News Progress

•August 10, 2022•
By Cheri Burcham
Family Life Educator

Our lives are bombarded with negativity, stress, and countless threats to our emotional well-being, work, and closest relationships. In the past, it was suggested that if we focused more and worked harder, we would be more successful, and then experience more happiness. But new research shows that when we experience happiness and positivity first, it turns on all the learning centers in the brain and fuels positive outcomes in all aspects of our lives. In fact, research shows that more happiness and positivity cause us to be three times more creative, 23% less fatigued and 31% more productive. (Wharton, 2014) Read More

•August 10, 2022•
by Judy Mae Bingman
University of Illinois Extension Marketing and Communications Manager

Managing land resources is a competing balance of environmental, economic, social, and life-sustaining issues in an ever-changing and ever-growing world. Land improvement practices play a key role in sustainable land management.
University of Illinois Extension and the Illinois Land Improvement Contractors Association are offering a three-day workshop Aug. 16 to 18 at Richland Community College in Decatur. This hands-on, comprehensive training will provide contractors all the tools necessary to design and implement subsurface drainage practices. Read More

•August 10, 2022•
by Judy Mae Bingman
Illinois Extension Marketing and Communication Manager

Doug Harlan’s leadership has guided University of Illinois Extension staff in central Illinois for more than 20 years. Now, Harlan will oversee Extension programs in the state’s lower 48 central and southern counties, serving as Extension assistant director for the 100+-year organization.
Extension has a local presence in every Illinois county, allowing it to seamlessly link communities, businesses, and the public to the innovative research of the university and its partners. A regional network provides support for the organization’s 650 staff members.
Doug Harlan Read More

To the Editor:

I’ve never been much of a fan of clichéd words and hackneyed phrases. They are usually unimaginative, lazy and platitudinous tropes that quickly wear out their welcome. That said, occasionally one of these terms finds itself as the perfect descriptor for a situation for which no other word or phrase can suffice nearly as well. Read More

•August 10, 2022•
By Jim Baumann
NP Guest Writer

An outfit called www.unscrambled-words.com decided to mine Google’s search function data to determine which words we seem to have the most trouble spelling.
After seeing many of them, I’m truly terrified for our future. Please share in my grief.
“Tomato,” “cheese” and “Idaho” are among America’s most misspelled words for 2022, according to the study.
Yet these are primary ingredients in most Burger King meals, if you count potatoes as Idaho’s chief contribution to the culinary world. I know this about Burger King from doing plenty of market research.
Do we really not know how to spell these words?
In defense of Alaska, where the biggest stumbling block is “cheese,” let’s consider that in the entire state there are only 10 dairies. So, like many of us, Alaskans probably eat Cheez-Its by the box and put Cheez Whiz on corn chips. Read More