Memorial Day was born out of our nation’s most fractured and pivotal moment: the Civil War. Battered and worn after four years of internal strife, America nonetheless emerged intact in 1865, the dream of the Union preserved. The price of preserving our nation, our ideals, and our freedoms was approximately 620,000 American lives — nearly a quarter of a million more souls than our nation would give 80 years later to liberate Europe and defeat the Empire of Japan.

Safety First when Packing a Lunch May 25 was National Brown-Bag-It Day, celebrating the convenience and health benefits of lunches packed at home. Carrying lunch to work or school is a great way to use leftovers from home, helping to eliminate food waste. While preparing and packing a lunch does take time, it is estimated that American families can save $500 per year just by taking lunch from home! Saving money and reducing food waste are excellent reasons to brown-bag-it says Debbie Kuenning, Nebraska Extension 4-H Educator based in Chase Perkins Counties. Follow these tips to make sure your lunch and the lunches you pack for others are food safe.

Just like everyone, I have enjoyed the moisture we've been blessed with lately. I will say that, as someone who works with hogs and baseball fields about every day, I am getting tired of mud. But I will deal with it.

As unique is our loss is as unique is our grief. What do we do when one day we can smile, laugh, and look back at memories with fondness and thankfulness for the life we shared with our loved one; the next day we feel paralyzed by our pain and sadness? We feel broken and feel as though we may never be our “old self” again? We may not like the answer…we feel what we feel. There is no twelve steps, timeline or prescription for our grief. New research supports that as unique as we are as humans, as unique as our relationships are, as unique as our brains, is as unique as how we will process our grief.

When things are at their worst, Nebraskans are at their best. It’s what makes our state the greatest in the nation – our people.

In the last year, President Biden has allowed 1.2 million illegal aliens into our country through parole. For comparison, the Obama and Trump administrations paroled 5,600 people on average per year. The current administration’s refusal to secure our southern border has far-reaching consequences. It’s killing our young people by allowing fentanyl to pour into our communities. It’s risking our national security as border encounters with known terrorists soar. It’s also going to have major ramifications on our elections.

For sixteen hours in 1969, Montreal, Canada was a Defund the Police experiment. The city’s whole police force went on strike, giving rise to what is now called Montreal’s “Night of Terror.” Just three hours after the police strike began, the first bank was robbed.

High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States. If your blood pressure stays higher than 130/80 mm Hg for a period of time, it can cause serious health problems such as heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and dementia reports Nebraska Extension Food , Nutrition & Health Educator Brenda Aufdenkamp based in North Platte, NE.

Technology has come a long way in the past 200 years. The telegraph was invented in 1837 and made rapid long range communication possible.

Antisemitism is reaching fever pitch across the country, a level I never thought possible in the United States of America. Mere months after Hamas’s October 7th assault on Israel, anti-Israel protests have overtaken one of our most influential cultural institutions: the university.