators see underused facilities already centered on children — spacious ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Their faces gaze out from the pure white walls, some smiling, some serious, some possibly on the verge of a laugh at some private joke, and some decidedly enigmatic — men and women of mystery.

They are our friends, neighbors, relatives, compatriots: The 49 individuals killed June 12, 2016, by a gunman at Pulse nightclub, ...Read more

Sometimes when I’m casting around for some logical explanation of how we got here — here being a time when an ex-Olympian finds himself facing felony charges (eventually dropped) over a botched Reflecting Pool job he had nothing to do with, and the president of the United States posts AI-generated images of himself as Elvis, and flaming ...Read more

In a boot camp that tests brains over brawn, military veterans seeking a college education convened at Caltech this summer to simulate the intensity of finals week among faculty, researchers and mentors, participating in a program that helps them assess whether they are ready to transition to academia.

The Warrior-Scholar Project is a STEM ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- In classrooms across the state, backpacks once weighed down with binders and textbooks have been replaced by a single device that is now facing growing scrutiny.

As concerns grow over screen time, mental health and online safety, parents across the Twin Cities are pushing schools to rethink the role of technology in classrooms.

...Read more

If you’ve been looking for a plump 24- to 30-inch-tall-and-wide white lantana, then you are about to have a new ingredient for all your mixed container and border designs. This breakthrough variety is called Luscious Vanilla Breeze.

The flowers open a soft yellow, but as The Garden Guy watches them every day, white is the color — or should ...Read more

Dear Anna,

I’m 44, divorced, and very happily in my “slut era.” I’m dating casually, having fun, and not looking for either one-night stands or The Love of My Life. I’m somewhere in the middle. I want chemistry, good conversation and sex with people I genuinely enjoy spending time with, even if it’s not headed toward forever.

A few...Read more