There is something special about having your adult children come home. My home is my sanctuary. It's nothing fancy, but it is where I feel most at peace and something I am grateful for every day. When my children return home it just feels different. ...

It may be a little too early for some of you to start thinking about apple recipes, but not for me. I see sunflower decorations and apple recipes popping up all around, and that puts me in the mood to find some new apple recipes to tuck away and have ready to use...

NEW YORK -- For Michelle Lynn England, back-to-school shopping always meant heading to Target and the local mall with her two girls and dropping about $500 on each of them for trendy outfits. Not this year. The Charlotte, North Carolina, woman cut her spending on clothing in half for her 10-year-old and 14-year-old and instead spent more on masks and other supplies as a surge in coronavirus cases forced her school district to extend online learning through the fall...

The dairy industry has a familiar question for you: "Got milk?" Six years after the popular tagline was retired, "Got milk?" ads are back. A dairy industry-funded group is reviving the campaign, hoping to prolong the boost milk has gotten during the pandemic...

LOS ANGELES -- Chip and Joanna Gaines are returning to "Fixer Upper" as they build their new network. The series, which made the couple do-it-yourself celebrities, will be part of their Magnolia Network set to launch next year. The series aired for five seasons, until April 2018, on HGTV...

Heirloom items hold generations of memories, and that's no different for club vice president of the River Hills Antique Tractor Club. As member Jerry Davis describes it, "Every tractor has a story." The club's annual ride throughout Perry County gives locals and travelers alike the opportunity to participate in a nearly two-decades-old tradition involving those vintage tractors. ...

Each of us has people in our lives we look to as examples. That social media influencer, the DIY tutorial on the video streaming service or the person from history who overcame tremendous odds all serve as illustrations of those we look to -- men and women who influence our decisions, our likes and dislikes. Good examples can help us live well by calling us up to a higher level of excellence and achievement. Jesus is an example for us all, faith or not, in three ways...

The First Amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."...

I remember the first time I heard Taylor Swift. I was 15, driving on Mount Auburn Road in Cape with my best friend who was newly 16. It was dark outside. "There's this girl named Taylor Swift ..." as she put in the CD. We listened to "Teardrops on My Guitar" first. ...

I've talked about this before so for some this will be old news. Blame it on me having a senior moment. Back when I was a kid growing up in the '50s and '60s, we spent a good amount of time fishing at a large lake north of Ogallala, Nebraska. It was a big, clear lake that was about 20 miles long and maybe 3 or 4 miles wide at the face. ...

This little insect is a marvel of the insect world. It has left fossil evidence proving that it was thriving on Earth during the time of dinosaurs at least 300 million years ago. As a nymph living underwater, it eats mosquito larvae and other tiny aquatic life. As an adult flying insect, it continues to feed on mosquitoes, catching them and other tiny insects in flight...

Senior centers are open for carryout and delivery only. Cape Girardeau/Scott City Monday: Fiesta taco bake or patty melt, seasoned pinto beans, buttered corn, tomatoes, whole-grain bread and tropical fruit or dusted lemon bar. Tuesday: Chicken and spinach Alfredo pasta or meatballs with pasta and marinara sauce, steamed broccoli, garden salad, whole-grain garlic bread and citrus fruit dessert or cherry dump cake...

Harmony Church will have a gospel singing featuring Karen Peck and New River at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 8. This is rescheduled from an earlier date. Harmony Church is located on Highway 34 between Jackson and Marble Hill, Missouri. For more information call (573) 238-4126 or (573) 561-3591...

Missouri University of Science and Technology announces the names of students who made the honor list for the Spring 2020 semester. To be included on the honor list, students must have carried a minimum of 12 hours and had grade point averages of 3.2 or above out of a possible 4.0...

Submitted by Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary This pretty girl is Moonbeam. She is 1 year old and needs a great forever home. If you are ready for a rewarding experience, come see us at Safe Harbor. Call (573) 243-9823.

As crime stories go, this one has it all: secret messages passed via classified ads, a shootout with police, a getaway that eluded roadblocks and bystanders mistakenly arrested before the real culprit was discovered. It was the summer of 1930 and Harry E. Brown, 35, was getting desperate. Unable to find work, he hatched a plan to send extortion letters to three leading men in Cape Girardeau...

The July 16, 2020 meeting of Lamplighters FCE was held in the home of Jo Ann Hahs. Members gathered at noon for a salad with homemade dressings luncheon. The hostess supplied the lettuces and the homemade dressings while members supplied all the trimmings. As members ate, information about the health benefits of different oils and vinegars were given. Two dressings received high ratings -- the homemade ranch dressing and the honey mustard vinaigrette...

NEW YORK -- A high-profile coalition of educators, activists and philanthropists -- including the American Federation of Teachers, the NAACP and the charity World Central Kitchen -- is urging Congress to extend and expand emergency provisions that allow school districts nationwide to feed millions of children during the coronavirus pandemic...

Just in time for Independence Day, Martin Heider of Jackson and Linus Quade of Burfordville, Cape Girardeau city workers, prepared the Statue of Liberty at Freedom Corner in Capaha Park to receive her repaired arm July 2, 1976. In May of that year, vandals dislodged Lady Liberty from her pedestal and threw her in a ditch, damaging the statue. Repairs were made by Dingeldein Silversmith, 115 Themis St...

Katie's Pizza & Pasta Osteria is an award-winning restaurant in St. Louis. Like everyone else, Katie's is doing its best to adapt to these rather unusual times, and its solution has been to start a frozen pizza mail order service. Since I am always in the mood for pizza, and especially award-winning pizza, I placed an order and let the food come to my front door...

Scott and I have had several things from the grill lately, and I was thinking about a little something different. I saw some nice wild gulf shrimp when I was ordering my groceries online for pickup, so I added two bags to our order. With that in the freezer, I went looking for recipes to try and to use the shrimp...

It's been months since the coronavirus pandemic limited restaurant options and caused many people -- even the most kitchen-phobic among us -- to try to cook more. Some are experiencing cooking fatigue. Others have found they enjoy preparing and eating homemade food more than they expected. Some new habits and skills appear likely to last...

NEW YORK — Broadway seamstress Amy Micallef hasn't put her talent on hold while theaters are shut. She's been making plush toys -- unusual plush toys. Micallef, who has worked in the wardrobe departments of "Hamilton," "Waitress" and "Frozen," makes gleeful representations of COVID-19, complete with a pair of eyes and faux fur. Each one goes for $23 and she encourages buyers to unleash their anger on her creations...

PITTSBURGH -- Six months after a private staggered into the Fort Riley Army base infirmary in Kansas with a raging fever, chills and a sore throat, this city braced for the impact as the first wave of the 1918 flu pandemic made its way here. It had already traveled from Kansas to Europe as troops shipped off to war and then headed back to the United States, first in Boston, then Philadelphia and finally landing here in Pittsburgh the last week of September...

“Women over 40 should not wear sleeveless tops!” I thought the woman (who I’ll call Ann, because, well, that’s her name) sitting next to me, watching our first graders compete in a hotly-contested three-legged race on play day was kidding. One glance at the disgusted sneer on her face assured me she was not. “Look at that woman in the red top over there,” she continued. “She has no business wearing that!”...

I'm no fan of cancel culture, which seems to me to be shrill, suffocating and unforgiving. At the same time, Planned Parenthood in New York is distancing itself from its co-founder, Margaret Sanger, removing her name from one of their health centers in lower Manhattan. This is overdue -- and, frankly, unexpected. For as long as I can remember, protests about her pro-eugenics views were largely ignored...

The term “service dog” is new to some and part of the daily vocabulary for others, and getting the word out about how service dogs can help humans is the goal of an upcoming event. Service dogs can help so many people in a number of ways: the veteran with PTSD, the 20-year-old girl with diabetes, the 70-year-old grandmother with mobility issues. ...

WEST SAND LAKE, N.Y. -- Social distancing rules can make exercising a challenge for a blind runner who needs a volunteer tethered as a guide. But Thomas Panek has no problem because his running guide, Blaze, is a Labrador retriever. "I'm doing all the things a person would normally do, except I'm doing it with the help of a best friend who happens to be 77 pounds of love wrapped in soft yellow fur," Panek said...

What do you do when your loved ones come to visit during this season of COVID-19? We are told to social distance, wear masks and stay home, a scenario that's unconducive to entertaining. I asked this question of myself recently. My son, Jack, and his family came to visit for a week from a far-a-way state. ...

I listened to Dan Rather's "America" radio show on Sirius XM Tuesday, and Rather and one of his guests got into a riveting discussion about heaven. Two very old men were discussing what comes next after this life. Rather, the grizzled 88-year old former CBS newsman, is sure of heaven...